Afleveringen
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Kristen Brennand is Professor of Psychiatry and Genetics at Yale University School of Medicine. She first set up her own research group in 2012 at Mount Sinai, after a Postdoc at the Salk Institute and a PhD at Harvard University. She reflects on balance in research careers.
From the outside, Kristenâs research career looks like the perfect trajectory without a single faux pas, even though we fully know these do not exist. The metaphor of styles of running emerges in our conversation; running a sprint versus running a marathon is a valuable anchor in getting us to explore how we want to navigate the research environment. Building endurance in research careers becomes even more tangible during the transition from being a Postdoc to research group leaderFrom an early drive about working with the best people, in the best places, doing the best science, her energy has shifted towards being motivated in supporting her research team; connecting people and seeing the synergy that emerges from bringing together people with different expertise. The motivation is still about doing faster, bigger and bolder research but through the full synergy with her teams.
Kristen shares that it was only several years after she became a PI, when she was feeling she was losing the battle to have some balance between home/ work that she started to believe things could be different. A conversation with her husband got her started in experimenting with working less hours than she had before. This was a personal challenge that shifted her perspective. The pace of working, the goals she was setting for herself, the amount of time spent at work- a lot of this could change if she started to experiment with a different approach.
We are set to believe that we need to follow the paths that others have led before us. Our belief of what it takes to become an independent and successful researcher is based on how others have done it before. Their beliefs shape their mentoring approach. Learning to mentor differently is part of what is needed in research environments. We may want to navigate the research environment in our own way, not the way our mentors have done it.
How the âtoo many good advice of othersâ may not be what we needHow believing that we have choices in our way of working can create our new reality What resilience could look like for you when your research does its usual up and down looping
Listening to our conversation will prompt your thinking: -
Dr Dawn Scholey is a Senior Research Fellow at Nottingham Trent University. She never intended to become a researcher. After working for an extended period in industry, she returned to academia as a technician. It was the cheerleading of her manager that convinced her to embark on a PhD.
Dr Dawn Scholeyâs career is a good example that for some people, entry into the world of research is not part of a professional masterplan. Her career driver was about learning and science, not the ambition of becoming an academic researcher. It took a lot of convincing from the part of her manager, who she describes as an inspirational leader, to make her believe that as a mum of two in her late 30âs, starting a PhD was something she could do.The cheerleading from her manager, who became her PhD and Postdoc supervisor, has been critical in enabling her to pursue her research career. She is now embracing this cheerleading role with younger researchers who are on their own research journey.
How you may not see your own potential, but having a cheerleader to make you believe in yourself may take you to places to had never imaginedHow it is never too late to take a professional challenge Why choosing a research environment that works for you is a key decision in choosing who to work with and where to work
Listening to our conversation will prompt your thinking:
Some reflections to ponder based on my discussion with DawnWe donât all have a masterplan
Dawnâs honesty in sharing her entry into academic research is interesting, as it illustrates that starting a career on this path is not just the privilege of early career graduates, but a viable route for other professionals. Working as a technician for her manager, Dawn did not see herself as someone who could do research as a doctoral student. She was in the technician box and her professional development could have stayed there. What fascinates me is the persistence that her manager had in convincing her that doing a PhD was something that Dawn could do. Her manager could see it in her, when she could not see this in herself.
Dawn is not someone who had a professional masterplan about the types of roles she wanted. She explained that she had fallen into different roles but was not aiming at a specific job.
Traditional career paths rarely exist nowadays, so being open and flexible to explore career transitions is the crux of employability.
If you donât have a masterplan for your career, exposure to others and their own career paths is an important way of exploring alternative options that you may have never considered. We so often just see the success stories of others and not the meandering path they have taken. Hearing from the twists and turns of careers, when people made mistakes with jobs, applied but failed at interviews, did not receive a grantâŠis all part of exploring what you want for your own path. We also do not always see ourselves in some more senior roles. It often takes others to tell us to apply for a job that we felt was out of reach for us.
o How can you stay open to unexpected opportunities in your career?
o Who is encouraging you to take unusual opportunities that may create a spark of inspiration to decide what to do next?
o Who is challenging you to take opportunities even when you feel you are not good enough, ready enough, smart enoughâŠ.?
A supportive research environment looks like whatDoing a PhD as a mature student will have come with all the challenges of balancing family and work, but it brought her some calmness that younger researchers may not experience. She embraced that listening to others and learning from them was more valuable than worrying about not knowing as much as them
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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Dr Ahmed Iqbal is a Senior Clinical Lecturer in Clinical Medicine, School of Medicine and Population Healthat The University of Sheffield and Honorary Consultant Physician in Diabetes for the NHS. His research interests emerged from challenging the status of understanding of the physiological impact of diseases and how this could be managed for better patientsâ outcomes.
More info about Dr Ahmed Iqbal: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/smph/people/clinical-medicine/ahmed-iqbal -
Dr. Sowmya Viswanathan is a Scientist at Schroeder Arthritis Institute and the Krembil Research Institute (University Health Network) and an Associate Professor at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and at the Division of Hematology, Department of Medicine (University of Toronto).
She built her industry experience developing regenerative medicine products at Johnson and Johnson before returning to academia to run a Cell Therapy Program at University Health Network as Associate Director. Her expertise as a translational scientist shifted to cell therapy trials, cell manufacturing and regulatory affairs before becoming a research group leader in 2015.
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Dr Iryna Kuksa is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Art and Design at Nottingham Trent University. She describes herself as a cross-disciplinary researcher, having studied and worked, in departments as diverse as History of Arts, British Politics and Theatre, Performance & Cultural Studies. The common thread in her research interests is Digital Technologies.
Growing up in Belarus, Iryna was exposed in her family environment to lots of artists, which fostered her appreciation and interest in creativity. This environment showed her the value of inclusivity when it comes to working across different disciplines. Changes in her countryâs political system created new opportunities to access scholarships via the British Council. This allowed her to get her first experience of research in the UK (Oxford and LSE) and later on to embark on a PhD at The University of Warwick.
Her earlier undergraduate experiences as an industrial designer have instilled in her the curiosity of asking questions from multiple perspectives. She has shifted her research questions on personalisation towards paying more attention to reducing consumption. As a designer interested in personalisation and digital technologies, how do you reconcile your interest in new objects and products with the need to reduce consumption towards a more sustainable world. She has developed the concept of âgreen personalisationâ.
Iryna shares:
How important it is to recognise opportunities when they present themselves.How research niche and interest evolve but we donât always need to reinvent the wheel. How having âthoughts partnersâ can help you shift your research ideas and perspectives. Her interactions with external stakeholders have been important in getting her to embrace the sustainability agenda and to promote among designers a rise in awareness of their role in sustainability issues.How the nature of short-term contracts continues to be a challenge and may lead researchers to accept positions with lower salaries; in her case, this allowed her to move to an open-ended contract as a research fellow.How volunteering on things that matter to you is a process to build your leadership. Iryna became actively involved in building a community of ECR to promote a positive and supportive research culture in her institution.How she has learned to become more outspoken in meetings but also how aware she is of the importance of line managers in supporting progress as an early career academic.How progression is never straightforward. Having taken maternity leaves, she is fully aware that the pace of progression and research output may have slowed down for some time. She acknowledges that as a mum of 2 kids with a supportive partner who is also an academic, the balance of work and life is an ongoing juggling exercise. How supporting PhD students provides her with a great sense of giving back to the research community. -
Dr Sara Vasconcelos is an Associate Professor based at the University of Toronto in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering with a research team in the Toronto General Hospital: University Health Network (UHN). Her research focuses on tissue engineering approaches to address cardiovascular problems. Imagine getting your first grant as a PI and not been able to take it because of visa issues for your partner. Thatâs the arduous path Sara found herself on, before moving to Canada.
Imagine getting your first grant as a PI and not been able to take it because of visa issues for your partner. This is what happened to Sara, who had gained her first grant as a PI while working in the US. Sara had the modesty and courage to go back to a Postdoc position, before applying for a second time to gain independent funding and be able to start a research group in Canada.Her early experience of the research process at the start of her PhD in Brazil taught her to be meticulous in the planning of experimental work. The level of funding for research is highly uneven across the world and the more limited access to research funding in these early years of her PhD shaped her discipline in being thoughtful during experimental design.
The scope of her learning expanded during her PhD as she was given the opportunity to work in part in the US; the more generous funding situation in the US allowed her to think differently about her research.
As a foreign scientist, learning to work and write in English were important stages in her professional development; she enjoyed learning about different cultures.
Her US PhD mentor in Alabama invited her to come back for an additional research visit before she transitioned to a Postdoc in Kentucky. The Postdoc period was a transition for her work from in vitro to in vivo research.
An ongoing source of support has been a buddy group she is part of, with other women. They meet once a month and support each other to navigate the wave of challenging situation in their academic progression. Protecting time and managing priorities remain one of the biggest challenges. Her buddy peer group is an important anchor when facing the tumultuous time of a building a research team.
Sara feels that the early years of building her team were easier when she still had a small team. Now, with an expanding team, finding a way to manage the many institutional and research demands whilst maintaining a high level of support for her team means revisiting her approach to leading her group.
As a busy research group leader who still wants to hear the details of each research project she supervises, but with new global responsibilities as a team leader on larger multi strand projects, Saraâs approach to supervision, delegation and research leadership is fast evolving.
Sara shares that for her, managing well researchers is about starting from a mindset of curiosity in the way she engages her team member, not assuming that what would work for her will work for others.
Questions are the pivots of good supervision and research management.
Questions take us away from making assumption.
Questions create a space for others to think.
Questions build ownership.
Questions allow clarity in communication.
As a more senior academic, Sara is now involved in institutional committee work. Making change happen in committee work can be incredibly challenging. Sara has learned that having partners/ champions on committees and steering groups help to promote the agenda of what you think need to change. Creating partnership with others to build more voices to influence change is part of what Sara is doing in furthering her leadership involvement.
What is your approach to adapting to setbacks when things your really wanted to
Listening to our conversation will prompt your thinking: -
Prof. Thushan de Silva is an Infectious Diseases Clinician Scientist at The University of Sheffield.
His research journey started during his medical training and continued thanks to several clinical fellowships that have allowed him protected time to build his research portfolio alongside continuing clinical work.
Thushan is currently working as a Senior Clinical Lecturer at The University of Sheffield. He was heavily involved in SARS-CoV-2 research through the COVID-19 pandemic and was recognised with an MBE in 2021 for services to COVID-19 research.
It took Thushan several attempts to obtain a funded Clinical PhD but this did not deter him from following a mentor to undertake a PhD at an MRC centre in the Gambia. This was the perfect hub for a clinician interested in infectious diseases to experience both field work and laboratory research.This extended period of research in the Gambia during an MRC Clinical Research Training Fellowship and a Wellcome Trust Intermediate Clinical Fellowship provided a fertile terrain to build his research portfolio, but also to understand the culture of undertaking research in a Global South context. This gave him the time to build a strong network of colleagues and collaborators committed to undertake work in the African context.
Researchers often worry about changing research topics at the end of their PhD or Postdoc. Thushan did change his research direction and accepts that it can be difficult to articulate a congruent and powerful narrative about a shift in research direction to the funders. His logic of choice came from feeling more inspired to continue his work on vaccine development instead of remaining in the area of pathogenesis of HIV-2 infection and the molecular epidemiology of HIV-1 and HIV-2 in West Africa.
Identifying the right balance for compartimentalising research and clinical practice is a crucial step for Clinical academics. It is likely that it will require substantial negotiations in the clinical setting and the academic department.
It may be worth encouraging new clinical academics and clinical PhD students to explore what is working and not working for them. They may not know until they have started. Getting them to become aware of what is going to be manageable in the long term is essential. If a pattern of clinical and academic work has been set but is not working, or is just not manageable, encouraging clinical PGR or clinical academics to not give themselves such a hard time, but go back to the drawing board and explore alternative options for work patterns.
Are the boundaries between your research and clinical responsibilities working for you?Are the boundaries between your research and clinical responsibilities working for you, or are you trying to be a superhuman? Could you negotiate an alternative pattern of work that would allow you to be more focused and effective in both area of research and clinical practice?How are your clinical and academic environments supporting and valuing your dual career?What additional research skills could you consider gaining early on in your clinical research life?
Listening to our conversation will prompt your thinking: -
Not everyone can say that their PhD recruitment interview took place from an exotic place; well Rebecca started her research career following a phone interview whilst she was travelling in Borneo. To me, this is an interesting career trait of not seeing limitations in a less than perfect situation, but a positive attitude in believing in positive outcomes.
Dr Rebecca Dumbell is a senior lecturer at Nottingham Trent University. She is steadily building a research team having gained her academic position just when we entered the Covid pandemic. She has already acquired many valuable practices as a new PI, from practising routine reflection to co-producing agreements on communication approaches with her team.It took Rebecca 2 postdoctoral periods prior to jumping into the PI role as a lecturer at Nottingham Trent University. Her transition to gaining an academic position, from the time she started to apply for position seems to have been fairly quick. This likely stems from the many opportunities she took throughout her PhD and Postdoc positions.
She describes the building of her network as being of particular importance in her career transition. Her strategy in choosing opportunities on the basis of what she enjoys has clearly paid off in her speedy transition. She is all too aware that academics need to make wise choices in the opportunities they take. Her mantra of âwhat can I say no to, to say yes toâ written on a Post-it note on her desk is a reminder that staying focused and strategic is needed to not fall into overwhelm.
How each small leadership experiences build on each other for a transition into an academic roleHow a simple practice of pausing and reflecting is a powerful habit Why building research group practices such as co-creating an approach to communication can help everyone in the team
Listening to our conversation will prompt your thinking: -
Dr Joby Cole is an Infectious Disease and Acute Medicine Consultant for the National Health Services and an honorary lecturer at the University of Sheffield. He has held several clinical fellowships to enable him to undertake research alongside his clinical work. His current interest to give all patients the opportunity to get involved in clinical research projects as participation improves outcomes. He is also interested in contributing to novel ways of detecting microbial resistance that would allow fast identification of resistance and a faster approach to prescribing to right antibiotics to patients.
Life in research for clinical academics is not a straightforward path. With an initial clinical fellowship and then a Welcome trust fellowship to undertake a PhD, the entry route into research for Joby could have been streamlined. It was not to be, as the Covid pandemic took control of our daily lives. As an infectious disease and acute medicine consultant, the Covid period meant going back full time to the NHS on the battlefield of a Covid ward and having to pause some of the interesting research work Joby had started during his PhD.
As a clinician interested in both basic science and the application of research to clinical practice, Joby sees his role as being an important voice in influencing the direction of research projects that have the potential to contribute to medicine. Bringing in the bedside perspective to his basic science research colleagues and respecting othersâ perspectives and skill set are his starting points in his collaborative approaches.
His experience has taught him that there is great value in experiencing being involved in research early on in your career as a clinician, and that getting involved as early as you can in your career makes transitions easier. Being a clinical academic often means being on the look-out for collaborations and funding where the limited time you have for research can be rewarded in a manageable way.
How taking the time to engage in research conversations matters to explore the right fit for what you want to work on and for what type of research environment you choose to work in.How understanding the perspective and specific skill set you bring as a clinical academic allows you to initiate collaboration as a process of complementarity instead of seeing yourself or being perceived as a part-time researcher.How your contribution in research as a clinical academics has the potential to influence not only research directions, but also research practice on a much larger scale. -
Dr Ruth Payne has a dual professional identity as a Consultant Microbiologist for the National Health Services (UK) as well as a Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Sheffield. Her interest in malaria vaccines may have been the starting point for her research career, but her expertise in vaccines became the corner stone of her ability to contribute to the Covid vaccine development efforts.
Ruth entered the world of research as a doctor following her appointment on a research fellowship position that became her PhD work at the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford (2012 - 2016). Her interest in malaria and vaccine development is anchored in a childhood spent in East Africa and in seeing first-hand the impact of this disease. After her research fellowship/PhD, she went back full time to a clinical role in Nottingham before jumping into a Clinical Academic Lectureship position.
Ruth calls herself âan accidental academicâ and admits that it was the inspiring and supportive approach of her academic manager/ PhD supervisor during her research fellowship position and PhD that led her to continue a career that embraced both clinical work and research.Building a research team is never easy but establishing yourself as a new PI when you work 50% time as a clinician and 50% time in research, and then on top of that a world pandemic is forcing you to stop your researchâŠwell that is quite a start when you are a new Principal Investigator.
This challenging period has brought her resilience and connections. During the Covid period, her experience in vaccine development enabled her to get involved in many new vaccine clinical trials projects, that she could never have predicted. It allowed her to jump into new projects and build very close working relationships with many new colleagues. It created opportunities to be involved at a national level in policies related to vaccine development (e.g., UK Clinical Vaccine Network, Covid19 task force of the British Society of Immunology).
Listening to our conversation will prompt your thinking:· How embracing the silver lining of the Covid pandemic created more opportunities and exposure than ever
· How embedding yourself into larger projects creates the economy of scale needed when you get started as a new PI
· Why keeping lines of communication within your network increases your opportunities
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Prof. Jason King is a research scientist at the University of Sheffield who progressed his career via the fellowship route. He has spent the last 10 years working as a Principal Investigator and building a team with the ebb and flow of PhD students and Postdoc contracts.
Jason has travelled the country from Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow to Sheffield from his undergraduate degrees to his current role as a Cell Biology Professor. He has held 2 fellowships, following a long postdoctoral period at the The Beatson Institute for Cancer Research.Jason shares how building a research team can sometimes feel quite haphazard, and is shaped by the opportunities that arise. As a new PI eager to start a new research group, it can be difficult to not take opportunities to recruit team members quickly. However, finding your feet when you are transitioning from a Postdoc into a fellowship may takes slightly longer than you anticipate. There is a fine balance between the eagerness of recruiting team members, the availability of opportunities and having things set up for your group to be functional.
His advice to new PIs would be to take their time at the beginning of their fellowship and not recruit too many people at the same time. Research teams are always in flux with team members joining and leaving. One of Jasonâs concerns is the challenge of retaining critical technical skills in the team. Thinking about the transmission of key skills within a team is an important consideration for retaining research expertise.
How to be not too precious with your research niche but flexible to see it evolve and even pivotHow constantly appraising your approach to individual team members is needed to best support themWhy promoting efficient working matters more than assuming hard working
Listening to our conversation will prompt your thinking:
More about Jasonhttps://jasonkinglab.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/home
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Dr Leili Rohani is a research scientist with a specialism in engineering heart tissues for cell therapy. Leili currently works at The University of British Columbia in Canada in the department of Cardiology and cardiovascular surgery.
Leili has had an itinerant research career across different countries and continents. She started her career as a graduate in Iran, then moved abroad for a PhD in Germany, followed some Postdoctoral positions in Canada as well visiting research periods in Austria and the US.
Leili is now at the threshold of wanting to establish her own research group and shifting towards research independence.
Her interest in stem cell therapy may see her move either way to industry or academia.
Do you have a regular assessment of your resources and support system (for work and home) to maintain your resilience?How are you broadening your own perspectives through experiencing different contexts (e.g., different countries, various professional settings, meeting other types of professionals than just your usual bubble)?What was your last âah ah momentâ that put a buzz in your research life?What magic could happen if you started thinking differently about how you are recruiting your team? Could using more evaluation of Emotional Intelligence in your recruitment strategy change for the better the dynamics and effectiveness of your team?
Listening to our conversation will prompt your thinking: -
Dr Madeleine Jotz-Lean has always had a passion for mathematics and research, which was nurtured from an early age by her teachers and supervisors.
She began her publication record early, with 10 articles to her name by the end of her PhD.
After moving from the US to Sheffield into a lectureship, she became more involved and interested in teaching, as well as equality and diversity, particularly tackling unconscious bias and stereotypes.
She has also been involved in public outreach, using knitting and crochet to explain complex mathematical concepts to a wider audience.Madeleine is now a Junior Professor at the University of Göttingen (Mathematisches Institut).
Look at the interactive timeline:
https://academicstories.group.shef.ac.uk/madeleine-jotz-lean/
More recent info about Madeleine:
https://www.uni-math.gwdg.de/mjotz/home.html -
Jonna Kulmuniâs love of nature began at an early age but biology wasnât her strongest subject.
The challenge was what drove her to pursue a biological career and she fell in love with ants during her Masters degree, where she worked with a very supportive group and continued on to a PhD.
At the same time, she completed a Masters in Science Communication â an invaluable experience, which has supported her career ever since and seen her become increasingly engaged in public outreach.
She came to Sheffield in 2014 as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and is always thinking ahead about the next opportunity to apply for funding.Jonna is now a Principal Investigator at the University of Helsinski.
https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/en/persons/jonna-kulmuni
View her timeline:
https://academicstories.group.shef.ac.uk/jonna-kulmuni/ -
Prof. Jim Thomas was inspired by his father to become a scientist but, after not achieving the best degree in Chemistry at Reading, he opted to teach in the UK before going to Western Kenya with Voluntary Services Overseas, where he taught in a rural high school for several years.
This lent him a great deal of perspective and led him to revisit his childhood ambition of becoming a research scientist, commencing a PhD as a mature student. While his late entry into an academic career would normally mean that path was closed, he continued to pursue it, despite being offered a job in industry with a top company.
He achieved a high profile Postdoc position with a Nobel prize winner in France but soon returned to the UK, to Sheffield, where he began to apply for fellowships.
He was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship but also chose to take on a relatively large teaching timetable to show his commitment to the department and also to get to know students with whom he might potentially collaborate in the future.
He has also engaged in science communication work, which has honed his skills in terms of writing proposals and technical papers and generally being able to write in a more interesting way.
More about Jim:
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/chemistry/people/academic/jim-thomas
Access career timeline:
https://academicstories.group.shef.ac.uk/jim-thomas/ -
Dr Julie Hydeâs love of chemistry was inspired by her father and experimenting with him in the garden shed when she was young. She left school with no qualifications but got a job in the chemical industry as an Analytical Chemist while also studying part-time at college.
It was here that one of her tutors suggested applying to university, which she did. After her BSc, Julie moved into lecturing/ teaching chemistry in Further Education. During this time she taught on both academic and vocational courses as well as managing vocational programmes.
This job was later combined with part-time study in her spare time for a PhD in Organometallic Chemistry and Crystallography at the University of Sheffield, aided by an extremely supportive research group and teaching colleagues.
Julie currently teaches undergraduate chemistry at the University of Sheffield specialising in laboratory programmes and for the last seven years she has spent approximately three months each year delivering practical chemistry on the Universityâs joint BSc with Nanjing Tech University (NJTech) in China.
Julie is also the Director of the Year in Industry Programme in Chemistry. Julie is a Chartered Chemist (CChem) and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) and, alongside her teaching roles, she is also heavily involved in public outreach as the Schools Liaison Manager.
Julie received a Senate Award in 2017 for excellence in learning and teaching in the category of Sustained Excellence and in 2018 was presented with an RSC award for her promotion of chemistry locally, nationally and internationally.
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/chemistry/people/academic/julie-hyde#tab00 -
Dr Nicola Nadeau became interested in the natural world at a young age. After studying Zoology at Newcastle, she secured a PhD at Cambridge in evolutionary genetics.
She moved from being unsure that genetics was really the area she wanted to be in, to becoming captivated by the possibilities it presented. She thoroughly enjoyed the PhD process, helped along by a supportive department and supervisor.
After completing her PhD and a brief stint as a postdoc with her PhD adviser, she moved on to a 5 year postdoc position in a different lab. With the support of her postdoc adviser, she developed a side project into a fellowship application.
After a few unsuccessful attempts, she bolstered her publication record with some high profile articles and was eventually successful, securing a NERC fellowship at Sheffield.
This was a major transition and quite lonely at times but she formed some strong collaborations and has now settled into managing her own research group on the evolution of structural colour in butterflies.More about Nicola:
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/biosciences/people/academic-staff/nicola-nadeau
Look at her timeline and career milestones:
https://academicstories.group.shef.ac.uk/nicola-nadeau/ -
Dr Jenny Clark developed an interest in biology at school in Belgium, but found it too qualitative and so ended up studying physics at university. She did her undergraduate and Masters at Imperial College London, with a year in Padua, but a summer stint at UCL was enough to cement a desire to work in the field of Biophysics.
However, for her PhD she chose to work in a completely different research area, attracted by a more positive and supportive atmosphere. Her supervisor moved away after her first year but she managed to acquire another via email, who became a collaborator, friend and mentor to her and gave her the confidence to move on with the next stages of her career.
While an academic career path does generally mean moving around quite a lot, placing her relationship and family life first has never negatively impacted on her career. She continues to love her work and find it fascinating, learning something new every day.
More on Jenny:
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/physics/people/academic/jenny-clark#tab00
Explore Jenny's career timeline and milestones:
https://academicstories.group.shef.ac.uk/jenny-clark/ -
Professor Sherif El-Khamisy started off in community and clinical pharmacy in Egypt but the repetitive and unchallenging nature of the work left him seeking more. He completed a Business Administration diploma at the same time as a Masters in Pharmaceutical Sciences before securing a PhD position in Sussex, attracted by better research funding and facilities to be found abroad.
This was self-funded at first, but he soon acquired a scholarship with the help of an encouraging supervisor. After a failed attempt at setting up a research group back in Egypt, he went to the US to improve his research profile and make himself more competitive for fellowship positions.
He brought back the training on mouse models of human disorders he had acquired there to the Genome Centre at Sussex, where the Director was supportive and made sure he was separated from his PhD supervisor.
In 2012, he successfully established a Genome Centre in Egypt in partnership with a Nobel laureate to give something back to his country and, for himself, he gained huge experience in managing infrastructure and people.
After his fellowship, he was drawn to the welcoming and nurturing research environment at Sheffield, where he took up his current role in 2013.
More on Sherif:
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/biosciences/people/academic-staff/sherif-el-khamisy#tab00
Explore Sherif's career timeline and milestones:
https://academicstories.group.shef.ac.uk/sherif-el-khamisy/ -
Prof. Ivana Barbaric discovered a love of scientific research through competing in a national biology competition she entered in secondary school, for which she won 1st prize.
Early on in her career, she realised the importance of networking and began to develop an international network of colleagues, as well as amassing new technical skills, through working and studying abroad.
During her PhD in Oxford, she completely changed the direction of her research to focus primarily on a new found fascination with stem cells â a challenging but positive experience. She went on to a postdoc position at the University of Sheffield where she started to think about what she needed to do to obtain an academic position.
She made sure to keep publishing in good journals, apply for lots of funding and show her willingness to teach, which she did by taking on undergraduate and Masters student groups and completing a Certificate in Learning and Teaching.More on Ivana :
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/biosciences/people/academic-staff/ivana-barbaric
Explore Ivana 's career timeline and milestones:
https://academicstories.group.shef.ac.uk/ivana-barbaric/ - Laat meer zien
