Tag Archives: social

Finding job satisfaction as a humanitarian researcher

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Panagiotis Vagenas left Yale University to advise a non-profit on research design and quality.

What did you do before Yale?

I’m from Greece originally. In 1996 — when I was 17 — I moved to London, UK. I studied biochemistry for my degree and did a PhD in immunology. When I graduated I moved to the Population Council labs at the Rockefeller University in New York to start my postdoc.

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Panagiotis Vagenas

What did you study?

I worked on basic research in HIV. What’s always motivated me is trying to help people — to have a meaningful career in that sense. So in summer 2010 I moved to Yale School of Public Health and did a master’s in public health (MPH), and went on to join the faculty at the Yale School of Medicine in 2013. Continue reading →

Science and social mobility

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David Payne examines the links between socioeconomic status and a career in science.

“Congrats on the new job David, good to see a ‘Stabbo’ lad doing so well…”

So said Richard, a Facebook friend and former schoolmate in a reference to my status change last month, posted the night before I started working at Nature, and to our home town.

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Stabbo — AKA Stapleford — lies on the Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire border. One of its local authority wards has the highest percentage of lone parent householders in the borough, some of the highest rates of overcrowding, domestic abuse, and alcohol related hospital admissions and emergency asthma admissions. The latest news I heard about my home town was that its only supermarket is set to close. Its replacement? A discount store. Continue reading →