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If you've looked at research lab websites or read through program descriptions, you've probably encountered the term "PI,” which is short for Principal Investigator. You can find PIs anywhere in research: they run labs, get named on grants, and appear at the top of academic department pages. But what does a PI actually do day-to-day?
The basic definition
A Principal Investigator is the lead scientist responsible for a research project or laboratory. In an academic setting, this is typically a professor who runs their own research group. The PI is the person whose name is on the grant funding the lab, who sets the direction and questions the lab pursues, and who is ultimately responsible for the work that comes out of the lab. For instance, they manage publications, data integrity, and the training of students and researchers who work there.
What a PI does and doesn’t do
Surprisingly, a PI isn’t in the lab every day, running experiments, handling samples, and being directly hands-on with the science. In reality, especially at large research universities, a PI often spends very little time at the bench. Their days are filled with grant writing, reading and editing manuscripts, attending departmental meetings, giving and attending seminars, reviewing data presented by lab members, and increasingly, administrative work.
The actual experiments are largely run by graduate students, postdoctoral researchers (postdocs), research technicians, and sometimes undergraduate or high school students like you. The PI meets with these team members regularly (often in weekly one-on-one meetings or group lab meetings) to discuss progress, troubleshoot problems, and guide the direction of individual projects.
Therefore, PIs don’t really fit the mold of your idea of a scientist. Instead, they operate more like a director of the lab, securing the resources, mentoring the team, and handling the output.
Why this matters for high schoolers
When you join a research lab, you are almost certainly not going to work directly with the PI on a daily basis. Your day-to-day mentor will more likely be a graduate student or postdoc. This is actually preferable, as graduate students and postdocs are closer to your experience level in some ways, more available, and often excellent teachers who remember clearly what it was like to not know everything.
It is important to know that the PI and their characteristics set the general tone of the lab. A lab whose PI is known for being supportive, communicative, and invested in training students is going to be a very different environment than one where the PI is distant or dismissive of undergraduate and high school contributors.
The PI is also the person who will write your letter of recommendation if your experience goes well. Even if you rarely interact with them directly, it matters to make sure they know who you are and what you contributed. If you’re able to, try and interact with them as much as possible — or at least introduce yourself.
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