 My name is Joanna. I am the program facilitator for first generation students here at Rackham. Sam, if you would advance to the next slide. Yeah, so today's event is sponsored by the professional development and engagement office, and it is part of a pilot initiative for part of Rackham to put together different affinity groups within our graduate student body to better support their career development needs. And today's meeting will be recorded as you guys saw that message pop up. And we can advance to the next slide. Please. Okay, so just a quick overview of today's schedule outside of opening and closing, we have two main blocks of time. First, we'll have a panel where I will ask a list of questions to each of our four panelists. And this is for us to get a general sense of what they do. Some exciting parts and challenges of their role skills that are required for these roles and so on. And during the second block of time, we'll have breakout rooms where each of the panelists will go into each room and then as participants, you guys can choose any of the four rooms to go into and ask them any questions that you may have. And then on the right, you see a table listing today's panelists. So I'll just quickly go through this. And Dr. Samantha Devonport is from Patton Law. Dr. Vani Ravi Chandran is a medical science liaison. Dr. Ishida Das is part of Strategic Philanthropy and she also has experience in a policy. And then Dr. Ada Bay Rodriguez Benitez is part of science communication. She's a writer and a journalist. So we can advance to the next slide please. So without further ado, we'll have Dr. Samantha Devonport to get us started. I will read a quick bio for each of the participants before they start. And then we'll also have somebody paste that in the chat as well for you guys to refer to. So Dr. Devonport graduated from the Program of Cellular and Molecular Biology or CMB in 2019. She's currently a patent agent at Cooley LOP. Cooley represents nearly 50% of the NASDAQ Biotech Index and it's widely known as best in class firm for handling corporate partnering and licensing transactions. One of the 50 largest law firms in the world and it's consistently rated as the number one law firm for tech and life sciences IPOs. Perfect. So we have the bio pasted as well. So let me look at my question. So if we can stop screen sharing, that'd be great. Okay, great. So, Dr. Devonport, my first question is what are the some of the duties, priorities or responsibilities as someone in your role in patent law? Well, thank you for inviting me today. And if anybody has questions that are that I don't answer during this, I'm happy to chat any other time if you can't make it into my group. So skills really base a lot around writing, scientific writing and scientific analysis. A lot of times you're going to come across technologies that you don't really know a lot about and you're going to have to use your scientific skill to understand exactly what your clients technology is but also if you're analyzing your clients technology in the view of what other people are doing because sometimes we have to analyze as our clients technology infringing on someone else's or do they have the ability to patents, something based on what they're coming up with. So a lot of it bases around writing, being able to analyze and notice differences between scientific technologies and a lot of attention to detail. That answers the question. Yeah, that's super cool. It does answer the question. So how do you stay on top of, because you mentioned writing and analyzing what's relevant to the client how do you stay on top of what is relevant in the field. That's a great question. So what we do we interact with the scientists talking about what really makes their science distinct or unique and different. And so being able to set another good skill is being able to correspond with clients and interact with them. Not only the scientists but also people on the legal side, but staying on top of it's really being able to understand the science enough to know what's important and unique about it so that you can identify that to what you're doing, doing each day. That's awesome. The next question is what parts of your job do you find the most exciting or satisfying. You know I remember doing career panels and things like that in grad school and what drew me to patent law was the fact that you get to experience different science all the time. Grad program most the time you're doing a really niche area that you become very, very skilled in. But this job, you get to learn about so many different things and that's what I find most exciting about it is not only do I get to learn about things that I never learned about in grad school but you also get to hear about them years in advance of the public getting to learn about it which is exciting because you get to see all of this new upcoming technology which I think is the most exciting part about it. That's awesome so on the flip side of the coin. What are some of the biggest challenges in this job slash industry and I guess more day to day what kind of problems do you deal with. Definitely the hardest part of the job is learning curve. So from lab work to something completely different, you're learning, not only different technologies but how to write patents how to analyze them how to provide input to a client and learning all of the laws of patent world. To do my job you have to pass the patent bar exam, which is different than the law bar exam but I think the learning curve is the hardest part and even being in it for three and a half years now I still feel like I don't know anything, but a lot of people still feel that way for a very long time and everybody understands and knows that there's a huge learning curve to it which is a big challenge. And on a day to day it's really, I think the biggest challenge for me is remembering everything that goes into each thing remembering the law aspect of it the strategy aspect of it remembering all the technology because you have to jump from one thing to another which is sometimes really challenging but it keeps you on your toes. And that does sound like you have to get it many facets of things and I think this leads to our next question pretty well. In terms of the skills. You mentioned you have to write you have to analyze they on top of technology communicate know a lot about law patent law in general. So, can you go into more specifics on how did you learn these skills and I know you mentioned you feel like you still don't know a lot of it like how are you actively gaining these skills and is there programs or training that your company offers and any advice for others trying to gain these skills later on if they're interested in going into patent law. Yeah. Well, what's great about my firm is they actually do have like a patent education training program for people that come in fresh out of grad school that teaches you you know how to how to approach an office action how to respond to a certain rejection on a patent or how to do an audio analysis which is really great. A lot of it really comes from learning on the job so having mentors that take the time to explain things to you and, and edit red line everything. I don't think that I did anything particular outside of like writing papers and things but I did take the time to like the Ross business school had like a business of IP law class that I took that gave me like a background about IP law which was nice and useful. And, but otherwise a lot of it is learning on the job because even the writing is different than the writing you would do for paper. So that's not very helpful because a lot of it is learning on the job but your PhD definitely helps you have the foundation to be able to do that so it's a very hard thing to know because the most of here are pursuing PhD in biomedical science related departments and I think we have a handful of students with us that are from CMD. Yeah, in the zoom call. Yeah, you do not have to be expected to come in and know know how to write a patent or whatever so learning those skills definitely it's more an on the job expectation. That's great. Um, so I guess I'm curious, how did you first realize that you want to pursue patent law, and do you mind sharing how you, what kind of preparation you did to help you get to your current position. Yeah, well I knew the second I came into my PhD that I didn't want to do academia. So I immediately started going to things like this or the PIBS program had like a career exploration program I also did that, and a ton of like informational interviews with people from all different types of fields, and each time I found myself gravitating towards patent law specifically because of the variety that you get and and that kind of aspect and not having to touch a pipette ever again. But to, to prepare myself for it, like I said I did the, the Ross business of IP class. I also, there's a regional patent office in Detroit, and they had things for the public like come learn how to, how you would write a patent as like a lay person. So I went to those just to get an idea of if I liked it or not and I actually ended up putting that on my resume is like hey look I was actually interested in patent law, because there's not many ways for you to gain skills, specifically related to pat pat and work in grad school. So I tried to do things that showed my interest in it, and that it was actually something that I was interested in doing. That's all I did I know some like Michigan has the tech transfer office that people, people can do that I applied to that never got accepted, but that shows you that it's not necessary. But it is an option to give you some idea of if you like it or not. Awesome thanks for sharing that. Okay, one other question to is, how does the person typically progress in your field. Are there milestones promotion, the next level that typically people head towards. So, most of the time what will happen is you would get hired as like a technical specialist or technical advisor is the terms that are used. And then once you pass the patent bar exam, you become a patent agent, you can either stay a patent agent for the rest of your career which there are plenty of people that do that and you kind of just become a more senior level patent agent. And other people will go to law school, which is the track I've decided to take more school. So you'll go to law school and become an associate, which then you can be an associate go in in house somewhere become a partner at a firm, which is the highest choice that you can go but so you can either work at a firm or you can work in house somewhere at a biotech company it just depends on what you prefer. Awesome thanks for sharing that. My last question pertains to your experience as first gen grad students, and she was just wondering if you could share your experience through grad school or in landing to your current role. How do you navigate this base as the first one in your family to attend graduate school. Yeah, I, what I did was try to utilize every single resource available to me at Michigan, every person that was involved in, you know, career offices. People at RAC, people in the, I was in the program for bio and biomedical scientists, people there, talking to them about what resources were available what classes can I take who can I talk to, and they would say, oh you know we know somebody that was that did this career did that career and when you talk to people, because I didn't have like people in my family to say like oh you know what's the, how should I do this or how do I navigate that. And so moving out not being afraid to ask questions was, I think, essential to getting to where I am. Sometimes it is uncomfortable doing informational interviews and things but not being afraid to do it really helps you identify what you need to do and who you need to talk to. And I think that that was most helpful. Thank you so much. That was the first Q&A session from Dr. Samantha Devoncourt. And thank you so much for sharing your experience in patent law. And now we will transition to our next panelist, Dr. Vani Ravi Chandra. Thank you for the slide share. Dr. Ravi Chandra graduated from also the program of CMB in 2022. She's currently a cardiothoracic medical science liaison at CARE DX. CARE DX was founded in 1998, and it is a company that is dedicated to improving the lives of organ transplant patients through the discovery, development, and commercialization of clinically tested, diagnostic tools for transplant patients and their caregivers. Okay, so welcome Dr. Ravi Chandra. My first question is, can you tell me about a typical day or week in your job as a medical science liaison? First of all, thanks for having me. The job really varies. I tend to sit very uniquely, so I should be clear. I'm in a space called medical affairs, that's where medical science liaisons tend to sit. There are kind of three arms of medical affairs that I like to think of. There is pharma, there is devices, and then there is diagnostics, which is where I sit. So my role in diagnostics is going to be a little bit different than the MSLs is what we call the medical science liaisons and pharma or in devices. It might be different in certain ways. So, I don't know that I can share necessarily one typical day or week, but a lot of my responsibility is revolve around. I mean, there's a lot of travel involved in my job. I have been assigned to hospitals and speaking with the medical directors there, the ones who are really pushing the research forward as a medical science liaison, my responsibility really is to sort of push research efforts forward both within our organization and cross collaborate with their institution. So, I have been assigned an entire territory my territory spans the almost the entire southeast, all the way up to South Carolina, and I essentially help my company do certain clinical trials. I will help my company by facilitating interactions with clinicians people who are using like I said I sit in diagnostics so a lot of physicians like to use our diagnostic tests. A lot of times they need a subject matter expert they need somebody to kind of explain to them, what does this result mean clinically with a patient that has this particular clinical background. And then what I get to do in my role is one help them and as far as informing them kind of what the most recent scientific literature might suggest that that result could mean. If we've seen this at other centers around the country or around the world, then can I draw on that experience to then help the clinician can I put that clinician in touch with other clinicians that might have similar patients and then can we at the end of all of this collates some of those data into the form of an abstract or manuscript. So that I would say is a big part of the job. There's a lot of also data analysis because again I sit in diagnostics I'm constantly running basically pulling data from all of my centers trying to do different types of analyses again that would presumably then go into the form of an abstract for a major conference or or a manuscript or something like that. And so a lot of a lot of my work revolves around that sort of data analysis giving talks on data most recent literature that has come out in the field, and really facilitating that interaction with clinicians and helping them to understand how our tests can help them clinically and then getting their feedback as well and figuring out kind of what is it that they need clinically that we as a company can help to fill the gaps with. It sounds like you have your hands full with all the different skills that are required. My next question is, why did this type of work interest you as someone coming from a science background. Yeah, so kind of similarly to what Sammy was saying University of Michigan and particularly CMB has a lot of different resources and one thing that I had to do and that I'm sure many people in this on this call have had to do is fill out something called an IDP or an individual or individual development program or something like that I can't remember exactly what it is but I know that you have them had a little little login that you could use and you can run your own report. And I was noticing that every year I kind of had the same few things show up as my top three for bold skills and interest match. More than that, a very long time ago even prior to graduate school I had a conversation with myself about kind of what skills I wanted to be known for and what kinds of skills I want and when I say known for I mean just within whatever field I'm in. If you need XYZ things done, you need to go to Vani Ravi Chandan that was kind of what I had kept at the forefront of my mind and a lot of the skills that came up were things like presentation. I want to be interacting with people I want to be basically using my scientific brain to help patients clinically and I knew that the work that I was doing during my PhD was very translational but it just the idea of being able to translate that impact into the clinical setting was a lot more enticing to me than the basic science work that I was doing. So as far as kind of why this interested me it was a lot of it was just the nature of the job I think fits with who I am as a person in the types of things that I wanted to do. But scientifically I work in organ transplantation and during my PhD I did work in advanced heart failure and the only real quote unquote cure for heart failure is to give the patient a new heart. And during my PhD I would often say that would kind of be the end of my introductory sentence I'd be like it affects X million Americans annually and the only cure for it is heart transplant but then why is it that we start hearing about rejection and why is it that during COVID all these transplant patients were so terrified to go outside because they were so immunosuppressed and I knew that there were there was more to the story than just give the patient a new organ. And so that's kind of what scientifically drew me to this particular area. Awesome. And like what I had asked Sammy what are the some of the biggest challenges that you face in this industry and what kind of problem solving skills that that you have to apply in this role. I would say challenges are as was mentioned before a lot of it is a learning curve just the infrastructure within industry is so different. And so kind of learning who to talk to when you need certain things done, knowing who's the right person to CC on every email and what kinds of things do you actually have sort of jurisdiction over. And so that was, I feel like that's kind of challenging in my role again I'm working with hospitals and I came from this academic background where I always had full control over all the data that I ever analyzed. I was able to generate data that I needed and in the clinical setting that's not always the case maybe the patient doesn't show up to clinic and so then you can actually get the data, or maybe that they have a huge team working on kind of collating data and putting that into their electronic management record system and so sometimes people's note taking is not amazing and so trying to get data from a center to put a story together for a piece of scientific literature or for an abstract or even just touching base with the center and trying to kind of find out what's going on with them and if they have any questions and whatever it is sometimes it can be really challenging, not having full control over all of my own data. And then I'd say, you know something that I wasn't super used to I guess was things like an industry you always have to go through regulatory always have to go through compliance everything is so tightly regulated within industry. And so understanding that there is a certain sort of best practice for a lot of the things that we have to do I'd say those are some of the challenges that I would say that I that I have had to face over the last year of doing this. And then your second question was problem solving. Yeah problem solving skills that you have to apply day to day somebody in your role. So I, that's a really good question and I don't exactly know how to answer it it feels like there are a lot of different ways to problem solve, but I would say that that's where the PhD really does help a lot. I'd say there's sort of scientific problem solving and helping physicians kind of figure out if they're if they have an interest in a particular research question is there a way that we as a company can facilitate that research going forward and a lot of times these clinicians are not trained like PhDs are to isolate down what is the actual question that you're asking and what kinds of data do we need in order to get the answer to that question so I get to do that that's like one manner of problem solving and then I would say another thing is sort of the interpersonal relationships that you are going to have plenty of in your career and kind of knowing how outside of the academic system again what are those best practices and then knowing how to navigate within whatever structures there are in the industry. And how to get kind of the answers that you need I think the one thing that I've learned is that there's, there are a lot of people who know a little bit about a lot of things, but then there's usually that one person at any organization that knows a lot about the one thing that you need at that moment and so it's about figuring out who that person is that answer the question. And I think this applies like throughout grad school to knowing who to reach out to for what questions that that we have in mind. I have one more question for you and the last question is, you spoke about some of the skills that you need as a medical science liaison, working with clinicians, you need to do data analysis presentation communication. Are there any other skills needed that surprise you entering into this role. And do you have any advice for graduate students, or others trying to begin to gain these skills if they are wanting to enter into the same field as yours. Yeah, I wouldn't say necessarily any of the skills that I needed surprised me I'd say that there are things that should be practiced like your confidence as a scientist, recognizing that in this role, you are going to be the point person for a lot of these things because they are relying on Dr you to help them figure out what it is that they need to figure out and being able to kind of stand on your own two feet which I think graduate school does a really good job of preparing people for her. So, I mean that's part of it and I mean as far as like skills that were surprising I'd say that some of it is also, I mean kind of knowing how to. Again grad school did a great job of preparing me for this part of it too is just knowing how to work from kind of anywhere and particularly with co good to work from anywhere. And when I say that is I mean I'm working on planes sometimes I'm working, I'm like my sales counterpart will be driving us somewhere and then I'll just like pull up my laptop and start working and it's can be really challenging to when you're not used to it working away from us but then being able to take your work anywhere that you go and being able to kind of put your, your thinking cap on at sort of random times I think can be, it can be new. Sounds good. And that's my last question, thank you Dr Ravi tundra and next we have Dr is she that that we could screen share perfect. Awesome. So, Dr dad graduated from CMB in 2015. She's currently an associate director at the Center for strategic philanthropy within the milk and Institute. Milk and is a nonprofit nonpartisan think tank that was founded in 1991, and it has its mission centered on helping people build meaningful life with a focus on financial physical mental and environmental health. Previously, Dr Das worked as a consultant for the government on a variety of science and health policies and programs. Great. Welcome Dr Das. So my first question is, what are some of the main responsibilities of your work as an associate director at milken. Yeah, thanks Joanna for having me. So before I answer that question I do want to go a little bit of background and what exactly strategic philanthropy is. And so, within the milk and Institute like you mentioned it's a think tank. I work in the center for strategic philanthropy and we essentially are kind of like a consulting firm for different philanthropists. And so we help private foundations and ultra high net worth individuals, figure out where to give all their money, essentially, and so a lot of my kind of day to day job involves working with our partners these philanthropists, helping them with ideas around what type of work what type of science what type of like health care related initiatives they want to put their money into, and kind of really making sure that they're doing that strategically so that the money that they put in is giving the best outcomes for the most wide population that they can get. And so, day to day it changes, oftentimes my days are full of meetings, I'm, you know, at associate director level so I manage a bunch of people I manage a lot of teams so a lot of my work is kind of reviewing things that people do versus actually doing the work anymore. Another aspect of what I do is a lot of kind of strategic thinking. And so a lot of kind of leadership meetings with like our executive VP figuring out where we want to go in terms of our strategy and what partners we want to work with, and kind of helping drive where all of this money there's so much money that these billionaires have that they want to put into things and so really helping them figure out where the best spaces to invest their money in. Yeah, thank you that's a very unique role that I personally haven't heard that much about. My next question is, what do you like most about working in this field. So, for five years after grad school like you mentioned I did government consulting and so I did a lot of federal government science health policy work. And the reason I moved into the strategic philanthropy space was I realized all the limitations that the federal government has in really promoting science and health innovation. So philanthropy actually, I think like a study came out that maybe like 40% of research at universities and research institutions is funded by philanthropy and so it's a huge funding mechanism for all the science that happens. And so that kind of is where my work led me and that's what I like about the job is we basically help these foundations come up with strategies on where they want to give and so oftentimes it's usually focused from a personal space so a person who has a family member who has Parkinson's disease. They, you know, want to find a better cure for it and so they come to us being like where is there a gap in funding, either for research or for care and how do we kind of put our money into it. And so, once we kind of set up either a grant program or some other program we put the money out and we kind of see it go into the world and it's just really satisfying that you can kind of tan you know it's just it's tangible what you see happening from our work, I could see with my policy work but again there were limitations that we always came up against and so being in like this more kind of less regulatory world is really nice, but you really kind of see the impact that you have on people, and one of the benefits of kind of philanthropy is that they can take on a lot of risks so they do fund a lot of rare diseases that the federal government won't even put money into because there's no initial data. They fund a lot of kind of different innovations and different like communication techniques for healthcare innovation that other people are putting money into and so when those kind of turn out and work and you see it actually helping people in different populations. It's, it's really satisfying. That's really cool I work in a pediatric brain tumor lab, and we get some of our funding from the chat have foundation. So, yeah, I can definitely speak to money from philanthropy going directly into research and benefiting human health. And so my next question is, what are the biggest challenges in this job in this role and industry, and how do you go about solving these challenges and problems. Yeah, I think, you know, oftentimes, the biggest challenge is that you're working with these families. So there's kind of a two part first. They're billionaires who have a lot of privilege and are not used to getting no for an answer. And at the same time they're people who have been directly affected by this disease and they like want an answer right then and there. And so it's really trying to be doing a lot of management of expectations but then also really understanding that they're kind of often coming from a place of like desperation, and are really wanting to help people and so it's kind of you know that a lot of people are coming from management. A lot of what I do is a lot of like relationship management, really understanding where people are coming from, understanding what type of evidence will influence them what type of evidence will not influence them. So, a lot of people skills, I think is the biggest challenge, specifically what you know the type of partners that we work with. How do I solve it it's some of it comes from practice I mean I worked as a consultant for five years which also has all those same skills you have to know your client and you have to know what their needs and wants are and you have to figure out how to give them a solution that they think they came up with. And then they'll go for it. That's kind of the big trick that I learned. So that's the, that's how I kind of maneuver all of that. Well, another thing I'll add is, you know, the center that I work for the Center for strategic philanthropy it's within the larger milk and Institute which, again is the think tank. For those of you who aren't really familiar. There's lots of think tanks here in the DC area and their whole kind of stick is to drive policy changes and policy initiatives the way they want to go and so we also work with like the larger Institute to kind of move initiatives around and so that isn't necessarily a challenge but more like a, like a pro of working within this large system we have a lot of sway and how different bills are made how different bills are implemented and so it's nice to kind of be in that system and then we can connect our philanthropic partners with like the right folks in the government to kind of really push initiatives forward. So my last question is, you spoke about some of the skills that are important in your role. And how did you learn these skills I know you said some of it is soft skills and relationship building and management. But do you have any advice for others that are trying to begin to work on gaining those skills. So some of the like relationship management things I started in graduate school or even before then right. I managed up to my PI all the time all of you guys do it you have to manage your PI. And then if you're mentoring other graduate students or undergrads in your lab you're basically kind of managing people and so a lot of the skills that I developed there I just kind of then translated into a work environment. So one of your kind of more technical skills writing is, you know, hugely important. I can kind of understate that and writing, both for scientific audiences writing for lay audiences, and then writing for me you know there's like policymakers that I write to things like that. And so, getting writing experience it for different stakeholders in whatever way you can is important. I think the other kind of main skill that I really developed during graduate school was just project management right like having five different experiments going on at once managing all of it by yourself. And that really lends itself to managing projects and then as you kind of move up in a company and manage like a whole team now and so all of that has started in graduate school when I realized that came really easy to me. And so then I that helped me like move up and like leadership positions as well. Awesome. Thank you. That was my last question. Thank you, Dr. Dad. And our last panelist is Dr. out of a Rodriguez Benita. Awesome. Dr. Rodriguez Benita graduated from the program of chemical biology in 2021. I'm currently a freelance science journalist and digital editor at TBS Nova, which is one of the most widely distributed science programs in the world. And it's a multimedia multi platform brand reaching more than 55 million Americans every year on TV and across their different digital platforms. Welcome, Dr. Rodriguez Benita. And my question, my first question is, can you tell me about a typical day or week working as a science journalist and editor. Yeah, for sure. So my current position. So, first of all, thanks for having me. And yeah, I mean, it will depend on the organization, but I currently work at PBS Nova. And although my position says digital editor, I mostly do the job of a staff writer, and I'm just going to depend on the organization you work on and what I do from day to day is going to vary on the week, but it will usually look as a spread of mostly researching pitching and writing news stories or future stories, depending on what the editor has in mind for that month. So that's like, I say like 50% of my workload, PBS Nova, and then about a 30% of my workload it is managing social media and executing social media campaigns to sort of like advertise one or written stories and second or documentaries. So, for example, last fall we had like one documentary released per week. And it's just mainly advertising that and the great science that happens behind it. And I'm roughly a 10% in this specific position. It's mainly mentoring other radio stations on social media and also sharing the different stories. And that's mainly what a day to day looks like a PBS Nova. Sometimes I have an idea that doesn't necessarily fit the scope of PBS Nova and that's where the freelance journalism comes in. So if I see, I don't know a story that's more like chemistry focus and it's more technical, then I would reach out to editors, and now let's say like chemistry and engineering news. And I will reach out to the editor and say like hey I saw the story on press release or I saw like a seminar, I think it might be really good for your outlet are you interested and if they say yes then I move on to the reporting bed which is talking to researchers or grad students, or maybe outside the field, and put some context for the story submitted and then there's just like editing process back and forth and then it gets published. So that's how many day to day kind of looks like, and as a digital editor and freelance journalist and he is going to vary month to month to week. Thank you. What part of your job I guess jobs as a staff writer and freelance journalist what part of these jobs do you find the most exciting and do you, I guess, draw different types of satisfaction from your different roles. Yeah, I mean, I really like from my PBS like main job is, you know, first talking to the different researchers about their work. I feel like there's so much of why the experience that doesn't make it to the paper. And that really is what gives color to stories. I wrote a story once about a scientist that works with the chemistry of smells, and how they got mapped into the brain. And I was like, Okay, now that we're done talking about the studies like okay what do you like to do based on your background, and it turns out he really loves to stop at perfume counters, and trying to figure out where the conference people perfume I need, and I like made it into a story. I know anything that I really like is being exposed to different fields that I never think that I ever covered. And turns out I really liked it. One of those fields is like space. There's a lot of overlap between space and chemistry which is my background. I never would have thought of writing stories about if it wasn't for my job. And I thought it was like the main things that are really, I guess, exciting and satisfying for me. Awesome. That sounds really fun to get to kind of write about what would you enjoy. And my next question is, what are the biggest challenges in your in your jobs last industry and then what kind of problems you tend to face. So main, sorry my cats are like hanging around. I think like one of the main challenges when I was getting into the industry. It's a little bit of, as you might notice right now it's inconsistency and I guess the job titles. You know, you get around it by when you are applying to jobs is like looking at the job description and also talking to the hiring managers and people have worked at those type of positions previously. And that's like a challenge that you can get around another challenge that I not necessarily consider when I was like applying to the this type of jobs are going to this line of field it's like how the hiring audiences can take the story. For example, when COVID like hit in 2020, and you know, still it's how the audience response to those type of stories and also climate change related stories. And that's like a, you know, not a big challenge and how you cover but how you, I guess react to how your audience takes up that story. And also making plans and how you're going to disseminate this type of stories and which platforms, for example, whenever you share for some reason in Facebook. When are you sure a story on Facebook are relating to climate change, kind of gets suppressed because of how, how much backlash to get. So those are things that I never expected or thought about before, you know, joining the job. So that answered the questions. Yeah, it does. It does. You spoke about kind of navigating which platform to share your content and gearing the content to the right audience. Yeah, and my next question is what skills are most important in your line of work and how did you learn these skills and if you have any advice for others that want to gain the same skills. I think a lot of the skills that are using science communication are directly transferable from grad school or that's a grad student. And I think the most important one is able to translate your research and make it accessible to a wide audience. Sorry, I can't. And, you know, being able to translate it to like a wide audience and it's the same thing that you do on research right. If you're doing a presentation at a conference you have to contextualize it for your audience and highlight the key findings and what are your conclusions. The same thing is in science communication is just like a different technical audience more like a little broad, depending on who you're writing to. So that's directly transferable for grad school. That being said, I think there's room to improve as you get like get into the job. Myself, it's really sometimes hard to, I guess, contextually the closer I get to my field. So the closer I write stories about chemistry or biochemistry. And sometimes I tend to forget like, okay, this is not common knowledge. And I need to take a step back and, you know, let including jargon and contextualize the stories and that's where your editor comes really handy because sometimes they're like a little bit removed from your expertise so they give you some like chance like okay, or like no hands but like feedback on how to make your writing better and make it more accessible. A lot of skills are very transferable from grad school to science communication. That's reassuring to know. My last question is, can you speak about your experience as a first generation grad students going through grad school navigating the workforce and then landing in your current position. Okay, so navigating and how to get the job really. You know, grad school was a little bit hard on me. So I moved from Puerto Rico to Michigan. So it's just like, you know, first finding community and how to feel at home at your program. But I think what was really key into, you know, moving into science communication was getting the right mentorship and getting exposed to, you know, science communication experiences and there's a lot of that the University of Michigan. So I took part of the comes like also communicating science conference, they bringing journalists science communicators and they even have you write your own science article. So I was really instrumental of like, you know, like thinking like okay this is could be a career question mark. And I'm also having people to be like okay there's like some experiences that you can take part of, for example, the three players mass media fellowship, which is geared to PhD students, or also like I guess like master's too. And it's a 10 week summer program, and you get hosted at a new site for me was Science Friday so I didn't know that was experience was available until I connected with sentiment or so I will say reach out to people that are already in the field, and seeing like what opportunities are available. And, and that really gets tie into the potential jobs that you could apply. So it was in that community of like the three players that I find like different job posting that I could apply to. And there's people within that network that you can connect that work at that specific outlet and I think there's the mass media fellowship has been I think for over more than 30 years I say, so it's like you have like a very wide network that you can have access to. But I think that's like what helped me in grad school and then get it into the job market. Awesome. Thank you so much, Dr. Roger guests, I need us. And so that was the panel for the guest, the portion where I asked the questions. Right now we're going to take a few minutes break and we'll resume at five. This is when we do our breakout room so each of our panelists will be assigned to one room and as participants you guys can enter any of the rooms and ask questions. I will also have somebody post a link to a survey if you guys would take that as participants that would mean a lot for us. This event was possible because we did different need assessment last semester and we heard that first gen grad students want to see representation of professionals who are in careers that are outside of traditional academia and industry position so based off of that feedback we were able to put this event together so we would have that link in the chat if you guys can take a few minutes to do that and Oh yeah and the breakout room will close at 525 and then everyone will just automatically be brought back to the main room, but we will see you guys back at five.