Jobs

(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Ethan Allen, a program manager.) 1) What is your non-academic job? I manage education and outreach (terrible term, hate it) for two different Centers here at UW the Center for Nanotechnology and the Genetically…
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Joel Boyce, a high school science and math teacher in Canada.) 1) What is your non-academic job? I'm a high school science and math teacher. 2) What is your science background? I have a B.Sc, majoring in…
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of James Annan) 1) What is your non-academic job? I'm a research scientist at a Govt lab, working in the field of climate change research. Currently I'm in Japan, which is probably a bit off-the-wall for most…
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Alric, a veterinary pathologist at a drug company) 1) What is your non-academic job? I am toxicologic veterinary pathologist and work at a contract research organization. We use animal models to evaluate the…
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Raymond Wagner, an engineer and technical fellow for a defense contractor.) 1) What is your non-academic job? Chief Engineer for an initiative to enable users of a system-of-systems to concurrently train or…
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of David Syzdek, a wildlife biologist.) 1) What is your non-academic job? I work as a wildlife biologist for a large water utility in a Western state. 2) What is your science background? BS in Environmental…
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Cush Copeland, a high-school science teacher.) 1) What is your non-academic job? I teach high school science in a public school in Central Florida. Over twenty years, I have taught mostly earth/space science (…
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Lucy Rogers, a writer in the UK.) 1) What is your non-academic job? I have managed to combine my interest in all things space with parts of my portfolio career. For example, I am the author of the book 'It's…
I'm going to be off at Worldcon for the next several days, but fear not, the blog will still be active. I have scheduled non-academic scientist interviews to post every weekday while I'm gone. There are two posts each for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Monday, and Tuesday, so you'll have plenty of non-traditional career paths to consider. This taps out my stock of interview responses. I am happy to continue doing these, though, as long as people are willing to volunteer. So, if you've got a science degree and an interesting job, drop me a line.
The semi-nonymous Phillip H. at DC Dispatches liked the idea behind the Project for Non-Academic Science, but he didn't want to reveal his secret identity. So he wrote up and posted his own interview: 1) What is your non-academic job? I'm the National Program Coordinator for Protected Species at my Federal Agency. This means I work to bring together a whole host of offices, labs, programs, and people to conserve and recover marine species that are listed under the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Go over there to read his answers to the rest of the questions.
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Jon Moulton, a biologist working at a small biotech company.) 1) What is your non-academic job? I work for Gene Tools, LLC, manufacturers of Morpholino antisense oligos, as a molecular biologist and general-…
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Katherine Porter, an editor of textbooks and other educational materials.) 1) What is your non-academic job? I work as a science content editor for Words & Numbers, an educational content developer. Our…
The Project for Non-Academic Science posts have been very well received, and I continue to get a steady trickle of new volunteers. I'm going to slow the rate of posting these a little bit, as the recent posting rate has been a little ridiculous, but I'll keep posting them as long as people keep answering questions. Were I a more compulsively organized person, I would be tagging and indexing these in a systematic manner as I go. I'm not that organized, though, though it's possible that I will at some point be so desperate to avoid work that I ought to be doing that I will go back and sort them…
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Tim Johnson, a software engineer.) 1) What is your non-academic job? In a nutshell, software engineering. Started off with C/C++, TCL/TK, and a sprinkling of perl. For the last few years, it has been Java…
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Evie Marom, an honest-to-God rocket scientist at SpaceDev.) 1) What is your non-academic job? I'm an Aerospace Engineer at a rocket and satellite company called SpaceDev. The company was recently acquired by a…
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Dennis Lee, a researcher at a biotech company.) 1) What is your non-academic job? I'm the director of research for a small biotech company based in Houston. We're developing a new device for high-throughput…
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Pam Korda, a physicist working for a medical device company.) 1) What is your non-academic job? I am a "Lead Scientist" at an R&D subsidiary of a medical devices company. In practice, this means I oversee a…
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Denise Hills, a government geologist) 1) What is your non-academic job? My job title is the very descriptive "Geologist II" which really tells you nothing about what I actually DO, now does it? I work for the…
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Mike Sperry, who works for a planetarium company.) 1) What is your non-academic job? I am a Research Specialist/Scientist for Sky-Skan, a planetarium company. The company focus on everything from the software…
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Sandra Ulbrich Almazan, who works as a scientist in the food industry.) 1) What is your non-academic job? I am an assistant scientist for an enzyme company. I work in the R&D department; I focus on finding…