Symposium F.BI01—Early-Career Development—Insights from Academia and Industry

In this session we will discuss the information flow in materials science and the broader publishing landscape, including the varied roles of Authors, Editors, Referees, and Publishers in connecting communities, providing perspectives on best practices for publication in journals such as those in the Materials Today family. We'll try to elucidate the most significant trends in the information landscape, including open access, article transfer, novel article formats, data sharing, and wider dissemination to society and decision makers.

Dr Stewart Bland is a former Editor-in-Chief and currently Executive Publisher in Elsevier's Materials Today family, responsible for journals including high impact titles such as Materials Today, Applied Materials Today, and Progress in Materials Science.

Publishing scholarly research articles is one of the most effective ways to enage with our materials research community and dissimnate our work to our peers. MRS is a member-driven organization of approximately 14,000 materials researchers from academia, industry and government. I will present my perspectives as the editor-in-chife for MRS Energy & Sustainability how young researchers can fully leverage with the platforms MRS offer to maximize the impact of one's scholarly work.

Since its launch in 2002, Nature Materials remains a leading journal in the field of materials science across many disciplines, aiming at publishing cutting edge science for the relevant scientific communities as well as disseminating exciting results among the wider readership of materials scientists. This talk will describe how these principles shape the editorial process in Nature Materials and other journals within the Nature family, amidst a rapidly changing scientific publishing landscape, underlining the key points from submission of original research papers to publication.

A highly competitive research environment with increasingly limited research funding has created a “Publish or Perish” attitude among scientists who are judged on the quantity rather than quality of their research articles. This presentation provides a brief overview of current trends and challenges in scientific publishing, some ethical considerations, how publishers and authors interact and influence each other, and how the publishing arena is being transformed. Tips will be presented on how to select an appropriate journal for your paper, what aspects of preparation and presentation to focus on from an editor’s and referee’s perspective, and hints for increasing the discoverability of your paper after publication.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 "to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense..." NSF is vital because it supports basic research and people from all science and engineering disciplines. The Division of Materials Research (DMR) in the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) has eight topical materials research programs (TMRPs) that participate in the NSF-wide Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program. Materials research is also supported in other divisions in MPS and in the Directorate for Engineering. This presentation will provide an overview of NSF programs supporting materials research and the early career opportunities they offer.

Science funding in the Philippines is guided by roadmaps and advices from the Department of Science and Technology. Early career scientists often apply for this funding call and find themselves working in a system that require broad range of knowledge and experience in project management and legalities that surround government funded calls. The complexity of the funding application process presents challenges to early career scientists who are not familiar navigating through the system. Funding agencies have also preference on proposals that will lead to technologies or innovaitons that can be implemmented to society, and this entails some challenges to principal investigators who aim to answer fundamental scientific questions. Here, I will present some insights on the funding landscape in the Philippines for early career scientists by looking at scientists' roles in academe, support from the administration, and impact of government policy on R&D priorities. I shall also present certain coping mechanisms of early career scientists in obtaining support when their field is not considered top priority for funding.

There is no ‘one path fits all’ as we are all different. With patented technologies and as one of the pioneers on carbon nanotube glass nanocomposites, I will share my ongoing career path. Being in a foreign country as a minority, the challenges are different: support system and cultural background, are just a few. Thus, one shall not just follow the flow, but forge one’s path aligned to their values, background, and passions. This is the ongoing story of a family’s first scientist enriched with different cultural exposures while finding her path. It is an unfinished story of challenges, failures, and learnings to be shared.

This presentation will provide a snapshot on the journey of a materials scientist from Germany moving via Japan to Canada. It will not only tell about the geographical, but also about the scientific and academic journey, and how studying materials science and engineering can lead to an academic position in a chemistry department, conducting research on multifunctional lanthanides in molecules and nanomaterials.
In this context, some experience from the time being a PhD student and the period discovering new countries and research areas as a postdoctoral fellow and how these may lead to a position in academia will be shared with the audience. This will include a personal answer to the question many young researchers may ask themselves: “Should I stay or should I move?”. It will also address some ongoing adventures (aka challenges) of starting an independent research group as assistant professor – because: having landed your first position does not mean to stand still, even when remaining in the same geographical location.

This presentation will summarize the ways in which materials science and engineering in academia has evolved over the last decade, including abrupt changes over the last few months in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It will review the implications of these changes for the field and provide some projections for the future. The objective is to prepare listeners for a career in higher education and to help them navigate the many choices available.

In the last 10 years, the University of Pennsylvania, the French CNRS and the chemical company Solvay teamed up in a joint laboratory in Philadelphia. The goal of the laboratory was to design sustainable solutions for “real-world” applications. Through two specific examples, I will show how members of the laboratory on the academic side gained inspirations from industrial problematics. The first example revolves around soil treatment, which can modify water retention for agricultural applications; the second example shows how smart formulations can lead to cheap dispersible sensors for monitoring bacterial growth.

The 2020 business cycle presented employment terms much different from previous times. Even if you are employed and have an enjoyable and challenging career, the global COVID recession of 2020, like what occurred in 2009, shows that the economy turn down quickly. Advice for anyone is to have skills that are marketable, i.e., you can get paid money for in the “1099-gig” economy. You don’t need a complicated business plan, extensive intellectual property, or even a physical footprint. Setting up a business does not have to be complicated, but there are some fundamental decisions around the way a business is structured and taxed and regulatory requirements that must be followed. Being aware of the issues will make it easier for you to define your core products and/or services and establish the necessary marketing, resources, and effort required to keep your operation afloat. This presentation holds the speaker’s perspective on the technical, business, and regulatory elements that were encountered when opening a start-up and maintaining a 20-year solo business, serving science and engineering-related customers.

In this talk, I will go over my journey from being a PhD student at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell and finally becoming a process development engineer at Intel. I will discuss in detail the possible options I had or did not have, some struggles as an international student, how and why I decided to move from academia to industry and the process of mental preparation. Then, I will talk about my job application process, the successes and failures, why I decided to choose Intel and some experiences after starting at Intel. There will be useful tips for students preparing for a career in industry.

Ever wonder what it is like to work as a federal program manager in the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE)? Join Dr. Robin Hayes as she shares her journey from a graduate student to program manager in the DOE Office of Science via an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Technology Policy Fellowship. In addition, learn about fundamental materials research funding opportunities for early career professionals in the DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences (https://science.osti.gov/bes).

Early career decisions can be daunting and often appear to be ill-posed. Concurrently, maneuvering the diverse and complex funding pipelines can often seem a challenge that threatens the very future of innovative materials science research. David Stepp brings more than twenty years of experience at the U.S. Army Research Office to share his career story (including some key failures) and provide insight and perspective on the "why" behind one of the preeminent materials science funding agencies. This talk will also include a discusion of some of the most common misunderstandings held by proposal authors.

Doctoral graduates are attractive for an ever-growing number of Research & Development (R&D) and Innovation roles across manifold companies and industries. PhD graduates possess the technical expertise and unique mindset that many companies find critical in order to cultivate innovative thinking and achieve their strategic objectives. Ask yourself: why are recruiters and hiring managers targeting academic candidates? The answer lies within the transferable skill sets that PhD candidates have developed throughout their studies and their early career positions within Academia. There are key aspects within a typical PhD CV that recruiters tease out and use to quickly identify the value add of hiring a PhD candidate and their impact on the job market. Whether PhD student or Post-doc, fully decided or still shaping their Academia or Industry career paths, I will draw on my personal experience at Saint-Gobain to help you decide if Industry is right for you. I have vast experience as an Innovation Manager and strategic & technical leader and will share tips and recommendations on what to expect while considering a job in Industry. Notably, I will discuss drivers that can motivate you to make the transition, as well as discuss the technical and non-technical transferable skills that are applicable to a corporate environment, the importance of building a network both in Academia and Industry and how to find a company that is suited right for you. Finally, I will paint an overview of the range of opportunities for career progression in Industry to pursue a fulfilling professional journey.

Getting hired as a faculty member at a top research university is not an easy thing to do. Yes you have to be an excellent researcher and teacher. Yes you need to understand how to fit into the department, university, and worldwide community through service. Yes you have to be a passionate and excellent teacher. But, those are only the first, necessary steps. Sadly, it is far from sufficient to land a top faculty position. This talk will go over the many things that must align for a candidate to get an in person interview and actually land the position. There is no guarantee, nor should their be any regrets when you start a search for a position. The real truth in getting hired as a faculty member is that once you reach the necessary conditions, the rest is really all about fit and the goals of each individual department that is looking for a faculty member to hire. Can a candidate influence this process? Yes. But it is not always possible to influence it enough. This talk will discuss how a candidate should at least consider a few things. In short, they are: why should a department believe that you will be successful in bringing in research funding?, How will your hire help bring in center grant funding? How will your hire have a positive impact on the culture of the department and make it more diverse, inclusive, and equitable? How will your hire help the department increase its ranking? How will your hire improve the teaching of the entire department? How will your hire lead to “the next big thing?, Why is it that you can convince a department of all of the last few topics and still not get hired?

The initial stages of approaching a career in academia can be daunting to the candidate (just like any career path choice), and at times may seem opaque. This presentation will address some of the common stages that occur in becoming a faculty member in engineering in general, both when considering a materials engineering program, and the case where a materials researcher is joining a unit which does not offer an MSE (or related) degree. Common points in application materials for faculty positions for a range of departments, schools, and universities will be noted; addressing both a “direct” application route (right after PhD or post-doc) and applying after some time in other sectors (industry, government, or non-profit). In particular the presentation will highlight the need to demonstrate independent thought and ownership of research activities, maturity and dedication to education at the appropriate level of the institution, and articulating a vision of career success that covers both short- and long-term time scales. The presentation will strive to engage discussion points on topics that often arise during phone and in-person interviews, including addressing your vision for student advising, balancing teamwork versus independence within a unit, and identifying audiences in the hiring process. The need to speak directly to the variety of audiences, and to pivot your delivery while maintaining consistency amongst the range of groups you’d be speaking with. Finally, some details of perceived pitfalls in the process will be presented.

Some may recognize that this title matches a classic 1991 track from the Black Sheep with the lyrics, “You can get with this, or you can get with that.” This rap group name represents the struggles of the members of a group who are often perceived as outliers, and the term often implies waywardness. This specific song presents listeners with concepts of key choices in life. The pathways to success for “black sheep” (may it be race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, educational background, religion, physical ability, nationality and many others) are decidedly different from those who align with majority “preferable” groups across disciplines, and the Materials Science and Engineering community is not immune to these biases. Through the lens of this song and anecdotal stories, this talk will present career choices that can be made to overcome the “black sheep effect” in materials science and engineering industry and academia. Further, strategies on exploiting the factors that make one unique for positive outcomes in your research, teaching, mentoring and service activities will be discussed.

Finishing my PhD I asked myself: "What next? Similar to the time years before, when I decided what I was going to study, I was facing once more a deeply personal question, what should should I do with my life? Should I continue with a postdoc, go to industry, or do something completely different?
it was the idea of founding a startup that somehow had sparked my interest already for quite some time.
During my PhD I had developed a novel 2D material with interesting properties, and so I decided to extend the time in my research group to determine whether the material could be applied somewhere in a useful way, hoping it may lead to the foundation of company - It didn't. As time passed, I came to the conclusion that the material was interesting in the context of basic research, but far away from any useful application. Meanwhile a friend of mine who had finished his PhD on lithium-ion batteries was in a different situation, his research had what mine was lacking, a real application in sight. When he asked me in 2015, if I was interested in co-founding a startup, I said yes.
Founding a technology-driven company is very challenging on many different levels. In this talk, I would like to share my personal startup experience, hoping I can help answer some questions relevant to young researchers thinking about starting a company.