Timeline for Changing field of study post-PhD
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
20 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Mar 26, 2019 at 0:00 | review | Close votes | |||
| Mar 26, 2019 at 14:55 | |||||
| Nov 30, 2017 at 4:45 | review | Close votes | |||
| Nov 30, 2017 at 11:24 | |||||
| Oct 24, 2017 at 14:54 | review | Close votes | |||
| Oct 24, 2017 at 17:22 | |||||
| Jun 17, 2012 at 18:49 | comment | added | Samuel Reid | Thanks for the update! It is interesting to find out what happened. | |
| Jun 17, 2012 at 11:22 | history | edited | Adam | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 1060 characters in body; Post Made Community Wiki
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| Jul 14, 2011 at 14:36 | vote | accept | Adam | ||
| Jul 12, 2011 at 18:28 | comment | added | Michael Hardy | A famous instance is Gian-Carlo Rota, a functional analyst who became a combinatorialist. | |
| Jul 12, 2011 at 16:08 | answer | added | Timothy Chow | timeline score: 43 | |
| Jul 12, 2011 at 14:37 | answer | added | Jeff H | timeline score: 6 | |
| Jul 12, 2011 at 5:44 | vote | accept | Adam | ||
| Jul 14, 2011 at 14:36 | |||||
| Jul 12, 2011 at 4:05 | answer | added | Nilima Nigam | timeline score: 15 | |
| Jul 12, 2011 at 2:19 | comment | added | Deane Yang | Any shift in research can be done, if done carefully and strategically. The trick is to keep as active as you can in your current area, while working on the new area but telling as few people about your new area as possible. Only after you have some new substantial results in the new area should you try to announce your new research specialty. But you should also make sure you talk as much as you can to good people in your new area, so you have a clear understanding of what's considered significant and important and what's not. | |
| Jul 12, 2011 at 1:51 | answer | added | Hailong Dao | timeline score: 10 | |
| Jul 11, 2011 at 0:07 | comment | added | Graham Denham | I'd second Cam's suggestion to check out the previous reply at mathoverflow.net/questions/12684/switching-research-fields/… -- I think many people find it natural to change areas via gradual, lateral shifting as their interests evolve. It's surely good to keep reading and talking to people. You might find (just to make some stuff up completely) that you're drawn in next by abelian sandpiles, some aspect of quivers, or a computational problem about eigenvalues of Markov processes! | |
| Jul 10, 2011 at 17:29 | comment | added | Alain Valette | Here are 3 cases I came across in recent years: from harmonic analysis to bio-informatics, from algebraic geometry to applied cryptography (via elliptic curves of course!), from logic to incidence geometry and group theory; the latter person moved from the very pure to the pure. Be careful w.r.t. funding: you will not get funded in your old subject if you state clearly that you want to change, and you will not get funded in your new subject unless you prove a meaningful result. | |
| Jul 10, 2011 at 17:16 | comment | added | Cam McLeman | gowers's answer here (to what is almost the same question) mathoverflow.net/questions/12684/switching-research-fields seems about as concise and spot-on as could possibly be hoped for. Find something in the target field that relates to something you know about in your field of expertise, and let that lead your way. | |
| Jul 10, 2011 at 16:47 | comment | added | Gerald Edgar | Lots depends on your specific situation. But generic advise (for a US research university) would be: wait until you are tenured before changing area. | |
| Jul 10, 2011 at 15:59 | comment | added | Benjamin Steinberg | The further away the topic is from your original area, the more difficult it is. Maybe it is best to do a postdoc where there are people doing what you do now and what you would like to do. Usually during a postdoc there is still time to learn new things. Later it becomes more difficult. | |
| Jul 10, 2011 at 15:37 | comment | added | James D. Taylor | On the more theoretical side, there's been very interesting work about about analogies of graphs with Riemann surfaces. That might pave the way into algebraic geometry. I'll let people who are more informed than me to link to papers on the topic. | |
| Jul 10, 2011 at 14:22 | history | asked | Adam | CC BY-SA 3.0 |