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Navigating a career pathway: advice from CF researchers
Our panel included Dr Luke Allsopp, Professor Debbie Baines, Professor Jo Fothergill and Dr Paola Vergani. We thank them very much for sharing their insights and agreeing for them to be shared in this article.
If you were a PhD student again, what would you do differently?
Be less worried that your experiments aren’t giving you the answers you’re expecting! Science is uncertain because you are looking to answer questions that no one knows the answers to. It’s exciting when you finally understand why you got the results you did.
Focus on the positive experiences of being an early career researcher - designing experiments and trying to find out something that no one else in the world knows. It’s about making that very tiny step forward that can help someone.
What’s the worst careers advice that you’ve ever had?
I was told it was important to move to different labs and work in lots of different places. I’ve been in the same place since my PhD and it has worked for me! I felt I was in the best place to do what I wanted to do. I think where you are depends on the opportunities available, the project you’re working on and the support you have.
What careers advice would you give?
Work with people you like! Try and work with people that you get on with. If you like the people you work with, as well as admire their work, it helps to build up enthusiasm and momentum in your research.
I’ve always valued working with someone who hadn’t forgotten what it was like to be an early career researcher. They had empathy about my worries - was I getting the right results in the lab and what my next career steps might be.
Seek out mentors! Your principal investigator is a great person to discuss your results with, but they have a vested interest in you doing well and staying in their lab. Speak to other people in science both in academic and the commercial sector, and also outside of research too. Their different perspectives are really helpful.
The best thing someone said to me was ‘why not’? It encouraged me to think positively and find different ways round things.
Take your time! Take time to explore the data you obtain. Look at the details, try different ways of presenting, look for patterns you were not expecting. Don't worry if you also need to take some time to investigate and study an area of research that you don't know much about, but that seems very relevant to your experiment. The exploring and studying time is not wasted, even if initially it might seem like that.
As well as networking with more senior colleagues, network among yourselves too. Other people have different expertise, if you can visit a lab, and have another PhD student show you something, it’s always so much easier.
Any tips on getting the next job / that PhD place?
Share your enthusiasm! You’ll need to work hard to do a PhD, but you need to enjoy it and be interested in it too. Your enthusiasm will help to drive your curiosity in why you want to do something.
Enthusiasm counts more than marks for sure. Also think about what you can bring to CF research, what you can add from your background that might be a bit different.
Network! Talk to people. The person that you met in the corridor one week may be about to advertise a job! –If you know of someone who is advertising a post, go and have an informal chat with them. Asking to visit their lab shows you’re enthusiastic, but also gives you a chance to see whether you’re going to be able to work with them or not. (But read a couple of their papers first!).
Plan ahead. Many research funding programmes are designed for people at different stages of their career. Planning sometimes years ahead means you can apply at the right time and built a reputation and a good set of results to support your application.
Sign up to our Coffee and Careers webinars to ask your own questions!
Co-developed with Dr Iain Stewart at Imperial College London, we have launched a new ‘Coffee and Careers’ webinar series for early career researchers. It’s an opportunity to hear from more senior researcher working in CF research about key decisions, advice and pitfalls in their career so far.
At the first webinar on Tuesday 18 February at 11am, Iain and Nottingham-based PhD student Arantxa Recto will be in conversation Dr Laurie Smith, Lead Research Respiratory Physiologist from University of Sheffield.
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