"If I hadn't had mentors, I wouldn't be here today. I'm a product of great mentoring." -Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo I'm so excited to say that I will be working at the Broad Institute after I finish my PhD this summer. I'll be a part of the Stanley Center researching psychiatric disorders as a staff scientist. I could not be happier.
I learned a lot throughout this job search process. From practical things (my last interview was so much better than my first), to surprising things (turns out I don't want to work in pharma? ...yet?). But the most important thing I learned should not have been surprising to me: I learned about the importance of mentors. When I first started thinking practically about what I wanted to do after graduation, I tentatively sent word out that I was looking to get coffee with people in different careers. Suddenly, it was like a swarm of supportive people came out of the woodwork to share their stories and their advice with me. A high-up exec shared her life story with me over an hour-long meeting. A friend I hadn't seen in a year gave me salary negotiation advice (including divulging her salary - it is so helpful!). A woman I met once at a conference has now met with me several times, and periodically texts me thesis-writing encouragement. The enthusiastic mentorship I've received from these women made me feel like I had my own personal executive board behind me, cheering me on. In fact, my entire life story thus far has truly been one about generous and ardent mentorship. I attribute my intellectual curiosity to my grandfather, and our sessions of "Grampy's College of Knowledge." A small man with an enormous capacity for imagination, who never graduated from college himself, he would sit me in his room and encourage me to ask questions. "How do clocks keep time?" "Who is the man on the moon?" "Why are there wars?" There was no Google then - he either knew the answers, or together, we guessed. I referred to him, with his winking encouragement, as "the smartest man in the world." He told me I would one day be smarter than him, and I think in that one instance, he was wrong. There was the middle school math teacher who taught me that math could be a passion. The life science teacher who taught me that science could help people - and that I was worth helping. The guidance counselor who valued my kindness over my grades. The internship supervisor that told me to never lower my aim. And - of course - Dr. Don Elmore and Dr. Ernest Fraenkel, my advisors at Wellesley and at MIT. I could not have asked for better academic sponsors. Scientifically, I learned powerful techniques and even more powerful methods of inquiry and ways of thinking from both of them. Personally, both have, in their own ways, been immeasurable sources of support. So I should not have been surprised when, as it came time to decide between the jobs I interviewed for, mentorship was so important to me. The Broad offers so much value in that regard. The Institute is an amazing place for a computational biologist, hosting hundreds of colleagues I will learn from. And I will be working directly under three amazing scientists whose work I respect deeply, and who all, in my conversations with them, emphasized their commitment to mentorship. Joshua Levin, Paola Arlotta, and Aviv Regev. During one of my meetings before my job search, one woman told me, while refusing to let me pay for even my half of a dinner bill, that the only payment she wants is for me to do this for someone else in the future. Having a chance to mentor undergrads and other grad students during my PhD has been one of the more rewarding activities I've taken part in, but I have a lot to pay forward.
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AuthorAmanda Kedaigle's work in the Broad Institute focuses on leveraging brand new biological data modalities to study novel models of human brain development. Archives
February 2022
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