Dr. Lanre Morenikeji received his PhD in animal genetics at the Federal University of Technology in Akure, Nigeria. With a strong interest in genetics and immunology, he pursued a pre-doctoral program at Cornell University and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Rochester Institute of Technology. As an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh, he focuses his research on understanding the mechanisms that regulate immune response during infectious diseases. He’s been working on noncoding RNAs associated with disease susceptibility and tolerance. In addition to research, he is passionate about teaching science to his students.

How did your academic background prepare you for your present position?

I had a background in genetics, where I started as an animal science student. I liked the health aspect of my course because I did stuff like immunology, parasitology, and genetics, which sparked my interest in molecular genetics. During my Master’s, I signed up for some courses in immunology due to my interest in health, even though they were not required for my graduation, and I did quite well in them. My interest in integrating genetics and immunology informed my decision to do a postdoc in immunology. Because of my love of biomedical science, combining my genetics and immunology background positioned me well for what I’m doing now.

What barriers did you have to overcome, having envisioned your future career in biomedical science?

I’m originally from Nigeria, where we have minimal resources to conduct research. Although we can access the theoretical aspects through reading textbooks and taking courses, doing hands-on work is limited. I started looking for opportunities to further my studies abroad early on. During my Master’s, I did molecular characterization of some proteins associated with feed efficiency and some growth parameters in pigs. Performing protein analysis, gel electrophoresis, and PCR were difficult, but I leveraged a professor who studied in India and brought some equipment to his lab. Most of my professors considered my PhD research proposal ambitious except one (who had gone abroad and done some work in genetics). The latter said, “Let’s give him the opportunity. He said he wanted to do it, let him do it. We’ll be here.” He encouraged me, and I brought him on as my co-advisor for my PhD to benefit from his mentorship and experience. Funding is a major problem when conducting research in Nigeria, so I started looking for scholarships. I received many rejections and once received an admission offer with a partial scholarship to a university in the U.S., but I couldn’t attend because there was no further funding support. So, I kept on doing my research and didn’t limit myself due to limited resources. Because of my interest in doing my PhD in the U.S., when I got the opportunity, I moved to Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, to do the most important part of my PhD research and returned to Nigeria to graduate with a PhD.

Also, the language or accent barrier was a challenge when I came to the U.S. We speak English in Nigeria, but it’s different from how it’s spoken in the United States. Sometimes, it isn’t easy to communicate with colleagues, and I have to repeat things multiple times to aid comprehension. So, it’s something that I had to overcome over time by watching videos, listening a lot, listening to the news, and practicing my communication. Likewise, I think the pace of work is another challenge. The pace is a bit faster. The volume is much higher than what I had in Nigeria. And, of course, the resources are available, so I just plug into it and then keep moving.

How did your pre-doctoral program experience spur your interest in a postdoc in the U.S.?

When I came to the U.S. for my pre-doc, the first time I resumed my lab, I looked at everything and said a statement to myself because I like to speak to myself a lot. I said, “Lanre, you have everything now. Become whatever you want to become.” I needed to learn a lot and work independently when I got here. As soon as I resumed in the lab, they gave me my bench, and I met with my advisor on Fridays to give reports of what I’d done and discuss progress. We also had lab meetings, but everybody in the lab focused on their research, so I had to work independently on my research. This attribute helped me and positioned me well for my postdoc because I learned a lot of techniques. During that time, I attended meetings, met many other scientists, and made friends, including my postdoc advisor, whom I met while I was at Cornell University. Most of my collaborators today were people I knew at Cornell. In fact, a professor called me after a presentation and commended me on my presentation. Since then, we’ve been friends and collaborators and won some grants together. So, that experience helped me to transition into my postdoc research, especially doing my pre-doctoral fellowship at a prestigious institution like Cornell University, which also influenced my postdoc offers. When I came for a postdoc, I had three different offers, two in the United States and one in India, and I chose one in the U.S.

How do you navigate research expectations as a scientist from a minority group while training your students?

As I love research and discovering new things, I exert myself a lot beyond an average person. If you want to be outstanding, nothing comes cheaply, and you need to exert yourself to do more than an average person will do. As a minority scientist, you compete with people around you and have to extend yourself to do more, to get a lot done. Sometimes, I had to stay in the lab until night. It requires a lot for you to be able to do many research projects and publish multiple papers. Currently, I have four students doing research with me and I also collaborate with other professors in my school and other universities. So, collaboration also helped me to be able to get more research output. Also, I read a lot to understand current research trends, identify gaps, and then try to create something novel to fill the gaps. As research results come out, I take students to conferences to present and prepare papers for publication afterward. I believe there is time for everything, so I maintain a work-life balance. I have time to spend with my family, visiting places and spending time playing with my kids. I just have a principle to focus on whatever I need to do and attend to other things later.

Part of the reward is recognition of my work, like the Excellence in Research and Teaching Award I received in the overall Pitts system, which is great and highly competitive. Also, my campus shares news and publishes my successes with my students.

As a professor, how do you mentor students, and what is your mentorship philosophy? How do you measure mentorship success?

First, mentoring is work, as it requires time, patience, and applying different methods and pedagogy to train students. My goal is to be able to communicate science to my students and give them a platform to become what they want to be. So, it’s always exciting for me when my students can take the techniques, the spirit of excellence, and commitment and it reflects in their work. That will position them well for whatever they want to do, either going to medical school or graduate school. Also, honesty is the first thing I require of students who come to my lab. This is because honesty is required to be a scientist. Therefore, they don’t need to manipulate or make things up but report whatever results they get from an experiment. I also teach them to work hard and not be afraid of making mistakes. Because they are undergraduate students, I train them through examples and demonstrations and allow them to try it out even when their hands are shaky. My goal is to transform them from being dependent to independent. After they are gone, many of them send thank you emails for the training, and I write them strong references when needed.

One of the ways I measure my success is to see my students being successful by fulfilling their goals in life and being where they desire to be. This brings me joy. Sometime last year, I visited a lab at West Virginia University, where I met a former student from Nigeria who is now a postdoc in that lab. Seeing my students succeed brings me joy, which is how I measure mentorship success.

Any final words for Black students and early career scientists?

To Black students and early career scientists: Be strong, courageous, and believe in yourself. You have the best in you; therefore, be confident in expressing that and reaching your greatest potential by acting it out. Disprove any labels or stereotypes by doing your best to shine. Also, mentorship is very important. Seek opportunities to connect with mentors and climb on their shoulders to reach your goals. Lastly, explore opportunities directed toward minorities and take advantage of them.

About the Author:

Blessing Olabosoye is a member of the Early Career Scientist Career Development Committee and a Graduate Student and Graduate Assistant at Iowa State University.

Learn more about the GSA’s Early Career Scientist Leadership Program.

The GSA team welcomes Vincent Price, PhD, as the new Early Career Leadership Program Editor! Vincent is a talented editor with years of experience under his belt as a consultant and published author, alongside a number of years teaching English and French at secondary and post-secondary levels.

Can you tell us a little bit about your background and your career trajectory? 

I was born and raised in Vicksburg, Mississippi—a city that people know because of its role in the American Civil War or because they drive through it on their way to a more exciting location. My two older sisters and I were raised by our mother in a literate environment. In just about every room you entered, there was a bookshelf spilling over with books or word games. From my mom’s attention to detail and presentation to the multiple educators in the family, we were raised to represent ourselves and our people well in whatever we do. I took to enjoying words and writing, eventually becoming an English teacher. With my BA in English, I spent five years teaching English and French in my hometown, and I even took a few students abroad to see the world beyond Mississippi. 

Representation was important to me, and my five years of teaching showed me that African American literary representation could be stronger in the English classroom. So, I entered graduate school determined to find a way of bringing more African American literature into the classroom. Through the pursuit of my master’s and doctoral degrees, I grew as a thinker, teacher, and writer. My perspectives on teaching and writing shifted, thereby evolving how I approached them. After graduate school, I was both a classroom teacher and a copy editor/writing consultant, encouraging others to read like writers and write with the reader in mind. I’m currently an assistant professor at the University of Central Arkansas where I train future educators to enter the classroom. My editing business, which started during my doctoral journey, has expanded to offer multiple avenues of quality writing support to graduate students and professionals. Now, between my role as a scholar and a writing consultant, I’m finding fantastic opportunities to sharpen my writing for publication and help others do the same.

What are you most looking forward to working on in your new role?

Writing makes me smile. Talking about writing makes me smile even more. It’s my zone. Therefore, when I’m in a position where I get to discuss writing with others, what could be better? The teacher in me is looking forward to showing others how to strengthen their writing and have fun while doing it. I’m looking forward to the smiles of burgeoning confidence and the moments of newfound clarity from the members I’ll be working with. (And yes, I ended the sentence with an infinitive!)

What about teaching writing and editing do you find most inspiring?

I entered into the editing/writing consulting business partly because I realized that some people lack confidence in their writing. Producing strong writing isn’t beyond them; they simply need support. Some folks even need the “okay” to break the limiting “rules” that they learned in school. I enjoy watching the confidence grow in writers. With each piece of writing, they become stronger not only in how they express themselves on paper but also in how proud they are of their growth and accomplishments.

What’s one piece of advice every early career scientist should hear?

Don’t be afraid to experiment in your writing. If you never try new things, your writing won’t grow. So as you read, read like a writer by paying attention to what other writers do. That way, you can then try it out for yourself.

What would surprise your undergraduate self about your career path so far?

“What?! You’re not still teaching in high school?! What?! You’re a published author?! WHAT?! And you have your own business where you get PAID to edit?!” My undergraduate self then faints.

How have your mentors played a role in your career journey?

Multiple people in my life have spoken me into where I am now. From family members and friends to teachers, professors, and colleagues, folks have encouraged me to keep going and to keep pushing the limit. I oftentimes did not see what they saw, but ended up right where they said I would be. I not only am grateful for what they saw and still see. I welcome it.

What professional accomplishment are you most proud of?

I am most proud of the longevity of my editing business, which I started out of financial need. Six years later, it’s still going strong, cruising on word-of-mouth advertising. It had humble beginnings for sure, but along the way, I’ve grown as an editor, writer, and business owner. I never would have imagined it.

What’s your idea of a perfect weekend?

My perfect weekend would be a weekend away on a Floridian coast with my wife and family. The sun is shining, the smiles are beaming, and the mood is full of joy. If this is a perfect weekend, money would not be a concern of course. So we would explore the food and activities of our surroundings to our hearts’ content.

Kellyann Jones-Jamtgaard is a Biological Sciences Specialist at the USDA, where she supports education grant programs. Here, she talks about her passion for communicating the value of science to society and how that led her to pursue a career in science education and policy. 

In the Decoding Life series, we talk to geneticists with diverse career paths, tracing the many directions possible after research training. This series is brought to you by the GSA Early Career Scientist Career Development Subcommittee.

Kellyann Jones-Jamtgaard is a paragon of a successful science career shaped through volunteering opportunities and network building. She earned a PhD in Microbiology from the University of Kansas Medical Center. During graduate school, she engaged with students in local K-12 schools at outreach events and encouraged them to explore STEM careers. She aspires to be a role model for the next generation of STEM professionals by breaking down barriers and making science more inclusive. 

After completing her PhD, she joined the education non-profit Partnership for Regional Educational Preparation – Kansas City (PREP-KC) as the Career Academies Liaison. At the same time, her interests in science policy enticed her to apply to the Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Graduate Fellowship Program, where she was a part of the 2017 fellows cohort. She was also appointed to the Kansas City Health Commission through her leadership in public service and healthcare advocacy. 

Currently, Kellyann continues to broaden her knowledge and skills in science policy through her position at the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), where she supports the education grant programs for institutions committed to improving the representation of minority groups in food and agricultural sciences. She manages the peer review process of grant applications and helps grantees manage funds and achieve their project goals.

What motivated you to choose a career in science education and policy? 

When I started grad school, I was focused on finishing my PhD, doing a postdoc, and then becoming a faculty member somewhere. Halfway through, I asked myself, “Is that really what I want to do when I graduate?”

I did an individual development plan to assess my strengths, weaknesses, and career interests, which prompted me to explore careers in science education and policy. At the same time, I was involved with several student groups and organizations in my university and volunteering at local schools. I really enjoyed the interactions and challenges outside of the lab. Those were my passions that fuelled me and gave me the greatest joy! 

While I still loved my research and being in the lab, it became difficult to keep going from experiment to experiment and dealing with failures, especially when I had interests outside of the lab. I still wanted to utilize the skills I gained as a scientist to encourage and help students learn about different STEM careers because being in the lab isn’t the only way to be a scientist. I wanted to communicate the value of science to students, the public, and policy makers.

How did your interactions with students at local schools inspire you?

I was primarily engaging with low-income students of color, specifically girls. When I was working with students, I would see myself reflected back at me. I grew up in the Bronx, New York. I’m a first generation American and my parents are immigrants from Guyana. I was the first one in my family to go to college and earn a PhD. A lot of the life experiences I had were very similar to the students I was serving. I wanted to find ways to motivate them, and to let them know that if they wanted a career in health or science, they could achieve it regardless of the barriers they may have faced. I benefited a lot in my career from mentorship opportunities for underrepresented students and I wanted to bring those same opportunities to the students I served, because I see myself as a success story of those types of opportunities.

Which experiences in graduate school helped you prepare for your career in science education and policy?

I volunteered with PREP-KC, a non-profit organization that provides educational opportunities to students from underrepresented and low-income backgrounds. I also participated in community health fairs and reading programs through local organizations. I worked with the Student Government and the Graduate Student Council as vice president and president, respectively. I was also very involved with the Student Diversity Council, which championed diversity amongst students on campus and created events for students to engage in efforts to increase diversity and inclusion. Those experiences taught me how to run a meeting, interact with students outside of my program, interact with faculty, become comfortable with public speaking, and be the face of an organization. These experiences also led to mentorship opportunities with staff and students. Every opportunity that I took advantage of as a graduate student, led to other opportunities and advanced my career.

How did networking help in your job search, and can you share some tips on building connections?

Throughout graduate school, I was constantly networking and was able to gain some inside information about different opportunities that helped me tailor my applications and my interviews to be successful. For example, I was mainly able to get my first job at PREP-KC, because they already knew me and my passion for science through my volunteering work there. My application to the Christine Mirzayan Science Policy Fellowship was strengthened through the interactions I had with the alumni of that program at scientific society meetings and science policy panels. 

As a graduate student, it was intimidating to email someone without knowing them. I started by attending a lot of networking events and reaching out to people by saying that I heard them speak at an event and their words really resonated with me. This made it much easier to then convey my interest in learning more about their career path and if they would have some time for a phone call or to grab coffee. Everyone I spoke with was able to introduce me to other people in interesting career fields which helped me build my network. I maintain those networks now just by updating people on where I am or congratulate them if I see they’ve had a career accomplishment.

Why did you choose a position at the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), and what are your key responsibilities there?

I was always interested in working for the federal government but I thought I needed to be in Washington, D.C. to be able to do so. My family and I are settled in Kansas City, and we’ll be here for the foreseeable future. When I heard about USDA moving some of its agencies to Kansas City, I considered it an opportunity to develop my career goals in science policy while working for the federal government. So, I followed updates about the vacancies at USDA through USAJobs.com and applied to the position of a Biological Sciences Specialist.

At the USDA – NIFA, I mainly support the peer review process. NIFA is the arm of the USDA that provides extramural funding primarily to land-grant universities, but also to non land-grant universities, small businesses, and nonprofits. When universities submit grants to NIFA, I help organize panels that review the grants and manage the process of getting the money out to the universities. I work with the grantees through the lifetime of their grants to make sure they meet their objectives and disseminate their great work to the public. In this way, the public is aware about the projects in food and agricultural sciences through NIFA. In addition to these responsibilities, I provide data to congressional staff and the federal government when they require information about the programs that we’re funding.

How have your various positions helped make science more inclusive? 

At PREP-KC, it was easy to achieve a more inclusive scientific environment because one of our missions was to work with students from underrepresented backgrounds and provide educational opportunities for them to succeed. I led most of our STEM programming and got to bring students on field trips related to health and science, and run internship programs for students interested in research or general science careers. 

At NIFA, I’m still pursuing diversity in science as the grant programs I’m involved with support Hispanic-Serving institutions, as well as Alaska Native-Serving and Native Hawaiian-Serving institutions. NIFA funds institutions that are providing opportunities to underrepresented students in food and agricultural sciences. Even though I’m not directly, one-on-one working with students anymore, I’m making science inclusive at a macro level by funding universities that are improving diversity and inclusion.

What aspects of your career do you enjoy and did you face any challenges?

The most rewarding experience for me is impacting society with the science achievements through public service, which has tied my two careers together. With PREP-KC, I enjoyed working one-on-one with the students. Now with the federal government, it is really about being a good steward of the taxpayer money we give out to universities and making sure that the discoveries and programs being implemented can benefit the people.

Some of the difficulties I faced were in leaving academia. A more prescribed career path for graduate students is to do a postdoc and apply for faculty positions. It is a lot harder to navigate your career path outside of academia. For me, it was hard to figure out what value I could provide to an organization and convince them of that value, especially when a PhD isn’t necessarily needed for the position. The unknowns of navigating a non-academic career path may be a little unusual or outside the norm. 

Do you have any advice for early career scientists interested in your career path?

Leaning into the uncertainty can be scary, but it can also be exciting! It is important to be OK with that discomfort and know it is a part of the process. Talk to as many people as you can, and learn about the variety of career paths people took to get to different places because no story is exactly the same. There is no recipe to get to a specific career. Be open to opportunities and go into things with an open mind, because you never know where the next opportunity for something may come from.

About the author:

Oindrila De is a member of the Early Career Scientist Career Development Subcommittee and a PhD Candidate in the Department of Biology at Case Western Reserve University. She is passionate about making science inclusive and accessible to early career scientists with disabilities and leads the Accessibility and Disability Advocacy Group in the Early Career Leadership Program.

Learn more about the GSA’s Early Career Scientist Leadership Program.

In the Decoding Life series, we talk to geneticists with diverse career paths, tracing the many directions possible after research training. This series is brought to you by the GSA Early Career Scientist Career Development Subcommittee.

Kailene Simon is a scientist not just driven by passion, but by cause. When she was in high school, she lost her grandmother to the rare disease scleroderma. Her curiosity to understand the disease, passion for science, and urge to serve society eventually led Simon first to Genzyme, now part of Sanofi, a Boston-based company with a strong reputation in the rare disease community, and then to Atalanta Therapeutics, a startup company focused on developing siRNA-based therapeutics to treat neurodegeneration.

Simon started at Genzyme as a research assistant immediately following her graduation from Providence College, where she obtained an undergraduate degree in biology. As an RA in the Bioanalytical Development group, she supported several rare disease projects, including one focused on scleroderma, but soon realized she needed to continue her education. Using a company-sponsored degree program, Simon was able to continue working at Genzyme while earning her MS from Tufts. As her career progressed, she again felt compelled to return to graduate school, this time for her PhD. 

However, unlike with the masters’ degree, there was no precedent in her company for obtaining a PhD while working full-time. Undeterred by this, Simon initiated an agreement with the University of Massachusetts Medical School which allowed her to pursue a doctorate in biochemistry as a full-time student while also maintaining her scientist position. After completing her PhD, she was offered a position as an associate director of in vitro biology at Atalanta Therapeutics, which was founded by UMass scientists Anastasia Khvorova, Neil Aronin, and Craig Mello.

What was your motivation for joining industry?

When I was in high school, I lost my grandmother to a disease called systemic scleroderma. The biggest challenge my parents faced in caring for my grandmother was finding a doctor who could identify her collection of symptoms for what they were—a rare autoimmune disease. By the time she was properly diagnosed, her disease had progressed beyond the point of treatment, and she passed away within a few months. We now know that with the correct diagnosis and treatment, patients with scleroderma can often have a normal life expectancy. But as is the case with many rare diseases, the limited research and treatment options that existed (especially in the mid-90’s) made her diagnosis and treatment particularly challenging.

Motivated by my experience, I decided to attend PC as a pre-med/biology major with the intention of going on to medical school. However, during my sophomore year an opportunity arose to work in the biochemistry lab of Dr. Yinsheng Wan that provided a view of what being a research scientist was like. Dr. Wan was a fantastic mentor and was the first to discuss a career in industry with me, something I had not considered until then. Admittedly, he did encourage me to consider grad school first, but I decided against it and began applying for jobs in rare disease research. The opportunity to be a part of improving the lives of people like my grandmother was incredibly important to me, and there seemed like no better place for this than at Genzyme.

Why did you decide to go back to school after spending so many years in industry? 

A few years after I began working in industry, I developed a sense of the gaps in my scientific knowledge. I was also working with two women in leadership positions in my group who both had PhDs, and I benefited from their excitement for science. At that point, I decided I needed to go back to school. I took advantage of their tuition reimbursement program and applied to a part-time master’s degree program at Tufts. This allowed me to work during the day and take one class at a time in the evenings until I had completed my degree. 

My PhD happened a few years later. After years of following the leadership of some wonderful scientific directors, I felt confident in what I knew in the field of biology and what I could contribute, but I also knew I still had a lot to learn. When working with my colleagues with a PhD degree, I always felt an inherent difference in their thought process compared to mine. They could think more critically about the trajectory of their work or the rationale behind choosing one therapeutic modality over another for a given patient population or target. In industry, these factors are what make a program successful.

Why did you decide to pursue a PhD while also working a full-time job?

As I was finishing my master’s degree, my husband Andrew (a fellow Genzyme scientist) and I got married and bought a house. Around that same time, I began to think seriously about pursuing a PhD, a career goal of Andrew’s as well. However, because we had just purchased a house, giving up both salaries in lieu of grad school stipends was not an option. And despite having the support of my immediate supervisor, conversations with our leadership team about the possibility of working toward the PhD while at Genzyme were understandably met with skepticism. So, after much discussion, Andrew and I collectively decided I would stay at the company, while he would go back to school full-time with the understanding that once he was finished, I would return as well. 

A few years after Andrew went back to school, we welcomed our son, Bennett, which coincided with Sanofi’s buyout of Genzyme and a major reorganization of the company’s leadership. Two years after that, with Andrew still engaged in his thesis research, we found out we were expecting again, and this time we were having a girl. The news that we had a daughter on the way suddenly made getting the PhD seem much more urgent. I realized I never wanted her to ask why her father had a Ph.D. but her mother did not. I also knew that if I were going to return to school, I needed to do it right away, or I likely would not do it at all. And since we relied primarily on my salary, I had to find a way to hold onto my full-time job.

So, after discussions with our parents about what it would take for us to pull this off (and them offering their unwavering support in all possible ways), and at six months pregnant, I went to the dean at the University of Massachusetts Medical School to ask about the possibility of doing a PhD while also working full-time. To my relief, he was supportive and excited. On his side, he convinced the associate dean of the graduate school and the dean of admissions for their support. On my side, I went back to Genzyme (now Sanofi), to ask for their support to build this collaboration of sorts, so I could keep my salary. Unfortunately, unlike with my master’s, there wasn’t a lot of precedent for doing a PhD while holding a salaried position. There were some programs for executives, which I used as an administrative loophole to get an inroad, but I was the first to ask for the opportunity to combine my work responsibilities with a doctoral program. There were so many factors at play – who would own the IP? (Sanofi), would UMass pay me a stipend? (no, but I did keep my salary and benefits from Sanofi), what happened if the company decided to terminate my project (too bad!) After a lot of back and forth with the Sanofi lawyers, they gave their approval for me to work on a discovery research project that supported a drug discovery program at Sanofi, but that was funded with grant money from a third party. Three days before I went on maternity leave, I signed a contract with our head of R&D that gave me permission to move ahead with this arrangement. A few months later, I interviewed for and was accepted to the graduate program at UMass, and when my daughter was eleven months old, I started the PhD program. 

You had two kids before you joined the PhD program. How did you balance your life and work? 

I started graduate school when my children were just shy of turning one and three, and life became more hectic than ever. In many ways, my academic schedule was the same as every other student. I was, of course, expected to take all the classes required by my PhD program, including the career development courses, while doing rotations and my thesis work. Yet I was also expected to fulfill my obligation to Sanofi to maintain my position there. This often meant going to class in the morning, then heading to Sanofi by noon and working late in the lab. Whenever possible, I would make it home in time for a late dinner with Andrew and the kids (who became experts at the flexible schedule our situation commanded), and after dinner we would put the kids to bed, and we would both sit back down at our computers to study or analyze data. It was a challenging schedule but having a partner who was willing and able to share the childcare responsibilities equally made all the difference. We were fortunate that my first few years back in school overlapped with his last few, so we had the flexibility of his grad school schedule to make things easier. I also had the advantage of my experience as an industry scientist, which helped a lot. I had been in a lab for 15 years at that point and I had developed good time management and project management skills.

Once the first year was over, my course load got easier, and we found ourselves in a good routine. But no matter how well we managed our days, we could not have done this all alone. We relied heavily on my parents, who provided two days a week of childcare for us. And every week, my parents kept the kids for an overnight so there was always one night (usually Thursday) where we could work late in the lab guilt-free or even sneak in a late dinner date at a pub near our house.

In the end, it worked out, and I was able to graduate in just under five years. Looking back on the experience now, I am so glad I made the decision to go back for my doctorate. It was tough, of course, but for our family, it was worth it. And while I know that this path wouldn’t be the right fit for everyone, it feels great to know I didn’t have to choose between having a family and having the career I wanted. More importantly, I am grateful that with the support of UMass, I was able to be an example for what it looks like to invite industry into the world of academia and create a collaborative relationship in the process.

What prompted your move to Atalanta?

After I graduated with my PhD, I was ready for the next step in my career. By that time, I had been at Genzyme/Sanofi for about 18 years, and it felt like the right time to move to a completely new environment. I had begun considering my options when a friend from school reached out to me to discuss a potential opportunity with a startup company she was helping establish with her PI at UMass, Anastasia Khvorova. She connected me with the company’s CEO, Alicia Secor, and CSO, Aimee Jackson, and after speaking with them I knew this was the best place for the next phase of my career. The opportunity to work at a company with a founder who has been such a force in the field, and for a leadership team of such talented women, was something I couldn’t pass up. I was employee number 13 at Atalanta, which meant having the opportunity to help build the science organization alongside some amazing scientists. I started the position in February of 2020. Building a lab from scratch during a pandemic was incredibly tough, but my team is fantastic. They, along with the rest of our company, are all working very hard, very quickly, and we are making exciting progress!

I was so fortunate that the right people took a chance with me—first at UMass, then Genzyme, and now at Atalanta—and it has made all the difference. After twenty years in this field, I have finally gotten to where I want to be.

About the author:

Ruchi Jhonsa was a liaison on the Early Career Scientist Career Development Committee. Currently, she is an account manager at Absorption Systems, Philadelphia. She strives to educate young scientists about career development and is passionate about writing new scientific developments from academia and industry. 

Learn more about the GSA’s Early Career Scientist Leadership Program.

In the Decoding Life series, we talk to geneticists with diverse career paths, tracing the many directions possible after research training. This series is brought to you by the GSA Early Career Scientist Career Development Subcommittee.

Neal Lemon currently serves as the Associate Director of Technology Licensing and Corporate Outreach for the Penn Center for Innovation and Perelman School of Medicine. He is focused on commercializing innovation with a particular emphasis on medical technologies and therapies. He has an MBA in International Business and a PhD in neuroscience. Neal switched between business and biology a few times before finally settling on technology transfer, where he can intersect these two interests.  

What does a job in technology transfer look like? 

The main focus of technology transfer is to interact with faculty and explain how they can take their ideas, experiments, and intellectual property to a state where they can be developed into something that can be sold as a product or service. Usually, this is accomplished by getting invention disclosures, protection through patents, and often either starting a company or licensing to a pre-existing company. Half of the job is interacting with the university community, faculty, and students, while the other half is interacting with industry. This is quite interesting because you can have a foot in the university and a foot out of it. You can gather a sense of early stage research in universities as well as the trends and what is required to turn intellectual property into something people can use. As a part of the bridge between universities and industry, there are options to partner with an existing large company to sponsor additional research and further advance intellectual property to the point of licensing, or even into a startup. 

How did you come into your current position?

I did my undergraduate degree in biology and psychology, and I was really interested in neuroscience. Following undergrad, I continued with a medical research council scholarship in Canada, where I did neuroscience research for two years. I decided to stop after two years and complete my master’s instead of continuing to do my PhD. The work was very focused, and I wasn’t really keen on doing one specific type of research long-term. I decided to do an MBA at the University of Victoria and Handelshochschule (HHL) in Leipzig, Germany. After that, I took a position at Hewlett Packard working in finance. During this time, I found that what I really wanted to do was combine my neuroscience and business backgrounds. At that time, however, there weren’t many opportunities at that intersection. 

I took a job at a bioinformatics startup and found myself at a decision point between continuing in finance or trying to go back to working in science. I was interviewing with people in both fields but decided to go back to Germany to the International Graduate School of Neuroscience to get my PhD. Following graduate school, I went back to Canada for a postdoc before taking a job between academia and industry working in commercialization. This brought me to my first position in technology transfer, where I have been since. 

How do you use the skills that you gained in your academic training specifically in this position?

There are two different aspects to the application of academic training: knowledge and skills. The knowledge aspect of the training, especially on the neurophysiology side, is understanding material that is critical to interpreting invention disclosures and speaking about them knowledgeably. Everyone in technology transfer has an area where they are an expert, which is usually aligned with their PhD. It’s enjoyable to be able to dig deep into those topics.  

The other aspect is the skills you develop while doing a PhD. If you think about when you started your PhD and the material was all new, the ability to educate yourself was very important. You develop the ability to search through PubMed and extract the information you need. In technology transfer you are doing the same thing, looking through patent records and commercial databases. So in this position, you need the skills to be able to learn by yourself. 

What characteristics make you good at your job in technology transfer?

In many scientific career paths, you need to have a combination of curiosity and discipline. At least professionally, I think I have both of those characteristics. It’s debatable sometimes which trait is more important to make a good researcher. Is it more important that the person is disciplined or has a sense of curiosity? They intersect, though, as you also need motivation for discipline. Personally, I like to understand how things work and how to make things work better. I am interested in society and capitalism and how they work, and how ideas become realities. I think that level of curiosity to dig into the processes and systems of commercialization, in addition to the details of the technologies, is important for a job in technology transfer. However, like with everything, you need the discipline to not just find out interesting things but also use that knowledge and work to benefit others. 

How does your life outside of your career influence your career?

You can work very long hours in this job. You also need discipline in saying “enough is enough.” The great thing about this position is that you should never be bored. There’s nearly an infinite amount of work to do through transactional work as well as the research side. Like in a lot of other careers, you could let it totally consume you, but it is important to have a life outside of work. When you’re finished working on something, it is good to take time to do something else so you don’t burn out. You could work 24/7 and feel that you continue to add value, but you get diminishing returns at a certain point. 

How has your network shaped your career?

I’ve built a few different networks through my professional life, research, and business school. It is interesting to think of the Venn diagram of my networks, because I believe there is little overlap. I think this is good because I have a network of friends and professionals in technology transfer who have similar interests and abilities, as well as a network of friends that have no relation to the sciences or business at all. I even keep in contact with friends from college sports. 

If you are looking at where you want to go in your career and set your sights towards something, start walking towards that. On the journey, you will meet people with similar interests to form a network.

What advice do you have for early career scientists who aren’t sure what to do next in their career? 

Take an afternoon with a cup of coffee and a notebook, sit down, and think about what would make you happy professionally. What is really interesting to you? What kind of setting do you want to work in? Maybe it has nothing to do with what you did over the last five years at all, but take time to look into it. Then, see what concrete steps you need to take to do what you’re interested in. My advice is to take the time to think about what you like to do — don’t be paralyzed by the choice. Be prepared that you might go in different directions than what you’re doing now. 

About the author:

Abigail DiVito is a member of the Early Career Scientist Career Development Committee and a Graduate Student at the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently researching reproductive arrest and germline aging, and hopes to work in intellectual property.

Learn more about the GSA’s Early Career Scientist Leadership Program.

In the Decoding Life series, we talk to geneticists with diverse career paths, tracing the many directions possible after research training. This series is brought to you by the GSA Early Career Scientist Career Development Subcommittee.

CJ Neely is a certified career coach and Assistant Director of Career Education at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute. She has a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and was a postdoctoral fellow at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. While serving on the Postdoctoral Leadership Council at St. Jude, she found her passion for career development. 

What career did you imagine you would have when you were a graduate student and postdoc? 

I became interested in research early on as an undergraduate at Towson University. I was able to gain hands-on experience working in multiple labs while in college and loved it. One of my professors encouraged me to pursue a PhD, which I didn’t even think was a possibility. After applying and receiving multiple offers, I started grad school at UNC with the goal of becoming a PI at a primarily undergraduate institution (PUI). I wanted to inspire the next generation in the same way my professors did for me. However, at UNC I was enthralled with the research, and I didn’t think it was feasible to continue this type of work at a PUI. At that point, my interests shifted to being a PI at an R1 institution. 

 I then did a postdoc at St. Jude, where I was looking to develop new skills and improve my grant writing. I was strategic and went to a lab that had a history of moving postdocs into faculty roles. However, I found that my graduate school experience and postdoc experience were very different. In my graduate lab, I was the first grad student. I spent a lot of time training others in the lab, and I was encouraged to serve on committees and present at conferences. On the other hand, as a postdoc, my focus was to get the project off the ground and develop research independence. In the process, I realized I wasn’t really happy doing all of the things I needed to do to become a PI. This is when I started to look for careers outside of the lab that mimicked the aspects of graduate school I enjoyed the most. 

How did you decide to pursue a career in professional development? 

Once I realized there was a misalignment between my interests and career trajectory, I started to look into professional development resources. The only resources available at St. Jude at the time were developed by postdocs on the Postdoc Leadership Council. There was a role available as the Chair of Career Development, so I ran and was elected for that position. As the Chair, I created a career discovery series, where I brought in local PhD professionals to discuss their career paths and current roles in more detail. I found that a lot of the careers were interesting on paper, but when I learned more about them, they just weren’t what I was looking for. 

One day, our postdoc coordinator asked me, “What are you doing when you get lost in your work and lose track of time? What makes you feel built up instead of depleted?” It was everything that I was doing for the Postdoc Leadership Council. She reminded me that it was a real job! Before that, it didn’t click that there were people with PhDs who were working in professional development and academic administration roles. 

It’s interesting that from the beginning your interest in research was based in wanting to inspire the next generation, and that’s what you are doing now. 

Yes, just in a different way than I initially envisioned. I think that if I was more self-aware and listened to what I wanted to do instead of what I thought I should do, it wouldn’t have taken me so long to get where I am now. I needed to be honest with myself about my strengths and interests. While I find research incredibly fascinating, sitting at the bench or leading a research team is not where I am most fulfilled. It did take me a while to mourn the loss of leaving academia because I had invested so much time, and a lot of my identity was wrapped up in being a scientist. Even though I was ready to make the transition, it was a hard process to go through and likely why it took so long. 

Can you describe what you do in your position now? 

I manage a PhD Career Curriculum called OPTIONS. This involves program management, event planning, and building relationships with various stakeholders, such as senior leadership, faculty, alumni, and other PhD professionals. The other side of my role is providing one-on-one career coaching to early career scientists. Career coaching is about listening to the other person. Earning my career coach certification has taught me the importance of talking less, asking powerful questions, and guiding individuals through the process rather than telling them what to do. The goal is to empower early career scientists to make informed decisions and take action.

What skills have you brought from your graduate school and postdoc experiences? 

In graduate school and as a postdoc, I learned how to stay organized, manage competing priorities, lead an effective meeting, make persuasive arguments, and communicate effectively. All of these skills are essential to my current position.  

How were you able to balance pursuing and exploring your career outside of academia while you were fulfilling your duties as a postdoc? 

It’s not easy. The earlier you start the more time you can work on it. If you can take the approach of “the tortoise vs. the hare,” you can work on it slowly without committing a lot of time each week. For me, because I had taken on a career development role on the St. Jude Postdoc Leadership Council, there was a certain commitment to researching careers and developing relevant programming. So, I would work full time in the lab and then often spend another 10 hours per week on this extracurricular activity. I enjoyed it so much that I was probably putting more time in than I needed to. For me, that was a big indicator that I was tapping into something that I really needed to consider as a career. 

What are some issues that you see coming up for a lot of early career scientists while they’re exploring their career options? 

A problem I often see is that early career scientists don’t commit enough time to career exploration. They’re in a PhD program to become an independent scientist, so research comes first, and I wholeheartedly support that. However, you do need to take time throughout your training to really think about your next steps. Many early career scientists wait until their last thesis committee meeting when they have six months left in their program to start this process. At this point they are feeling so much pressure, it’s hard to think straight. It’s easy to take the “lowest hanging fruit”—the first opportunity that comes along. For example, some pursue a postdoc by default and then fall into a pattern where—three years later—they are no closer to figuring out what they want to do. By spending more time exploring career options, you can be more intentional and confident with your career decisions. 

What is your advice for people like this? 

Protect time for career exploration and professional development. If that means you need to add it to your calendar like any other meeting, do so. Also, most of us will have multiple “careers” in our lifetime. So rather than trying to figure it all out, let curiosity lead you to your next step. 

About the author:

Abigail DiVito is a member of the Early Career Scientist Career Development Committee and a Graduate Student at the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently researching reproductive arrest and germline aging, and hopes to work in intellectual property.

Learn more about the GSA’s Early Career Scientist Leadership Program.

Gonzalo Castro de la Mata works across disciplines to balance economic development and environmental conservation. Here we talk about approaching problems from different perspectives and making time to live while you work.

In the Decoding Life series, we talk to geneticists with diverse career paths, tracing the many directions possible after research training. This series is brought to you by the GSA Early Career Scientist Career Development Subcommittee.

Gonzalo Castro de la Mata has always been interested in challenges surrounding environmental management and economic development. This has led to addressing problems in environmental management from many different perspectives – ecological, economic, and financial. Throughout his career, he has followed opportunities and interests wherever they take him. Now, Dr. Castro de la Mata brings his unique expertise to the oil and gas industry in Lima, Peru. Dr. Castro de la Mata provides advice on following your passions and making time for yourself during your career. 

How did you transition from the world of research to where you are today?

When I worked with other biologists and conservationists at the World Wildlife Foundation we really thought we were changing the world. Then I went to the World Bank and entered a world of economists, and I realized how powerful the science of economics is. It was shocking to realize that my discipline had limits when trying to understand how things work. Economists look at the world in a very mathematical and logical way. I learned about economics by interacting with them and reading, and this helped me a lot. 

Another shock was when I moved from the World Bank to my own company, raising money in the financial market, and I realized the power of finance. Here I realized that economics is really nothing without finance, the engine of growth for the economy. Throughout my career I have found myself with people in other disciplines, and very quickly, I had to integrate and learn those other disciplines to be able to grow professionally. 

How has your career path differed from what you planned in graduate school? 

It is very hard to predict where you will end up. I think there is a combination of the opportunities that present themselves and what you really want to do. I have always chosen to change careers or jobs based on my interests and how the field progresses. I have not had a static career where I would say, “I am going to be in this position until I retire.” On the contrary, I am always looking for new challenges, and that really makes it exciting because I have never been in any given position more than three to five years. This means that you’re always learning and reinventing yourself.

I always wanted to work on international environmental issues, trying to find common ground between development, economic growth, and conservation of the environment. This theme has been pretty much the same, but I’ve been approaching it from very different perspectives. Whether that’s from NGOs that conserve the Amazon, from companies that introduce better environmental practices, from the world bank that has financed many conservation projects globally, or from a development perspective that takes into account the environment. 

What do you do to keep a good work-life balance? 

To me, owning your time is the most important thing to be able to control stress. I have always combined personal interests with my career. I have traveled extensively for work, to more than 80 countries, and I always add one to two days to each trip so that I can visit the country. I use that time to look at the art and architecture. Also, sometimes I block periods of time in my calendar  so that nobody can schedule with me. It becomes stressful when you aren’t able to own your time, and instead, have to fill your day with meetings. When you can structure your own schedule, it is much easier to combine work with other interests that are part of your life. 

It’s a huge mistake when people think they have to retire before they start to travel or pursue other interests. Your life doesn’t start after work, so you have to combine your work with other activities. I have lots of outside interests like art, antique books, and genealogy. Somehow I find time to do all of these things while being productive in my profession. You really have to pursue other interests in parallel and find the time to do other things.  

How do you maintain a good network? 

Never close the door and always think outside the box. More and more today the world is moving to be less sectoral, so the problems are no longer there only for a scientist or a lawyer or an economist alone.  When networking, don’t think that somebody that comes from a different background, a different country, or speaks a different language is not going to be a very important contact for you. You have to be really open-minded. Bring your business cards wherever you go, and keep those names because sooner or later you are going to need to talk to them, whether it is because you are visiting another country or need some advice. If your network is small, your reach is going to be small, and you might get stuck. 

What are the most rewarding and challenging things that you handle in your position now?

The most rewarding is mentoring people and helping people grow professionally. You have to make people feel confident in themselves. I do that by building from how they currently approach things and keeping a positive attitude with them. You need to make people feel like they can achieve more and challenge them. Then, give them the space to grow. 

A challenge for me is bureaucracy. Humans need to be more free to create and solve problems without having to adhere to arbitrary procedures. Always look at a procedure with skepticism. Ask yourself, “Is this really helping me achieve what I am supposed to do, or is it a barrier?” 

What is your advice for early career scientists having a difficult time choosing a career path? 

Try not to worry too much about choosing the right career and follow your passion. Do what you like. Do what you think is right, and make sure you come into work each morning excited about what you’re doing. If you do that, you will grow in that space, and then other doors will open. Life isn’t about working so that you can retire, but rather working and living at the same time. 

About the author:

Abigail DiVito is a member of the Early Career Scientist Career Development Committee and a Graduate Student at the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently researching reproductive arrest and germline aging, and hopes to work in intellectual property.

Learn more about the GSA’s Early Career Scientist Leadership Program.

Tracy Raines works at AgBiome as a project leader and strategist. Her scientific career spans academia and industry. In her current role, she oversees the company’s workflow while also working in business and partnership development.

In the “Decoding Life” series, we talk to geneticists with diverse career paths, tracing the many directions possible after research training. This series is brought to you by the GSA Early Career Scientist Career Development Subcommittee.

Dr. Tracy Raines is the Chief Innovation Officer at AgBiome. She has a long and inspiring career journey that has moved her from different roles in industry and academia. As a mother and accomplished scientist, Dr. Raines shared with us her passion for agricultural biotechnology and food security, obstacles she has faced, turning points in her career, and traits that make her an inspiring leader. 

How did you become interested in science?

I grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, in the very small coal mining town of Grundy, Virginia. When I was younger, there wasn’t a lot of exposure to different types of careers in science other than becoming a teacher, doctor, nurse, pharmacist, or veterinarian. I always knew I wanted to work in the biology field as I had a fondness for the life sciences. One particularly formative moment was when my mother brought home a microscope and I was enthralled by it. I put almost anything I could under it just to get a closer look. After graduating high school, I decided to go to Virginia Tech to become a veterinarian because I loved animals and biology. But my experience with medical sciences wasn’t as I expected. I quickly realized that I become too attached to sick animals and would be miserable as a veterinarian! During my final year of undergrad, I took a molecular biology lab and I really enjoyed it. I fell in love with molecular biology, and I knew that I wanted to continue to work with DNA.

What was the most important career decision you made that led you to your current position?

After I graduated from college, I looked for opportunities to work in a molecular biology lab and discovered a startup biotechnology company named Paradigm Genetics in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. They were a small company with only about 30 employees developing a high-throughput phenotyping platform to help determine gene function in plants. Working there allowed me to learn a multitude of molecular biology techniques—far more than I could ever experience in a university setting. I also learned a lot about how genes function in plants. 

I worked at Paradigm Genetics for about four years. At that time, some colleagues started a company called Athenix Corporation, also an agriculture biotech company. I was eager to continue to grow my knowledge and experience, so I decided to join their team. As one of the first ten or so employees, we started in a small incubator lab at North Carolina State University and had very little lab equipment at the time. The excitement of building a lab, building a discovery platform, and building a team was one of the best experiences I have had in my career. I stayed at Athenix for about four years, discovering and patenting several insecticidal genes from naturally occurring soil bacteria. 

Those career decisions to join two different biotech startups were instrumental in my training because they let me see and learn firsthand how successful companies are built from the ground up. More specifically, it was very rewarding to play an integral role in developing a successful discovery platform and company from the very early stages.

After having worked in industry, how did you decide to return to school and pursue a PhD? What were the major obstacles you faced?

I wanted to get a more rounded education and have more professional opportunities, so I decided to go back to school to earn my PhD after staying home with my kids for three years. I attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and studied plant physiology under Dr. Joe Kieber, focusing on plant hormone signaling. I did a lot of gene knockout experiments in plants and looked for resulting phenotypes. These experiments uncovered the roles and functions of various genes within the cytokinin signaling pathway.

To be honest, it was a bit of a rough transition back to an academic setting. My lab mates  laughed at me because I had to learn how to do things at a much smaller scale compared to industry. It felt weird to step back and not have to do as many samples and to not use more modern and efficient equipment like multichannel pipettors.

I was faced with plenty of challenges during my PhD that made me think about quitting. For part of my time at UNC, I was a single mom. Juggling graduate studies and home life was daunting and tiring. I wasn’t going to give up, and I persisted mainly because I knew the training would open many doors in my career and enable me to achieve my goals. To be successful, I really had to prioritize and be efficient. A lot of the younger graduate students spent time socializing, having coffee, and going for lunch. I, on the other hand, just had to be really regimented to get everything done in a day because I had to go home at a certain time to take care of my kids. Fellow graduate students and postdocs would often say, “You are here from nine to five, but you get more done than we do.” Through my PhD training I learned to work efficiently and to stay focused on what needed to be done, which still benefits me to this day. 

What do you enjoy most about your job?

I’ve been at AgBiome for four and a half years. This was a very small company when I started and now we have about one hundred employees. I lead a partnership with a large seed company and work with a large group of people from multiple disciplines—from bioinformatics, molecular biology, biochemistry, plant transformation, greenhouse, entomology, and so on. I really enjoy the opportunity to learn about the science and develop my leadership skills. I also enjoy being at a company that emphasizes teamwork to achieve company goals. It’s very motivating and rewarding to develop a product that will help farmers and have a positive impact on food production.

What personal traits helped you move forward in your career?

Ever since I was a kid, I have been very persistent. Life has made me face and overcome many challenges that otherwise would have caused me to quit science.

A second trait is passion. I really care about agriculture, and I don’t see myself ever moving outside of the field. I think agriculture is the most important area of science. We are facing a lot of challenges as the population grows and as the environment changes. To overcome these challenges, we’re going to need innovative agricultural solutions that come from research at companies like AgBiome.

What advice would you give to recent science graduates to succeed in Industry?

I would encourage early professionals to explore multiple opportunities, even if the opportunity doesn’t feel like an ideal fit. Also, don’t be afraid to try new things. You never know what you’re going to fall in love with and what connections you’re going to make. Your career is never a straight line; in fact, I think it’s more like a winding country road back in the Appalachian Mountains of my youth. Don’t be afraid of what’s around the next corner. It could be the opportunity you’ve been looking for. 

About the author:

Bernarda Calla is a member of the Early Career Scientist Career Development Committee and a Research Scientist at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is currently researching the cytochrome P450 gene family and its evolution, and she hopes to one day lead her own research lab.

Learn more about the GSA’s Early Career Scientist Leadership Program.

Guest post by Irini Topalidou, Senior Scientist at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Washington, Seattle.

I first met Martin “Marty” Chalfie in January 2004, when I visited his laboratory in the biology department of Columbia University to interview for a postdoctoral position. At this point, Marty was already a professor of biological sciences, studying the development and function of the nerve cells, using the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Four years later, he would be awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, together with Roger Tsien and Osamu Shimomura, for his introduction of GFP as a biological marker.

When I first encountered Marty’s group, I was surprised at how small but international it felt. The warm welcome I received and the intelligent questions asked during the interview made me think that Marty’s lab would be a good fit; the combination of friendliness and challenge felt right. I joined Marty’s lab later the same year and stayed for eight happy years. At a recent encounter with Marty at the International Worm Meeting in Los Angeles, I noticed how people seemed to gravitate toward him and surround him, listening in fascination as he told his favorite stories. This made me think that he might have some interesting insights to share with the world. He happily agreed to do an interview with me.

Marty, were you always committed to becoming a scientist?
When I was an undergrad, I tried working in a lab for a summer, and everything failed. I decided that I had proven to myself that I should never be in science. After graduation I did a whole bunch of other jobs. Fortunately, one of those jobs was working in a lab. There, the experiments worked, and I gained enough confidence to apply to graduate school. In grad school, my advisor, Bob Perlman, was the perfect person for me to work with. I had a desk right outside his office, and he would let me pester him with my many questions all the time. He was always available, and we were constantly talking and interacting. His intelligence, involvement, and friendship were and remain very important to me.

How was your experience working as a postdoc at Sydney Brenner’s lab at the Lab of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge?
Sydney had the view, especially with postdocs, that each was an independent scientist—a colleague. He never assigned projects; he let me be completely free. But I was not alone; I had lots of spectacular colleagues to talk to. We all talked continuously to each other, so there was no dearth of advice, suggestions, or help. I stayed in his lab for five years, but I had about one conversation a year with Sydney about science. Sydney was doing his own experiments and not even working with worms at the time. Frankly, I was in awe of him and a bit afraid of looking stupid in his eyes. But I knew that he was supportive, and I think, in fact, he liked that I was independently proceeding with my own experiments. Overall, I think this very independent postdoc was a very important step in my development as a scientist, building my confidence in directing my own learning, and developing my science by interacting with colleagues and being part of a larger group.

Sydney Brenner liked being a pioneer in science. What is your approach?
Sydney used to say—and I don’t think this is exactly true—that there were three ways that one could be involved in science. You can be the person that did the experiment that was the crowning touch—the answer to a long-sought problem (e.g., getting the structure of DNA). Unfortunately, opportunities to do so are rare. Sydney said he preferred to work in a second way, at the other end of a problem, and start a project. And he started an amazing number of projects. The third approach, which he somewhat disparaged, was working on, but not starting or finishing a line of research. I think he was unfair because working on problems and adding bricks to the wall often leads to new insights and new discoveries as well. Nonetheless, the idea that you can start projects that other people can pick up had a very strong appeal to me. Although I am certainly not in Sydney’s league, my lab has been fortunate to discover new types of transcription factors, channel proteins (including sensory transducing proteins), and cholesterol-binding proteins, and it introduced GFP. All of these things are wonderful. Other people have and, I hope, will continue to work and use what we have done, as we have done with others’ work.

Is there something that you miss from the “good old days” in science?
The answer is: yeah, I do a bit. I do look back fondly at the time I was a postdoc, but it’s not because of the particular era in science. At the LMB, where I did my postdoc, people loved to talk science; they were excited about what was happening. For most people, you go through a standard sequence of going to grad school, going to do your postdoc, and then going into an academic job. And of those three, the one that is the most carefree is the postdoc. There are no exams, you are not taking courses, and you are doing science but without the responsibilities that you are going to have when you are running your lab. So, of course, we all look back on the times we were postdocs with fondness. You remember it for the wonderful time that it was, even though some of the experiments didn’t work, you were often annoyed, etc. Life doesn’t become this wonderful Eden suddenly with the postdoc. But many people, including me, look back at those years with a sense of nostalgia. But then you remember all the good things that have happened in your own lab, and the nostalgia is not that strong.

Your lab group has a rather international character. Are you purposely selecting people who come from diverse backgrounds?
You take the people that apply and want to work with you, and I have been fortunate that people have come to my lab from all over the world. Each brings their own perspectives and points of view and their backgrounds, and I think that’s wonderful. But ultimately, it’s the science that is important, not where people come from. I want to know that people are excited about their science. I think it is very nice to have people from different backgrounds, but, by and large, the most important thing is how they are committed to science.

Is leadership interesting/important to you?
I’ve always wanted to have my voice heard when I was in committees or discussions in the department. I don’t think anyone likes to be dismissed as not being important. I’ve always enjoyed saying what I felt; sometimes it was completely wrong, sometimes not. I don’t have to be the leader, as long as my suggestions are reasonably thought about and respected. I think this is how you have to work with people when you are leading the group, too. Everybody’s input is important, and you want to share it.

I remember that you spent three years as the department’s chair. How was this experience for you?
Some aspects of being chair were really wonderful. One of those was that I had a little bit of power, and that allowed me to right some wrongs that I thought were happening. For example, in my department the chair decides who gets the merit raises. When I became a chair, I found that some people had been ignored for over 10 years who, in my opinion, had continuously helped make the department better. I could right this omission. What I did not enjoy about being chair was dealing with people who kept demanding more for themselves—the prima donnas. I don’t think I was very good at coping with those people.

How about being the head of a lab? Is this something you enjoy?
I love that other people are doing the work. I’ve never been a good person at doing my own experiments. I did that for some years, but I enjoy thinking about the problems much more, so I enjoy working with others in the lab. But labs don’t always run smoothly. Someone once told me one of the problems of being an assistant professor is that, “We are all asked to practice psychology without a license.” We really don’t know what to do. We are running a small business that has people with their own concerns and needs, and those are sometimes problems that we can’t cope with and need help solving. On the whole, however, I have really enjoyed having people in the lab, working with them and watching them develop.

Looking back on our relationship, one of the main characteristics is that we laughed a lot. How important has humor been in your life and scientific life?
Well, it makes it very enjoyable. I don’t think you plan to have a sense of humor. My father had a wonderful sense of humor. I probably got an element of it from him. Humor breaks down barriers. I have had a lot of strange, funny things happening to me, and I’m basically a storyteller, so I enjoy telling these stories. I don’t know how science would be if I was serious all the time. It’s more enjoyable for me.

In addition to your love for science, you also have a love of music. What role has music played in your life?
My father was a professional guitarist, and I was the oldest of his three sons. When I was 12, my father surprised me by giving me a classical guitar, and the guitar has been my companion ever since. I don’t play it as well as I’d like to or as I used to, but I enjoy it. And I keep learning about the instrument all the time, especially now that I try to make up my own pieces. It’s a great way for me to relax. I have a travel guitar that I can take with me that no one can hear because it doesn’t have the body of the guitar. So I can sit in a hotel room and practice when I’m away from home. The guitar is an important part of my life.

I’d characterize you as a positive and mostly happy person. Where does this positivity come from?
It’s clear that the mask that I present to you is working! I’ve hidden all my anxieties from you. Something I think we all do. To friends, I’m not that private, but for the most part, if I’m worrying about something at home, I usually don’t bring it into the lab. But on the whole my life has been remarkably nice. I realized when the Nobel was given to me that the one thing this honor took away was my ability to complain, because I imagine people would say, “What does he have to complain about?” A lot of the time, I am happy. I do generally enjoy life, and I enjoy being with people, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have sadness in my life or that I don’t have concerns or anxiety. Over the years I’ve learned that I’d rather be a person who people enjoy being with. I don’t want to make it such that it’s hard on people.

You mentioned once that your favorite author is the Brazilian writer Jorge Amado. What fascinates you about his writing?
I discovered translations of his books in 1980, and I read everything available. His most famous book is probably Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands. Several of his books, including this one, divide people into two groups, which are personified by Dona Flor’s husbands. One is an almost wild man, usually poor, but living life completely and generously. The second, in the book it’s the local pharmacist, is very respectable, very staid, and not a lot of fun, but he gives her security. Together, they provide all the things that Dona Flor needs: security, a love for life, passion. Through all the books, there is this juxtaposition between the rich, arrogant people and the poor people that love life and help one another. The Amado book I like the most is Tent of Miracles. Amado’s opinion was that Brazil’s strength came from the mixing of races, not their segregation, and the book addresses this theme. At one point in the book, a plane lands in Salvador, and out of the plane comes a Nobel Prize–winning scientist from Columbia University! So I was particularly happy to be invited to Salvador several years ago and be the “second” Nobel Prize winner from Columbia to visit.

I remember the day that you got the Nobel Prize—how unexpectedly surprised we all were. But was it something that you knew or saw coming?
In 2002 Sydney Brenner, Bob Horvitz, and John Sulston—all good friends—were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine. During that ceremony, Bob Horvitz, a friend of mine since high school, mentioned GFP in his speech. He told me afterwards that he did that on purpose. It was very nice thought, and at various times since then other people told me that GFP was something that could be awarded the Nobel Prize. Now I’d like to say, if somebody tells you that they think that what you’ve done might earn the Nobel Prize and you are an idiot, you stay up all night thinking that the call might come! You do that once or twice and then you realize you’ve been foolish and you don’t do it anymore. Did I expect it to come? No. Would I have loved to have it? Yes. Was I happy that it did happen? Of course.

Has the Nobel Prize changed you as a person?
I’ve been able to do things I had not been able to do before. I’ve been given opportunities and because of that, I’ve done things. As a consequence of the Nobel, I’ve been on numerous scientific advisory boards. I’ve also been the chair of the US Academy for Science, Medicine, and Engineering Committee on Human Rights, and that has given me a lot of wonderful opportunities to think about something that I wish I had been involved with long ago. I have the ability now to speak out. But sometimes I wonder why I didn’t speak out earlier. Interesting ideas that I have now, I had them back then. Why wasn’t I more active? Now, somehow, I have permission to do them. Has it changed me? Yes, I do a lot more of these things that I wish I had done a long time ago.

I consider you as a relatively humble person. Has the Nobel changed you in that sense?
When I was an undergrad, George Wald had won the Nobel Prize. I read his Nobel Prize talk, and there were a couple of things I couldn’t understand. A professor of mine told me to go and ask him, since his office was a few blocks down. I said to him, “He just got the Nobel Prize; I’m not going to talk to him! I’m just an undergraduate!” “Don’t be an idiot; go talk to him,” my professor said. So I did. I don’t remember what we said, only that I lived through it. Thus, I have a feeling for the unnecessary barriers that can come up between students and laureates. As a result, I try to prevent those barriers from forming. I don’t, however, think I’m being that humble. I think that we imagine that people that get this award have the right to be annoying, but that’s not the case. I am proud of what I’ve done, but sometimes I think I seem humble in comparison to what people think I might be.

In your opinion, are scientists arrogant people? How do you deal with arrogance?
You can say this about any walk of life. All groups have people who are wonderful and some who are not so nice. I’ve been very fortunate to have met many scientists who make you feel good that you know them, and I have an exceptionally long list of people who I’ve looked up to and respected for who they are. Do I also know some stinkers? Yeah! Do I know some really arrogant people? Sure! But this happens, as I said, in all walks of life. No one likes to be belittled; no one likes to have their opinions pushed aside. We all like to be respected for who we are, and if that doesn’t happen, that’s a problem. I’m not sure that science is the problem.

How do you feel about model organisms in biomedical sciences?
I don’t like people using the term “model organism” because, to me, it’s too narrow of a description of what research organisms like Drosophila, yeast, zebrafish, or worms allow us to discover. The term “model organism” seems to imply that these organisms provide ways of investigating and modeling human biology and disease. While such modeling does occur and provides wonderful insights, it neglects the vast majority of things that we have learned and can learn from these organisms. With C. elegans, for example, we learned about cell death genes, RNAi, and microRNAs. So I prefer the term—and I don’t know who came up with it—of “pioneer organisms,” because they pioneer so much about what we know.

How do you feel about impact factors?
I hate them. A couple years ago, I visited two different research institutes in Europe, both had people doing terrific research. I talked with the directors and both said, “You know, this last year has been terrific. We published more papers in journals with impact factor over five than we have ever done before.” But when I asked them, “What was the science?” they both answered, “I don’t know.” They knew the numbers, but they didn’t know the science. It’s easy to talk numbers, but the numbers are meaningless. People don’t seem to have time to judge what people actually do; they want to see what journal the work is in.

What do you think about preprints?
I like them. I find it very encouraging that people are putting their articles on preprint archives like bioRxiv and letting the world see them before they go through all the nonsense of getting them accepted. People around the world are getting the chance to look at the science. I think that this trend is very important. The ASAPbio group (asapbio.org) started to get more people in biology to put their papers on preprint servers, and they have done a miraculous job. They have convinced all the journals that using preprint servers is the right thing to do, and virtually all journals have agreed to let manuscripts be posted on non-profit preprint servers. They have convinced NIH, Howard Hughes, and other funders to accept not only published papers or in-print papers but also papers that are put on bioRxiv as proof of productivity. And preprints are taken into consideration for hiring and promotions. I am excited about these developments because they put the emphasis on the science, not where papers are published.

I observe a lot of anxiety among young people about their future in science. Where do you think this anxiety comes from?
Where I think my generation may have erred is that we complained too much. I think that scientists, in general, love to complain. So, if you don’t get a grant, you get annoyed and let people hear your frustration. But think of the poor students that hear us. They don’t hear about the excitement of science; they are thinking, “Oh, the boss is having trouble! I don’t have a great opinion of myself; I’m going to have even more trouble.” I’m afraid our complaining makes our students and postdocs less confident in their abilities.

Often PhD students and postdocs have difficulties dealing with failure. What would you advise them?
I have a stock answer to this. It’s not good, but it’s my answer. When, during my postdoc, I started working on mutants defective in touch, two sets of mutants came out: the animals in one set were defective in developing the sensing cells; those in the other were missing a component needed for the actual sensing. And it’s been throughout my carrier that sometimes one aspect works wonderfully and other times the other aspect works wonderfully. So for me, one of the things of really coping with failure—and no one wants to hear this as a coping mechanism—is doing even more. Do two things instead of one, because one of them will work. Why are the students in the lab miserable, but the head of the lab is happy? It could be because the head of the lab has several students or postdocs working on multiple projects, and usually at least one is working. So working on multiple projects is a very useful defense against depression.

The real question is: When do you stop? When do you decide that you have actually tried enough and that the frustration in the lab is not something that you enjoy? And why should you torture yourself doing something that you feel frustrated with? I can’t make that determination. I don’t know when this point is. I probably let people go far too long when their experiments aren’t working.

What would you advise PhD students when seeking labs to do their postdoc?
Focus on the science, and come as a colleague to begin with. I often suggest to people that they can get almost any postdoc they want if they would write a proposal of what they are thinking about. They shouldn’t just write, “Do you have space in your lab?” Instead, write only two or three people saying, “I’ve read your work. I’m excited about your work, and here are the things that I would feel excited about being part of.” And tell them what are the next experiments that you would do from their published work. They might have done the experiments already, but it doesn’t matter. You are just telling the person how you think and what you are excited about. That is, I think, very important. After that, the advisor will ask the recommenders their opinion on the person and the applicant should go and ask the people in the lab and find out if this is the right place. But I don’t think it should be the right place because this person has a lot of funding or this person gets papers published in this journal or that journal. It should be, “How can I develop as a scientist? Am I going to enjoy it? Am I going to learn? How well can I work with these people?” These questions are very important.

What advice would you give to young faculties?
Basically, this is advice that I found useful: ask other people for help and concentrate on the science. One of the first things I did when I wrote my first grant was to give it to a senior faculty member to give me feedback. In general, I still do this. When there are things I don’t know about, I ask somebody and get their opinion. I think that, very often, people feel that they should do everything on their own. That certainly hasn’t been the case for me, and I benefited from that. In fact, just this morning, I sent an email to other Nobel laureates that were listed on a website of a meeting that I had been invited to, asking their opinion of the meeting. I routinely ask advice from others, and their input always helps me. I find people whose opinions I really respect, and I go to them. I think the most important thing in setting up the lab is going for the science, not letting other concerns distract you. In my experience, the people that really concentrated on their science tended to fare better than those who were concerned about networking or where their papers were accepted.

Does Columbia University have a system of helping young investigators?
We do have an official procedure where we assign every new member a committee of two or three senior faculty. Sometimes the committee also evaluates the person rather than advising them, but usually people find these committees useful. In addition, some professional societies have programs to help new faculty. Every two years, for example, the Society for Developmental Biology runs a “boot camp” for beginner professors. I’m very glad they do this. For me, it was always a very informal thing; I always went to the people I thought would give me good advice, and I asked them.

If it were up to you, what would be the first thing that you’d change in academic culture?
In general—and I think one feels this post-Nobel—I don’t like hierarchies. I think it’s better in a lab—at least for me—to interact with people as colleagues. Now, they might be colleagues who need to learn a lot of things, but respecting a person only because of a position in a hierarchy is detrimental to science. It’s been my experience that the very best grad students are people who act like colleagues and not students. We are working together as team, and this working together is the most fun for me.

Do you think that academia has become more difficult due to more competition and less funding?
When I became an assistant professor, they lined up at the door and they gave us bags of money and they said, “Please do what you want to do!” (Only in my dreams.) Doing what we do is not easy. We are trying to be the first people in the world to do what we do, and as a result, we fail a lot. It’s part of the game. When I get a paper that gets rejected, I swear at the screen, reading the reviews on the first day, but on the second day, I realize that the reviewers made some pretty good suggestions, although I hate that they did. Is there competition out there? Yes! Is there more now than before? Not so sure. Do I think things have gotten worse? Not really. NIH is not funding the top 27% like they used to. The percentage has gone down. But I really see some terrific science out there being done by a wide variety of people. What we need, of course, is to give more opportunity. People often talk about the golden age of cinema, and I realize that the present moment is always the golden age of science. We can do more experiments and consider more problems than people even imagined 10 or 20 years ago. We always have problems and have to deal with them. Life is not fair all the time. Nonetheless, I hope we can give opportunities to as many people as possible to see what they can do.

Stuart Macdonald is the Director of the K-INBRE Bioinformatics Core Facility, as well as a Professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Kansas. He points out the importance of mentoring in his career journey, from the UK to the US, and he discusses how he balances different aspects of his job.

In the Decoding Life series, we talk to geneticists with diverse career paths, tracing the many directions possible after research training. This series is brought to you by the GSA Early Career Scientist Career Development Subcommittee.

As a high school student, Stuart discovered his love of biology and knew that he would continue to study the subject in college. In high school, he was interested in animal behavior and ecology. Then, when he was an undergraduate at the University of Oxford, he became really excited by genetics and more quantitative and mechanistic aspects of biology. After his postdoc at the University of California, Irvine, he decided to pursue his career in the United States and joined the University of Kansas, where he currently serves as the director of the K-INBRE Bioinformatics Core alongside his faculty position. His enthusiasm for mentoring led to him becoming the director of Graduate Studies for the Department of Molecular Biosciences.

What is your role as the Director of the K-INBRE Core?

IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE) is a type of NIH infrastructure grant for states that historically have received low levels of NIH funding. The vast majority of the funds that come through the organization ultimately go to supporting undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral research. All of the INBRE programs have a focus on bioinformatics. 

My role in the Kansas INBRE is to support training in informatics, both at the undergraduate and faculty level. For example, in the last few years, we’ve been able to do things with RNA sequencing that can really inform research, but you may have never thought about how you would deal with data like that or the infrastructure to carry out the analysis. We provide those kinds of things. We have lots of nodes in our cluster, and we have a mentor—a doctoral-level bioinformatics specialist—who works directly with faculty and students to help analyze the data or train them to analyze their own data. Also, we’ve started to do undergraduate training work.

Can you also talk a little bit about your role as a Director of Graduate Studies for the Department of Molecular Biosciences?

Being the Director of Graduate Studies actually involves a little less hands-on training than I might prefer. I mostly get involved quite heavily in the admissions process, to make sure that the graduate program runs relatively smoothly. I am also the point person for the students who are having difficulties with, really, anything. Especially when important decisions are about to be made, such as before the end of the last rotation, I get lots of people talking to me, asking for advice about which lab to pick. I can give independent advice on what they might really enjoy. It’s a fun job, but it is more of an administrative role than a mentoring role.

What are the most inspirational or challenging aspects of your work?

First of all, it always stays interesting. There’s always something new to be thinking about! The best thing is that I get to work with lots of different people with lots of different questions about their professional development and science.

However, working in different environments is also challenging because now I have a thousand balls in the air. It does help to be pretty organized, which I think I am. I  have also gained some experience over time. Fortunately, it takes me less time to review a paper than it did a few years ago. Since I’ve been Director of Graduate Studies for five years, I now understand enough about the institutional system that when I don’t know how to solve a student’s problem, I know exactly who to call. The worst thing is that once you know where your own limits are, you then have to say no to anything outside of that. However, that becomes very challenging to do because often those things you’re saying no to are things that you might either really enjoy or you think could be important. Briefly, it’s fun for the same reason it’s problematic.

You did your PhD in the UK but pursued your career in the US. Can you tell us about your transition process?

My experience was probably smoother than lots of people, since I speak English natively. In terms of a lab culture, the way research works is quite similar in the UK and the US. So, it was a pretty easy transition to make. I struggled with the same visa regimes that everybody does. Before I moved to the University of Kansas and eventually got a green card, I was on an H1B visa for a few years and a J1 before that. The problem is that the J1 visa only runs for a year, so you have to go back to your home country, spend several hours in the US Embassy and hope that you will get your passport soon. There was a time when I was due to fly back, and my passport arrived the morning of my flight. That was really scary. But those were really the only roadblocks. My transition was relatively straightforward—common language, similar culture to some degree. I think I had an easy ride, in all honesty. 

How has mentorship influenced your career, and what advice do you have for trainees on seeking out mentorship?

Mentoring has been really important for me over the years. My PhD was only three years in the UK. Hence, my experience level in comparison with a US person with a PhD was probably a little lower. But, my postdoc advisor was incredibly helpful from a practical and intellectual perspective. Toward the end, he started to really include me in the discussions about how grants get reviewed, how departments run, and how to think administratively about a faculty position.Those discussions were really helpful, particularly since I had no exposure to US granting agencies, because I couldn’t apply to anything as an international scientist. All that stuff was really valuable when it came to writing my first grant.

In terms of seeking out mentorship, firstly your PI is the person that you’ll go talk to for a lot of things. When you’re a graduate student, particularly in the US, the committee gives you this other set of people who are a little independent from your mentor. I think that’s a really valuable system because no one is going to have the perfect mentoring strategy. However, you should not just fill your committee with people who do the same sciences as you do; make sure there are people on that committee who you can actually talk to about things besides your specific science. There isn’t really a similar committee of people who work with you when you are a postdoc, so being comfortable seeking out mentoring is also important.

 Asking somebody for help is incredibly challenging because you don’t want them to see you as not being able to do your job, particularly in the first week after they’ve hired you. However, your colleagues want you to be successful because they have just hired you and they will want to help you out. Also everybody recognizes that when you start your faculty position or your postdoc, there’s lots of new stuff you’re going to have to do that you didn’t do in your previous job. When I first started my faculty position, I just found people who seemed to have incredibly functional labs and asked them about their secrets. I figured it would be really helpful if I got some advice, so that I could avoid making mistakes for the next year!

About the author:

Seyma Katrinli is a member of the Early Career Scientist Career Development Subcommittee and a Postdoc at the Emory University School of Medicine.

Learn more about the GSA’s Early Career Scientist Leadership Program.