The Colloquium I’ll Never Give

When I was a graduate student, we would gather in a lecture hall most Friday afternoons for the department colloquium. The speaker, typically someone eminent in the field who had been invited to campus, would share their research, usually the accumulation of many projects their lab had done over many years. I was often mesmerized by what these scientists had accomplished, and I imagined what my colloquium might sound like someday. If I had my own lab, what research would we go on to do? How would it all fit together? And what contribution to science would it make?

The ONE Question

I often received the advice to find the ONE question I was most passionate about answering. Academia rewards that dogged pursuit of a single area. Becoming known as a leading expert on a particular topic attracts funding and renown, which in turn supports promotion and tenure. It also shapes scientific legacy, since researchers are often remembered for a specific theory they advanced.

The problem for me was that I could never find that question. I was interested in too many things. In high school, I loved nearly every math and science course I took, but I also loved English and French. In university I chose biology and took language classes along the way. Most of my coursework ended up in botany, with an honors thesis in plant agriculture, but an elective in psycholinguistics showed me that biology and language could be combined. I ended up in a neuroscience graduate program because I had applied late and it didn’t require the GRE. There I learned the tools of cognitive neuroscience for studying the brain during tasks like listening to speech and reading, which led to two postdocs on the brain networks that support reading in school-aged children. From there I went on to run my own lab as a faculty member, and eventually moved into cardiovascular AI.

A Different Kind of Throughline

Although it was often hard to explain to others exactly what I worked on, there have been benefits to having such a broad set of interests. My postdoc training in brain imaging, for example, gave me skills in medical imaging that I now use in cardiovascular research, which made moving into a new sector much easier than it might have been. Shifting between areas has also helped me keep my scientific curiosity alive, even as the questions I work on have changed entirely from where I started. Looking back, the thread running through my career wasn’t a single topic but a way of working as a scientist: bridging different areas, and using data to help improve outcomes for individual people, whether children learning to read or patients with heart disease.

From Legacy to Generativity

With that said, now that I’m mid-career and have made several large pivots, I struggle with what my scientific legacy will be. I’ve made contributions to a few different fields, but nothing so large that I’ll likely be remembered for any one of them.

However, perhaps there are other ways of thinking about impact. In Tiny Experiments, Anne-Laure Le Cunff draws on Erik Erikson’s idea of generativity, which he described as a concern for guiding and nurturing the next generation. For a nonlinear life shaped by curiosity-driven choices rather than a single narrow goal, Le Cunff suggests generativity may be a more fitting aim than legacy. Rather than focusing on how you’ll be remembered, generativity is about what you contribute now to the people around you.

By letting go of my preoccupation with a future legacy as a scientist, I’ve been able to pursue ways of making an impact that I didn’t initially consider. This blog, for example, has readers my research never would have reached, and it’s something I wouldn’t have prioritized in academia given the pressure to publish and get grants.

I’ve also changed what I count as an important contribution. When I left my academic job, one of my students told me that I was modeling for her what it’s like to make a difficult choice that affirms what you need for your life, and that it was a lesson she would carry forward. I didn’t have the word for it then, but that’s generativity, and that kind of impact may matter as much as (or more than) any scientific idea I’ve put out into the world.

The Colloquium, Revisited

If you’re a graduate student or postdoc sitting in those colloquia now, wondering what you’ll go on to do, or if you’ve left an academic position and are grieving the loss of that imagined future, I’d suggest a different exercise. Instead of asking which topic you want to be known for, look back across your projects and notice what you keep doing regardless of the topic, like the kinds of problems you’re drawn to or the way you like to work with others. That pattern may be a more durable throughline than any single research area. And generativity may already be happening, even if you can’t see it yet. They may never show up on your CV, but the little things count, like the lab protocol you documented so the next person wouldn’t have to struggle the way you did, or the time you spent with a student who stopped by your desk with a question and left a little less lost.

As for the colloquium talk I imagined giving someday, if I were to give it now, it would no longer be the story of one question pursued over a career. Instead, it would be about following curiosity across fields, connecting with people, and using creativity to make an impact along the way.

The Postdoc Contradiction: Building Independence While Working on Someone Else's Vision

Postdocs are told to "develop your independent research identity." But you're working on your PI's grants. Their funded projects. Their research questions. How are you supposed to build a program that fits YOU when your work is structured around someone else's vision?

This isn't a personal failing. It's a structural contradiction built into how postdoc positions work. And it's why drift happens: not through one wrong turn, but through a series of reasonable decisions that gradually pull you away from what originally drew you to research.

The Expectation versus the Reality

The expectation is clear: use your postdoc years to establish your research direction, build your CV, and prepare for the faculty job market or your next career move.

But the day-to-day reality? You're working on projects that were funded before you arrived, using methods your PI chose. You're contributing to their research vision, not building your own.

I've written before about how my own postdoc work drifted from my PhD interests. What I didn't see at the time was the pattern beneath it. I took positions based on relationships, geography, and practicality. I said yes to projects because they were funded or because my PI asked. I kept my actual interests alive through unfunded collaborations on the side. Each decision made sense in the moment, but cumulatively they pulled me in directions I hadn't intended to go.

The Pattern

This isn't unique. Postdocs get chosen for reasons that have little to do with research fit: grant funding, legacy work, mentorship opportunities, strategic positioning, or learning new skills.

Each decision is reasonable on its own. But over time, these WHYs accumulate. Genuine curiosity can shrink to 20% or less of what drives your work. Years pass, and you find yourself in a research program that looks good on paper but doesn't align with what you care about.

Mapping It Out

Recently, I mapped out what I was working on during each stage of my career, and more importantly, WHY I was doing it.

What percentage of my time was driven by genuine curiosity versus funding, strategy, or obligation? When did my own interests become secondary? What did I try to keep alive on the side?

Seeing this visually gave me perspective I didn't have before.

Want to see where your drift happened? I created a free template to help you map your research journey and identify the WHYs that shaped your path. Download the free template here. It takes about 20 minutes and might give you clarity you didn't have before.

Finding Some Agency

Understanding the pattern isn't about judgment. It's about seeing what’s been driving your decisions so you can make different choices going forward.

This also isn't about only choosing projects motivated by pure interest. It's about finding ways to work within real constraints while keeping your throughline alive.

Is there a twist you can put on a project that uses your own unique lens? Is there a method you're curious about? Is there an underlying community you're serving that taps into a value that matters to you?

Reflecting on these questions might shift how you see your work. Instead of feeling like all your time is spent on things you don't care about, you might find pieces that DO connect to your deeper motivations, even within projects assigned by your PI. It's about finding the thread that makes it feel connected and intentional.

Why Your Postdoc Feels Scattered: Fragmentation, Burnout, and Finding Your Throughline

If your postdoc or research role feels scattered, like you’re constantly juggling projects and reacting to whatever funding comes through, it makes sense. It’s genuinely hard to build something coherent in that environment.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been talking with a number of researchers about this feeling of fragmentation. What I’ve noticed is that this isn’t about individual focus or discipline. It’s structural. Soft money, short-term funding, and constant pivots make it hard to shape your work with intention.

On top of that, people simply work differently: some thrive going deep on one narrow question, while others do better with a small portfolio of projects.

The challenge isn’t forcing yourself into one model. It’s learning how to design your work deliberately and find the throughline that makes it all feel connected.

I started with a clear “why”

My PhD began with a love of languages. I fell into psycholinguistics because it let me combine biology with questions about the structure of language. It felt aligned and curiosity-driven, and I had a strong sense of purpose.

Then I started my first postdoc. I moved to a new city (and a new country) where I didn’t know anyone. While struggling with the change in environment, I was also adapting to a new research culture.

The institute where I landed was run entirely on soft money, so my work followed whatever projects had just been funded. Like many postdocs, the projects were adjacent to my interests rather than fully aligned, and they didn’t always connect to each other. My second postdoc was similar, even though the environment and topics were different.

The drift I didn’t notice

Over time, my CV filled up with projects that were adjacent to my original interests rather than truly aligned with them. When I went on the job market, that patchwork of projects naturally shaped the research program I could propose.

Somewhere along the way, my research had drifted, and my sense of why drifted with it.

I didn’t fully see it at the time, but I think that loss of clarity contributed to the burnout I later felt as a faculty member. It’s hard to stay energized when you’re no longer sure what thread connects your work, or when the program you’re running doesn’t fully align with your deeper motivations.

When I moved to industry, the same sense of being scattered showed up again. I had changed fields from educational neuroscience into healthcare data science and AI, and for a long stretch I couldn’t see how my past work connected to my current work. That uncertainty brought a lot of doubt with it.

What finally helped

What helped wasn’t finding the perfect title or perfectly aligned job. The shift came when I started paying attention to the questions that kept following me from one setting to another.

Instead of asking whether a position matched my background, I began asking what problems I kept caring about no matter where I was working.

I noticed that I was always drawn back to the same themes: how data can guide more personalized decisions, and how we communicate science in ways that genuinely help people. Even as the fields and job titles changed, those questions stayed consistent. They became the throughline that connected everything.

Holding onto the thread

Having gone through this myself, I now help researchers step back and see the thread that’s already there: the questions, skills, and motivations that connect their work across projects and roles.

Careers don’t have to look linear to be meaningful. But it helps enormously to understand what ties the pieces together, especially when everything around you keeps shifting.

That sense of coherence can be the difference between feeling scattered and feeling like you’re moving forward with intention.

A small reflection, if you’re in this phase

If any of this feels familiar, it might help to pause and ask yourself:

• What kinds of problems do I keep returning to, even when the projects change?

• What skills or ways of thinking show up again and again?

• When have I felt most engaged?

• If titles and funding constraints disappeared, what questions would I still want to pursue?

Often there’s a thread already there. It just takes a bit of distance to see how the pieces connect.