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Correction: Her MIT position (a Moore instructor, at least according to her own website https://sites.google.com/view/lpiccirillo/home https://sites.google.com/

Correction: Her MIT position (a Moore instructor, at least according to her own website https://sites.google.com/view/lpiccirillo/home https://sites.google.com/view/lpiccirillo/home ) is not a tenure-track job (see https://math.mit.edu/about/employment.php https://math.mit.edu/about/employment.php ). It's still one of the best academic jobs a fresh PhD can get these days (certainly more prestigious than a "mere" postdoc). I don't think you can get a tenure-track job right out of your PhD, even an MIT fake tenure-track job (they say it guarantees you tenure, just not necessarily at MIT).

mehrdadn 6y ago
> I don't think you can get a tenure-track job right out of your PhD, even an MIT fake tenure-track job (they say it guarantees you tenure, just not necessarily at MIT). I know some (very bright) graduate students do get assistant professor positions at top universities right out of their PhDs; I think those are tenure-track?
- generationP 6y ago
  Who? My guess is that these are "named postdocs" ("[some name] Assistant Professor", e.g. https://www.mathjobs.org/jobs/jobs/14065 https://www.mathjobs.org/jobs/jobs/14065 or https://www.mathjobs.org/jobs/jobs/15707 https://www.mathjobs.org/jobs/jobs/15707 ). Despite their names, they're limited to 3 years and only get renewed in exceptional circumstances.
  - mehrdadn 6y ago
    I'm not going to name names here but I'm aware of at least one person whose title is a "named" Assistant Professor and one whose title is (from what I can tell online) just "Assistant Professor".
    - redis_mlc 6y ago
      Generally in the US there's no career path to becoming a tenured professor. (A lot of assistant professors, etc. sleep in their cars.) You would have to have the right connections, or publish papers that were undeniably brilliant. (ie. be a celebrity.)
      - papeda 6y ago
        > Generally in the US there's no career path to becoming a tenured professor. It's true that, in general, there are far more graduating PhD students every year than tenure-track faculty positions. But I think "no career path" drastically overstates the difficulty. It's way easier than making it as a pro athlete, for example. > A lot of assistant professors, etc. sleep in their cars. Are you thinking of adjunct professors, who are not tenure-track? Assistant professors typically make at least 50k+, and in the more lucrative fields (computer science, business schools, biopharm I think) >100k is common. > You would have to have the right connections, or publish papers that were undeniably brilliant. (ie. be a celebrity.) You're correct that an average PhD student will probably not get any tenure-track faculty interviews, let alone offers. This is especially true in more resource-constrained fields like the humanities.
  - solveit 6y ago
    John Pardon is a relatively recent example. He also became full professor at Princeton a year after graduating.
    - dmix 6y ago
      I see he was also involved with Knots [1]. Can someone explain to me why this is such an active field in mathematics? I always hear about it and topology. Makes me want to read a book on it... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pardon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pardon
      - tobmlt 6y ago
        I am not qualified to attempt to explain why knots are a hot topic.. I can recommend a book on topology though. Robert Ghrist’s book: https://www.math.upenn.edu/~ghrist/notes.html https://www.math.upenn.edu/~ghrist/notes.html Do you like physics? If so maybe try John Baez’s book for more knot-centric inspiration: https://www.amazon.com/GAUGE-FIELDS-KNOTS-GRAVITY-Everything/dp/9810220340 https://www.amazon.com/GAUGE-FIELDS-KNOTS-GRAVITY-Everything...
      - solveit 6y ago
        Basically, the study of knots is the study of how the simplest 1 dimensional thing (the circle), can sit in 3-dimensional space. And it turns out that even this "simple" case is incredibly rich and difficult. So that's a reason to expect knot theory to be an inherently interesting thing to study. So topologists, and especially topologists specialising in 3-dimensional objects were always interested in knots. In the 1980s, Vaughan Jones discovered the Jones polynomial, which is a property of knots which remarkably turned out to have deep connections to all sorts of things including quantum field theory! This led to 3 decades and counting of intense study into the relationship between knots and fundamental physics. I'd like to say more, but I'm knot really qualified to speak about the connections to other fields. So that's basically the tl;dr of why so many people care about knots!
        Natsu 6y ago
        > a property of knots which remarkably turned out to have deep connections to all sorts of things including quantum field theory Does this mean that the strings in string theory are knots?
- tnecniv 6y ago
  This depends on the field and how successful the grad student was. In lots of fields, including CS and different kinds of engineering, this is somewhat common. Some will defer the appointment a year and do a postdoc anyway because that provides time to prepare research problems before the tenure clock starts to tick. In math and the sciences, you hear a lot more stories of multiple postdocs being required before you can be considered for a professorship. I don't have first hand experience in those domains, however.
  - deleted 6y ago
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deleted 6y ago
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papeda 6y ago
Her CV [1] lists her job title as Assistant Professor. Also, this quibble seems to drastically miss the point of the article? [1] https://sites.google.com/view/lpiccirillo/research/cv https://sites.google.com/view/lpiccirillo/research/cv
- pmiller2 6y ago
  Yes and no. It really depends on how you're reading it. It's certainly unusual for a grad student to move straight into a tenure-track position at a research university, although not so much at a primarily teaching-oriented institution. If the point you're taking from it is "here's a cool breakthrough in knot theory and low dimensional topology," then her title is irrelevant. If the point is "this woman made a discovery so awesome that it was published in the Annals, and got her a tenure track position straight out of grad school," then it's quite relevant.
- generationP 6y ago
  Oh, that means the CV is more up-to-date than her homepage. Still, that's 1 year between her PhD and her tenure-track (an MIT tenure-track, by the way, is not a near-guarantee of tenure; MIT is one of the few maths programs that regularly don't tenure their tenure-tracks). I've made that comment because the error made the article unbelievable to me, and probably made it unbelievable to other readers who are familiar with the current functioning of the academic job market in maths. I found it somewhat reassuring when I realized that the error was only a minor misunderstanding as opposed to the kind of fabulism I've gotten used from news media.

mehrdadn 6y ago

> I don't think you can get a tenure-track job right out of your PhD, even an MIT fake tenure-track job (they say it guarantees you tenure, just not necessarily at MIT). I know some (very bright) graduate students do get assistant professor positions at top universities right out of their PhDs; I think those are tenure-track?

generationP 6y ago
Who? My guess is that these are "named postdocs" ("[some name] Assistant Professor", e.g. https://www.mathjobs.org/jobs/jobs/14065 https://www.mathjobs.org/jobs/jobs/14065 or https://www.mathjobs.org/jobs/jobs/15707 https://www.mathjobs.org/jobs/jobs/15707 ). Despite their names, they're limited to 3 years and only get renewed in exceptional circumstances.
- mehrdadn 6y ago
  I'm not going to name names here but I'm aware of at least one person whose title is a "named" Assistant Professor and one whose title is (from what I can tell online) just "Assistant Professor".
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    Generally in the US there's no career path to becoming a tenured professor. (A lot of assistant professors, etc. sleep in their cars.) You would have to have the right connections, or publish papers that were undeniably brilliant. (ie. be a celebrity.)
    - papeda 6y ago
      > Generally in the US there's no career path to becoming a tenured professor. It's true that, in general, there are far more graduating PhD students every year than tenure-track faculty positions. But I think "no career path" drastically overstates the difficulty. It's way easier than making it as a pro athlete, for example. > A lot of assistant professors, etc. sleep in their cars. Are you thinking of adjunct professors, who are not tenure-track? Assistant professors typically make at least 50k+, and in the more lucrative fields (computer science, business schools, biopharm I think) >100k is common. > You would have to have the right connections, or publish papers that were undeniably brilliant. (ie. be a celebrity.) You're correct that an average PhD student will probably not get any tenure-track faculty interviews, let alone offers. This is especially true in more resource-constrained fields like the humanities.
- solveit 6y ago
  John Pardon is a relatively recent example. He also became full professor at Princeton a year after graduating.
  - dmix 6y ago
    I see he was also involved with Knots [1]. Can someone explain to me why this is such an active field in mathematics? I always hear about it and topology. Makes me want to read a book on it... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pardon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pardon
    - tobmlt 6y ago
      I am not qualified to attempt to explain why knots are a hot topic.. I can recommend a book on topology though. Robert Ghrist’s book: https://www.math.upenn.edu/~ghrist/notes.html https://www.math.upenn.edu/~ghrist/notes.html Do you like physics? If so maybe try John Baez’s book for more knot-centric inspiration: https://www.amazon.com/GAUGE-FIELDS-KNOTS-GRAVITY-Everything/dp/9810220340 https://www.amazon.com/GAUGE-FIELDS-KNOTS-GRAVITY-Everything...
    - solveit 6y ago
      Basically, the study of knots is the study of how the simplest 1 dimensional thing (the circle), can sit in 3-dimensional space. And it turns out that even this "simple" case is incredibly rich and difficult. So that's a reason to expect knot theory to be an inherently interesting thing to study. So topologists, and especially topologists specialising in 3-dimensional objects were always interested in knots. In the 1980s, Vaughan Jones discovered the Jones polynomial, which is a property of knots which remarkably turned out to have deep connections to all sorts of things including quantum field theory! This led to 3 decades and counting of intense study into the relationship between knots and fundamental physics. I'd like to say more, but I'm knot really qualified to speak about the connections to other fields. So that's basically the tl;dr of why so many people care about knots!
      - Natsu 6y ago
        > a property of knots which remarkably turned out to have deep connections to all sorts of things including quantum field theory Does this mean that the strings in string theory are knots?
tnecniv 6y ago
This depends on the field and how successful the grad student was. In lots of fields, including CS and different kinds of engineering, this is somewhat common. Some will defer the appointment a year and do a postdoc anyway because that provides time to prepare research problems before the tenure clock starts to tick. In math and the sciences, you hear a lot more stories of multiple postdocs being required before you can be considered for a professorship. I don't have first hand experience in those domains, however.
- deleted 6y ago
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deleted 6y ago

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papeda 6y ago

Her CV [1] lists her job title as Assistant Professor. Also, this quibble seems to drastically miss the point of the article? [1] https://sites.google.com/view/lpiccirillo/research/cv https://sites.google.com/view/lpiccirillo/research/cv

pmiller2 6y ago
Yes and no. It really depends on how you're reading it. It's certainly unusual for a grad student to move straight into a tenure-track position at a research university, although not so much at a primarily teaching-oriented institution. If the point you're taking from it is "here's a cool breakthrough in knot theory and low dimensional topology," then her title is irrelevant. If the point is "this woman made a discovery so awesome that it was published in the Annals, and got her a tenure track position straight out of grad school," then it's quite relevant.
generationP 6y ago
Oh, that means the CV is more up-to-date than her homepage. Still, that's 1 year between her PhD and her tenure-track (an MIT tenure-track, by the way, is not a near-guarantee of tenure; MIT is one of the few maths programs that regularly don't tenure their tenure-tracks). I've made that comment because the error made the article unbelievable to me, and probably made it unbelievable to other readers who are familiar with the current functioning of the academic job market in maths. I found it somewhat reassuring when I realized that the error was only a minor misunderstanding as opposed to the kind of fabulism I've gotten used from news media.