Life is Hard: Keep Your Eyes Fixed on the Prize

Career Story Blog Post By Andrew Tomaras, PhD, Vice President and Director of Microbiology at BacterioScan Inc.

I was 3.5 years old when my sister was born with Down Syndrome, and one of the earliest childhood memories I can recall was being at the hospital with all of my extended family members awaiting her arrival.  Needless to say, it was not the typical glee-filled event.  During her early life, my sister struggled with multiple medical issues common in Down’s – she had open heart surgery at 6 weeks old, got pneumonia constantly (which always seemed to happen while on family vacations), and had to undergo speech therapy starting at a very young age.  The constant exposure I had to emergency rooms, doctors’ offices, etc. really impacted me in a way that I wouldn’t fully comprehend until later in life.  My interest in science, particularly in medicine and human disease, was undoubtedly fueled by these early childhood experiences.

Naturally I entered college as a pre-med major, and college was…..well……college.  I did alright, but definitely had my fun.  One of the core requirements for my microbiology major was to do a semester of laboratory research, which I did in the department’s ecology lab.  It gave me an awesome research experience, even though it wasn’t directly related to human medicine.  Now up until this point, I had been gung-ho for medical school, then suddenly this fantastic research experience completely threw my world into a tailspin.

Communications 101

Career Story Blog Post By Amy Donner, PhD, Director of Communications at RA Capital Management, LLC

A brilliant idea that cannot be communicated is no more useful than no idea at all.

Whether you aim to specialize in communications, manage projects, develop strategic alliances or run your own company, strong communications skills are an essential component of a successful career. If you are a good listener and writer, you already possess two important skills that set you apart from most scientists. Put your self-assessment to the test by considering the following question: Can you take the information you gather from multiple sources, turn it into a plan of action, and communicate that plan to others in a simple and comprehensible fashion? If so, congratulations, you are well on your way to a successful career. If not, what do you need to learn to get you to a ‘yes’?

Three Data Points: Two Cold Calls and One Connection, Plus a Hat Trick

Career Story Blog Post By Tracey Baas, PhD, URBEST Executive Director

I wanted to be included in the Career Story Q&A Seminar lineup to let URBEST trainees know that I accomplished getting one research job and one research-related job without having any personal connections. I wanted to represent one of the outliers. I used science-focused job boards and sent my resumes as online applications. While I do agree this method isn’t ideal, and I’m strong believer in networking, it is not impossible to make it work.

Job Lore: Brianna Sleezer

Brianna Sleezer, a neuroscience PhD graduate student in the Hayden Lab, is URBEST’s (Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training) first intern that has been matched with a host: The Children’s Environmental Health Network. Brie made things happen by connecting with Nsedu Obot Witherspoon, the Executive Director for CEHN, at a URBEST Career Story. Before Brie left for her three-month internship at CEHN, she agreed to answer some questions for URBEST Job Lore, a new blog category that will help guide URBEST trainees to find their own internships, skill-building activities and future jobs.

Evolution of a Company and a UR PhD Graduate Student

Career Story Blog Post By Ernest Smith, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer at Vaccinex

I entered graduate school in the summer of 1994, a couple weeks after graduating from St. John Fisher College with a Biology degree. I joined UR’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology, which afforded me a wide range of labs to work in. Over the following nine months, I did rotations in labs that focused on Immunology, Virology and Biochemistry. Even as a graduate student, I have always been more interested in developing new technologies than I have been in discovering new biology. I see discovery research as a form of detective work; you uncover the facts, follow the leads and present your case. You don’t change the facts; you just try to understand them. In contrast, I found inventing new technologies exciting because you are changing the reality and making something exist that didn’t exist before. Although building a knowledge base through discovery research and understanding biology well enough to intervene and treat diseases are both critical, I was most excited at the prospect of inventing technologies that are used to solve intractable biology questions.