Name: Egle Cekanaviciute (she/her)
PhD: Neurosciences, Stanford University, 2014
What was/is your main area of research?
I currently study the regulation of inflammation in neurological diseases. For my PhD, I studied the role of astrocytes and TGFbeta signaling pathway in regulating neuroinflammation after stroke and brain infection with Toxoplasma gondii. During my postdoc, I studied the effects of the gut microbiome and microbiome-immune interactions in multiple sclerosis in humans and mice.
What is your current job?
I am a Science Project Manager for NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.
I am the NASA Ames Research Center lead for the NASA Human Research Program, which includes strategy, planning, budgets, management of deliverables and schedules, and a lot of advocacy of our research and researchers. In addition, I am the course director of NASA STAR (Spaceflight Technology, Applications and Research), which is a virtual, international training program for investigators interested in space biology and in flying their experiments in space. I am also one of the principal investigators in the Radiation Biophysics Lab, where we engineer human organ models for investigating the biological effects of deep space stressors including space radiation and lunar dust.
The best part of my job is the fact that in my small way I get to contribute to exploring the universe and inspiring people around the world.
How did you find this position? What were the career steps you took to get to where you are now?
I learned about space biology, applied to a few NASA grants which I did not get, and used my connections through the science communication community to be invited as a speaker to a NASA Ames seminar series. After my talk, I spoke with multiple investigators, who suggested I apply for a position as a contractor.
PhD graduate ➡️ postdoctoral fellow ➡️ contractor at NASA ➡️ NASA civil servant ➡️I assume for the rest of my life!
Why did you decide to not pursue a career in academia? Was this a difficult decision or one you felt came easily?
NASA has been my dream since I was a pre-teen, so it was an extremely easy decision to throw out all my academic plans and jump to it, once the opportunity appeared on my radar. I strongly value the emphasis on collaborations, the focus on audacious goals and the amount of science communication and mentorship that I can do in this role. All of these are not impossible to find in academia, but in my experience, they tend to be more difficult to cultivate. In addition, especially as a naturalized citizen, I find it very meaningful to be part of the civil service workforce and in this way give back to my country.
What are three pieces of advice you have for someone getting their PhD and looking to pursue a career outside of academia?
Decide on a post-PhD goal and pursue it as early as possible by getting additional expertise outside of the lab. The goal may change, the expertise will be helpful anyway. I was set on becoming a teaching professor at a liberal arts college, so I did a lot of teaching, mentoring and science outreach, including managing two outreach programs at Stanford. In my current role, I routinely use both the direct experience in teaching, mentorship and communication, and also the additional experience of managing people and projects that I had acquired during my PhD.
Talk to people who have the careers you might be interested in. People tend to be happy to meet someone who "wants to be them", so use your contacts. LinkedIn works, "outside of academia" events and lists also work, cold-emails can work too (I have hired multiple people who started with an email to me completely out of the blue). Use your non-professional contacts too (i.e. have enough hobbies to have a lot of non-professional contacts; it will also help keep your sanity).
Get good at ignoring well-meant advice. There will be plenty of people who think that an academic postdoc or academic professorship is the only true path after PhD, even more who think that a PhD is necessary for being a scientist, doing research or having a meaningful career in science or engineering (only about 10% of NASA employees have a PhD), and others who consider it impossible to be a well-rounded person with a rich and diverse life in addition to having an awesome career. None of this is true.
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