Some observations on graduate education and the STEM workforce from a couple vantage points. Harold Skip Garner

Transcription

1 Some observations on graduate education and the STEM workforce from a couple vantage points Harold Skip Garner

2 Declaration of Potential Conflicts-of-Interest, Consulting and Corporate Collaborators Comperity

3 My vantage points BS and PhD in STEM fields (engineering and physics) Self-taught in medicine and biomedicine Worked in large corporations (and for US government) Founded and work in several small companies Professor at universities and medical schools 33 grad/med students 27 post docs A lot of undergrads Consultant Have worked for others, and have hired people to work for me Presented previously at university course in alternate careers for PhDs

4 The professional skills STEM master s and PhD students need to succeed in the biotech startup sector Real mastery of the subject area Interests outside the primary subject area (interesting, differentiating yourself, most (non-einsteinian) invention is really putting several observations together to make something new) Organization and execution Communication Practice, Red Teaming, Prooofreading Ability to think on your feet Salesmanship In a startup (as well as a new division in an existing company) you must be able to do everything Stuff that cannot be learned in a lecture, only developed through experience. You must be hungry.

5 Anticipated future skills needs in the biotech startup sector Cross or poly-disciplinary skills Real programming and data analysis skills Real entrepreneur experience Track record, successful or not Access to funds (grants, VCs, high net worth individuals) A network Communication, confidence, multiplexing Better ability to focus rather than explore; time management International experience, having lived and worked outside the US at least once Legal experience

6 What skills today's graduate students may lack Communication and presentation skills Paper, grant and report writing Oral talk and poster preparation and presentation Interview skills and preparation Marketing (selling your ideas) Leadership and independence/autonomy skills Supervision experience, how to delegate Must know how to do it all in a startup Programming and data analysis skills Add python, html, scripting and a database to anything else you may be Real knowledge of statistics in the era of data driven research; correlation vs causation Learn (or re-learn) to search/investigate using something other than Google

7 Industry-university partnerships in skills development Ventac-Partners Life sciences consulting and company co-development firm Entrepreneur school for want to be entrepreneurs, university/government administration, International (founded in Denmark) Toastmasters Me Lecture in ethics, entrepreneurship/alternate careers, genomics, cancer genetics, physics/engineering perspective Universities, companies, private organizations CME; grant ethics requirements Paper/grant writing, expansion of research portfolio, visibility/brand International

8 Parting words Last piece of advice from my PhD advisor... never stop reading. What is a PhD? A demonstration that once in your life you independently completed a research project (implying you should be able to do it again). LinkedIn and other similar sites have become a popularity contest; not reliable for references. Be careful of social and networking sites. The myth of university entrepreneurism: most universities (except Stanford, and a couple more) erect barriers to success (restrictive license terms/upfront $, restrictive COI, overvalue IP, poor IP execution, no experience by tech transfer personnel, no access to smart money or qualified leadership, no real knowledge of what is really needed in an incubator)..which is why they are all talk and have nothing to show.

9 Thank you for your interest Questions?