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I have a project that is a follow-up work of a senior PhD student, and my student is working on it. Due to their experience of the previous project and expertise, it is led by my collaborator, not me. My student is junior and sometimes makes mistakes, such as careless typos, or ignoring my collaborator's comments. My collaborator may have higher requirements and standards, so they directly pointed out those mistakes, and asked in person why the comments were ignored. In the meeting, my student was complaining directly that their collaborator doesn't like them and is targeting them, and that the collaborator keeps on saying that their work is wrong, things like that.

To respect my collaborator's leading role, I do not get involved unless I am asked. In my role, what should I do? For sure they won't collaborate anymore beyond this project, but I am not sure how to handle the current one. And also, should I educate my student about etiquette and respect? I have a feeling it already went beyond academic or scientific debate. My collaborator may not like my student either (I am not sure), but to my judgment all points my collaborator made are reasonable.

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  • Are you PI on this project? Are you a co-author on the paper?
    – Buffy
    Commented Sep 4 at 10:55
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    this project is lead by my collaborator. Yes I am a co-author.
    – Mahali Sindy
    Commented Sep 4 at 12:43
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    Notice that in the first sentence, you describe the student as "senior", and in the third sentence, as "junior". I don't know what that means, but it is interesting.
    – Scott Seidman
    Commented Sep 6 at 19:57
  • one is year 4, close to graduation. one is year 1, just start the PhD journey
    – Mahali Sindy
    Commented Sep 6 at 23:25

2 Answers 2

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You mention that all of the points made by the collaborator are reasonable, so it sounds like your student should have taken it as constructive criticism rather than being unliked or targeted. It also sounds like this isn't the first time that the collaborator has given this feedback, given that you talk about previous comments being ignored.

In this case, yes, it sounds like it would be a good idea to educate your student about etiquette and respect, and about the value of critique. I appreciate this could be an awkward conversation, but it sounds necessary.

As the supervisor you are an important mentor for your students. Your job is to help them develop into people who will succeed in academia. This often goes beyond academic or science, since there are aspects of being a good academic that fall outside of that narrow skillset.

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    Part of the need to educate the student may be that expectations about how feedback is delivered and responded to vary enormously. If the student's expectations are at one end of the scale, and the collaborator's at the other, things can be felt personally when they weren't meant that way. Trying the patience of someone who's already a bit more direct than they'd like, by not taking on board valid criticism, is unlikely to do the student many favours
    – Chris H
    Commented Sep 4 at 12:56
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I do not get involved unless being asked to respect my collaborators leading role.

I'm sorry to say that you really can't stay out of it. You have an obligation towards your student to train them in collaboration and help them manage the situation if things are not going smoothly, and arguably it's also not fair towards your collaborator to bring them into this and then declare yourself not responsible for your student's behaviour.

However, you do have an opportunity to act as a mediator. A mediator is not a judge - it's not your job to decide "who is the problem" (usually the answer is "both, a little bit" anyway). Rather, your goal should be to:

  • Turn this into a learning opportunity for the student (yes, that will probably include some discussions around taking criticism and, potentially, being respectful, but should also include how to work with people they perceive as being harsh, unfriendly, or difficult to work with).
  • Work with your collaborator to alleviate their grievances with this project. Maybe it's enough for you to participate in every meeting and ensure that feedback is given constructively, and taken as such (this may require interjecting if things get heated). However, depending on how bad the situation is, you may need to go one step further. Maybe you need to provide feedback first, before your collaborator is asked to comment on work by your student? Maybe it's better for your collaborator to give feedback to you, and you communicate with your student? And, of course, if things escalate too much it may be time to stop this collaboration altogether.

When communicating with either of the two, resist the natural temptation to be on the student's side when talking to the student and on the collaborator's when talking to them. As an effective mediator, you need to do almost the opposite - represent and explain the other's point of view, leveraging the trust you hopefully have with both parties.

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    I did not stay out, as I was asked to involve sometimes. I think I will need to a talk as suggested here very soon.
    – Mahali Sindy
    Commented Sep 4 at 12:51
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    @MahaliSindy Note that it's one thing to step back from scientific details, but it's a distinct thing to step back from mentoring. You call them "my student", which implies you're nominally taking an active role in mentorship. Even if you defer to your collaborator's scientific leadership on the project, the collaborator is presumably not in charge of mentoring the student (which is why they're a collaborator and not an advisor), so it falls to you to be proactive about addressing mentorship issues once you are made aware of them (even if you haven't directly been asked to intervene).
    – R.M.
    Commented Sep 4 at 18:33
  • Yes, I do not expect that. From time to time my student also express these kind of concern to me. When the first time my student ignore comment, my collaborator complained to me and I already told my student the usage way to handle comment. So I am surprised it happened again. For those 'feeling' issue, such as my collaborator don't like them -- The way my collaborator did, to my judgement, is already higher than average. Given that even my collaborator really don't like my student, I don't think I can do anything except telling the student focus on the science.
    – Mahali Sindy
    Commented Sep 4 at 22:43
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    @MahaliSindy I have to say, this whole "collaborator doesn't like the student" issue is confusing me a little. Why is your student so concerned about whether the collaborator likes them or not? And, maybe even more importantly, what does the collaborator do that makes this so obvious to the student? I don't like all students either, but professionalism requires to not show that.
    – xLeitix
    Commented Sep 5 at 6:49
  • @xLeitix Hmm, I have no idea. I chatted with my student, what I can guess is that my collaborator raised many comments about mistakes, errors or correction, but my student don't agree with them, and think my collaborator is picky, and targeting them. To my judgement, all comments I can see is reasonable. Maybe my collaborator required higher quality of work, to me it still falls on reasonable domain. At least for every moment with my collaborator and student, I don't think my collaborator showed anything about unliking my student.
    – Mahali Sindy
    Commented Sep 5 at 9:42

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