A Scientist Who Gets “It”

This weekend, I stumbled upon an old post (from December 08) by Dr. Racaniello, a virology scientist, about why he blogs and why scientists should also blog and/or podcast.

I really enjoyed reading his post and I was very glad to have stumbled upon it, because his goals are perfectly aligned with the objectives I had when I started this website (Closing the Science Gap). Dr. Racaniello understands the importance of communicating science to the public.

Further, I think that his blog serves as a model to help both senior and junior scientists alike to use the web as a tool to share ideas and learn from each other.

I encourage you to read his post and also note the comments between me and him at the end of the post.

Do science skills translate into career options?

As my dates for defense and graduation are rapidly approaching, naturally, question marks have been popping in my head as to what the future holds for me. It’s no big secret that upon graduation, I will be taking a break (perhaps a permanent break) from bench research.

In hopes of getting a better understanding of what jobs are available in today’s economy, occasionally, I browse the “Classifieds” section for employment opportunities. One particular job posting intrigued me, but the job listing did not provide specific details for the job requirements.

Now, if I were to apply to that position, I was thinking, I can highlight a number of things that I have learned as a graduate student… critical thinking skills, troubleshooting, handling criticisms (from committee members and reviewers), communication skills (presentations and writing), etc. In addition, I have had a long standing interest and experience in web development and marketing.

However, I realized that while those skills are useful to a non-science job, I lacked industry-specific experience and knowledge, which is often what employers are searching for. Interestingly, this topic was somewhat featured in an article in a recent issue of Science Careers titled Transferring Skills Into Career Options.

The article highlights some of the challenges as well as presents potential solutions for postdocs who would like to capitalize and apply their sets of skills on alternative career options.

The bottom line is that working in the lab day and night will most likely fail to provide you with the necessary knowledge/skills to cross over to an alternative career. The solution is to get involved in different things that interest you. Not only will this help you learn about the specific sector, but this will demonstrate your interest in that sector.

In addition, as the article states, there is a number of professional societies that focus on helping and providing career advice to post-docs. If you are a post-doc, seek out professional societies from which you can benefit. However, do not just attend workshops to learn about the skills – get out of the lab and apply those skills.

While many graduate students and post-docs often times feel pressure to only focus on research and may be indirectly discouraged from pursuing other experiences outside the lab, I think more PIs are becoming more open-minded about this.

One final encouraging note (and I have heard this from many credible sources): the skills learned from being a scientist are often the core requirements for success in any field. Learning the industry-specific information can be done on the job.

Open Access for NIH-Funded Research

In April 2008, an ongoing debate has concluded when the NIH implemented the “Open Access” law, which requires NIH-funded research publications to be accessible to the public within 12 months of publication.

This makes perfect sense, since NIH funding originally comes from tax dollars… so why would the public have to pay again to read an article? Of course, generally, a very small percentage of the public would actually be interested in reading these articles, but this is a separate issue.

While exciting, I think this new law introduces a few questions. For example, how will this law be enforced and/or monitored? i.e. who will determine/verify whether the research was funded through NIH money or not. Also, how will this new law affect the bottom line for journals and publishers?

I think it will be interesting to observe as the implications of this new law unfold. However, it still stands that this new law is one step closer to bridging the gap between Pub-Med and the general public.

Collaboration for Young Scientists

A healthy collaboration in science can be a crucial element for conducting a successful and sustainable research program. By combining their different strengths toward a common goal, scientists can usually help one another reach their research targets more efficiently.

For young scientists (especially graduate students and post-docs), establishing collaborations can provide another set of benefits, which are discusses in Peter Fiske’s recent article in Science: Opportunities: Career Advantages of Collaboration.

In addition, in his article, Fiske writes about how to identify opportunities and what should you look for in a collaborator, if you are a young scientist.

ResearchGate: Closing the Gap between Scientists

In addition to trying to “close the gap” between science and society, one of our goals here is to bring scientists closer to one another to foster openness, cooperation, and collaboration.

I would like to invite you to visit the “Facebook” for scientists: Research Gate launched about 6 months ago. It is a great tool to meet other scientists in your field for discussion and/or collaboration, join groups, and much more.

Visit Research Gate, create a profile, and network with the other 20,000 scientists who are the ResearchGate community.

The Elegance of Scientific Research

In his editorial in the last edition of 2008 of Science magazine, Bruce Alberts highlights the most significant discoveries covered in Science throughout 2008.

Interestingly, he mentions that the two most prominent discoveries (cell programming and direct observations of planets 100 light years away) span the scale of 10^23 meters, which is a “breathtaking illustration of the tremendous reach of science” as Bruce Alberts puts it.

Despite these amazing discoveries, Dr. Alberts discusses an important aspect of scientific research: the unknowns are unending. These breakthrough discoveries are only the beginning, because they have certainly raised a whole new set of questions. In fact, one would say, that (especially relevant for the cell programming breakthrough) a new field has been born.

As I look back at 2008, even for my own research, I agree with Bruce Alberts that scientific discovery is definitely inspiring… I cannot wait to learn about what I as well as other scientists will continue to unravel in 2009.

Academia

With minor exceptions, academia is where almost all scientists begin their exposure to research.

Once upon a time, if you received a PhD, you are almost always expected to continue research in the academic realm.  While far from being perfect, many PIs and department chairs have come a long way to understand that academia is only one valid option.  It is becoming increasingly more acceptable that PhDs in science would pursue alternative career options.

There are other areas of academia, however, that we feel have flaws that we feel we need to highlight.  In fact, many of the “gaps” we would like to address through this website are due to the political system that has invaded our academic environment.

Read our latest blog entries about Academia…