Steven K. Ayer and Bryan Franz

Professerror

Education EN ↓ 76 episodes

This podcast is aimed at providing honest experiences about challenges, failures, and possibly a few success stories related to life in academia.

Author

Steven K. Ayer and Bryan Franz

Category

Education

Podcast website

podcasters.spotify.com

Latest episode

May 22, 2026

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Episodes

Academia for non-academics 19.02.2022

Bryan and Steve discuss experiences and challenges in explaining their academic lives to those outside of academia. Hopefully what it lacks in practicality, it makes up for in relatability. Enjoy!

Why papers get rejected 05.02.2022

Bryan and Steve talk about some of the reasons they have observed, and experienced through their own failures, that led to rejected journal papers. Enjoy!

Why is networking not working? 04.12.2021

Bryan and Steve discuss lessons learned related to building professional networks at conferences. Enjoy!

Conference Presentations 06.11.2021

Bryan and Steve discuss what to expect during and after academic conference presentations. Hopefully it helps you avoid some of our mistakes for your first conference!

Conference "Do's" and "Don't's" 08.10.2021

Bryan and Steve discuss academic conferences, what to expect, what to do, and what to avoid when attending. Enjoy!

Imposter Syndrome 10.09.2021

Bryan and Steve discuss their experiences with Imposter Syndrome in academia and strategies for dealing with it.

Building and Submitting Your Promotion & Tenure Package 27.08.2021

Bryan and Steve chat about the process of developing and submitting their promotion and tenure packages. They discuss what worked well and where they might have done things differently with the benefit of hindsight.

Building and fostering industry collaborations with Dr. Sinem Mollaoglu 13.08.2021

Sinem Mollaoglu (Michigan State University) joins Bryan and Steve to discuss her experiences and challenges in building, sustaining, and growing industry collaborations to support her research.

Work and Family Balance with Prof. Carrie Sturts Dossick 30.07.2021

Carrie Sturts Dossick (University of Washington) stops by to discuss lessons she learned when balancing family and work responsibilities.

Life After Tenure with Professor Wei Wu 14.07.2021

Wei Wu (Fresno State University) talks about his experience in transitioning from an Associate Professor to Fresno's Construction Management Department Chair.

Managing your Advisor with Dr. Jad Chalhoub 12.06.2021

Dr. Jad Chalhoub talks about his experience as Steve's PhD student to highlight some of the good (and not so good) aspects of their working relationship.

Podcast about a podcast? 08.05.2021

Bryan and Steve discuss successes and failures from their first academic year of recording Professerror. Also, they welcome your feedback on how to improve the podcast moving forward. We look forward to hearing from you!

Communicating for Impact in Academia with Professor Fernanda Leite 23.04.2021

Fernanda Leite (University of Texas, Austin) discusses some of the strategies she has employed to effectively communicate with students, colleagues, and others in order to maximize her impact.

Challenges Faced by Female Professors in Engineering with Professor Andrea Richa 10.04.2021

Professor Andrea Richa (Arizona State University) joins us to discuss some of the challenges female professors face in engineering.

Work Life Balance with Professor Matthew Hallowell 19.03.2021

Prof. Matt Hallowell (University of Colorado, Boulder) discusses lessons learned related to managing work responsibilities with the rest of life's responsibilities.

NSF CAREER Success (and some failures) with Professor Jeremi London 12.03.2021

Dr. Jeremi London (Virginia Tech) discusses her recently awarded NSF CAREER grant, but also some of the challenges she experienced leading up to this success.

Maximizing Your Impact 30.01.2021

Professor Mikhail Chester (Arizona State University) discusses how to maximize impact while reducing time spent doing non-value-added tasks.

Applying for Faculty Positions - On-Campus Interviews 16.01.2021

We discuss on-campus interviews and share some experiences of what to do (and not do) during this process.

Research group start-up (with Katherine Madson) 29.12.2020

Katherine Madson (Iowa State University) joins us again to discuss challenges and lessons learned associated with starting up a research group during the first semester of a first faculty position.

Surviving your first semester of teaching (with Katherine Madson) 12.12.2020

Professor Katherine Madson (Iowa State University) stops in to share some of her successes and failures that she experienced in teaching during her first semester as a faculty member.

Applying for Faculty Positions - Phone Interviews 21.11.2020

We discuss the process of phone interviews for faculty positions and share some of our own lessons learned related to this.

Transitioning from industry to academia with Anne Anderson 14.11.2020

Prof. Anne Anderson joins in for the discussion to cover lessons learned when she transitioned from her industry career to one in academia.

Applying for Faculty Positions - Preparing your application materials 23.10.2020

We discuss the process of preparing your materials for applying to faculty positions. Hopefully you avoid some of the mistakes we made!

Managing Your Time 10.10.2020

Bryan and Steve cover lessons learned, as well as continued struggles, with time management in academic careers.

Getting Feedback on Your Research Proposals 26.09.2020

Bryan and Steve discuss lessons learned through the feedback that their proposals have received.

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