Government jobs and fellowships

Government science/lab jobs are those sponsored by government entities, organized at either the national or state level. See here for a Science magazine overview article. The below information is not a complete list, but hopefully can serve as a springboard for your own career investigations.

When we think about government jobs in science available to Biology PhDs, we might not consider those at the state level. Examples of these include the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene, which provides " clinical, water, environmental, and industrial analytical services, specialized public health procedures, reference testing, training, technical assistance and consultation for private and public health agencies". The Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory serves vets across the state. Other government agencies with state-level offices are APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service), which acts more in a diagnostic role, and ARS (Agriculture Research Service).

On the National level, the CDC is a major employer of biology PhDs. They're headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, but positions are both in the US as well as international. Their career page is here. The NIH (career website here, with the NIAID job listing page here) has labs in several places across the United States. Helpfully, the NIH has a 'what jobs to apply for' page outlining position classification and salaries. An applicable-but-not-straightforward website for the NSF is here.

For federal employers, job applications are done through usajobs.gov. There you can upload your resume and apply for a variety of positions. UW-Madison Letters and Science Career Services has a federal jobs website and a knowledgeable adviser with whom you can schedule an appointment to discuss federal jobs and how to apply for them, including going over resumes and various forms. This comes strongly recommended.

There are several fellowships available for newly minted Biology PhDs. CDC Post-doctoral Research Fellowships are outlined here. These include the Emerging Infectious Diseases Postdoc Lab research program, which is a 2 year program, though it is on hiatus for 2015-2016. Other related fellowships are though through the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL). Another is the ASM/CDC Post-doc research fellowship program, which is a 2 year-program for research done at one of the CDC national labs (the deadline is January 15th). The ASM post-doc professional development page is here, and offers a lot of various planning and awards information links.

7/16/14 Science Writing/Communication event Recap

Did you miss our recent science writing/communication event?  Watch the videos!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

There were a few resources mentioned by the panelists.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison offers a few science writing classes, notably LSC 560, which is geared toward researchers. More information can be found through their website: http://lsc.wisc.edu/ .

The AAAS Mass Media Science and Engineering Fellowship is a highly competitive 10-week program to give participants an immediate introduction to reporting science news via internships at media organizations around the US. Please visit that website for more information: http://www.aaas.org/program/aaas-mass-media-science-engineering-fellows-program .

The National Association of Science Writers offers various resources including workshops for members. (However, membership requires a current member to sponsor you, but perhaps you might ask around and see if you know anyone who is a member?) Website is here: http://www.nasw.org/ .

Other science writing programs/resources that were mentioned include the MIT Grad Program in Science Writing ( https://sciwrite.mit.edu/ ); the UC Santa Cruz Science Communications Program ( http://scicom.ucsc.edu/ );  the American Medical Writers Association ( http://www.amwa.org/ ); and  Promega Connections, a science writers' blog ( http://www.promegaconnections.com/ ).

The single highest recommendation stated many times throughout the discussion is the importance of just writing and building a quality body of work. This might be done through contributing articles to your program's alumni newsletter, writing an article or two for the campus paper (for instance, the Daily Cardinal), or through a personal blog. It is strongly suggested to network with other writers and scientists through Twitter and other social media; science writers are easy to find and follow, and in general are a very friendly bunch.

The CMB Professional Development Committee would like to thank the Science Writer panelists for their time, good humor and advice - it's greatly appreciated!

Science Writing and Communication Event July 16th!

The CMB Professional Development Committee is pleased to announce our next event on Science Writing and Communications

When: July 16th 2014

Where: Room 1120 Biochemsitry Building (420 Henry Hall)

Our invited speakers are:

Kelly Tyrrell: Science Writer for University Communictations here at UW-Madison

Dr Jill Sakai: Communications Director at the Office of Sustainibility at UW-Madison

Ian Clark: Media Specialist for UW Hospitals and Clinics

Dr Bret Shaw: Associate Professor in the Department of Life Sciences Communication at UW-Madison

Ron Seely: Senior Leturer in the Department of Life Science Communication at UW-Madison and a Reporter and Editor for the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Dr. Michele Arduengo: Senior Content Developer and Social Media Lead at Promega

Please feel free to invite other students you may know and spread the word. 

In order to properly prepare for the event please register no later than July 14th.

Register Here

Patent Law/WARF event, June 5th!

The CMB Professional Development Student Committee is thrilled to announce an upcoming WARF/Patent Law event on Thursday, June 5th! 

WARF/Patent Law Event:
Thursday, June 5th, 2014
Bock Labs Penthouse (1525 Linden Dr.)
12:00 p.m. (lunch provided)

Featured Panelists:

LauraOpperman, Ph.D. (CMB Graduate): Patent Scientist, Michael Best & Friedrich, LLP

Mark Staudt, Ph.D.: Licensing Associate, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation

Victoria Sutton, Ph.D. (CMB Graduate): Intellectual Property Associate, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation
Danielle Wampole, J.D.: Director of Scholarship Administration and Recruitment, UW-Madison Law School
SirWilliams, J.D.: Director of Admissions, UW-Madison Law School    

More information on WARF can be found at their website.

Please feel free to spread the word about this to students in other graduate programs across campus who might be interested in the event, and come ready to ask any questions you have for the panelists!

In order to properly prepare for the event, we ask that you register no later than June 3rd.
Register HERE.

Post Doc Panel summary and videos

The CMB Post Doc panel event, held on April 10th, 2014, was a success. Five post-doctoral researchers,  three scientists from academia and two scientists from industry, were on hand to answer questions from current UW-Madison biological sciences graduate students, and discuss how to pick a lab in which to do a post doc, funding questions, daily activities, and shed light on important skills used in their current positions.

If you were unable to attend the event but would like to hear what the panelists had to say concerning these topics, the session was taped and can be found below in three parts. (Please adjust your device's audio as necessary.)

Post doc panel video part 1

Post doc panel video part 2

Post doc panel video part 3

The CMB professional Development committee would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to the panelists, Marie Scwhinn, Megan Spurgeon, Ginger Pocock, Dominique Lisiero, and Andy Dixon for taking the time to participate, and for their thoughtful, practical, and sometimes very candid responses and discussions.

POST DOC PANEL EVENT!

Upcoming Event:

Post Doc Panel!

When: April 10th, 2014 (Thursday)
           4pm - Panel discussion (All are invited)
           5:15 - breakout session with pizza (CMB students only)
Where: Genetics/Biotech Auditorium

Please bring any questions you might have about being a post doctoral scientist for our highly qualified panel of both academic and industrial post docs.

Panelists include:

Andy Dixon: Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Promega
Dominique Lisiero: Postdoctoral Research Associate, UW-Madison (Shigeki Miyamoto Lab)
Ginger Pocock: Postdoctoral Research Associate, UW Morgridge Institute for Research
Marie Schwinn: Senior Research Scientist, Promega
Megan Spurgeon: Postdoctoral Research Associate, UW-Madison (Paul Lambert Lab)

We very much welcome all members of the UW Biological Sciences community for the panel discussion, but please note that the breakout session to follow is limited to graduate students in CMB.

In order to adequately prepare, we request that you register for this event.
Register here.

Versatile PhD website review

The following review is a very informative guest post by the highly regarded CMBer Adityarup (Rup) Chakravorty.

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A couple of months ago I was attending a talk by Dr. Alan Dove, the science journalist (you may be familiar with him in the context of the irrepressible podcast “This Week in Virology). He was talking about how more and more graduate students were pursuing “alternative” careers once they received their PhDs, and one thing he said struck me as being very logical, yet something that I had not thought about until then. He said, “The PhD was supposed to expand my options, not restrict them”, and that got me thinking harder about what career options I would have if I didn’t allow the doubt-clouds to obscure my job-search horizon. As I talked to people and trawled the internet for information about these “alternative” careers, I came across the website VersatilePhD.com. And it was good.  

Versatile PhD (just going to call it VPhD from now on) was started in 1999 by Dr. Paula Chambers while she was getting her PhD in Rhetoric and Composition at Ohio State University. Initially it was geared towards students in the humanities and social sciences, but eventually expanded to include the STEM fields as well. As of July of this year the website has a stated goal of being of value to academics from the STEM fields as well. VPhD is focused on what are called “non-traditional” career choices for someone getting a PhD. What that means is that academic careers are not really explored in this website; instead you get information on a plethora of other possible careers such as consulting, IP law and science writing. 

VPhD has both a “Free Community” and a “Premium Content Subscription Service”. Luckily, as students at UW-Madison we do not have to worry if a particular section is freely available or not. The University subscribes to this website and so we get access to all the premium content that we might need. You can go here, and then click on the University of Wisconsin-Madison link. You will need to log in using your Wisc-ID and password, and then register at the Versatile PhD website (the first time only). Then, you are in.

While there are many valuable resources at VPhD, I would like to focus on three that I found to be very useful. Coincidentally – or maybe not – these three resources are also highlighted at the VPhD website.

1. Hiring Success Stories

These stories are a unique feature of VPhD and I love them because they are an incredible opportunity to get a personal and inside look at successful job searches. Graduate students and post-docs who have been hired write about their experience during the job hunting process. The success stories range from a neuroscientist being hired as a Program Administrator at a cancer non-profit to a molecular biologist hired by a technology licensing firm, and many others. These individuals share what position they were in right after their defending their dissertation, how they zeroed in on what they wanted to do, what steps they took to get their current job and they even include their cover letters, resumes and/or CVs! This resource provides a huge amount of information and guidance for anyone who is debating pursuing a so-called “alternative” career within the STEM fields.

 

2. Career Autobiographies

These autobiographies are similar to the hiring success stories. The difference is that the people writing these are more established in their field, and there’s more of a “story” feel to them. These stories have been quite useful to me as they chart the many twists and turns people’s careers take as they grown and learn about what they value and want to do with their lives.

3. Archived Panel Discussions [Career Panels]

Ever so often VPhD will host an online career panel where premium members (aka us) can ask questions of individuals who are pursuing a career in a particular field. The most recent STEM career panel was one discussing science writing and communication as a career. This is a field that I am interested in, and while I cannot tell you exactly what was discussed (The privacy rules of the website prohibit that) I can tell you that the discussion was very informative and useful to me. In the past, VPhD has organized online panel discussions about career choices such as entrepreneurship, patent law and science policy. These discussions are then archived so they continue to be accessible to any premium member. It has been quite useful – and admittedly somewhat reassuring – for me to be able to learn how other graduate students and post-docs have been able to progress into career paths that they found fulfilling and enjoyable. 

In addition to these resources there are also forums where members can discuss various professional, financial, emotional, personal, you-name-it-onal, issues in a supportive, informative and somewhat private environment (This is a premium feature so it adds a layer of privacy to the discussions). There is also a “Jobs” section at the website. I would highly recommend this portal to any CMB student who may be considering a career outside academia.

--------------
(General disclaimer, neither CMB nor Rup are affiliated with VersatilePhD.com, this is done for the general good of grad student-kind). Thanks, Rup!

Clinical Directorships Panel recap and videos

Last Thursday afternoon, the directors of several Clinical Genetics Labs from across the nation took part in an incredibly useful informative panel regarding the responsibilities of running and being in a clinical genetics lab, training programs available and their content, funding, and other aspects associated with molecular genetics in a clinical/diagnostic lab.

For those unable to attend but interested in this as a career path, or curious what such a career might entail, the session was taped is available in the following links (please adjust the volume as necessary):

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Final/Closing


The CMB Professional Development Committee would like to express our appreciation to the speakers Drs. Christine Disteche, Michael Datto, Jennifer Laffin, Michael Chicka, and Linda Jeng for sharing their experience, expertise, and guidance, as well as more informally meeting with grad students for further consultation following the panel. Thank you!

Clinical Directorships Panel Event

UPCOMING EVENT:

Clinical Directorships Panel

When: August 1st, 2013 (Thursday)

            11:00am - Panel Discussion (All are Invited)

            Noon - Breakout Session with lunch (CMB Students Only)

Where: Biochemical Sciences Auditorium, Room 1211 BSB

Please bring questions regarding careers associated with clinical jobs, the hiring process, etc.  For general background regarding careers in Clinical Molecular Genetics, please see here.

Speakers

Michael Chicka, PhD (CMB'07): Prevention Genetics. Molecular Geneticist. Director of Sanger Sequencing

Michael Datto MD, PhD, FCAP: Duke University. Clinical Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory. Director

Linda Jeng, MD, PhD, FACMG: UCSF. Molecular Genetics & Diagnostics. Director

Christine M. Disteche, PhD: University of Washington. Cytogenetic & Genomics Laboratory

Jennifer Laffin, PhD, FACMG: UW-Madison. Cytogenetic Services Laboratory. Director.

Everyone from UW-Madison's Biosciences are invited to participate in the panel discussion, but again, the breakout session is limited to only CMBers.


To adequately prepare, we ask that you register.
REGISTER HERE.

Recap and videos from July 11 Research Institute Industry Event

The July 11 Private Research Industry Professional Development Event featured Micheal Yaffe of the California Institute from Regenerative Medicine. He gave a great seminar discussing how private research is funded, how an institute is organized, administered and operates using CIRM as a model, information regarding the various experiences and career paths of a few people in choosing a career at a research institute, plus an excellent overview of stem-cell related research as funded by CIRM. Dr. Yaffe also graciously met more informally with students following the event for further questions.

For those unable to attend, this seminar was recorded. The sound is a little low; please adjust the volume on your device as necessary.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Again, we would like to thank Dr. Yaffe for coming to speak to us!

Private Research Institute Speaker Update

Private Research Institutes Speaker event UPDATE

Due to last minute scheduling conflicts, Dr. Scott Hawley is no longer able to join us for the July 10th Professional Development event. However, Dr. Michael Yaffe will still be speaking at 2pm, and we will follow directly after with a reception.

General info:

CMB Professional Development Series: Private Research Institutes
Wednesday, July 10th, 2013
Biochemical Sciences Auditorium, Room 1211 BSB
2:00pm-Dr. Michael Yaffe, Associate Director, Research Activities, California institute of Regenerative Medicine
3:00pm-Dr. Scott Hawley, Investigator and American Cancer Society Research Professor, Stowers Institute for Medical Research and Dean, Stowers Graduate School  (Canceled)

Reception to follow in Room 1220 Biochemical Sciences Building (BSB)

All UW Biosciences-affiliated persons are welcome to join! Again, please register here if you haven't already.

Private Research Institutes Speakers Event

Upcoming event:

 Private Research Institutes Speaker Event

Wednesday, July 10th, 2013
UW-Madison Biochemical Sciences Auditorium, Room 1211 BSB

2:00pm- Dr. Michael Yaffe, Associate Director of Research Activities, California Institute of Regenerative Medicine
3:00pm- Dr. Scott Hawley, Investigator and American Cancer Society Research Professor, Stowers Institute for Medical Research, and Dean of the Stowers Graduate School

Dr. Yaffe and Dr. Hawley will each be giving a talk related to working at a private research institute, from the unique aspects of research, funding and teaching in private institutes to outreach and other niche opportunities available. There will be time for questions from the audience and a brief discussion following each speaker.

Reception to follow in Room 1220 Biochemical Sciences Building

All UW-Madison biosciences graduate students, faculty and staff are invited to participate in the event (in addition to CMB). Please register to help us best prepare for the event.

Register here.

Recap and videos from the June 6th Teaching Panel

The June 6th CMB Professional Development Teaching panel was a success. The ProDev committee was able to record the proceedings for those interested who were unable to attend, or if those who were in attendance need to note down a detail or two that they didn't get during the event itself.

The videos are in three parts.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

(Please adjust your audio accordingly; the videos are a little quiet)


Some of the websites and job search engines mentioned were the Chronicles of Higher Education, the UW-Madison Delta Program website, Higher Ed Jobs, and to directly look at the sites for the colleges or universities where you'd like to be employed.

Again, the CMB ProDev Committee is very grateful to the panelists Amy Briggs, Dyan Morgan, Don Gillian-Daniel, Gretchen Gerrish, Zach Pratt and Lee Bishop for participating in this event. Thanks so much; you guys rock!

June 6th Teaching Career Panel announcement

UPCOMING EVENT:

 Teaching Career Panel

When: Thursday, June 6th, 2013

            4:00pm - Panel Discussion (All are Invited)

            5:15pm - Breakout Session with appetizers (CMB Students Only)

Where: University of Wisconsin-Madison Union South

Bring your questions with you regarding careers, hiring process, etc.

The 4pm event is open to graduate students, post docs and faculty in the UW Biological Sciences, so pass the word along.  However, the Breakout Session will be limited to CMB students only.

 Speakers include:

Amy Briggs, PhD (CMB ’10): Assistant Professor of Biology, Beloit College
Dyan Morgan, PhD (CMB ’11): Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Award (IRACDA) Postdoc & Program Coordinator, Center for Undergraduate Research at University of Kansas

Don Gillian-Daniel, PhD (CMB ’97): Associate Director, DELTA Program, UW-Madison

Zach Pratt, PhD: Postdoctoral Teaching Associate, UW-Madison, soon to be at St. Norbert

Gretchen Gerrish, PhD: Assistant Professor of Biology, University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse
Lee Bishop, PhD, Chemistry Instructor at Madison College and Outreach Leader for the Center of Sustainable Nanotechnology (blogs to which he contributes are here and here)

To adequately prepare for the event, we ask that you register.

REGISTER HERE!

Due to technical difficulties...

Live streaming of the CMB industry panel will not occur due to last minute technical issues. Apologies are offered; we hope to work these out and offer streaming of future events.

May 9th Biotech Industry Career Panel announcement

UPCOMING EVENT:

Biotech Industry Career Panel

(open to graduate students in the biological sciences at UW-Madison)

Thursday, May 9th, 4pm
University of Wisconsin-Madison Genetics Biotech Auditorium


We are very proud to announce 8 panelists from a range of local biotech companies:

CDI (technologies including vectors and cell lines)

Gilson (technologies including pipetors, chromatography and protein purification systems)

Lucigen (technologies including cloning, vectors and PCR)

Mirus Bio (technologies including transfection systems)

Quintessence Bio (technologies including ribonucleases and other protein-based theraputics)


The general agenda is to introduce the panelists and then open up the floor for questions from current graduate students regarding careers in biological sciences industry, the hiring process, requisite skills, etc.

Please bring any questions you have regarding a career in biotech and industry!


Following the panel, there will be an optional break-out session for CMBers, with pizza, to more informally interact with the panelists.

In order to adequately prepare for this event, we ask that students sign up for this event.

Register here.


If there are any questions or comments, please either comment below or email the CMB Professional Development Committee at ( cmbprodev@gmail.com ).

AAAS's career developments planning site. Try it today!

(post by jessica C)
This quick post regards the AAAS career developments planning website. Michelle sent out the link in an email sometime in February, but this is just a quick reminder post in case you missed the link, or were too busy then and haven't made time for this (or lost the email/ address...). CMBer Jessica TeSlaa will do a more in depth post regarding the analyses and resources fostered by the site in a future post; this post regards the careers discernment aspect of the site. Most of us have a general idea of what we'd like as a career, but the website offers a variety of jobs that you might not have previously considered or know much about.

The website features surveys to assess both your interests and current skills set, and then matches these to career paths commonly taken by PhD level scientists. The results are displayed with a percent skills match and a percent interests match.

Holly B., a CMBer who is very good at both planning as well as utilizing the resources available to her, was discussing career discernment today with me via gchat. Knowing that i hadn't used the website, she strongly recommended it:

 Holly: you should take it, it's pretty interesting

 jessica: (it's like tarot cards, what if i don't like what it tells me?!)

 Holly: there's a section for what you want and a section for what you should do

    jessica: did it take you long?

 Holly: i think 15min-ish

    jessica: oh

Based on a sample size of two (Holly and myself), the career path matches are very appropriate and our (self-identified) top career choices were within the top three suggested by the website.  The website then has further information regarding careers, events to attend, ways to strengthen your skill set, and even offers more in-depth features like setting goals and how to acquire mentors who will assist you in your chosen career path.

In short, if you have not taken this, it's fast (15-20 minutes is pretty accurate for the assessments), thorough, relatively painless, and free. 

updates inquiry

A recent inquiry to Lab Badger regarded updates, and how to be notified when the CMB CMB (CMB^2? 2XCMB?) is updated.

As a general note, the CMB ProDev committee will try to update this blog at least monthly, particularly with news regarding any upcoming seminars and other events. For these events, we will probably include a link to the specific post in any notifying emails.

However, there are many ways to keep up with blogs (and various other online publications).

>bookmark it or save a link to the site and check your bookmarks frequently. Like, you know, while you're taking a 5 minute break from research to check your favorite webcomics (PhD Comics, XKCD.com, Dinosaur comics, etc).

>RSS feeds.  In brief, these are usually an online listing of websites, specified by the user, that is updated as the websites update. These will either notify the user (via email or mobile device), or just list sites that have recently updated for the user to then follow up on their own.

Google Reader seems to be the most common/popular out of the 5-ish people surveyed, but is (unfortunately) being retired as of July 1st. Another commonly used free RSS feed is feedly , and CMBer Bob mentioned that he uses the flipboard app on his mobile device.

Does anyone else have a particular RSS feed they like to use, or another way of keeping up with online publications?

3/18/13 Planning Meeting

3/18/13 PDC meeting notes
-In Attendence: Emily, Bob, Viswa, Indro, Jessica C, Jessica T, Adam, Lily.  Rup couldn't make it.
-Decided that upcoming events would be a series of smaller events spread out over a few months with a few speakers at each of them (April, May, June, July?), a grad student leads the discussion with the speaker, send out an article in advance, students come prepared for the discussion, similar to the DELTA brown bag formats
-Funding available before the end of July 2013 if needed to bring in outside speakers
-Keep events focused for CMB, maybe have a large talk at first for anyone, and then a follow up focused discussion with only CMB students to have smaller more interested groups, facilitate networking opportunities
-Possibly have sign ups, registration for event or some way to commit to an event so we know how many people to expect and those who attend will be more prepared/involved
-Split up committee into groups for each event based on topic, before our next meeting get ideas for speakers, resources, and timeline.
          the work teams will be as follows for the upcoming events
                   -Industry: Adam, Jessica C, Indro, Bob, Viswa; proposed first event at the end of April
                   -Teaching: Jessica T, Emily, Lily
                   -Private Research Institutes: Bob, Viswa, Jessica T
                   -Outreach/science writing: Jessica T, Jessica C
                   -Law/consulting/business intelligence: Adam, Viswa
                   -Clinical directors/fellowships: Lily
                   -postdocs outside of the US: Jessica C
                   - Professional networking online (LinkedIn, Facebook, etc): Adam
-Jessica C and Jessica T will start a blog to post resources before the event and to archive things after events
-Viswa will take summarizing notes after each event to distribute and share with others

Go, Lab Badgers!

Because we're all hoping for this, welcome to the CMB Career Machinations Blog!