Professional Development Planning for Researchers

Division: Medical Sciences (Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology)

Current Role: Senior Bioinformatician

Background

Devika is a Senior Bioinformatician at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, Oxford. She holds a BSc (hons) in Biological Sciences from the University of Edinburgh, a Master’s in Biotechnology, and a PhD in Bioinformatics and Machine learning from Nottingham Trent University. In 2017, following her PhD, Devika began a postdoctoral position at Oxford with the Drug Discovery Institute. She then did a second postdoc at Oxford at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine (WIMM) and is currently in her third postdoctoral position. Her current research focuses on developing a cross-tissue cellular map of genes and proteins across multiple immune mediated inflammatory diseases (IMID) in humans and characterising pharmacologically relevant therapeutic targets to advance the understanding of disease mechanisms to enable treatment of patients with the most appropriate medications and accelerate the development of new therapies. Alongside her research Devika has taught on a biomedical data science course at Oxford training other postdocs and DPhil students in the skills and methods required for the analysis and interpretation of large-scale biomedical datasets, particularly genomic and functional genomic data.

Career and Professional Development

1. Leadership development: Devika took part in the WIMM Leadership Programme which consists of both group and individual sessions designed to support women in identifying and achieving their leadership-related goals. There Devika was able to “meet these amazing women… know that I am not alone and there are many researchers who are going through similar doubts or who are in a similar place in their career.” The programme helped her to understand her goals and motivations, and “gain a bit more clarity” on how to pursue those goals. Further, “it also just taught us how to be good managers and how to facilitate communication between your own managers and how to get your point across.” Devika secured funding for this programme by requesting it from her PI (funds provided through her project grant).
2. Professional networking: Devika participated in the Oxford Industrial Fellows Programme, which provides the opportunity for MSD researchers who are collaborating with industry to network through various events. Devika described the programme as a useful way to “talk to people and get different perspectives,” while the targeted seminars are helpful for people who are exploring whether they want to go into industry or stay in academia.
3. Personal growth: Devika enrolled in several talks hosted by Wellcome that focused on mental health and diversity. These were very helpful to understand the importance and necessity of diversity in the workplace, but to also treat everyone equally and with respect.

Future Goals and Development

Division: Social Sciences (Education)

Current Role: Departmental Lecturer

Background

Liam is currently a Departmental Lecturer at the Department of Education and Course Director of the MSc in Learning and Teaching. His work focuses on science education and teachers’ engagement with/in research. He completed an undergraduate degree in science education and a PhD in Education at the University of Limerick. He joined Oxford as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Education in 2018 before moving into his current role in 2021. Liam is also a Fellow at Kellogg College.

Throughout his career, Liam has sought opportunities to engage with different people and take on leadership roles in various organisations. “I think external engagements lead to a lot of valuable learning and a lot of opportunities”, he says.

Career and Professional Development choices and their benefits

1. Representation and community-building: Soon after arriving at Oxford, Liam began taking on several representation roles, including Chair of the Research Staff Forum for his department and Co-Chair of the Oxford Research Staff Society. These positions were helpful in “building a community,” which was particularly useful when applying for another role in the department: “you're building relationships with the people in the department, you are visible, and contributing to the department at all levels. Then by the time you've come to apply for a job, you're being interviewed by people who you’ve been in meetings with.”  
2. Policy engagement: In 2015, Liam joined the Teaching Council in Ireland as part of their research engagement group, a consultative advisory group focusing on how the Council could improve support for teachers and engage with and in research. This role allowed him to engage with policy in an area that lies within his area of research and contribute to work that makes a “significant impact”.
3. Professional networking: Liam also serves as the Chair for Research Impact for NARST (National Association of Research and Science Teaching), NARST is a global organisation for improving science teaching and learning through research. This role has been “helpful to get to know people and be able to shape some of the international organisations in the field.

Future Goals and Development

Liam is currently enjoying his role as Departmental Lecturer and keen to continue pursuing an academic career. However, he also remains open to opportunities beyond academia: “I like the idea of doing things that are a bit broader, or being involved in things that are not exactly within the tight remit of my role. Because any one of those things could be where my career goes. So, all my goals are in the short to medium term: what would I like to be a little bit better at?”

In reflecting upon his own experiences, Liam gives the following advice to early career researchers:

“I think sometimes we can look at the profile of a researcher and say, I need to achieve this and this, I need to achieve my PhD in this amount of time, or I need to have this many publications. And I question whether that is helpful. Because yes, you will be productive in the immediate term. But, ultimately, opportunities come from people. I've been lucky. And I've probably been privileged. But I'm a firm believer that opportunities come from people identifying that you are a decent person, and a good worker, and someone that I want to work with. And so, a lot of people in academia say, ‘learn to say no to things.’ But to be honest, I think I would be saying, ‘learn to say yes to things’. In the sense that if you're open, opportunities will come.”

Division: Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences
Current Role: CEO and Co-founder of HydRegen Limited

Background
Holly is the CEO of HydRegen Limited, a 2021 startup from the University of Oxford that focuses on “making bio technologies that help with more sustainable chemical manufacturing, and making bio-based catalysts that can replace precious metals.”

Holly holds undergraduate and masters degrees in Chemistry, at the University of Oxford, then completed a DPhil focusing on biocatalysis for chemical synthesis. Between 2016 and 2021 she was a postdoctoral researcher then a Research Project Manager at Oxford.

Career and Professional Development

1. Policy and advocacy: Holly served as Departmental and Divisional representative for Oxford Research Staff Society (OXRSS), and as part of this role, sat on the MPLS Divisional Board. These experiences were useful in learning to “communicate problems, and difficult topics in a way that other people can understand.” She learnt to consider many perspectives and build ‘buy-in’ before presenting ideas and solutions.
2. Communication skills: In 2018 Holly was awarded a British Sciences Association Media Fellowship where she worked at The Mirror for a couple of weeks and took part in communications training. This experience has proved particularly valuable in her current role where she needs to use a range of strategies to communicate the company’s work to diverse audiences.
3. Personal growth and professional networking: Holly has sought and worked with several informal mentors throughout her career, whom she met at an emerging technology competition at the Royal Society of Chemistry and through her role on the MPLS Divisional Board. Having a variety of mentors to consult, particularly those in entrepreneurship, has been particularly important to Holly in her recent career moves: “in a startup there's so much to learn, and so many easy mistakes to make.”

Future Goals and Development
Holly is focusing on growing her company, and “making a big impact on sustainability in the chemical sector.” She is also trying to further develop her leadership skills, and supporting her team in developing their own skills and leadership abilities through a leadership programme run by Horizon 37 that she completed last year: “I've been on a whole leadership journey myself, which has been really exciting. Now I have a team of leaders that I'm trying to help learn to be leaders, and I’m excited to support them on their own journeys.”

In reflecting on her professional development, Holly leaves the following advice:

“It's not about being an academic, or being a CEO, it's about finding a set of non-technical skills that you are really good at and using that as a basis to think about your career. That could be in finance, marketing, operations, leadership or anything else. That way, we can build a network of scientifically literate people that have developed and practiced these other critical skills needed for innovation and technology development. To make this happen we need people to walk into their labs and tell people around them what they really admire about them; to see, value and articulate what each person is doing that improves how the team functions. If something comes easily to you, you don't see it as a skill. If we all had a better understanding of precisely how we add value, we could seek targeted development opportunities, including training, to hone that skill and take better charge of our futures.”

Division: Humanities (Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics)
Current Role: Senior Research Associate

Background
Hilary is currently a Senior Research Associate with the UKRI-funded ‘Pertinacity’ group at the Language and Brain Laboratory in the Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics. Her work focuses on “where language is stored in the brain and…the processes that are involved when we produce and understand language.” She completed her Oxford DPhil in 2016 and this is her third postdoctoral role after one at the University of Manchester, and the second at Oxford on the ERC-funded project ‘MORPHON’ that ran from 2017-2022. Hilary is also a stipendiary lecturer at St Hugh’s College, Oxford and a member of Kellogg College, Oxford.

Hilary has invested time in a range of professional and career development activities to support her interdisciplinary work, including quantitative and lab-based techniques (behavioural and production experiments, EEG, eye-tracking, fMRIs, etc.).

In her experience,

“…the most important thing is not to restrict yourself to your particular area only. You want to progress in your own field, but…you may end up in a workshop or a training session that is not directly applicable to your role, but might actually be really helpful in the future. It might set you up really nicely for a next career step, so …don't limit yourself; try to branch out a bit in terms of your development activities and do something that you don't have any background in too.”

Career and Professional Development choices and their benefits

1. Technical In spring of this year (2023), Hilary spent five days in Munich to attend training on a new electroencephalogram (EEG) system. The cost of the training was covered by a University Researcher Representation Fellowship from the University of Oxford. The key benefits to Hilary were learning how to 1) set up and use the new system (and then teach others in her lab) 2) troubleshoot/address a variety of possible situations that could crop up when using the EEG; and 3) use the equipment in for a variety of tasks by meeting other researchers from a range of fields, Hilary applied for and received an Early Career Training Bursary in 2019 for a Visiting Fellowship in Functional MRI at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital.
2. Professional networking: Pre-COVID, Hilary attended in-person conferences regularly, which were valuable venues for connecting with others in the field and finding out how “different labs…and projects are being run.” She also has been given opportunities to share and grow her research through her affiliation as Research Member of the Common Room at Kellogg College, Oxford, which has helped her make new connections and receive valuable mentorship from senior members of the college. If you are interested in becoming a college member please see Non-Stipendary College Associations for Research Staff.
3. Policy and Advocacy: Since 2019, Hilary has volunteered to be involved in governance roles at the University She represents the postdoctoral researchers in her Faculty, and sits on the Humanities Divisional Boards for Researchers, where she represents all early career/fixed-term researchers in the Humanities Division. For the past two years, Hilary has also served as the fixed term researcher representative on the University Council.

Hilary describes these roles as “helpful in training me in communication, specifically how to interact with a range of people with different backgrounds and experiences, and also how to serve as a voice of the early career researcher community….I have also been given a lot of development and training opportunities with my peers in how to be an effective representative…and many of the tools and tricks that we've learned have been really, really helpful in terms of how I mentor others and manage in my current role.”

Future Goals and Development
Hilary is enjoying her current position, and “laying the foundation” for the next phase of her career. She plans to engage in leadership training, so that she can learn to set out a vision and work with others even more effectively, and will continue to update her technical skillset, as “There are always new programs to learn, new ways of analyzing data.”