Welcome to the Tulane Biomedical Sciences Podcast, where we discuss topics including graduate career development, student resources and graduate life within the Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program at Tulane University in historic New Orleans. Your host for today’s episode is Madelyn Kist, a second year PhD student in the Tulane Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program. She is joined by Dr. Alan Goggins, an alumnus of the program who graduated in 2017. After graduation, he served as a postdoctoral fellow at Merck in their Biologics and Vaccines Bioanalytics group. He is currently Associate Principal Scientist at Merck Research Laboratories in San Francisco, where he works on early drug discovery with the Pharmacokinetic, Pharmacodynamic and Drug Metabolism group. He also serves on the sub-committee for Minority Education for the American Society of Microbiology. To begin, Dr. Goggins shares that his favorite thing about his time at Tulane was all of the amazing people he met there. He appreciated being able to celebrate the highs and lows of earning a PhD with his cohort. He also shares what an industry postdoc is like and its potential pros and cons. At the end of his PhD, Dr. Goggins was curious about industry but didn’t have the firsthand experience required by many employers. He was attracted to the industry postdoc at Merck, which emphasizes publications, and was able to turn it into an entirely different position within the company. He points out that not all postdocs are created equally, and graduates should seek positions that allow them to be involved in shareable publications. A good postdoc program, he explains, has alumni who find employment throughout the industry, proving that the experience they gained has value outside of that company. Next, Dr. Goggins reflects on the collaborative nature of industry compared to academia. While industry is all about how well a team performs together, academia usually prioritizes individual performance. Then, he identifies the character traits that are helping him thrive in the drug development industry: communication, the ability to detach from ideas/projects and flexibility. Having been involved in the hiring and interview processes, Dr. Goggins explains that it is actually okay to admit to not knowing something in an interview. Interviewers are actually oftentimes trying to push applicants to admit when they don’t know something. Finally, he explains that every conversation you have throughout the day is part of the interview. It’s important to remember that you are interviewing the people on the other side of the table just as much as they are interviewing you. Finally, he offers his best advice for people actively searching for positions in the digital age. Thanks for listening. Please like, share, and subscribe! Link: Learn more about the Tulane Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program at https://medicine.tulane.edu/education/biomedical-sciences-graduate-program.
Afficher plus
Afficher moins
Feb 7 202424 min