Science Seminar Connects Students to Industry Jobs

Graduate students in the department of biological sciences have begun organizing a series of seminars intended to prep graduates for jobs in research.
“Because of the changing environment in the sciences, jobs in academia are becoming less and less available,” said Ashtyn Zinn, a third-year Ph.D. student studying cancer biology. “We wanted to hear more about industry.”
Zinn said this is why they have invited Jaume Pons to speak to University of Toledo students.
Pons is the chief scientific officer and senior vice president of Rinat, a research and development division of Pfizer.
The Graduate Student Association and the department of biological sciences will host a seminar by Pons on Tuesday, Nov. 4, at 10 a.m. in Student Union Room 2582.
“He’s going to talk a little bit about his research and I think he wants to talk about job opportunities at pharmaceutical companies and how to get into industry,” Zinn said.
Zinn said there has been a shift in jobs in the bioscience field.
“We’re constantly told less than 20 percent of us will go into academia,” said Lilli Fishman, a second-year Ph.D. student studying cell structure biology.
Academic careers are becoming harder to find and jobs in industry are growing. Instead of working for universities, researchers are finding jobs at private companies like Pfizer.
“Now the research side is increasing in industry,” said Maisha Rashid, a second-year Ph.D. student studying cancer biology. “More of those jobs are being produced in labs in industry rather than academia. So we need a portal basically to see how to get there.”
Zinn said the seminar is designed for graduate students looking to make connections into industry career fields.
In addition to a lecture from Pons, a small number of grad students will be able to ask questions, talk over lunch and sign up for personal time slots to speak with. Pons.
The seminar is structured to provide students with the ability to interact with Pons as much as possible, Fishman said.
“I think the main goal is for us to develop a better understanding of industry and how to best groom yourself to go into the biosciences industry,” Fishman said.
Fishman said that the ideal is to create a relationship with Pfizer and other companies that would hire researchers. Relationships like these could help students land jobs after graduation.
“It’s not a guaranteed thing, but if we develop these kind of relationships, it could potentially be real,” Fishman said.
Zinn said that at future seminars they would like to have the speaker bring a hiring representative with them. This would provide students with the ability to have direct contact to future employers.
Fishman, Zinn and Rashid are the students responsible for planning this seminar and they said they would like to continue with the goal of helping students make career connections.
“The goal is getting people who are multi-disciplinary,” Fishman said. “We’re trying to make sure that we are picking people who kind of have a broad background so they can help more people.”
Rashid said the lecture is geared towards graduate students and centered on bioscience. Pons will be speaking about his research that focuses on engineering antibodies to detect illnesses like influenza.
“He basically works on getting those products from clinical development phase to an actual production phase,” Rashid said. “You’ll probably be hearing a lot of that during his talk and that also gives us an idea of what kind of jobs we could be working on in industry.”
Industry jobs like Pons’ position at Rinat includes overseeing many people, Fishman said.
Therefore, not only should biology students be interested, but chemistry, medicine, even business students could find the seminar useful.
“Any of those people would benefit from this,” Fishman said.
Zinn said the more students they can get interested in this seminar, the more likely the department will be able to continue bringing in professionals in industry like Pons.