Consumer products R&D might surprise you!

Career Story by Kurt Schilling, PhD, SVP Basic Science Research and Advanced Technologies at The Estée Lauder Companies Inc.

I don’t think too many people really know much about R&D careers in the consumer products industry.  Although I was partially aware of some of the work happening behind oral care brands during my PhD program at URSMD, I didn’t really know what I was getting into when I joined Unilever back in 1989.  After spending the last 28 years or so at Unilever, Johnson and Johnson and Estee Lauder, I can say without reservation that my journey has proven to be as exciting and rewarding as any R&D career out there. Why do I say that?

Your Career: A Work in Progress

By Melony Sorbero, PhD, Policy Researcher at RAND Corporation

Life with a PhD is not easy. You’ve voluntarily selected a life where the hours are long, and the hours are too long to move forward without some degree of passion.  So somewhere along the way you need to figure out what drives you - what revs you up? 

What I love about my job

By Stephen Dewhurst, PhD, Chairman of Microbiology and Immunology, and Vice Dean for Research, University of Rochester

One of my least favorite things in life is to talk about myself – or worse yet to act like I have some special insight or wisdom that anyone would give two cents (or less) about.  Its partly my upbringing – I’m English, and we just don’t go in for the self-promotional thing – and its partly my personality.

So when one of my colleagues asked to write about myself, I agreed only with considerable reluctance.  She asked me to write about several things related to my career: What do I do all day?  Why am I qualified to do what I do?  What aspects do I love most about my job?  I’ve decided to answer the last question, and let the others slide.  If you don’t love your job, then your qualifications aren’t terribly important.  So what is it that gets me out of bed in the morning?