Wagner research group

Our meetings

In our group, we have a couple different meetings. Here’s a quick guide to how you should be thinking about them.

Group meetings

The purpose of a group meeting talk is to present something that is relatively well thought out. Typically there are a few main options:

  • Present your understanding of the current literature on the subject.
  • Present a research update.
  • Practice a talk.

Hivemind meetings

These meetings are an opportunity to use the combined mental power of the group to help solve a problem you have. As a participant, you can also learn a bit about problem-solving techniques, and potentially learn something that will help you in your research. Usually, you will choose one of the following objectives. They are roughly in order of new project -> completed project, so which one you’ll choose depends on where you are within the project.

  1. Check your understanding of the current literature on a subject. Identify and discuss open questions.
  2. Does the design of a calculation make sense?
  3. Does the design of a package make sense?
  4. Resolve a bug or a problem you are having with accomplishing something technical.
  5. Present your logic for a paper or a talk.

For all these, it will be important that you provide supporting data. For 1. that should be the papers on which you are basing your understanding. For 2-5 there should be code and data made available.

Stand-up meetings

In these, everyone gives a 5-minute update on what they’ve been up to in the past week. Generally you should focus on roughly one question, which is answered by one plot. If you want to report on two projects, do one for each.

One-on-one meetings

On the Box folder Weekly meetings with lucas there is a folder Data Repository. Either there will be a folder with your name on it or make one.

In this folder, make another folder with the date of the meeting. In this folder, there should be:

  • A brief summary:
    • Overall goal and where we are on that goal (big questions)
    • What questions we set out to resolve last time.
    • Results that you believe resolve that question.
    • What the next open questions are to get to the overall goal
  • Data and plotting scripts used to generate the results. Data should be either:
    • ``Tidy'' format (CSV with each row an observation and columns for all important data)
    • HDF5 format with well-defined keys. (I prefer CSV)
  • Input files/scripts that you use to submit your jobs, in particular if you are having trouble doing something.