marriage and name-changing

[Bharathi Jagadeesh]

Rae Nishi (nishir at ohsu.edu) wrote:
: 
: Keep in mind that these days many people do electronic searches for
: your papers if they are interested in your "track record".  For
: example, if someone is considering working for you as a grad student or
: post doc, they might try Medline to look at your papers.  Or they will
: search to pull papers up they are considering inviting you to talk at a
: dept's seminar.  This has happened to me a number of times recently. 
: If you change your name alot, they will only search with your most
: recent name because they will not be cognizant of your various
: identities.

Yup, I do this all the time. In fact, I keep abreast of new
developments in my field by searching for a set of authors who
done work that interested me in the past. This is also a
reason to change your name from Smith to Xurzi. 

As several people have said, they changed their name
before they had a signficant publication list. But
if you ever do have a significant publication list
you'll find it very difficult to change your name
from the married name (because of divorce, re-marriage,
or widowhood).

The Washington Post ran an article, a couple
of years ago, of "important" women who use their
ex-husband's last names, even though many were
re-married.

I think it's pretty important for a scientific career
to keep your professional life under one name. 

-- 
Bharathi Jagadeesh/bjag at ln.nimh.nih.gov
Lab of Neuropsychology, NIMH
Building 49, Room 1b80
Bethesda, Maryland 20892

(312) 496-5625 x270