Name: Sam Kimmey (he/him)
PhD: Developmental Biology, Stanford University, 2021
What was your main area of research?
My research investigated human embryonic developmental cell-state lineage transition and the protein regulators that drive it using cultured models of pluripotent stem cell lineage differentiation. I focused on building single-cell molecular assays to quantify targeted protein expression and cellular biosynthesis readouts which generated millions of single-cell data points from each experiment. Generating such single-cell datasets then required development of corresponding bioinformatic pipelines and computational approaches to analyze and interpret single cell data collected from cultured stem cell experiments, or primary samples with inherent developmental hierarchies like bone marrow.
What is your current job?
I am a Senior Scientist in Product Development at Ionpath in Menlo Park, California.
I develop new products (reagents, consumables) for a startup company that manufactures multi-biomarker imaging platforms. My main responsibilities include experimental design and execution, image and data analysis using internal and open source tools, project planning, and working cross-departmentally to deliver new products from idea stage to product launch.
I love working on cutting-edge technology with applications in the disease diagnostic and tissue imaging space.
How did you find this position? What were the career steps you took to get to where you are now?
The year I joined my PhD lab, Ionpath was founded on similar tech that I used in my PhD. Six years later when I was starting job search, colleagues in my network pointed out the opportunity for an open Field Application Scientist (FAS) position.
PhD graduate ➡️ (short) post doc ➡️ FAS ➡️ Senior Scientist
Why did you decide to not pursue a career in academia?
My plan from the time I applied to grad school in 2014 was to end up in biotech, so for me this was an easy path and one that I consciously knew when choosing my PhD lab.
What advice do you have for someone getting their PhD and looking to pursue a career outside of academia?
I had largely made up my mind to leave academia before attending grad school. I left open the possibility of academia since I do enjoy teaching others, but ultimately the people I surrounded myself with supported my decision. My advice would be to be honest with yourself and what your career goals are, and then communicate those with others. Word of mouth is a major pipeline of how job opportunities arise, so sharing your potential desires on non-academic paths sooner in your graduate student career and having informational conversations with your network can set the seed for your future.
Storytelling and presentation skills will leave the most impact on interview panels, so hone in these when discussing your thesis work. A story can be as small as overcoming an issue with a protocol and having an aha moment that’s relatable to your audience, or as large as the story of your PhD thesis. Knowing details of your interview audience will also help craft your scientific and personal story so that it’s memorable to them.
I intimately learned how to operate the equipment I used in my PhD (CyTOF) and how to troubleshoot the sophisticated tool whenever issues would occur. A desire to learn complicated tools and translate that knowledge to producing high quality data, which can lead to being the “go-to” expert in your PhD lab, was helpful for me in my transition to a Field Application Scientist position.
The best is to attend conferences and talk to everyone you can! Poster presenters (academic or industry) are always approachable, and even talking to company employees stationed at booths can help identify job opportunities now or in the future (some employees may be aware of job postings not yet public that are planned for the second half of the year, for example). If you are unable to attend conferences, a personal LinkedIn message can also lead to informational meetings.
Use LinkedIn and Reddit.