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? 

I want to be a change agent for our children

By Nsedu Obot Witherspoon, MPH, Executive Director for the Children's Environmental Health Network

I want to be a change agent for equality, general decency, and overall protection of our most vulnerable...our children! I have had this same calling since I can remember...

On June 4, 2012, my dear Uncle, Professor Emmanuel Obot, was killed along with all other passengers in the Dana Airlines crash in Lagos, Nigeria. That tragedy has had a huge impact on our family and my view of my purpose in life. My uncle ran all of the 6 nature conservatories in Nigeria and was an internationally recognized environmental health leader, researcher, and advocate. His passing has provided me with an even stronger passion and desire to do all that I can to protect children from harm and uplift them to their full potential.

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?