Sue Rhee

Meeting Time: Thursdays 4:30-6:20 pm                             Location: Carnegie Seminar Room

Course Assistants:

• Benjamin Jin (bjin@carnegiescience.edu)
• Emily Fryer (efryer@carnegiescience.edu)

Description

Thinking about and planning for life beyond graduate school is one of the most anxiety-provoking activities students face. In this course, students will share their personal stories and dilemmas about career decisions; have the opportunity to take various self-assessments for characterizing their personalities and identify fitting professions; discuss various career options with a life sciences PhD; and ultimately learn to design their own path. There will be three career panels with invited guests from various career tracks, including research, teaching, administration, business, law, journalism, policy, and more. Open to life sciences PhD students in year 3 or beyond. The class will meet at Carnegie Institution for Science's seminar room building 600, located at 260 Panama St, Stanford, CA 94305 (https://dpb.carnegiescience.edu/about/contact).

Requirements

Students are expected to attend all class meetings, actively contribute to group discussions, and give a short group presentation on the final class meeting.

Schedule

 

April 02 — Introductions and Class Logistics, myIDP Assessment

Introduction to the structure and context of the course: we will go over requirements and expectations, complete a preliminary survey, and engage in small groups to get to know each other and discuss career opportunities in the life sciences. What are our personal and professional dreams, how do we find an overlap between the two? We will conduct the myIDP assessment in class.

Homework: Take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Test, to be independently completed by Tuesday, April 7th, 5 pm PST.

April 09 — Discussion of Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Test Results (guest lecture by MJ Mangiarelli of Stanford BioSci Careers)

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality inventory is widely acknowledged as one of the most accurate and respected personality tests in psychology. It can be utilized in considering future career decisions as a practical tool for investigating work styles and work settings that are most conducive to one’s personality. We will be discovering our personality types, and how to maximize our "gifts" (our personality preferences) in order to contribute to team success--while understanding how the many facets of our complex identities affect overall career satisfaction. Stanford’s BioSci Careers (https://med.stanford.edu/bioscicareers.html) will help with evaluating the results.

Homework: Take the CliftonStrengths test by Gallup, to be independently completed by Tuesday, April 14th, 5 pm PST.

April 16 — Discussion of CliftonStrengths Test Results (guest lecture by Marlene Scherer Stern of Stanford BioSci Careers)

The CliftonStrengths test is designed to highlight the user’s character strengths, which can be used to assess what roles would be best in both utilizing and developing such strengths. We will be discovering our individual strengths and how these can contribute to success in our future careers, while understanding how they are only a part of our unique personalities. Stanford’s BioSci Careers will help with evaluating the results.

April 23 — Self-Assessment Decompression and Career Planning Lecture

Post-MBTI/CliftonStrengths test discussion in small groups to put the results in the context of career choices. There will also be a lecture on career planning, regarding key concepts and tools that are useful in professional development, with small group discussions to follow. Final Presentation projects will be assigned and expectations will be discussed.

April 30 — Career Panel I: “Business”

Panelists will be briefly introduced, then the floor will be opened up for student questions. This panel, along with the panels to follow, will serve as the perfect opportunity for lively discussion, and give students unique insight regarding career options and expectations. Carnegie will provide a reception after the panel to continue discussions and networking.

Kirk Clark	Executive Director, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research
Pamela Marrone	CEO and Founder, Marrone Bio Innovations
Jayaranjan Anthonypillai	Founder/CEO, Berkeley BioLabs; Co-Founder/Managing Partner, Focus Academy LLC
Mowgli Holms	Co-founder and CEO, Phylos Biosciences

May 7 — Career Panel II: “Academic Research”

Pleuni Pennings	Assistant Professor, San Francisco State University
Miriam Goodman	Professor, Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University
Jennifer Mortimer	Staff Scientist, Berkeley Lab; Director of Plant Systems Biology, JBEI
Rebecca Albright	Assistant Curator, California Academy of Sciences

May 14 — Career Panel III: “Scientific Journalism, Administration, Law, Philanthropy”

Amy Adams	Director of Long Range Vision Communications, Stanford University
James Keddie	Senior Patent Agent, Bozicevic, Field & Francis LLP
Rieko Yajima	Director for Drug Discovery Innovation, SPARK Translational Research Program, Stanford University
Milan Karol	Senior Development Officer, Carnegie Institution for Science

May 21 — Career Panels Decompression and Preparation for Final Presentations

Group discussions to follow the career panels.  Students will be encouraged to share their responses to the panel, their ideas about what careers in these fields may look like, as well as their likes and dislikes about panelist responses. We will also do some brainstorming exercises called 30 circles and mind-maps, and draft a personal mission statement. Small group discussions on the draft mission statements.

May 28 — Student Final Presentations

Students will give their final presentations, followed by extensive group discussions to wrap up all that we have discovered together about ourselves, and about the career options that are available to us. We will also discuss ways to follow up from this course and additional resources that are available on and off campus. Staff from BioSci Careers will be present to provide feedback.

Notices

Disability Access

Students with disabilities necessitating accommodation and/or services in class should notify the teaching assistants and initiate a request with the Office of Accessible Education (OAE). The OAE will evaluate the request with required documentation, recommend appropriate accommodations, and prepare a verification letter dated in the current academic term in which the request is being made. Please contact the OAE as soon as possible; timely notice is needed to arrange for appropriate accommodations. The OAE is located on the first floor of the Student Services Building, between the Munger Graduate Residences and the Haas Center for Public Service, at 563 Salvatierra Walk, Stanford, CA 94305 (office hours Monday - Friday, 9 am - 5 pm). You may contact them through their website (oae.stanford.edu), email (oae-contactus@stanford.edu), or phone (650-723-1066).

Honor Code

Please visit and read the honor code from Stanford’s community standards website: https://communitystandards.stanford.edu/policies-and-guidance/honor-code. The difference between utilizing information from or taking quotes and giving proper citation to external information sources versus plagiarism should be apparent by now. These standards will be strictly upheld throughout this class.

Career Panel Participants

 

Career Panel I (April 30th, 2020): Business

Kirk Clark

Executive Director, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research

Dr. Clark received his PhD in Biochemistry at Kansas State University. After training in protein crystallography as a postdoc at The Rockefeller University, he joined the Swiss pharmaceutical company Ciba-Geigy to establish in-house protein crystallography capabilities in New Jersey. Upon the Ciba-Giegy/Sandoz merger to form the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, Dr. Clark has taken on increasing responsibilities locally and globally within the company, including heading their Protein Structure “home” in Cambridge, co-chairing the Drug Prototype project sub-portfolio, and participating in both the global Chemical Biology & Therapeutics and Protein Sciences global leadership teams. He currently serves as the Director of Novartis’ Protein Sciences group.

Pamela Marrone

CEO and Founder, Marrone Bio Innovations

Dr. Marrone received her PhD in Entomology from North Carolina State University. She has built her career towards the discovery and development of environmentally-responsible bio-based products for pest management and plant health. Originally working as the group leader of Monsanto’s Insect Biology group, she branched out and started her first company, Entotech, Inc., where she screened over 50,000 microorganisms for naturally-produced insecticidal products. Dr. Marrone subsequently started another company, AgraQuest, which developed a line of naturally-derived pest management products from similarly-robust screens of microorganisms. In 2006, she left AgraQuest to found her current company, Marrone Bio Innovations (MBI). MBI has produced award-winning bio-based products for use in many agricultural markets and is additionally marketing products for invasive zebra and quagga mussel control. Dr. Marrone also serves as a board member of a number of associations and companies, such as the Association for Women in Science, the Foundation for Food and Ag Research, and the startups Pheronym and AgShift. In addition, she is a Trustee of Cornell University.

 Jayaranjan (J) Anthonypillai

Founder and CEO, Berkeley BioLabs; Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Focus Academy LLC

J is a scientist and entrepreneur devoted to facilitating healthy and productive biotech startup cultures. He has a background in developing, validating, and scaling technologies, and has worked in clinical, clean-tech, biotech, and agri-tech sectors. Leveraging his experience and background in biology and lipid chemistry, he has developed novel technologies for overcoming product development, process development, and engineering challenges. Through his creations, Berkeley Biolabs and Focus Academy, he has helped seed and grow over 50 companies in the biotech sector.  Berkeley Biolabs is an incubator lab while Focus Academy serves as a ‘Soft Landing’ for international biotech startups in the Bay Area.  As an entrepreneur and mentor for several startups, J’s emphasis is often on product/market fit as the main driver of R&D effort and strategy.

Mowgli Holmes

Co-founder and CEO, Phylos Biosciences

Dr. Holmes earned his PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from Columbia University, and works on applying biotechnological skills towards the development of the contemporary cannabis industry. His company, Phylos Biosciences, provides genetic and sex testing services for marijuana growers, and additionally maintains an evolutionary database of different cannabis strains from thousands of varieties from over eighty countries. They also work to provide discounted services to support small-scale local growers. Holmes is the founding board member of the Cannabis Safety Institute and the Open Cannabis Project, and serves as Chair of the Oregon State Cannabis Research Task Force.

Career Panel II (May 7th, 2020): Academia

Pleuni Pennings

Assistant Professor, San Francisco State University

Dr. Pennings received her PhD in Evolutionary Biology at the University of Munich in Germany. Throughout her time in academia, she has engaged in a plethora of projects across the scales of life, from work on ant population genetics, to her current work as an Assistant Professor at SFSU studying the evolution of Human Immunodeficiency Virus drug resistance. In addition to research, she has devoted herself to science education, starting her own consulting agency to promote science communication and education in Amsterdam, and coordinating the Munich Graduate Program for Evolution, Ecology, and Systematics.

Miriam Goodman

Professor, Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University

Dr. Goodman earned a PhD from the University of Chicago in Neurobiology. Her academic career has revolved around elucidating the biological mechanisms of sensation, from her dissertation research on the ion channels necessary for hearing, to the analysis of ion channel biophysics and touch sensing as a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University. Currently, her work at the Stanford University School of Medicine includes using C. elegans as a model to better understand touch and pain sensation, and the mechanisms in which sensory neurons are protected from damage.

Jennifer Mortimer

Staff Scientist, Berkeley Lab and Director of Plant Systems Biology, JBEI

Dr. Mortimer received her PhD in Plant Science from the University of Cambridge, as well as a Masters of Research in Bioinformatics from the University of Exeter. After attaining her degrees, she worked as a Research Associate for several years, studying a number of topics regarding Arabidopsis physiology. Her research has focused on the synthesis, transport, and use of polysaccharides for plant cell wall formation and engineering. Currently she heads a lab that utilizes numerous different model plants to investigate these questions, and serves as Director of Plant Systems Biology at the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, where she investigates how to make biofuels and biochemicals from plant biomass.

Rebecca Albright

Assistant Curator, California Academy of Sciences

Dr. Albright got her PhD from the University of Miami in Marine Biology and Fisheries. Her work has been devoted to in-depth research on the impacts of environmental changes upon coral reef ecosystem health. She has worked as a postdoc at both the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Global Ecology Department, studying coral reef biogeochemistry and carbonate chemistry, as well as the effects of ocean acidification upon these processes. Currently as a curator at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, Dr. Albright works on creating a coral culturing facility.

Career Panel III (May 14th, 2020): Scientific Journalism, Administration, Law, Philanthropy

Amy Adams

Director of Long Range Vision Communications, Stanford University

Adams received her MS from Cornell University in genetics and development, as well as a certification from UC Santa Cruz in science communications. Her experiences with news and feature writing regarding a range of scientific topics include freelance writing and editing for a number of notable publications and websites, such as Science, Natural History, and CBSHealthWatch.com; science writing for the Stanford University School of Medicine; communications manager for the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine; and finally back to Stanford, where she has worked as the Director of Science Communications and currently serves as Director of Long Range Vision Communications.

James Keddie

Senior Patent Agent, Bozicevic, Field & Francis LLP

Dr. Keddie received his PhD in Plant Molecular Biology from the John Innes Institute in Norwich, UK. Though he began his post-doctoral career as a fellow in several plant biology labs, including the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Plant Biology Department, studying a range of topics from plant disease resistance to development to gene expression, he began work with intellectual property as a Senior Scientist and IP Manager at Mendel Biotechnology, Inc. Dr. Keddie currently serves as a Senior Patent Agent at Bozicevic, Field & Francis LLP, where his expertise in all aspects of patent prosecution are used to provide biotech-focused clients with patent drafting and prosecution services.

Rieko Yajima

Director for Drug Discovery Innovation, SPARK Translational Research Program, Stanford University

Dr. Yajima received her PhD in Chemical Biology from Penn State University. Her interests lie at the intersections of science, policy, and design. Dr. Yajima’s postdoctoral work as a Science & Design Research Scholar at Stanford University’s Center for Design Research investigated how design practices can catalyze scientific research and innovation; additionally, she has been an Associate Program Director at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, DC, and served as a science policy fellow at the National Academy of Sciences. She currently works on human-centered drug discovery research and translational medicine as a Director at Stanford’s SPARK Translational Research Program while also serving as a member of the Global Young Academy, an organization for young scientists to lead intersectional dialogue to diversify global decision-making.

Milan Karol

Senior Development Officer, Carnegie Institution for Science

Mr. Karol received an MS in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Throughout his career, he has become an experienced development officer and fundraiser in various environments, from working as a Sales Representative for a company in the software industry, to working as a Development Officer at two liberal arts colleges, to raising philanthropic dollars for medical research at Johns Hopkins Medicine. Currently, he is the Senior Development Officer for the Carnegie Institution for Science, building relationships and working with donors and philanthropists to achieve institutional goals.

 

 

Carnegie Scientific Writing Workshop Syllabus

Overview: To become a successful scientist, we must write well and effectively communicate our work to a broad audience.  Nevertheless, many of us do not receive official training on the fundamentals of scientific writing, and as a result struggle to highlight the significance of our work. This summer, we are offering an intensive scientific writing workshop to help you set up a writing routine, improve your writing, and gain the tools and confidence you need to become a leader in your field. * In-class exercises and lessons will be adapted from Anne E.Greene’s book titled Writing Science in Plain English.

Schedule and Location: The Carnegie scientific writing workshop is a 10-week series starting June 28th, 2019. Meetings will be held in the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Plant Biology Department Seminar Room (260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA, Building 600) on Fridays from 3-5pm.

Topics:

Week 1 (6/28): Introduction to creating a compelling narrative

• Discuss the overview, goals and expectations of the writing workshop

• Form scientific writing groups based off of writing experience and document type

• Setup electronic folders for submitting writing material

• Discuss how to tell your scientific story

  • Identifying your audience

  • Informal vs. formal register

  • Determining your tone

  • Defining subjects and action verbs

  • Using active vs. passive voice

  • Benefits of short vs. long words

  • Simplifying noun strings

  • Defining technical terms

  • Concise writing

  • Using transition statements

  • Affirmative vs. negative statements  

• In-class writing exercises

Homework for next class: Create a scientific storyboard

Week 2 (7/12): Workshop Scientific Storyboard

• Present scientific storyboards in writing groups

• Discuss Background and Significance

  • Identifying the scope and structure

  • Incorporating new vs. old information

  • Highlighting deficiencies in current knowledge and understanding

  • Justifying your project

  • Using parallel writing structures

• In-class exercises

Homework for next class: write up a draft of your background and significance section

Week 3 (7/19): Workshop Background and Significance Sections

• Review the Background and Significance section for two people in each writing group

• Discuss designing paragraphs

  • Identifying the issue

  • Development phase

  • Conclusion sentences

  • Coming to the point

• In-class exercises

Week 4 (7/26): Workshop remaining Background and Significance Sections

• Review the Background and Significance section for remaining people in each writing group

• Discuss different ways to arrange paragraphs

  • Chronological order

  • Broad ideas to narrow ideas

  • Least important to integral information

  • Problem to solution

  • Compare and contrast

  • Transition statements associated with different paragraph styles

• In-class exercises

Homework for next class: write up a draft of your Results and Approach

Week 5 (8/9) Workshop Results and Approach

• Review the results and approach section for two people in each writing group

• Discuss useful tips for making figures and figure legends

  • Identify your message

  • Writing strong captions

  • Writing stand alone text

  • Data visualization

• In-class exercise

Week 6 (8/16): Discuss Authorship, Publishing, and Reviewing/ Wine tasting

Using a few case scenarios, we will discuss topics relevant for publication

• Discuss available authorship guidelines from journals and scientific societies

• Discuss the process of publishing and reviewing

Week 7 (8/23): Workshop remaining Results and Approach

• Review the results and approach section for remaining people in each writing group

• Discuss how to organize a discussion and impact

Homework for next class: write up a draft of your discussion and impact

Week 8 (8/30): Workshop Discussion and Impact sections

• Review the discussion and impact section for all people in each writing group

• Discuss how to write an abstract

Homework for next class: write an abstract

Week 9 (9/6): Workshop Abstract sections

• Review the abstract sections of all writing group members.

• Introduce how to write a cover letter

Homework for next class: write a cover letter

Week 10 (9/13): Workshop three Cover letter sections/ Review a manuscript

• Review the cover letters for all members in the writing group

• Discuss how to review a manuscript