Current Employer:
University of Iowa
Job Title:
Professor of Microbiology and Immunology
Home Town:
Canby, MN
Current Location:
Iowa City, IA
Short Description of your Graduate School Research:
Examination of the role of epidermal growth factor and growth hormone in adipocyte differentiation and proliferation.
Faculty Advisor:
Paul Bertics
CMB Degree Received in:
1999
What and where is your current position?
I am a Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Iowa. I am also the Deputy Director of Research for the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Describe your career path from graduate school to your current position.
After I graduated from the CMB program, I was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Larry Samelson at the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. I was then recruited to the faculty at the University of Iowa where I now a Professor and Vice Chair in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. In 2018, I was appointed the Associate Director for Career Enhancement at the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center and just recently was promoted to the role of Deputy Director for Research.
How did your experience with CMB shape your career?
The training I received in the laboratory of Paul Bertics was instrumental in my career. Not only did I grow as a scientist, but Paul was an excellent mentor for the communication of science and how a good mentor helps guide his mentees. My broader classwork in all aspects of cell and molecular biology helped give me a much broader base of knowledge and set me up well for future research.
What made you decide to pursue a PhD with CMB at UW-Madison?
I was attracted to the breadth of faculty that were in the program, the excitement of the students and the strength of research at the University of Wisconsin. I also really enjoyed the collaborative nature of the research at UW.
What challenges did you face in your graduate degree, or in launching your career?
The main challenge in my graduate degree was developing the critical thinking skills needed to truly understand the data I generated. It is one thing to make conclusions from an experiment, but it is more difficult to understand the strengths and weaknesses of an experiment to make conclusions that are supported by the data.
Describe a “day in the life” of your current job.
This is a hard question to answer, since I wear many “hats” at Iowa. I am deeply involved in the management of my home department, the cancer center and my research program. These all take up my time with meetings and emails to make sure everything is moving forward. I try to cut out large blocks of time to think and write but that can be a challenge due to my schedule. My days really vary from back to back meetings one day to 6 hours of writing the next day.
What is your best piece of advice for current graduate students preparing for their careers?
Take care of yourself both mentally and physically. I truly believe that to do well, you have to be well. I try to incorporate exercise and mental health activities into my daily life, which makes me better able to be engaged at work.
What advice would you give to current students who are specifically interested in a career path similar to yours?
Take opportunities early in your career to mentor, serve on committees and teach. Most students focus on the science as a path to an academic career but most of these positions require these other skills.