I'm somewhat confused; is the PI your supervisor if you're a PhD student or a PI is a completely different person than the supervisor? - probably a noob question; sorry!

I've my own supervisor at the moment, and today, I saw this particular signature, signing off a grant for my main project. Under their name has the title the head of research, which is different than my supervisor's signature,

PI = Principal Investigator for the grant .. i.e who got the money in for the particular project. I would imagine your supervisor was a Co-I on the project proposal perhaps?

Thank you for the reply!

I don't quite see what they are "investigating" actually. the PI never even did supervise/give me advice on anything.
The project proposal was created and written by me. My supervisor mainly forwarded them to get the grant. Furthermore, my supervisor is mainly giving me general advice on general research.

Now, I'm this pickle; should I include this "PI" on my paper as an author? I'm confused since as I understand it, a PI is normally the one who proposed and lead the project, thus they are normally included as a co-author.

Hi tt_dan,

ask your supervisor. Normally professors don't put their names on papers unless they are really good.

I met this particular person today and they said that if any student were to be under their supervision, the work belongs to them, not the student, because they "supervise" them.

I asked them; "what if the student were the one who proposed the idea?". They said that the work still belongs to them because they supervised them, and they pay for the paper's conferences.

This person doesn't have a PhD.

In a sense, it is true. Jocelyn Bell, discovered the radio source which was ultimately recognised as the first pulsar. However, her supervisor, Antony Hewish, received the Nobel Prize.

I read that his Nobel prize is the NO-bel of the Nobel prizes.

Your PI and supervisor may receive NO-dan Prize...