{"id":3914,"date":"2009-07-24T11:15:49","date_gmt":"2009-07-24T11:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2009\/07\/24\/pnas-pam-korda-medical-device\/"},"modified":"2009-07-24T11:15:49","modified_gmt":"2009-07-24T11:15:49","slug":"pnas-pam-korda-medical-device","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2009\/07\/24\/pnas-pam-korda-medical-device\/","title":{"rendered":"PNAS: Pam Korda, Medical Device Developer"},"content":{"rendered":"

(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers<\/a> 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.)<\/i><\/p>\n

1) What is your non-academic job?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am a “Lead Scientist” at an R&D subsidiary of a medical
\ndevices company. In practice, this means I oversee a small group of
\nscientists and engineers who are part of a project developing a new
\nmethod for doing diagnostic tests on human blood samples.<\/p>\n

2) What is your science background?<\/strong><\/p>\n

BA, MS, and PhD in physics from the University of Chicago.<\/p>\n

3) What led you to this job?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Networking. Early in my grad school career, I realized that the
\nacademic career path was not for me, and so I always intended to go
\ninto some sort of non-academic job. But, I did an academic post-doc
\nanyway. As the post-doc position neared its end, I started contacting
\nfriends & acquaintances who had science-related jobs outside of
\nacademia. One of them, who had been in the same research group as me
\nat the University of Chicago, was then a director of R&D for a small
\ntech start-up company that had grown out of some research done by my
\ngrad advisor. Although I hadn’t been directly involved in that
\nresearch, I was familiar with it, and so my friend asked if I’d be
\ninterested in coming to work at his company. I wasn’t sure about it,
\nbut I was interested enough to pay them a visit, and it seemed like a
\ndecent place to work, and it’d let me move back to Chicago, so I
\napplied, and they hired me as a scientist. Some time later, the
\ncompany was bought by a larger company, and some time after *that*, I was
\noffered the position of “lead scientist” when we reorganized our R&D
\ngroup to be more compartmentalized.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

4) What’s your work environment like?<\/strong><\/p>\n

These days, I spend most of my time at my desk or in meetings, doing
\nhigher-level planning and directing the research activities of my
\ngroup. Since we are not that big a group (like, 4 full-timers total)
\nin a small division, I still do some work in the lab, some design
\nwork, data analysis, whatever needs doing, really.<\/p>\n

5) What do you do in a typical day?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read e-mail, send e-mail, discuss progress on projects with my group
\nand\/or my boss, do planning for experiments, analyze data, eat lunch.<\/p>\n

6) How does your science background help you in your job?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s directly relevant to the projects my group works on. I make
\nregular use of my knowledge & experience in optics, statistical
\nmechanics, condensed-matter physics, error analysis, experiment
\ndesign, and data presentation.<\/p>\n

7) If a current college student wanted to get a job like yours, how
\nshould they go about it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Get an advanced degree (Master’s or PhD) in a scientific field. Focus
\non experimental science (rather than theory) and do as much lab work
\nin your chosen field as possible. Keep in touch with friends and
\ncoworkers who leave academia to work in industry. Join a professional
\norganization in your field of interest which is *not* oriented towards
\nacademics.<\/p>\n

8) What’s the most important thing you learned from science?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The most important thing I’ve learned from science is *science*:
\nknowledge about how the world works, and how to find out how the world
\nworks.<\/p>\n

9) What advice would you give to young science students trying to plan
\ntheir careers?<\/strong><\/p>\n

i) When choosing a research advisor, look beyond the research topic.
\nThis is somebody upon whom you’ll be depending on for recommendations,
\nreferrals, and support for years to come. Make sure it’s somebody you
\ncan get along with, respect, and who has a reputation for doing right
\nby their students & post-docs.<\/p>\n

ii) Don’t neglect communication skills: the caricature of the
\nreclusive scientist is bunk. Doing the greatest research in the
\nuniverse is pointless unless you have the tools to explain it to
\nothers. This is the case whether you work in an academic lab, a
\ngovernment lab, or an industrial lab. You always have to justify your
\nwork to the people who fund it, and explain it to people who might
\nwant to employ it in some way.<\/p>\n

10) (Totally Optional Question) What’s the pay like? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I really don’t want my salary posted on the Internet, so I’ll just say
\nthat the pay is very good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(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… Continue reading PNAS: Pam Korda, Medical Device Developer<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,13,57,58,59,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia","category-education","category-jobs","category-non-academic","category-pnas","category-science","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3914\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}