Alumni Spotlight- Ed Himelblau

Current Employer:

Marquette University

Job Title:

Laboratory Manager

Home Town:

San Diego, CA

Current Location:

Milwaukee, WI

Short Description of your Graduate School Research:

Plant genetics and molecular biology in the Biochemistry Department

Faculty Advisor:

Richard Amasino

CMB Degree Received in:

2000

What and where is your current position?

I’m at Marquette University. I retired at 55 from a full time, tenured faculty job in California. We moved to Wisconsin and I started working in a rice genetics lab as the lab manger. I do tissue culture, bioinformatics, and a lot of mentoring (undergraduates and graduate students). I also do part-time teaching for the biology department.

Describe your career path from graduate school to your current position.

I did a postdoc in the same lab I got my PhD in and right away started to apply for teaching-focused jobs. My first job was at a small liberal arts college in New York. After four years there, I moved to the Department of Biological Sciences at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, CA. Cal Poly is a primarily undergraduate institution with a small masters program. I taught and ran a lab there for 19 years, earning tenure along the way.

How did your experience with CMB shape your career?

The research I did as a CMB student was very similar (approach, techniques, etc.) as what I did in my own lab… combining classical and molecular genetics and, eventually, bioinformatics. I had opportunities to do biotechnology internships and to teach while I was a grad student and that helped me refine what I wanted to do for my career.

What made you decide to pursue a PhD with CMB at UW–Madison?

There were a bunch of people at UW doing interesting plant genetics research (many labs I could have joined) and I appreciated that my CMB cohort was fairly large… about 20 students in my year.

Describe a “day in the life” of  your current job.

My day is a mix of independent work, mentoring in the lab (grad students and undergraduates), and computational work–mostly using bioinformatics packages in R. When I’m teaching, much of my classroom prep happens in the evening.

What is your best piece of advice for current graduate students preparing for their careers?

Don’t be in a rush… be open to impromptu conversations about science, projects, and careers. Have a second thing, even if it’s small. I started drawing cartoons as a grad student and today, I’m a cartoonist for The New Yorker magazine.

What advice would you give to current students who are specifically interested in a career path similar to yours?

If you get some teaching experience as a grad student, do occasional workshops at the Center for Teaching, and think a lot about potential research projects that can involve undergraduates, you WILL be qualified for faculty positions at teaching-oriented, primarily undergraduate institutions… even without postdoctoral research. If you are close to graduating and you see a job you are interested in APPLY. Teaching-oriented colleges are looking for people who are good communicators and who want to provide authentic research for young students.