{credit}Betzig Lab, Janelia Research Campus{/credit}
In late 2014, just a month after learning he had won that year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for superresolution microscopy, Eric Betzig and colleagues described a technique that has taken the microscopy world by storm.
Laureate Eric Betzig ignored the traditional boundaries of academic disciplines. He attributes his success to a background in industry. Should young scientists look outside of the university system to progress their careers?
It’s often said that being a science graduate is a great thing: it opens so many doors and gives you the chance to take on any career. Although this might be true, it also makes deciding what career to focus on, and train for, very difficult.
This month, Nature Careers published a great piece based on the 2015 Nature Graduate Student Survey, where Nature tried to uncover what careers early career researchers were hoping to get, and how they were preparing themselves. In this podcast I was joined by Monya Baker, one of the Nature Careers editors, to give us some further insight into the survey.
The second part of the podcast is an interview I did with Eric Betzig, one of the three chemistry Nobel prize winners in 2014. In our chat we talk about his work in breaking the diffraction limit, what it’s like to see living cells move and his transitions from academia to industry and back again.
Contributor Michael Gatchell
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Mentors are fundamental in molding young scientists into independent researchers. These relationships can take on many forms and evolve along the way, but they never stop being important for a scientist.
Relationships with mentors change as a young scientist’s career progresses and they gain experience. But it is naïve to think that you are less dependent on the advice from your peers as you grow. “I think you need more advice in a way, but different types,” says Martin Chalfie, 2008 Nobel laureate in chemistry. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, 2009 Nobel laureate in chemistry, agrees that it is important to have somebody who you trust to discuss major decisions with. He maintained a close relationship with his postdoctoral mentor as his career progressed, “He was always very honest — I didn’t always agree with him — but I always found it useful to talk to him.” Continue reading