Jeff Milbrandt talks about the hiring process behind a faculty position that recently went at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis.

{credit}Photo credit: Robert Boston, Washington University School of Medicine {/credit}

As head of the genetics department at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis (WUSTL), what do you look for in new faculty members?

As a genetics department we’re very interested in computational approaches and new technologies because I think they’ve driven the genomic revolution. So we’re interested in finding people that are either utilising or developing new technologies to study fundamental disease pathways, with the hope that they will collaborate with more clinical people at Washington University to translate some of their discoveries into something that would benefit human kind.

What was the position you were trying to fill?

Essentially, we were looking for young, energetic, creative and accomplished scientists that are going to fulfil the dream of being able to study basic disease mechanisms using genomic technologies across two departments: genetics and developmental biology.

The fundamental role of the new faculty member is to do world-class research. There is not a huge teaching burden and there is a minimal administrative burden. The position was designed for someone to develop their laboratory, to obtain external grant funding, attract students and postdocs to the lab to help with the exciting work described by the candidates. Continue reading →