Fall Retreat

From left, Matt Keuss (IGERT), Zev Binder (NTCM), Terrence Dobrowsky (HHMI) and Shyam Khatau (IGERT) chat between speakers.

By Mary SpIro

Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows affiliated with Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology (INBT) clock many hours in the laboratory. INBT gives them a little break at the annual Fall Retreat. The most recent gathering, held November 21, 2009 at the Mount Washington Conference Center, focused on the theme “Career Pathways for Scientists and Engineers: What happens after the PhD?”

Participants come from INBT’s various graduate and postdoctoral programs, including the National Science

Foundation funded Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT), the National Institutes of Health T-32 Nanotechnology for Cancer Medicine (NTCM) postdoctoral training program, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) NanoBioMed graduate fellowship. INBT currently hosts more than 30 students through these programs.

Participants heard Courtney Stelling, a senior scientist at Becton Dickinson Diagnostics of Sparks, Maryland and recent PhD graduate, explain the career development pathway provided to “newbies” at her company. Cindy Oliver, vice president for development at MedImmune in Gaithersburg, added her perspective as a woman scientist with many years of experience at all levels of the corporate world. The faculty presentation came from Assistant Professor Warren L. Grayson from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the School of Medicine. You can read about Grayson’s bone tissue bioreactor on pages 16 and 17 of NanoBio Magazine.

Lively discussions followed the presentations and students broke out into groups: one set of those nearing graduation who met with Stelling and Oliver and another set of students just starting out in the programs who met with INBT director Peter Searson and associate director

Denis Wirtz. The new students learned about graduation requirements and discussed developing courses in entrepreneurship and teaching. Participants in the group with postdocs or soon-to-be PhDs discussed the current job market and opportunities in academia and industry.

The value for professional development that resulted from this informal and conversational approach at the retreat was best summed up in a comment from IGERT fellow Julia Swavola, doctoral student in chemical and biomolecular engineering working with the Bevan Group.

“I knew that becoming affiliated with INBT would be different, but I had no idea that it would help me figure out my future. This was really great!” Swavola said. ®

Postdoc Daniele Gilkes (center) listens to MedImmune’s Cindy Oliver during discussion session. From left, Jesse Placone, Andrew Wong, Charli Dvoracek and Meghan Vellotti. Laura Ensign (HHMI) has a comment. Photos: Mary Spiro