Road to Technology Transfer

Career Story Blog Post By Weimin Kaufman, PhD, Licensing Manager at UR Ventures

When we were little kids, we seemed to know exactly what we wanted to do or to become when we grew up. Now that we have grown up, it turns out that it is so much easier to figure out what we don’t want to do or to be. As a graduate student or a postdoc in the life science space, the professional prospect now is not as straightforward as it had seemed. Professorship has become a rather rare event when compared to all the other career choices out there. Because of various reasons I will talk about later in this blog post, I decided to leave the bench in the lab after two short postdoc trainings. I hope the story of my career choice thus far can be an inspiration to you in exploring careers away from the bench. Every venture needs a plan, whether to guide its business operation or to present it to investors for raising capital. So do we as individuals! Our career is our own venture. I believe that every one of us needs a guiding plan -- not one engraved in stone -- but rather, a plan that evolves as we advance professionally.