Research mentoring for early researchers — from finding your first lab to landing your first paper.
I help undergrads break into research, grad students push a project forward, and anyone with a draft get a brutal, honest pre-review before the journal gives them one. You stay the author; I make your work — and your odds — stronger.
The line that protects you
What this is — and what it isn't.
This boundary isn't fine print. It's the whole point: real mentoring that never crosses into authorship, so your work stays unambiguously yours.
✓ What it is
- Honest, reviewer-grade critique of your manuscript
- A calibrated read on your odds at a specific venue
- Coaching on how to scope, argue, write, and respond to reviewers
- Talk and qualifying-exam prep — pressure-testing before the room does
✕ What it isn't
- I don't write or rewrite your paper
- I don't draft your reviewer responses for you
- I don't ghost-author — my name never goes on your work
- I make your paper stronger by telling you the truth about it
You remain the sole author — the work and the words stay yours. I tell you the truth about your paper; the writing is yours to do.
How we work
A sharp fixed-fee review, or mentoring across the whole arc.
Have a draft? A discrete, fixed-fee pre-submission review is the fastest way in. Earlier than that — or anywhere along the way — ongoing mentoring picks up from finding your first lab through your early PhD years.
Pre-Submission Review
Fixed-fee · discrete · defined turnaround
You give me a draft and a target journal. I read it the way a referee will — and tell you what I find before they do.
- A calibrated read on your odds at that specific venue, across the realistic decision outcomes
- A reviewer-style teardown that surfaces the objections before a referee raises them
- A prioritized, specific fix list you can act on
Defined turnaround, agreed up front.
Mentoring
One offering · hourly, or a session pack
One flexible offering spanning the whole early-research arc — from breaking into research to your early PhD years. Same rate, your choice of topics.
- Just getting in (undergrads): finding and approaching labs, emailing PIs, reading into a field, scoping a realistic first project, and getting up to speed fast
- In the thick of it (early PhD): structuring a literature review, sharpening the central argument, strategizing reviewer responses, prepping a qualifying exam or talk
Hourly, or a session pack for an arc — no fixed program, no promised deliverable.
Why work with me
A few steps ahead on the same path — not a professor at a distance.
Someone who just survived the exact gauntlet you're in, and can hand you the map — in language that assumes you're smart and busy, not that you need managing.
I'm running this gauntlet right now
I currently have multiple manuscripts under peer review across physics, medical imaging, and nonlinear dynamics — and I built a systematic toolkit for pressure-testing papers before they go out. It's the same toolkit I'd turn on yours.
Peer-ahead, not authority-at-a-distance
I'm a few steps ahead on the same path you're on. That means honest, current, practical feedback — calibrated to how review actually goes today, not how it went a generation ago.
BA Physics, Penn (magna cum laude) · MS Medical Physics, Columbia · MS Computer Science, CU Boulder · published researcher. Credentials matter here only as a promise: I know this material deeply, and I've been through peer review from the inside.
How it works
Confidentiality and conflicts, handled up front.
Two simple policies that keep this clean for both of us — stated as commitments, not caveats.
Confidential by default
Your draft is confidential and never shared. I don't circulate, reuse, or repurpose your unpublished work — full stop.
No grey zones
I decline work that conflicts with my own active research areas, and I don't take clients from my own department or program — that's the department or program specifically, not the wider institution — and never anyone in my current or for-credit coursework, so there's no competitive or integrity grey zone for either of us.
Pricing
A fixed-fee review to start. Mentoring by the hour.
The review is a discrete, fixed fee with a rush option. Mentoring is a single hourly rate, with a session pack if you want an arc. No commitment beyond the work you book.
Tier 1 · entry point
Pre-Submission Review
A single fixed fee: odds, a reviewer-style teardown, and a prioritized fix list, with a defined turnaround.
Tier 2 · ongoing
Mentoring
One rate, your choice of topics — from breaking into research to your early PhD years. The review is the fastest way in.
Figures are scoped on the intro call. A fixed-fee review is the entry point; mentoring runs hourly or in a session pack.
Questions
The questions worth asking first.
Will this still count as my own work? +
What's confidential? +
What about conflicts of interest? +
What fields and stages do you work with? +
What does it cost? +
Start here
Let's start with a free intro call.
No commitment, no pitch. We talk through what you're working on and where it's headed, and figure out together whether a review — or ongoing mentoring — is the right next step. If it is, we scope it from there.