Making Difficult Career Decisions.
by Briana Dunn, PhD
The question of what to do after my postdoc was one I had considered nearly every day for over five years. Before I even started my position at MIT, I knew I would have to make a career decision before I truly felt ready. I have always had a lot of very different interests and I hate making decisions, so the thought of committing to a specific career filled me with dread. Going into academia, doing industrial research, teaching high school, going to medical school, doing something completely different—any one of these might have been my favorite idea on any given day.
Briana volunteering at the National Nanotechnology Initiative Booth
during the 2018 USA Science and Engineering Festival in Washington, DC.
All graduate students and postdocs have interests that extend beyond their academic pursuits. I was lucky in that I had the opportunity to explore my interests in an organized and thoughtful way by participating in the Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine's Convergence Scholars Program (CSP). Through CSP, I was able to explore my options more deeply and in a way that really focused on my professional development. I worked with the education and outreach team at the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO) to put together a series of "Meet the Nanotech Scientist" interviews aimed at a high school audience. I attended the USA Science and Engineering Festival in Washington, DC, where I volunteered at the National Nanotechnology Initiative booth and did hands-on nanotechnology experiments with kids and their families. I explored my interests in healthcare, and in the process found an entirely new and exciting career option. I was able to use CSP funding to join the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA), and to enroll in courses to learn more about medical writing and to obtain a credential. I learned more about other professional skills, like communication and project management, through monthly CSP workshops. On top of all of this, I found a great new mentor in Tarek, the founder of CSP.
Screenshot of the "Meet the Nanotech Scientist" publication series
with Dr. Morgan Fedorchak, Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh.
Now, my experiences have culminated in a great new job. I am currently an Associate in the TechAtlas division of RA Capital Management, where I create competitive landscapes of drugs and medical devices. This position combines basically all of the interests that I explored through CSP. With the help of this program, I can (finally!) say that this career decision felt easy.
Briana is currently an Associate at RA Capital Management, formerly a postdoctoral associate in the Belcher lab. Her research focused on using M13 bacteriophage as a scaffold for the creation of hybrid catalysts. She received her Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University, where her work with Professor Chaitan Khosla focused on engineering natural product assembly line enzymes.
Briana obtained a bachelor’s degree in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Cornell University in 2009. Outside of research, Briana also spends a lot of time teaching and mentoring. She spent a year teaching full-time at San Jose State University before arriving at MIT.