Career Paths

Christine
Crumbley

Working Holidays & Resolutions

As a graduate student, it seems there is always work to do on holiday breaks. Last year, I only took a couple days off to spend with my family because I had to return to the lab to finish the suggested experiments for a publication. It was strange being in the lab because there were only a few peopl...


Wenny
Lin

Gifts and parties at the government

My roommate recently regaled me with tales from her pharmaceutical company’s holiday party, complete with lots of food and booze and entertainment. I was rather envious at the time because I was busy making baked goods for my office’s potluck holiday party.


Kate
Sleeth

Very Superstitious

While I am a very practical and logical person (well, aren’t all scientists?!). There is one area where I am a little quirky.  There are certain experiments where I am very superstitious, and I will always adhere to it so I don’t jinx the whole thing!  


Richard
Gardner

Academic networking, a key step in your career.

One of the most overlooked aspects of career development by postdocs and grad students is networking. In business, effective networking is absolutely essential for developing the trust and relationships that can open up new opportunities. When you are recommended by someone whose opinion I trust, th...


Maida
Taylor

Is life science really science?

Those of us working in the life sciences suffer in a world of probabilities, uncertainties, and incomplete evidence.  Students of the “harder” sciences, physics and math, may be right in their assessment that the only immutable truths are in pure mathematics. 


Christine
Crumbley

Enriching Your Graduate Student Experience

Today, I went to see David Baltimore speak. He has a paper coming out in Nature about vectored immunoprophalyxis, a new technique developed in his group to try to use gene therapy for vaccination against HIV. It was a really exciting talk! 


Richard
Gardner

The Beginning

Hi and welcome to my blog. I’d like to thank Bio Careers for the opportunity to lend my thoughts and opinions to career-related issues encountered by today’s bioscientist. My hope is to provide some new perspectives on what it’s like to transition through the ranks of academic science, and exp...


Kristi
Ashley

What are you grateful for everyday?

I just returned from a 9 day vacation in the Caribbean. Most of the time, we see the beautiful resorts and beaches that lure us to the islands.  What we don't see is the poverty and working poor struggling to make it every day. I had the chance to talk some local merchants and they discuss...


Maida
Taylor

The Black Swan: the Unprecedented Event (not the dumb movie with Natalie Portman)

I have become fascinated with rare and unpredictable events.  My interest was triggered by the book, “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable,” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a renowned financial economist.  The theory defines so called black swan events as the following (from W...


Jason
Sherwin

How do you actually fund the research?

There’s a joke in the research world that you don’t submit a research proposal to NIH until you’ve already done the research. When I was a rookie in the biomedical research world, and I was told this cinema vérité version of things, I thought in typical naïveté, ‘but how do you actually ...