I’ve been curious how many working researchers we’ve got in this community, and what you all do!
If you’re working in science (physical or social), engineering, etc in a research capacity, give a shout in the comments and let us know what you work on! Same goes for students and amateur scientists at any level. (And by amateur I mean those of you who are working on your own experiments but just not being paid for it / not working on a degree; I’m upset that “amateur” has a negative connotation, it shouldn’t.)
I’m currently a PhD candidate, working on transmission electron microscopy and electronic materials (mainly ferroelectrics). In the past I’ve been involved in research / product development in a few different industries, including medical devices, aerogels, and materials for RF devices.
I’m a staff bioinformatics scientist at an academic institution, got my PhD a few years ago and wasn’t interested in a postdoc. I get to work on a huge range of research questions and lots of different technologies. It’s great!
Oh that’s rad! What’s it like being a staff scientist at an academic institution? I’m still trying to figure out exactly what I want to do after I graduate – I know I’m not interested in pursuing the tenure track, but I haven’t decided if I should go back into industry / look into staff science positions national labs / etc.
Sounds cool, do you have any tips on what kinds of skills you need for a bioinformatics position? I have a background in biology, but some CS knowledge I have learnt myself, programming (unfortunately mainly python for now), linux, deploying stuff with docker, etc.
This all sounds like a solid start tbh, if you learn pandas and bio python i feel like you are basically there