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Navigating mental health challenges in graduate school

Nature Reviews Materials volume 7, pages 421–423 (2022)Cite this article

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Many graduate students experience mental health struggles that lead them to question their place in academia. Two scientists who experienced extreme lows in graduate school reflect on what helped them during their low points, and suggest strategies for everyone to contribute to mentally healthier workplaces in academia.

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Fig. 1: Improving mental health for graduate students.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Zachary F. Murguía Burton

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Xiangkun Elvis Cao

  3. MIT Climate & Sustainability Consortium, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Xiangkun Elvis Cao

Authors
  1. Zachary F. Murguía Burton
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  2. Xiangkun Elvis Cao
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Zachary F. Murguía Burton or Xiangkun Elvis Cao.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Related links

Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’s German Chancellor Fellowship: https://www.engineering.cornell.edu/news/sibley-schools-xiangkun-elvis-cao-wins-german-chancellor-fellowship

Feature article by CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/03/world/martian-landslides-ice-salt-scn/index.html

Feature article by Popular Science: https://www.popsci.com/story/science/below-mars-surface-landslides-discovered/

Feature blog by Harvard: https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2022/03/18/disability-advocacy-stigma-covid/

Forbes 30 under 30 in energy profile: https://www.forbes.com/profile/xiangkun-elvis-cao/

Foreign-born students and workers in the U.S. science and engineering enterprise: https://www.nsf.gov/nsb/sei/one-pagers/Foreign-Born.pdf

Mental health check-in challenge: https://www.choc.org/mental-health-awareness-month/

MIT Climate & Sustainability Consortium fellowship: https://impactclimate.mit.edu/inaugural-cohort-impact-fellows/

NIBIB feature article: https://www.nibib.nih.gov/news-events/newsroom/rapid-test-delineates-diseases-similar-symptoms/

Potentially harmful leave of absence policies: https://georgetownvoice.com/2021/09/11/leaves-of-absence-mental-health/

The Manic Monologues: https://www.themanicmonologues.org/

What researchers think about the culture they work in: https://wellcome.org/reports/what-researchers-think-about-research-culture

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Murguía Burton, Z.F., Cao, X.E. Navigating mental health challenges in graduate school. Nat Rev Mater 7, 421–423 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-022-00444-x

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