Meet Andrew: Andrew started his PhD at the University of York in 2016 studying the heterogeneity of bone marrow stromal cells (see more here). He is now the manager of Brandeis University’s Light Microscopy Facility. We asked Andrew about his career and any advice that he has for current students…
About Andrew’s PhD
“I attended the University of York where I studied the heterogeneity of bone marrow stromal cells. I did my PhD with Profs Paul Genever and Ian Hitchcock who were both excellent mentors. I did a lot of confocal microscopy to look at tissue organization, I imaged cells in culture using York’s ptychographic imaging system. I also did the occasional flow cytometry and electron microscopy experiment and dabbled with some image analysis pipelines. I was fortunate to try a breadth of techniques in my PhD but really loved working with bone marrow.”
Q. When did you start thinking about your career and what are you doing now?
I started thinking about my career when I was on my year in industry in my undergraduate degree. A colleague told me that I was more likely to hit a ceiling without a PhD which was fine because I wanted to do a PhD anyway. I started out wanting to become a PI but over the years of my PhD and Post-Doc I started to get more and more interested in light microscopy. I was fortunate that York has a great imaging and cytometry facility and I loved working alongside all of the staff there and I think it was that environment that really made me think about a career in a facility.
I did a Post-Doc for nearly 3 years at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School before recently moving into a new role as the manager of Brandeis University’s Light Microscopy Facility.
Q. What do you most enjoy about your career?
I love microscopes and I love helping people; sometimes its just that simple. I can spend as little as 5 minutes helping someone perfect their image acquisition or I can spend days to weeks helping them with the minutiae of experimental design and data collection. I get to meet interesting people and I’m constantly learning. I’ve only been in the role for a short time but every day has been different. It’s very different not having ownership of experiment and ideas like in a Post-Doc and a PhD but I’m very happy to act as a facilitator and to help others in the way I was helped during my PhD.
Q. How did your PhD and the White Rose DTP prepare you for what you are doing now?
As mentioned I was lucky to have great mentors who encouraged me to learn and engage with the scientific community. I completed the 4 day White Rose DTP confocal and super-resolution microscopy course across all 3 universities that gave me a great foundation in microscopy that I then continued to build upon. I also had an amazing PIPS at the Academy of Medical Sciences where I worked as a programmes officer and saw how charities and funding bodies are run.
Q. What advice would you give to current students who are thinking about and planning their graduate careers?
Talk to people. Learn from the experiences of others and find out as much as you can about careers both inside and outside academia. I’m fortunate that I have been able to have professional relationships become personal friendships and these people have consistently been willing to help me throughout my career. I’ve also had a few formal mentoring partnerships and these have proved very beneficial for my approach to science and life. Try as much as you can and gain as much experience as you can and don’t be afraid to reach out to people you don’t know to ask for advice/help. The worst thing they can do is say no!