Lab Philosophy and Policies

At uIdeas:

• We believe that anyone could do research if they have the environment, tools, motivation, and right project to succeed. 

• We care about people.

• We value equity, diversity, and inclusion. 

• We produce excellent scholarly research.

Undergraduate students should commit to a minimum of two semesters of work at uIdeasLab with more time preferred. 

The approach that uIdeas follow for undergrad research is*:

1.     Select an appealing research project. 

2.     Make a plan and do follow-ups. 

3.     Presenting results. 

4.     Monthly Lab meetings.

This may be different for Graduate students / Postdocs and external colleges *

1. Inclusion

   1. Diversity is not enough, people should be included and have equitable opportunities. 

   2. People should feel safe to speak, think, do, provide feedback, and receive criticism. 

2. Wellbeing and good food

   1. Basic human needs are needed to conduct successful research. We recommend: 

      1. Sleep. - You may dream your answers

      2. Eat.

      3. Work out.

      4. Check out your mental health/Burnout levels

         1. Take one day off a week. You cannot work all the time. It is not healthy.

3. Being proud of your research

   1. Publishing quality research

   2. Present your research online/in person

   3. Apply for fellowships/Grants/etc -science is not always free :(, and we could try to follow open-science

4. Team and collaboration 

   1. Inside and outside the uIdeas/Veritas/Star etc

   2. Inside and outside Chapman/CICESE/UCI/ etc

   3. Inside and outside United States / Mexico / China / Sweden / etc. 

   4. Inside and outside Computer Science / Data Science / Software Engineering / Linguistics / Electrical Engineering / Psychology 

5. Ethics 

   1. Cheating and plagiarism are forbidden

   2. We protect and respect our users' data and we care about their privacy