At the Helm: Leading Your Laboratory, Second Edition

Since 2002, the first edition of this bestselling book has helped thousands of newly appointed principal investigators successfully transition to running their own labs. In the second edition, Barker has substantially revised the text, offering principal investigators advice to the changes and challenges that the years have brought.

Author is well known as speaker & tutor on these topics. Dr. Barker trained as a microbiologist and received her Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts Medical Center and the 5 College Program. She was an assistant professor in the Laboratory of Immunology and Cell Physiology at Rockefeller University before leaving the lab to investigate and document the non-research problems that seemed to be so much of the typical researcher's life. Her first book, At the Bench: A Laboratory Navigator (CSHL Press, 1998), gives instruction on protocols and techniques that are usually relegated to a difficult-to-retrieve oral tradition, and also explains the culture of the research laboratory to the new scientist. At the Helm: A Laboratory Navigator (CSHL Press, 2001) is a guide for new principal investigators, based on interviews and conversations with PIs of varying experience and disciplines. In addition to newspaper and magazine publications, Kathy Barker has given lectures and workshops on dealing with people in the lab, and is currently finishing a book for scientists on communication and negotiation beyond the laboratory.