Credit for Work

Description of the Problem

As a graduate student, you have worked closely with a professor and her postdoc on a project studying experimental techniques in microfluidics. The project is going very well and you’ve even published some of your initial results. You will be graduating this spring with your master’s degree. 

Your advisor is now writing a subsequent paper with a colleague who is developing a theory that accounts for your results. You see a draft of the paper and notice that you are not listed as one of the four authors of the paper, who are the professors and their senior postdocs.  However, the paper is directly based on the work that you did, and includes a new experimental plot that you created in addition to the theoretical calculations.

Question

What should you do?

Credit for Work Discussion