More to Science: Working as a science journalist

What is your scientific background? I was on the standard academic track for years and received my PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. The department was called Molecular and Cell Biology, but my research was standard Drosophila genetics. I studied how flies translate the number of X chromosomes they have into the large set of developmental changes that produces a male or female fly. That was in Tom Cline’s lab, who was one of the key figures in that field. After that, I decided I wanted to study vertebrates, and went to New York City to work with Lee Niswander, who was at Sloan-Kettering at the time. I wanted to study limb development, which she specialized in, however, after a series of failed projects, I ended up looking at how the spinal cord develops instead. That went well, but not well enough for me to get a tenure track position. So, when Lee moved her lab to Colorado, I was fortunate to find a home as an Instructor with Takashi Mikawa, across the street at Cornell Med. When he decided to move his lab to UCSF about a year later, I realized that I’d pushed my luck as far as it would go and it was time to consider something other than academic research. How did you transition from the lab to your current job? Accidentally, in a lot of ways. I’d been reading Ars Technica when they decided to open a science blog. Something inspired me to offer to write for them, and they took me up on it. I had been doing that for a couple of years when my research care...
Source: BioMed Central Blog - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Tags: Biology Health Medicine #moretoscience careers early career researchers PhD Science>Careers Source Type: blogs