DEB Faculty Reflections

DEB Faculty: Sharing Lessons Learned Along the Way

Oftentimes, during classroom teaching and individual mentoring, faculty share their personal stories, lessons learned and key advice with small groups or individual students. Through the DEB Faculty Reflections Project, the Biotechnology Program hopes to provide a platform to capture and share that accrued wisdom with a broader audience and to archive important stories that describe the evolution of science and engineering disciplines. 

DEB Faculty participating in the project were asked to review the questions below and use them as a prompt to share their thoughts on life in the academy, the history of biotechnology, and the big challenges still facing the next generation of STEM researchers.  Some faculty have also chosen to share key publications, personal photos and other media items that help to illustrate their messages. Their stories are archived below in alphabetical order by surname. Enjoy!  

DEB Faculty Reflection Questions

  1. When did you first envision yourself as a scientist or engineer?  What were your first STEM interests/fascinations in school?
  2. What have been the greatest joys and the greatest challenges of your career?
  3. Is there a scholarly contribution or project (teaching, research or service) of which you are particularly proud?
  4. What are the key pieces of advice that you'd share with your younger self or current students? (lessons learned along the way...)
  5. In what ways has the research landscape in your discipline changed over the course of your career? Seminal discoveries? Training methods? Faculty career trajectories? Funding streams?
  6. In your opinion, what are the big, unanswered research questions in your discipline/science in general today?
  7. What do you hope to contribute to your field over the next decade or so?
  8. Are there any other thoughts about life in the academy, the scientific enterprise or life, in general, that you would like to share with our Biotech Program community?

(Page under construction - entries expected during the 2020-2021 academic year)