Nicole Zur Nieden

2.5 2.5 / 5 2 reviews

Email:
University: University of California, Riverside
Department: Molecular, Cell & Systems Bio
Website: None

Reviews

Total 2 Reviews

Anonymous

Poor

Posted:

AFFILIATED EMAIL

## Advisor Style & Mentorship
Almost nonexistant: this PI will go months without talking to her students. Many if her students are incredible researchers with extensive background in cell biology prior to joining her lab, but she refuses to engage with them. 

## Expectations for PhD Students
Not every clarified, many PhD Students have either transfered to other labs, or mastered out. 

## Funding & Support
Used to have great funding, but shouldn't for long due to the lack of mentorship. 

## Research
She has been known to withhold data from collaborators

## Lab Culture
Students in the lab seem to get along and help eachother when they can since they only have eachother. The students really make their own culture in the lab since the PI is non existant most days.

No, I don't recommend this PI.

Review #339

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Anonymous

Fair

Posted: , Edited:

AFFILIATED EMAIL

## Advisor Style & Mentorship
In this category I would give a poor rating. This PI does meet with students but not on a consistent basis. There is also no tracking of the progress and discussion of timely completion of your PhD work. The PI often does not keep track of your work and loses track because she is absent from the office or lab most of the time. This advisor is mostly hands-off, may work if you're that kind of person. I prefer a good balance, but you won't find that in this lab. The general approach of this PI is that she will get to things (writing, communicating, or advising) when she feels like it. This often leads to rushed deadlines.
## Expectations for PhD Students
I never got a sense of what this PI expected. There was a general understanding of the project and what needs to be accomplished but in terms of how much is expected out of the student is not communicated. You must mostly presume or try to 'get' what the general expectation is. In my interpretation, it was if you don't know how to do something the PI expects you to find the resources and figure it out yourself.  Since the PI does not communicate (emails or in person), with students regularly working on writing is often left to the last minute leading to long work hours right before deadlines.
The lab also doesn’t publish regularly. Maybe on paper in 2-3 years. Lots of the current work are reviews or book chapters not publications on the work done in the lab. Some projects have been going on for 6 years but no publications have come out if it.
## Funding & Support
PI was funded but now funds should be dwindling. There hasn’t been word of any new grants and students are expected to teach or obtain external funding. The PI does accommodate time to learn new skills and techniques and gives support for this. She is understanding when experiments or analysis needs to be redone or corrected, which is one of her best qualities. She is also supportive of aspects that affect students outside of lab, the problems that the COVID pandemic brought. She can be approachable and is not demeaning towards students if they make mistakes. She understands its part of the learning process. 
## Research
There are two main branches to this lab’s research. One is developmental toxicology and the other is basic research in cell development. There is a faster completion of projects in the dev. Tox projects compared to the others. Many times, there is lots of data generated in these projects that don’t get analyzed to completion and they sit for many years. This leads the PI to forget much of the work that was done and poor project management. She does recognize the contributions of students and acknowledges them. 
## Lab Culture
In the beginning of my experience, the lab wasn’t very welcoming. Most of the students liked to keep to themselves and don’t make efforts to be collaborative. Later on, as more people left the lab and new students joined it became a little better. But now there is so few students. One major issue is the ordering of supplies. All ordering has to get approved by the PI so this created a back-log where reagents and kits do not get ordered for months. This really affected lab work.

No, I don't recommend this PI.

Review #206

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Nicole Zur Nieden

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