in a perspective written 10 years ago, Barres presents some guidance for choosing an academic advisor based on two main considerations. pick an advisor who is good at science & mentorship.
you can narrow down possible advisors based on the style of mentorship. good mentors spend a lot of time with their students talking about science, designing experiments, interpreting results, writing papers, etc. they encourage students to do things outside of the direct research like going to conferences, teaching, taking courses, etc.
red flags for advisors can include lack of acknowledgement for students’ work, equity in authorship order requires diverging from conventional metric systems. if they create unnecessary competition between students, enforces rules about what experiments are done, etc, this will probably not be a place you will be happy over the course of a phd.
the best way to gauge mentorship style is to ask current trainees in the lab about whether the advisor is spending enough time with everyone. then, if you’re excited about a lab, rotating often reveals “the right fit” rotation expectations
references
Barres, B. A. (2013). How to Pick a Graduate Advisor. Neuron, 80(2), 275–279. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2013.10.005
gratitudes to my cohort for helpful lunch discussions about this paper and its limitations