The motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar, once said, “If you aim at nothing you will hit every time.” To be successful, we must set goals and then take the steps needed to achieve them. I recently gave a career talk at DRS Technologies in Melbourne, Florida and would like to share the same advice with our younger constituency of Applied Optics—our early career professionals who are in graduate school, or are new graduates, post-docs, and associate professors.

Regardless of where your career stands within the professional scientific and technical community, there are two things that will likely determine your next position, your next promotion, or your next opportunity. These metrics are used worldwide in academia and government laboratories when assessing performance for promotion and other opportunities. One is the number of recent papers that you have published. The second is the number of grants, contracts, or other funds that you have obtained using your science and engineering work.

What are the expectations for publishing activity? I recommend publishing a few papers each year. If you present new work at conferences, then plan to follow up with a more refined version in a refereed journal.

Figure 1 below shows a plot of citations for my papers number from about 10 years ago. The vertical axis shows the number of citations received and the horizontal axis represents individual papers (in decreasing citation order). The $h$-index has become an assessment metric that takes into account the number of publications and the number of citations per publication for a researcher. An index of $h$ means that $h$ number of papers has been cited in other papers at least $h$ times. The $h$-index is named after Jorge E. Hirsch, from University of California, San Diego, who developed the metric as an indicator of the relative quality of an individual’s work. My $h$-index was around 12 a few years ago. Since then I think it is up to around 18. At the US Naval Research Laboratory an employee could get promoted to the highest scientific level with an $h$-index of around 12–14. However, engineers typically have a lower $h$-index than scientists. Scientists are usually held to a higher $h$-index standard. A full professor generally needs to have an entry $h$-index of around 14–16.

 

Fig. 1. Driggers’ papers and citations (approximately 10 years ago).

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There are two key lessons here. First, you need to be publishing. At a minimum, try to publish two good papers a year, even if it is not important to your institution. Find a way. Second, you need to publish over a long period of time so that your papers can get read and cited. Your early work is important in the citation count. Also, journals such as Applied Optics, with a citation half-life of 9 years, can be important in the evaluation of your record. So, get to publishing!

The second metric that will help you win promotions and other opportunities is to bring in funded research or funded development work (relevant to both scientists and engineers) for your institution. Take the initiative and ask to be involved in company and research laboratory proposals. If you are not typically the proposal leader for a funding request, then ask the lead how you can help and get your name on the proposal as a junior principal investigator or research partner. If you are encouraged to write proposals, then take the opportunity to write them and do your best to win them. If you are working at a university, you are likely expected to contribute to and lead efforts for funding proposals. Your funded research record will likely follow you around for your entire career. If there is enough interest, I will update a set of pointers that I have used on increasing your chances to obtain funded research.

I have hired and promoted many scientists and engineers in my career. When evaluating candidates the first part of a resume or Vitae that I look at is the publication list and the funded research record, focusing on the recent activity. Some researchers stop publishing after leaving the university or they get complacent in their job. In my opinion, those folks are not the movers and shakers that will help an organization continue to grow.

So, aim toward having an active publications record and funded research record. Feed your record and it will treat you well over a long prosperous career.