2009 Career Opportunities in Physiology Committee Report
Career Development at
EB2009
2008 Session Web Resources: Multimedia presentations for the EB 2008 Careers
Symposium, “Mid-career Transitions: Choices and Challenges,” were edited and
posted at the APS website and catalogued at the APS Archive of Teaching
Resources for wide dissemination. The resources include talks by Marian R.
Walters, Penn State Capital College (“How to manage mid-career transitions:
voluntary and involuntary”), David M. Pollock, Medical College of Georgia
(“Transitions from industry to academia [and vice-versa]”), Edward J. Zambraski,
US Army Institute of Environmental Medicine (“Scientific career opportunities in
the government/military”), and D. Neil Granger, Louisiana State University
Health Sciences Center, Shreveport, (“Assuming administrative/leadership
positions while maintaining an active research program”).
2009 Career Symposium: In 2009 the Career Opportunities in Physiology, Trainee
Advisory, and Women in Physiology Committees again coordinated the topics of
their sessions to provide a complimentary set of career advancement sessions for
physiologists. Committee members Caroline Sussman and Kamal Rahmouni organized
the session, entitled, “Rising and Surviving: Elucidating Tenure and Promotion
in Multiple Career Paths.” It featured speakers with experience in academia of
different types and industry. Attendees gave the presentations high “usefulness”
ratings. The workshop drew a moderate-sized group of about 30 attendees.
2010 Career Symposium
In 2010, the Committee will focus its EB symposium on government careers in
physiology. The session is being organized by Committee members Kathy Ryan and
Kamal Rahmouni and is entitled, “Government Careers in Physiology Revealed.”
2010 EB Career Symposium Description: There are many career opportunities in the
various branches and agencies of the US government. Yet many young scientists
are unaware of employment possibilities in the government and have no
information regarding these career paths. The goal of this symposium is to
elucidate these issues as they apply to several settings including NIH, EPA
(Environmental Protection Agency), FDA and DoD (Department of Defense). The
target audience is students and postdoctoral fellows, as well as early career
and established investigators seeking information on job opportunities and
career development processes in the government. Specific issues that will be
addressed include: 1) possibilities for employment as a bench scientist in both
civilian and military laboratories; 2) opportunities to utilize critical
thinking and research skills in the administration/regulation of science and
scientific products; 3) advantages and disadvantages of a government career; 4)
successful strategies to navigate the hiring maze; and 5) citizenship
requirements and opportunities for non-US citizens. Following the presentations,
there will be an opportunity for attendees to further discuss the topics
described above with the invited speakers in a general panel discussion session.
Career Presentations at APS Conferences
In 2008, the Committee presented a two-hour workshop at the APS Conference,
“2008 APS Intersociety Meeting: The Integrative Biology of Exercise V,” using
the materials from the Professional Skills Courses. The workshop, “Writing your
first papers: The ‘ins’ and ‘outs’ of authorship,” was presented by Committee
member Michael Sturek and focused on how authorship on manuscripts is determined
and engaged participants in an authorship case study. Presenters also shared an
overview of the career development resources offered by the APS, including the
new Professional Skills Courses. In the coming year, the Committee is developing
a menu of career session topics and resources to share with those developing
proposals for future APS conferences so that proposals can integrate APS-developed
career materials from the start. In 2009, Committee member Magdalena
Alonso-Galicia will present a similar workshop at the “Sex Steroids and Gender
in Cardiovascular-Renal Physiology and Pathophysiology” conference.
Undergraduate Summer Fellow Research Program
The 2008-09 UGSRFs completed their fellowship year by attending EB 2009 in New
Orleans. Of the 24 fellows, 23 (96%) attended EB and 23 (96%) submitted an
abstract. The 2008-09 UGSRFs, like those in the past, competed successfully in
the David S. Bruce Excellence in Undergraduate Research Award program, winning
one or more Bruce Awards in each year of the award program.
2009-10 Program Update: For the 10th year of the program, 50 applications were
received, a slight increase from 48 last year. The quality of the applications
was deemed very high by the Committee and they were pleased to be able to
recommend 24 students for fellowships; these students were subsequently approved
by Council ballot. Thus, 48% of the applications were funded, which still
allowed for high selectivity on the part of the Committee. Over the 10-year
history of the program, the program received 477 applications for the 156 awards
granted, with the average funding rate of one-third (33%).
Evidence continues to indicate that the program is meeting the “short-term”
goals of the program. For instance, this year, 23 fellows attended the EB 2009
meeting, bringing the nine-year total to 123 of 133 total awardees (92%) who
attended EB, an APS national conference, or a comparable national meeting. At EB
2009, 23 of the fellows had abstracts, with nearly all being first author on
their abstract. Thus, the initial 133 awards (first nine years) have fostered
research experiences sufficiently successful to produce 121 abstracts at
national meetings.
Undergraduate Orientation Session at EB09
The first orientation session at EB 2009 attracted 50+ undergraduate students.
All undergraduate students who submitted a first author physiology poster were
invited and announcements were posted in emails to the Trainee listserv, ACDP,
and All-APS. Members of the Careers and Trainee Advisory Committees gave the
session presentations.
APS Website or Facebook – “Career Designer”
The Committee is generating a list of keywords for each APS physiologist
biography at the APS Career Web. The Committee is exploring the idea of creating
a Facebook or website application that would generate interest in learning more
about physiology careers (“Could you be a physiologist?”) The student could
click on career keywords that interest him/her and see the biography of an APS
physiologist whose career deals with those interests.
Career Outreach PowerPoint Presentation Package
In 2008, Council authorized the Committee to develop interactive, online
physiology activities to enhance the PhUn Week website and engage younger
children (early readers) in doing simple physiology experiments and to engage
their interest in science careers. The Education Office is working to develop
online exercise experiments that can be used by elementary students. For
example, students can change the speed at which a jogger (or research animal)
runs and make predictions about how this will affect his/her heart rate and
respiration. This activity would be coordinated with the current PhUn Week
theme.
APS Careers Web Site
Links for this site of more than 1,500 pages are checked on an annual basis to
assure that the resources can be easily accessed. Web statistics on usage are
gathered quarterly by the Education Office. The Committee also is exploring the
idea of building an online “career exploration” tool that can help students
identify potential physiology careers that match their interests and talents. As
a first step in this process, the Committee plans to develop a list of
physiology career options and a description of each career.
Working with other undergraduate research programs
The APS has had great success with its UGSRF program. The Committee believes
that the APS can act as a catalyst to both strengthen and expand other
undergraduate research programs, especially those managed by other FASEB
societies. The Career Opportunities in Physiology Committee could host a
networking meeting at EB for those faculty members who are key players in their
institution’s undergraduate research fellowship programs. The meeting would be a
sharing session to discuss both successful strategies and persistent problems,
to share evaluation methods and tools, and to plan future joint events and
activities for undergraduates at EB. Possible outcomes of this networking might
be:
-
joint undergraduate skills training
sessions at EB on professional skills topics, such as developing a
hypothesis-driven research project, conducting a literature search, or writing
methods and results sections;
-
support materials and/or workshops for
mentors and advisors on working with undergraduate students;
-
sharing of instruments to allow
collaboration on multi-program evaluations;
-
working with MARC programs to increase
minority student involvement in undergraduate physiology research.
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