New benches, and the manpower problem

New experimental benches have arrived, so the lab’s physical setup is largely rebuilt and can take a larger group. If staff handle well and senior students teach juniors, in principle we could teach experiments no matter how many people join. The present staff are, luckily for me, strong at experiment, research and teaching — becoming staff as a scientist is a hard selection.

Graduate school is different. Unlike football or athletics, there is little natural selection by age or region for people aiming to become scientists. In practice most people who want a graduate place can find one, even at Tokyo or Kyoto, even in medicine. So some cannot yet teach juniors, and some become trouble, and we cannot simply grow without limit. Space is limited too. We want sincere, able people, not unlimited numbers.

Each member of staff is now on an important project, and so is every student, including those in graduate school. Separately I am also pushing challenging projects with the technical staff, so new projects keep appearing. We have run short of people to whom we can hand the seeds of that work. Numbers have grown, but the growth of the projects has outrun the people. That is also a sign that developing projects is going well.

More people in Japan and abroad have been writing because they are interested in the lab. That is welcome, and it also makes selection difficult. First, thank you. As I have written here before, research needs ability. Admiration and enthusiasm are expected, but they are not enough on their own. In other work too, being good at something usually matters more than merely liking it. When you write or visit, please describe your strengths and weaknesses as they are, without exaggeration. A scholarship already in hand, or a strong academic record, is useful to know. You may be weak at mathematics and careful at the bench, unable to speak English but strong at reading and writing, able to program a little, or good at data analysis. Any of these can matter. Something you have already built may turn out to be useful, and we want projects on which each person can use that strength. Young people are of course not yet trained in research. If you listen to advice here and grow, that is exactly what we hope.