Deppmann Lab
The Field Guide
A Compass for Scientific Discovery
“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” — Sharon Begley, writing about Carl Sagan in Newsweek, 1977
The Way Forward
We're trying to understand the only thing in the universe that understands. You will spend most of your time not knowing. That is the job, and it is why the wins feel the way they do. We study a structure more complex than anything we've ever encountered, using tools we're still inventing, in service of people we may never meet but whose suffering gives our work meaning.
Most experiments fail. That is the price of working on questions nobody has answered yet. Build your week so that a failed experiment still tells you something.
Foundation
Our True North
Mission
We study how the nervous system develops, functions, responds to injury, and breaks down in disease. Our work runs from molecular conversations between cells to the circuits that shape behavior, metabolism, and survival.
Vision
We want basic discoveries to become the foundation for better treatment of neurological and metabolic disease.
Development Focus
Every project here is also a training plan
Mission-Driven Focus
We improve the human condition through the discovery of truth. Along the way, we find joy in the pursuit.
Core Values
The Five Principles
Integrity Above All
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.” — Richard Feynman
Research without integrity is building on sand. Every data point, every interpretation, every claim must rest on honesty.
Courage in Discovery
“A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” — John A. Shedd
Breakthrough discoveries require intellectual risk-taking. We encourage bold hypotheses, novel approaches, and the willingness to be wrong.
Generous Collaboration
“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” — Isaac Newton
Share your knowledge freely. Credit generously. Help abundantly. Science advances through collective effort.
Curious Humility
“I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.” — Albert Einstein
Approach everything with genuine curiosity rather than ego. Every person here is both teacher and student.
Universal Access to Truth
“Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity.” — Louis Pasteur
Science is for everyone. A lab where everyone trained the same way asks the same questions, and misses the same things.
Mindfulness
Mindful Science
The surprises at the bench show up for whoever is paying attention. Give the experiment your full attention. Observe before you explain. Distraction often erodes both satisfaction and quality, so protect the stretch of time when you are actually looking. Stay open to being surprised; that is usually where discovery begins.
The Practice
- Name the question before you name the task
- Write down what a failure taught you the same day
- Judge the week by what you learned
- Remember: you are not your results
Pace
A Pace You Can Keep
Research workloads fluctuate, and some weeks will be heavier than others. Short stretches may ask more of you. Sustained extreme hours are neither expected nor healthy. Effort matters, but hours alone are not a measure of progress.
What matters is steady progress, clear communication, and a rhythm that supports both good science and a full life outside the lab. Health and well-being matter in their own right. Exhaustion is not evidence of commitment.
Some discomfort is part of learning to think independently. Distress is something else. If one starts to feel like the other, say so. Talk to a labmate, to Chris, or to UVA's counseling services (CAPS).
“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” — C. Northcote Parkinson, The Economist, 1955
Productivity
Working Wisdom
Six small tools from the lab manual.
The 80/20 Principle
Twenty percent of your efforts will drive eighty percent of your results. Find that vital twenty percent and protect it.
Good Enough, on Purpose
Parkinson was right, so give each task the time it deserves and no more. Grants and papers should be close to perfect. Most other things only need to be good enough.
First Things First
Important work often feels less urgent than trivial tasks. Sort by importance as well as urgency, and guard your peak hours for the important ones.
Reverse Scheduling
Start from the deadline and work backward, setting milestones along the way. The plan tells you what has to happen this week.
Focused Work Blocks
Block off time for focused work and treat it like a meeting with a colleague. Silence the notifications, and let people know when you are in one.
Inbox Zero
Decide on each email the first time you open it: delete, delegate, respond, or defer. If it takes two minutes or less, do it now.
“The great enemy of communication, we find, is the illusion of it.” — William H. Whyte, Fortune, 1950
Communication
Communication as Connection
Establish your credibility through preparation and honesty
Connect to what matters—why should anyone care?
Support with evidence, but don't bury the story in data
House Rules
- Ask what someone means rather than infer it, and expect the same courtesy back.
- Be hard on ideas and easy on people. Challenge freely, and deliver the critique with care.
- Be able to explain why your work matters, to a scientist and to your neighbor.
- Know your labmates' projects well enough to say why they matter too.
- Finish your talk early rather than run over. Leave room for questions; that is where the best feedback comes from.
“A mentor is someone who allows you to see the higher part of yourself when sometimes it's hard to see it yourself.” — Oprah Winfrey
Mentorship
The Mentor's Path
We work in small teams. A more experienced member of the lab, often a graduate student, works closely with one to four undergraduates, and the learning runs in both directions. Nobody here does science alone.
Model
Demonstrate excellence in your own work
Guide
Show the path, but let them walk it
Challenge
Push them into productive discomfort, and notice if it turns into distress
Support
Be there when they stumble
Release
Celebrate when they surpass you
Resilience
The Resilient Scientist
“What stands in the way becomes the way.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.20 (trans. Gregory Hays)
Three Questions of Resilience
- What can I control in this situation?
- What can I learn from this experience?
- How can this make me more capable?
Reframing Setbacks
- An experiment that fails still teaches you something, if you record it carefully and ask why
- A rejected paper comes back with three reviews you did not have before
- A difficult collaboration is how most people first learn to run one
“Be So Good They Can't Ignore You” — Steve Martin
The Excellence Imperative
Excellence is measured against your own last attempt. Small improvements, sustained over time, compound into work you could not have done a year ago.
“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” — Attributed to Ernest Hemingway
The nervous system reveals its workings slowly, to those who approach with patience and precision. You're joining a conversation that began long before you and will continue long after.
Embrace the uncertainty. Find satisfaction in small discoveries. Remember that every expert was once a beginner, and every breakthrough started with someone willing to ask a difficult question.
Welcome to the lab.
A note on the quotes: integrity is principle number one, so we checked the famous ones. Where an attribution is shaky, we say so.