Josette Bellan

1.0 1.0 / 5 2 reviews

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University: California Institute of Technology
Department: Jet Propulsion laboratory
Website: https://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov/people/j_bellan

Reviews

Total 2 Reviews

Anonymous

Bad

Posted: , Edited:

EDU EMAIL

## Advisor Style & Mentorship

I fully concur with all the points mentioned below. It is evident that she lacks a fundamental understanding of physics and even high-school mathematics, despite her claims of having a mathematical background, which I find rather ironic. In my perspective, the success of JPL owes itself to the contributions of previous generations of genuine scientists, and it should continue to be associated with such individuals at JPL.
Based on my interactions, it seems there are quite a number of individuals like her at JPL. Mentorship appears to be lacking entirely in her approach. She hires talented post-docs but seems to view their work as solely her own, neglecting to acknowledge their contributions.
I struggle to find the appropriate words to describe her mentorship style; perhaps 'abusive' and 'confused' come close to capturing the essence of it.

## Expectations for PhD Students

She cannot supervise Ph.D. students since she does not have tenure.

## Funding & Support

Highly problematic and characterized by unethical conduct, I am eager to share my experiences regarding her

Josette informed me that my funding would be cut at the end of 2021. I attempted to understand the reasons behind this decision, as I had been working diligently, often exceeding 80 hours per week. Unfortunately, I found that she did not make any meaningful intellectual contributions during our collaboration. I reached out to the HR department at JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) to discuss the situation, but I received no response from anyone. By December 10th, I was facing a challenging situation. I held a J1 visa, and I had a five-month-old baby to care for during the holiday season. Fortunately, I managed to secure another postdoc position at the University of Arizona (UoA). My motivation was to complete the work I had started during my time at JPL, as I had developed valuable code that needed to be published. I continued my work using the resources provided by the University of Arizona. During the submission of a conference paper, I included my UoA advisor's name. Josette expressed her disapproval, claiming it violated academic integrity. I responded rather bluntly, pointing out that I had continuously put her name to all my paper despite her lack of intellectual contributions. This understandably frustrated her. Despite this, I persisted and completed some of my work. At the Scitech 2023 conference, I had the opportunity to meet some of her previous post-docs. To my surprise, I learned that she had also cut their funding, which led me to believe that she was exploiting postdocs for free labor. Consequently, I decided not to collaborate with her further, even though I had almost completed two papers. She continued to contact my advisor at the University of Arizona, which prompted me to request that JPL's HR department intervene and warn her to stop. I even mentioned the possibility of legal action if she persisted. In response, I received a threatening statement and was subsequently warned by JPL.

The entire situation was a disaster. JPL's HR department did not respond to my emails when I was leaving, seemingly prioritizing her interests, as she had been their employee for over 44 years. In summary, I strongly advise others to steer clear of her problematic working environment.
 
## Research

She has a substantial number of papers, seemingly due to her ability to exploit others. I can draw this conclusion from my past experience with a Ph.D. advisor who exhibited similar behavior. What's even more intriguing is that she has authored single-author papers. When I inquired about some information from these papers, she redirected me to one of her former post-docs to retrieve it. This left me puzzled, as I expected her to be knowledgeable about her own work. It's possible that she removed other individuals' names from those papers before publishing them.

## Lab Culture
There is no lab culture. When you have an issue with your code, she encourages interaction with computer scientists from NASA Ames, who are great people.

No, I don't recommend this PI.

Review #313

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Anonymous

Bad

Posted:

EDU EMAIL

## Advisor Style & Mentorship
Her mentorship is mostly based on asking for updates, results, papers, and deadlines. She does know NOTHING about high-performance computing (HPC) and coding although she has many publications on numerical simulations. Thank you Postdocs! You did it. It is hard to believe that she gets some funds even though she might have billions of problems with opening a simple latex file. Overall, she seems to be polite when everything goes well. The problems start when you have problems. She is not supportive at all. She tends to misunderstand things, especially those which do not fit her benefits.
## Expectations for PhD Students
I think she does hire only postdocs using the institutions name of Caltech and JPL. You need to do all the work by yourself. Unfortunately, her contribution will be only commenting on the results you present and editing. Therefore, you expect long hours with no input. 

## Funding & Support

The funding might be problematic too, especially if you are an international scholar holding a J-1 visa. It can be cut in the middle of the anticipated time frame.. Do not expect a full position at JPL after completing your postdoc program. You feel very isolated since she does not collaborate with anyone from JPL due to her stubborn personality. Also, the stipend she offers can be the lowest for JPL standards. You may have problems in Pasadena if you come with your family. The rents are super expensive and your salary will not be sufficient to rent an old 1+1 apartment. Do not  join her group sorry there is no group. Do not work with her.

## Research
Do not expect more. You will be left alone to do all the work.

## Lab Culture

There is no group work or collaboration with other teams. At JPL, there are many bright minds and groups that she can collaborate with but everyone keeps away from her.

No, I don't recommend this PI.

Review #147

If you also had experience/knowledge of this PI, do you agree or disagree with this review? Comment below or write your own review.

: She is awful. She just abuses postdocs. Extremely rude with a politically correct language. Her knowledge and experience... Well, she does not know the content of a single-author own paper. Keep away from her.
Reply 2023-03-05T18:32:22Z
: She actually offered me a position a while ago, which I did not accept for other reasons although I noticed a few strange things in the conversation that would support some of the points here. I've got a few questions about your experience, could you drop me an (anonymous) email to [email protected]? Thanks.
Reply 2023-03-22T19:02:29Z
: Good for you. Yes, this is an open-access platform where everyone can contribute anonymously. You may write your positive (not necessarily negative) / negative feedback regarding J. R. Bellan here to be helpful to the community. I may comment on it accordingly.
Reply 2023-03-24T19:46:10Z
: Every written word is correct. I had a chance to work with her for more than two years. I do not understand how this person managed to stay in the academy for such a long time, and how the academic system, including JPL and Caltech, has become so badly corrupted!
Reply 2023-08-23T16:08:22Z
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