Graduate Students Find Many Career Paths Available
Kelsey Williams, (center) a student at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, asks a question during Career Day as Robert McGehee, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School, looks on.
| Oct. 29, 2015 | Students pursuing doctorate degrees in the biomedical sciences have a variety of career options from which to choose.
That was the central message of the 15th Annual UAMS Graduate School Career Day for Biomedical Sciences on Oct. 22 at the Fred W. Smith Auditorium in the Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute.
Approximately 200 people attended Career Day, including UAMS students and faculty, as well as undergraduate and graduate students from universities in Arkansas and surrounding states. It was the Graduate School’s most highly attended Career Day, said Kristen Sterba, Ph.D., associate dean of graduate student recruiting and retention.
Carol Reeves, Ph.D., associate vice provost for entrepreneurship at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, encourages students to pursue business opportunities.
Robert McGehee, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School, told the crowd that when he was a graduate student, the goal for bioscience Ph.D. students was a career at an academic research institution.
“Over the last 30 years, people have realized that getting a Ph.D. sets you up for a variety of interesting careers,” he said.
Carol Reeves, Ph.D., associate vice provost for entrepreneurship at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, encouraged students to hone their business skills during her talk about how scientists can be great entrepreneurs.
“We’re not the only ones who think that business is important for scientists. Federal government agencies are also coming to this conclusion,” she said. “The National Institutes of Health are saying that we need to broaden the training of our science-based Ph.D.s because most of you do not go into academic career paths.
Glenn Millner, Ph.D., of the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health, speaks with Margaret Page after his session on environmental consulting. Millner told students “the best thing I ever did was coming to UAMS.”
She noted the NIH’s adoption of the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program, which aims to “get the technologies out of the lab and into the marketplace.”
Shana Chancellor, a UAMS graduate student who is pursuing a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology, said she attended Career Day because she wants to know what career paths are best suited for her.
“I know that I really like being more hands on, so I’m looking more towards industry or a government job. I want to see exactly what is open in those fields and where I can go,” she said.
Margie D. Lee, M.S., D.V.M., Ph.D., tells students how the twists and turns in her studies led her to a career she loves at the University of Georgia.
Margie D. Lee, M.S., D.V.M., Ph.D., professor and director of diagnostic services at the Poultry Diagnostic and Research Center at the University of Georgia in Athens, encouraged students to constantly be looking for ways to up their game.
She also told students not to be disappointed when something doesn’t work as planned, pointing out that she was in veterinary school when she realized that her dream of being a horse vet wasn’t going to happen because she hated the limitations of equine medicine. That realization led her to pursue advanced degrees in medical microbiology.
Lee warned the crowd not to “let fear chart your career path,” adding that “all of you are smart enough to do what you want to do. The only question is will you do it?”
UAMS graduate students Diarra Williams, Ph.D., candidate, and Sarah Zimmerman work together on ways to promote themselves during the career development workshop.
Ansley Scott, who is pursuing a Master of Science in biology at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi, and attended the UAMS Summer Undergraduate Research Program to Increase Diversity in Research this past summer, found inspiration in Lee’s nontraditional track.
“You may have one dream that you think you want to do, but it may morph into something that is greater and bigger than what you originally wanted it to be,” she said.
Other sessions during Career Day included:
- Science Based Environmental Consulting – Glenn Millner, Ph.D., partner and principal toxicologist for the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health in North Little Rock.
- Private Lab Opportunities and Science Based Sales Positions with an M.S. Degree – Katie Marshell, M.S., an account manager with Agilent Technologies in Birmingham, Alabama.
- Careers at a Traditional Undergraduate University – Argelia Lorence, Ph.D., professor of metabolic engineering at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.
- Medical Science Liaison – Hollye Garner, Ph.D., medical affairs director for Merck in Nashville, Tennessee.
The day concluded with a tour of UAMS for undergraduate students and a career development workshop for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows by Dana Gaddy, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics in the UAMS College of Medicine.