Thomas Helleday in his laboratory, 2009. Photo: Lucas Laursen.
Thomas Helleday was precocious long before he started supervising Ph.D. students as he finished his own doctorate. His mother, a banker, bought him his first stock at age 7. At age 16, the Swedish native volunteered in a cancer ward with his older brother and “was terrified” by the harsh side effects of radiation therapy he saw there. Vowing to do something about it, potentially in the pharmaceutical industry, Helleday studied business and molecular biology as an undergraduate.
Last spring, Katy Sheen listened to the sounds of the ocean from a ship off the coast of Spain. A relaxing vacation? Hardly. Sheen, a graduate student at the University of Cambridge in the U.K., is one of a handful of scientists adapting a technique called seismic profiling to oceanography.Continue reading Watery Echoes Give Clues to the Past and Future of the Seas→
Dalya Soond couldn’t quite picture herself in the buttoned-down world of industry research. But her 3-year Ph.D. program at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, U.K., was funded in part by an industrial partner, and the terms included a 3-month private-sector internship–also known as a work placement. Two years into her research on a mouse-model study of a gene pathway’s role in the immune system, she joined UCB Celltech. She wasn’t sure how she would fit into corporate culture or how well she would manage to juggle a new project with her ongoing Ph.D. research. “I was a little bit hesitant,” she says.
Wondering what to do when you finally finish your Ph.D.? You’re not alone. One source suggests that a mere 20% of British Ph.D. students have a clear idea of what to do next. The Higher Education Statistics Agency has been trying to shed light on the places U.K. post-graduates end up by surveying them the January after they graduate. In September, the Careers Research and Advisory Centre (CRAC) published a report analyzing trends from 2004 to 2006.
