Career Paths
Maida
Taylor
Is life science really science?
Those of us working in the life sciences suffer in a world of probabilities, uncertainties, and incomplete evidence. Students of the “harder” sciences, physics and math, may be right in their assessment that the only immutable truths are in pure mathematics.
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Christine
Crumbley
Enriching Your Graduate Student Experience
Today, I went to see David Baltimore speak. He has a paper coming out in Nature about vectored immunoprophalyxis, a new technique developed in his group to try to use gene therapy for vaccination against HIV. It was a really exciting talk!
Richard
Gardner
The Beginning
Hi and welcome to my blog. I’d like to thank Bio Careers for the opportunity to lend my thoughts and opinions to career-related issues encountered by today’s bioscientist. My hope is to provide some new perspectives on what it’s like to transition through the ranks of academic science, and exp...
Kristi
Ashley
What are you grateful for everyday?
I just returned from a 9 day vacation in the Caribbean. Most of the time, we see the beautiful resorts and beaches that lure us to the islands. What we don't see is the poverty and working poor struggling to make it every day. I had the chance to talk some local merchants and they discuss...
Jennifer
Reineke Pohlhaus
How and when to ask for a raise
Responding to a reader’s request, I’m blogging today about how and when to ask for a raise. How: The most important thing to remember when asking for a raise is to be prepared. Know your accomplishments, and know your worth.
Maida
Taylor
The Black Swan: the Unprecedented Event (not the dumb movie with Natalie Portman)
I have become fascinated with rare and unpredictable events. My interest was triggered by the book, “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable,” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a renowned financial economist. The theory defines so called black swan events as the following (from W...
Jason
Sherwin
How do you actually fund the research?
There’s a joke in the research world that you don’t submit a research proposal to NIH until you’ve already done the research. When I was a rookie in the biomedical research world, and I was told this cinema vérité version of things, I thought in typical naïveté, ‘but how do you actually ...
Kate
Sleeth
Scientific Integrity
The Hippocratic Oath is historically taken by doctors swearing to practice medicine ethically. There is no such oath that we scientists swear, but we are expected to perform research responsibly and to publish scientific truth. As we cannot know everyone within our area of interest, gene...
Christine
Crumbley
Effective Presentations
As I’ve started receiving replies to my inquiries about postdoctoral positions and discussing the replies with friends, a common thing for interviews is to present your research. We shifted the conversation from the request for a presentation to what makes a presentation interesting and effe...
Mandy
Kendrick
Done with the Bench?
Done with the bench…or do you just need a change of scenery instead?