Professional Development
Typical Training Plan: A typical training plan is presented below. highlighting the activities of the training plan and how they are integrated during a trainee’s graduate school tenure (5-6 years).
In the current CBITG program, a number of activities continue to be developed to assist trainees about careers available to them as Ph.D. level scientists and about how to develop their professional skills to help them propel their career forward. Development activities are implemented using feedback from CBITG trainees, trainers, and the executive advisory board, discussions between program directors, as well as from interactions with other T32 programs both on campus and at other institutions. These multiple mechanisms allow us to best meet the changing needs of our trainees to transition into successful careers using their interdisciplinary training. These activities are being integrated into the training plan on a regular basis and both qualitative and quantitative metrics are being used to assess their success. Career placement is one summative assessment A list of alumni from CBITG and their positions after graduation is also posted on this publicly accessible website for the program. This list is valuable for the trainees to access to maintain contact with their alumni network.
3a. Program-Specific Career Activities: Four pillars for career-related activities have been established to expose trainees and chemical biology researchers outside the training grant to the breadth of careers in the biomedical research workforce for which their training may be useful using CBITG resources.. To fulfill the diverse career interests, as a fifth pillar, we also leverage university resources for career service support (Figure 3): (1) interdisciplinary research training (2) attending and organizing scientific conferences (3) Chemical Biology Colloquium (CBC) programming and (4) New: summer industry/academia site visits. and (5) UMN career services. These opportunities are shared with CBITG trainees through emails, monthly meeting with trainees, and at the start of CBC meetings. Additional impact from these training activities are assessed in the career specific training section of our annual trainee survey and trainee feedback.
3a.1 Interdisciplinary research training is a centerpiece of the CBITG providing essential experiential training opportunities. In addition to didactic interdisciplinary coursework, technical skill and exposure to a breadth of techniques outside one’s immediate discipline is a strength of training in chemical biology and a versatile technical competency for biomedical research careers. All trainees on the CBITG have a co-mentor who is providing training in a new area of chemistry or biology that augments the training of each trainee. Training and evaluation is discussed in section 2 above. All trainees present their research at the CBC meeting the year after their CBITG appointment ends. Outside of the immediate research, trainees are also afforded opportunities to take part in interdisciplinary research workshops on campus. This past year a protein expression workshop was put on by the Institute for Therapeutics Discovery and Development (> 20 attendees) which 2 trainees attended. Revvity was also invited to campus for a lunch and learn workshop on using AlphaScreen/AlphaLISA technology for which all CBITG trainees were invited and four trainees attended. 2 trainees attended a generative AI workshop this March. Workshops will continue to be promoted every year. Due to the diverse training needs of our students, not all trainees attend each workshop. Two popular UMN workshops that are provided regularly are a proteomics workshop (1 trainee attended in 2024) and an NIH F31 grant writing workshop (1 trainee attended in 2022). Attendance is tracked through the trainee’s annual reports.
3a.2 Attending and organizing scientific conferences. Scientific conferences expose students to diverse research and careers outside of their own research experiences at UMN. The second program-specific event used for career training is the Annual Research Symposium. From a career perspective, this event addresses three specific aspects of career training. First, since the trainees are responsible for all aspects of the symposium, they learn about all dimensions of planning and running a scientific symposium including budgeting, professional communication, working in a group and organizing a banquet. While the meeting is student run, trainees receive support from the program directors, who meet monthly with trainees, provide feedback/suggestions on their planning activities, and set up needed meetings. To help students learn about budgeting, the program directors establish an early meeting with the accounting office with trainees. Although fundraising is limited, the program directors provide guidance on how to request funding from outside sources, and help edit letters. In 2023 the trainees received funding from the MN ACS local section, and the program directors helped them run a Division of Biological Chemistry membership table at the conference. Next, since the speakers arrive the night before, trainees host dinner for them (no faculty) providing them an extended period of time to ask career-related questions. Finally, the symposium will provide an opportunity for the trainees to meet scientists working in a variety of settings since the program always includes several non-academic speakers. A career panel at the end of the conference is a valuable activity for learning more about these diverse career paths. Past examples of these paths include scientists from industry, a NASA scientist, FBI scientists, and an entrepreneur.
In addition to the exposure to research at the annual symposium, trainees receive travel support from the CBITG funds to attend a conference. To augment this experience, each department also has dedicated funding for trainees to also apply for to continue to participate at research conferences. Many such conferences (e.g. GRS/GRC, ACS) have additional career development opportunities, including resume feedback, interviewing, and career panels.
3a.3 Chemical Biology Colloquium (CBC) programming The CBC is a third pillar for career training. We use this regular seminar time slot to host at least one career related seminar that addresses different aspects of this topic each semester. Several examples of panels that have been presented on this current training cycle include: “Tips and Tricks for Graduate Student Success on the Job Market”, “Top Design Tips for Better Grant Figures”, “Productive, Pleasant, and Professional Interviews”, “Career Tracks in Chemical Biology: Biotech, Research Tools, Patents.” Since our submission last year, we hosted a career panel with alumni and current CBITG trainers. Panelists were asked to prepare some slides and make brief remarks. Attendees were asked in advance to provide questions for the panelists to consider before the event. A moderator read some of these questions and asked the panelists for responses. Finally, the panelists took questions from the audience. This format has proven to be an effective mechanism for generating interest in these workshops and ensuring that students find them useful. For future panels, panelists will be drawn from a number of sources including training faculty, other faculty, university staff, local industrial scientists and other relevant individuals with scientific backgrounds. Examples of non-academic panelists from previous years include industrial scientists, patent attorneys, technology transfer officers, scientists from regulatory affairs, the director of the Minnesota Science Museum, scientists from the federal agencies and a biotechnology CEO from a start-up company. Beyond the specific workshops, CBC speakers for research seminars will be frequently drawn from industry (at least 2 per year), providing students with exposure to cutting-edge industrial science. To encourage individual interactions with all external seminar speakers, trainees will be invited to have lunch with them during their visit. In February 2024, Niyi Fadeyi, the Co-Founder of InduPro Therapeutics presented a seminar on their research platform, attended lunch with trainees, and hosted a 1 hour career discussion with trainees. In March 2024, the director of clinical chemistry, Jessie Seegmiller, gave a seminar about the clinical chemistry fellowship program, what a career in clinical chemistry looks like, and the training provided by the fellowship. Dr. Seegmiller, provided an opportunity for CBITG trainees to take part in shadowing when the fellows are on rounds, which one trainee followed up on.
3a.4 New: Summer industry/academia site visits: The final pillar is new based on program director consultation and trainee feedback. We are now introducing an annual site visit to a local biotech company or academic institution, that has recently employed a CBITG trainer alumnus. The goal of this training activity, is to expose students to a broader array of careers which employ chemical biologists, strengthen their alumni network and sense of community, and receive feedback on their training from experts in the field. This year, all trainees (plus three past trainees) are traveling to Bio-Techne where a CBITG alumn is employed. This visit will consist of a site tour, a feedback session on trainees resumes which are submitted a week ahead of time, a 1 hour flashtalk session given by the trainees, and a networking hour. These experiential learning activities are important for informing trainees on the essential steps needed to attain positions in the biomedical research workforce The success of this program will be assessed through trainee feedback on a survey, as well as feedback from Bio-Techne.
3b. Additional Career Activities: In addition to the programmatic activities described above, there are substantial opportunities at the UMN for all students to augment their career potential. Each college has their own individualized career service office (see facilities and resources) with opportunities for resume feedback, career fairs, interview resources, and networking. For example, the College of Science and Engineering holds an annual career fair where students can participate in mock-interviews and on-site interviews with prospective employers. The College career site features a wealth of information on career assessment, networking and information about internships, co-ops and job shadowing. The College of Biological Sciences Career Development Office offers a series of career development workshops for postdocs and senior-level graduate students, led by a team from Nelson Biomedical (a consulting firm). The workshops focus on developing communication skills for pursuing careers outside of academia. Of note, the University has a website dedicated to career resources for students from underrepresented groups. Additional career development opportunities are regularly communicated to chemical biology trainees through the chembio email list serve, as well as announced at monthly CBITG meetings and at the CBC. Two recent examples include, an interviewing workshop put on by the council of graduate students in chemistry using industrial expert panelists happening this May which CBITG trainees were invited to attend. Secondly, meeting slides were shared from a student-attended conference with Merck on interviewing and resume writing were shared with the chemical biology community. These opportunities are optional but supplement trainee’s career training experiences and for further understanding the biomedical research workforce landscape and occur on a regular basis. Of the 259 predoctoral trainees that have graduated with a PhD 242 (93%) have stayed in research related careers.