Name: Vaishnavi Sridhar (she/her)
PhD: Cell and Developmental Biology, University of British Columbia, 2023
What was your main area of research?
During my PhD, I studied the role of an uncharacterized protein at sites of close contact between organelle membranes in a cell. I used the budding yeast, S. cerevisiae, to understand the relevance of these contacts for cellular function and disease.
What is your current job?
I am the Manager of Academic Collaborations and Events at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, India.
National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) is a premier biology research institute in India. Initially my role was called Manager of Academic Meetings and Events.
At NCBS, my roles are:
Fostering academic exchange and collaboration between NCBS and other stakeholders including national and international academic and industry partners.
Supervising a team of two trainees
Planning scientific meetings and visits, and overseeing their smooth functioning through active involvement.
Liaising with different offices across NCBS, other institutions, national and international delegations, hospitality agencies, researchers, and students.
Working with partner organisations for continued collaboration on basic biology research, hosting joint scientific events, and exploring further collaboration.
Working with the senior leadership and conducting research to identify potential interactions based on topics of mutual interest.
Managing collaborations and follow through after meetings and visits, resulting in signing of MoUs and long term programs.
I enjoy:
Constantly learning on the job
Being involved with research without doing research in a lab
Freedom to hone my skills and develop professionally
Networking and communicating with people
Diversity of tasks
Mentoring two trainees in the office
How did you find this position? What were the career steps you took to get to where you are now?
I was looking up the websites of different Indian research institutions for non-academic job openings and found this opening.
PhD ➡️ Manager Academic Meetings and Events ➡️ Manager Academic Collaborations and Events
Why did you decide to not pursue a career in academia?
While starting my PhD, I was clear that I did not want to open my own lab. There is too much uncertainty and stress in academia. At that point, I still wanted to do research and make discoveries. I thought that after a PhD, academia was the only way to go. However, through the course of my PhD, I realised that there are many other avenues that I could pursue.
I started feeling disillusioned with the idea of academia and it did not resonate with me. The decision to pursue a non-academic career was a quite easy one to make. But I did not know what to exactly pursue after my PhD.
What advice do you have for someone getting their PhD and looking to pursue a career outside of academia?
Network. Try to attend networking events, and panels about non-academic careers. Connect with individuals pursuing non-academic careers. If you know one person pursuing a non-academic career, you could check out others in their network, follow them and connect with them. LinkedIn and Twitter are great resources to make such connections. Drop them a message and connect over a call. Most people are more than happy to help.
Have a vague idea about what you want to pursue. Is it science communication? Is it program management? Is it science writing? Is it science illustration? This can help shortlist career options.
Try to gain skills/experience and pursue what interests you along with your PhD.
For example, I volunteered as a graduate ambassador and mentor for students of various age groups, organised science events for school children, designed hands-on science experiments and modules, and wrote science articles. Different universities have science communication/outreach departments, one could try to volunteer with those. There is also ComSciCon-science communication for and by grad students, local science centres, soapbox science, science slam, and 3 minute thesis contests where one can present their research to a diverse audience. These initiatives can help you gain experience in science communication. Or one could start their own initiatives in their community!
One could also help organise scientific conferences/talks, gain grant writing skills, review research articles and mentorship skills as part of their graduate program. An interesting avenue to gain science writing/science reviewing skills is preLights-https://prelights.biologists.com/. One can hone their writing skills by reviewing newly-minted preprints.