I can’t draw a chart here but the organizational structure is:
Lab head
Senior researchers/postdoctoral fellows
Junior researchers/postdoctoral fellows
PhD students
Honours students
Research Assistants
Lab Managers
Lab Technicians
The lab head is in charge of the lab. Under him there will be a number of post doctoral research fellows. They often have their own grants or will be a co-investigator on the lab head’s grants and will independently be working on projects they have designed, often in conjunction with the lab head.
Working with the post docs on parts of their projects will be PhD students. PhD students are often quite independant and will have designed their own experiments but will be conducting them based on an overall project put together by the more senior members of the lab. PhD students will generally answer to the lab head.
Honours students are the least independent of the scientists and are the least experienced of the researchers. This is often their first time working in a research lab and they will often work independently but the particular experiments and overall project will have been designed by more senior researchers. Honours students answer to their supervisor which will generally be the lab head or a post doc.
Research assistants will report to either the post docs or the lab head and assist with the performance of experiments. The precise role depends on what needs to be done and the amount of independence they have also depends on the project they are assisting with and the personality of their supervisors.
Lab managers take care of all the day to day running issues of the lab like scheduling bookings, complying with OHS workplace legislation, organising the lab. Basically they ensure that the researchers have everything they need to perform their research and ensure that the lab runs smoothly. The lab manager generally answers to the lab head.
Lab technicians perform only very specific tasks and often just take care of that particular task or group of tasks. The task is often an ongoing one which needs someone to constantly perform it. eg preparation of material or reagents used by the lab, maintenance and care of animal colonies etc. They will generally answer to the lab manager.
March 5th, 2010 at 9:50 pm
I can’t draw a chart here but the organizational structure is:
Lab head
Senior researchers/postdoctoral fellows
Junior researchers/postdoctoral fellows
PhD students
Honours students
Research Assistants
Lab Managers
Lab Technicians
The lab head is in charge of the lab. Under him there will be a number of post doctoral research fellows. They often have their own grants or will be a co-investigator on the lab head’s grants and will independently be working on projects they have designed, often in conjunction with the lab head.
Working with the post docs on parts of their projects will be PhD students. PhD students are often quite independant and will have designed their own experiments but will be conducting them based on an overall project put together by the more senior members of the lab. PhD students will generally answer to the lab head.
Honours students are the least independent of the scientists and are the least experienced of the researchers. This is often their first time working in a research lab and they will often work independently but the particular experiments and overall project will have been designed by more senior researchers. Honours students answer to their supervisor which will generally be the lab head or a post doc.
Research assistants will report to either the post docs or the lab head and assist with the performance of experiments. The precise role depends on what needs to be done and the amount of independence they have also depends on the project they are assisting with and the personality of their supervisors.
Lab managers take care of all the day to day running issues of the lab like scheduling bookings, complying with OHS workplace legislation, organising the lab. Basically they ensure that the researchers have everything they need to perform their research and ensure that the lab runs smoothly. The lab manager generally answers to the lab head.
Lab technicians perform only very specific tasks and often just take care of that particular task or group of tasks. The task is often an ongoing one which needs someone to constantly perform it. eg preparation of material or reagents used by the lab, maintenance and care of animal colonies etc. They will generally answer to the lab manager.
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