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Job Title: Professor
Type of Company: I teach at a university.
Education: BS, Electrical Engineering, Cornell University •• MSE, Electrical Engineering, University of Michigan •• MS, Applied Physics, University of Michigan •• Ph.D., Applied Physics, University of Michigan
Previous Experience: I was a post-doctoral associate, staff scientist and group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Goettingen, Germany and a senior research scientist at AstraZeneca's Advanced Science and Technology Laboratory in Charnwood, Loughborough (UK) . For the past five years I have also held the Biophysical Engineering chair at the University of Twente in the Netherlands.
Job Tasks: I lead a group of some 55 people, including permanent staff members, research technicians, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows. We work on fundamental and applied research in biophysics and biomedical technology. What we are trying to do, for example, is to understand how proteins misfold and aggregate to form the sorts of structures one finds in the brain of patients with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. These are extremely small structures (nanometer scale), so we need to develop new techniques to enable us to visualize them. We use optical microscopy approaches, and also new nanotechnology-based imaging approaches such as atomic force microscopy.
We're further interested in using techniques such as photoacoustics (combining light and sound) to study blood flow (for example in patients with heart disease, where the heart is not able to pump blood effectively enough) and for early detection of breast tumors. "Why these approaches?" you may ask. "Why not just use standard techniques, like X-ray imaging, that are currently available?" The reason is that photoacoustics is likely to be a minimally- or non-invasive approach: one that won't require surgery or painful breast compression (as in the case of an X-ray imaging approach).
Best and Worst Parts of the Job: The best part of the job is working together with young, motivated students, who are brimming full with ideas and the desire to learn new things. They are the drivers of our research. They begin by putting into action some of the ideas that I and my colleagues have, but very quickly graduate to bringing their own novel input into the research ideas and projects.
The worst part of the job is navigating the administration and bureaucracy that sometimes surrounds much of our primary processes.
Job Tips:
1. Make sure to move around: move to different universities or labs to study, and learn new ways of thinking and executing research.
2. Follow your passion: identify your interests, and follow them.
3. Don't be afraid to change directions. The most productive research is often serendipitous and stems from something unforeseen, that may've happened by accident. Follow these directions; explore them, and see where they take you.
4. Strive for excellence at all that you do.
5. Seek committed mentors. Mentors are essential in helping you define your strengths and weaknesses, and in pointing you in the right directions.
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