<p>okay, I don't actually attend Princeton, I attend another University but I thought I'd post this here because this seems to be an active forum, and my problem may pertain to people at Princeton as well. Now, to the point. I am an undergraduate student who received a college grant to do research with a certain professor, who henceforth will be called Madame Dracula. The grant was given under the assumption that Madame Dracula and I will be working together on a research project over the summer and presenting our findings at an undergraduate conference this spring. Even though almost 7 months have gone by, we have made very little progress. I've been working very hard on creating the stimuli and programming the experiment, but Madame Dracula has been of little help. She kept pushing me off all of the semester under various pretexts--"I'm sick," "my dog is coughing," "my computer broke," "all my files were erased," "the cat ate my notebook," and the usual "I am very busy." A few weeks ago she made me schedule participants to come in to our lab without informing me that neither the IRB nor the participants' compensations were ready; she then disappeared (didn't respond to emails, etc.). I was put in a very awkward position when I had to cancel with participants at the last second. She then re-appeared out of nowhere and now is asking me again to schedule with participants. Again, the paperwork situation is unclear. In short, I do all the work, Madame Dracula does NOT do her part of the project, things are getting nowhere and she always finds a way to blame me for everything. I am afraid that the University will demand the monetary grant back from me once they find out how little we have accomplished, and that my reputation and career will be ruined. I can't talk about this to anyone at my University--I talked to a few people whom I'd thought I could trust but they turned their backs on me. My impression is that the professor is right no matter what. What can I do to minimize the damages to my career? Do grant agencies actually check back on the progress of the research project they funded? Has anyone ever been in a similar situation? I would really be grateful for any advice.</p>
<p>First of all, I would go to the head of your department and be completely candid about the situation at hand. Tell them your frustrations, explain to them that you got a grant out of your own volition and that your research partner is not being cooperative. Your university will want to help you because they generally will take a portion of the grant to fund general expenses at the school. If you cannot speak to the head of your department, go a step higher to an academic dean, or even to your school's president if you are still met with inertia.</p>
<p>Grant-givers sometimes check up on your progress. It all depends on the nature of the grant. I worked for one professor, for instance, who got an NIH grant a few years based on the premise that he would pursue nanotechnology research. Thus far, he has conducted some research, but has no papers published on the subject which are credited to his name (this is a relatively common occurance in academia). Do a search on your grant to see how they usually audit, if at all.</p>
<p>If all else fails, contact the grant agency. Tell them you have a problem.</p>
<p>Also, cant you make up for the work your professor is not doing?</p>
<p>Above all, however, if you are an undergraduate, I highly doubt an event like this could be disastrous to your career.</p>
<p>Feel free to contact me with any other questions you may have.</p>
<p>Best of luck to you!</p>