Career Paths

Kate
Sleeth

Going where no one has gone before!

In my last blog, I spoke about selecting my summer teaching assistant and the various trials and tribulations I had.  Now, I am going to share with you the shining jewel of our time together which was one of the key reasons I hired her over everyone else. 


Thomas Patrick
Chuna

Do things that are helpful, not this.

Hello Everyone!I recently received an email that was personally upsetting to me. It was a resume and cover letter that was generated by one of those resumes “build and blast” sites that are all over the internet.It was upsetting to me, because the job seeker wasn’t getting the value he thought...


Virginie
Adam

It’s not what you know, it’s what you do

Last week I was chatting with some junior graduate students in my lab and the topic of careers outside academia came up. They had heard a vague rumor that a world outside the lab exists, but, being a little science-obsessed, they hadn’t really thought of their lives beyond their theses! Considerin...


Kate
Sleeth

Learning about the Disease you Study from a Different Angle

For the past 11 years I have studied cancer in one way or another.  I performed my Ph.D. research on the DNA repair mechanism Base Excision Repair.  I then performed research on Homologous Recombination, targeted radiopharmaceuticals and metastatic breast cancer (all were separate projects...


Maida
Taylor

Prescription Drug Crimes: True Lies

I want to do a small series on crime and punishment. I have mentioned before that I have a degree in Russian literature. I venture to say that most life science students have not thought about jobs working at the interface between the life sciences and the law.But there are a wide array of fascinati...


Maida
Taylor

Prescription Drug Crimes: True Lies, Part II

Why am I so interested in prescription drug crimes? Well, a long, long time ago in a city far away across the San Francisco Bay, I worked as an undercover narcotics operative. For almost 2 years, I bought prescription drugs from unscrupulous, unprincipled pharmacies and health care practitioners. Th...


Kate
Sleeth

Science: It’s a girl thing!

I had no idea that the European Commission had made a video to attract more women to careers in science before I witnessed the reactions of friends and fellow scientists in different social media. Within a few posts, I realized that either something must have gone wrong as scientists, both male and ...


Thomas Patrick
Chuna

The most wonderful time of the year?

Hello everyone!As I write this, the thanksgiving holiday was a few days ago.. I hope you all enjoyed yours, mine was a blast. As usual, I ate too much, but that is what holidays are for, right?Do you know what else the holidays are good for? JOB SEARCH. That’s what they are good for. I’ll get to...


Dr
27

The job search – resources for the search part 2

In my previous entry, I talked about the resources I used during my job search and how, for me, sites like Bio Careers® and places targeted to my discipline (a branch of structural biology) yielded better results than all encompassing sites like Monster or Career Builder. 


Kate
Sleeth

Being a Supervisor

Over my career as a scientist I had the opportunity to mentor a number of students; both as a graduate student and then as a postdoc.  Most summers I had one summer student who I dedicated time and effort to;  both in teaching my research to, as well as teaching the skills necessary to ass...