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CSBN Seminar Series - March 29, 2006

Cynthia Robbins-Roth, Ph.D.

Her seminar focused on the many different career paths Dr. Robbins-Roth has experienced including consulting, publishing, bench science and much more. Here is the link to her Powerpoint presentation.

CSBN Seminar Series - February 15, 2006

Anne-Marie Stomp, Ph.D.

Dr. Anne-Marie Stomp is the founder of Biolex, Inc, a local biotech company that is focused on developing the next generation of patented, recombinant protein production technologies in a plant based system. After starting the company, she returned to NC State University and is currently Associate Professor of Forestry. During the seminar, she described what she called a "business world overview for graduate students." She took normal academic graduate student skills and applied them to the business world to show how graduate school can translate into the business setting by shifting views when trading to the corporate world.

In terms of starting a business, you need a problem statement, an agenda, an action plan and a resource management plan. She then took each of these and suggested what they are in terms of graduate student goals. For example: the problem statement in graduate school is to get a degree, whereas in a business it is to make money.

She went on to suggest that when you are ready to start a company, you have to keep the problem statement very accurate, the business plan finely structured and have confidence in what you are selling.
 

CSBN Seminar Series - January 18, 2006

Elizabeth Wolfinger, Ph.D.

Dr. Elizabeth Wolfinger was our first speaker for the spring semester, who talked about teaching at a 4-year college. During the seminar, she described going from a graduate student straight into teaching and her many experiences since then.

Dr. Wolfinger completed her traditional, competitive research PhD in microbiology at NC State University and decided that she did not want to pursue a post-doc, but wanted to switch from research science into teaching. With the help of her PhD mentor, she interviewed at Meredith College and was offered a position as a tenurable faculty member. Consequently, she became tenured and she is still teaching there today.

Her only teaching experience before joining the Meredith faculty was being a teaching assistant for undergraduate microbiology labs. She recommends getting as much teaching experience as possible if this is something you want to pursue. She also suggests asking faculty if you can be a guest lecture for one of their courses.

Some things she suggests keeping in mind when deciding if you want to teach at a 4-year college such as Meredith, is that research will no longer be a significant part of your career. Currently, she does research to use as a tool to educate the students. She is also involved in collaborations with groups such as the NC Biotechnology Center, Preparing Future Faculty, and Project Kaleidoscope. She is currently Vice Chair of Faculty Council and was Director of Faculty Development until recently. She likes to be selective in the committees that she is involved with, so that she can focus on things that are important to her.

Dr. Wolfinger enjoys working with students and faculty, and seeing fresh faces every semester. She also likes the semi-flexible schedule and the many different roles she has to take on. However, she does have time limitations, since she handles many different things, and also has to be flexible with things she has planned for the day.

She had some advice in writing a resume when applying to a teaching position:

• Grab the readers attention with the cover letter

• Get some quality teaching experience

• Describe a line of research that is possibly from your line of research that you can continue at the 4-year college

• Cultivate early for reference letters

• Tailor applications to individual schools

• If a teaching philosophy is required, keep it to one page

Finally, Dr. Wolfinger suggested that people wanting to teach at a 4-year college try a teaching post-doc program that has been established at some schools including:

SPIRE at UNC
FIRST at Emory
PERT at University of Arizona
PROF at University of California, Davis
 

CSBN Seminar Series - November 15, 2005

John Plachetka Pharm.D.

During his seminar, he explained the steps he took to create his own company and the management aspect of running his own company. Prior to founding POZEN, Dr. Plachetka had considerable pharmaceutical research experience, which he still applies today.

The concept of POZEN is to outsource ideas so that the actual research is contracted out, but the company itself creates the product.
Therefore, POZEN consists of 34 employees, each of whom owns a share of the company. Drugs that POZEN has helped develop include Trexima, which is being developed in collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline.

Dr. Plachetka's advice for those who eventually may want to start up their own business was that as an individual you need to be goal oriented, have integrity and an inquisitive nature, which is where the creativity for a company comes from.

CSBN Seminar Series - October 19, 2005

Dr. Allison Rosenberg was our speaker for CSBN's October seminar. She focused on her transition from experimental science to a career in science policy and her current role as the Associate Vice Chancellor for Research, Federal Affairs at UNC-Chapel Hill.

After completing post-doctoral research at the NIH and at Berkeley, Dr. Rosenberg was a congressional science fellow of the AAAS in Washington, D.C., where she worked with the Senate Appropriations Committee (http://fellowships.aaas.org/02_Areas/02_index.shtml), which opened doors to further job opportunities in science policy. She encourages anyone interested in science policy to apply for an AAAS congressional fellowship.

She reflected on her experiences that led to her current position, saying that although her background and training had limited overlap with her career in science policy and it was strange at first, science policy integrated multiple different skills: Scientific ability, political sensitivity, and drive and ambition.

Dr. Rosenberg also suggested that there are increasingly more opportunities outside of academia for life science graduates and that there is a shortage of Ph.D. level candidates in many of these positions. She said that she would not give up her Ph.D. training, and even though her own post-doc training was not relevant, she does not discourage people from pursuing a post-doc.

CSBN Seminar Series - September 14, 2005

Jennifer Fostel Ph.D.

Dr. Jennifer Fostel was our first speaker for the CSBN seminar series.

Her seminar focused on several types of research institutions at which someone with a life science background may work at:

ACADEMIC: Research creativity is in the hands of the researcher and depending on personal goals, you can progress to the position of principal investigator (more administrative duties) or research scientist (more bench work).

NOT-FOR-PROFIT-INSTITUTION: This setting provides a researcher with directed research. Since research is on a non-profit basis, there are fewer opportunities to branch out.

COMMERCIAL/INDUSTRIAL LAB: Larger, established company whose primary goal is to take a product to the market. Positions in this type of company include support scientist, principal investigator, or group scientist, with increasing amounts of decision making and administrative duties. The opportunities to reach the higher levels of administration depend on the infrastructure of individual companies. Team work is essential in this environment.

Other research settings that were also discussed were biotech companies (generally smaller, start up companies, more creativity, less job security) and government jobs.

Considering her own career path, Dr. Fostel advised that diverse research backgrounds were helpful in her own career when looking to move somewhere new. She also suggested meeting people at conferences and joining committees with other scientists in order to have a network of contacts when its time for your next career move.