Featured SEBM ScientistsHolly Lavoie, PhDUniversity of South Carolina School of Medicine, SEBM Member since 1996
Read Holly's Full Interview Here Shelly Lu, MDCedar Sinai Medical Center, Keck School of Medicine, SEBM Member since 2006 I'm the Director, Division of Gastroenterology. I run an academic division with over 20 full-time clinical and around 15 Ph.D. faculty members. I also direct a busy research lab funded by 5R01s. I am a physician scientist who still sees patients. I do feel it is important that what we do in the lab has clinical relevance and can help improve patient care ultimately. It is important to be able to explain in lay terms what we work on My philosophy is to leave as many doors open as possible and to never ignore unexpected results. They are often clues of something more novel. What I did right was to have a great mentor in the beginning of my career. Subsequently I met my close collaborator and our collaboration helped further both of our careers. In academia there will always be times when things don’t work out (more often than the other way around) but perseverance is key. At the end of the day, if this is something that excites you then you stay with it. If not, think about another track. You only have one life to live.
Rashid Bashir, PhDUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign I am the Abel Bliss Professor of Engineering and faculty in Bioengineering with courtesy appointments in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Materials Science and Engineering. I am the department head of Bioengineering at UIUC. When I was a kid I knew I liked science and engineering. i studied electrical engineering for BS through PhD. I love being a professor and i love academia but if I did not do that I would have been a physician. Well, I was part of team that conceived the idea and part of the team that is starting the first Engineering Based Medical School at UIUC – so that dream could also become a reality in an indirect way. All my education was in Electrical Engineering. In the last semester of my PhD I took bioengineering courses and many light bulbs went on! That’s what I want to be doing. Then i worked in the semiconductor industry for 6 years and during that time went back to school to take biology, organic chemistry and various wet labs. And then went back to academia to be a professor. I was at Purdue for 9 years and then move to UIUC and have been here for for 9 years. Read Rashid's Full Interview Here
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