US Doctoral Students May Find that Their Dissertation Committee can Double as a Board of Career Mentors - Nature Jobs Feature, May 2016

I was featured in Nature, vol 533: 429-430, May, 2016 by Alaina Levine.  The article is about how you can better utilize your dissertation committee by doing the following : 1) choose a diverse group of committee members who can provide you guidance in different aspects of your thesis research and also advise you on your career goals, 2) communicate individually with each adviser early and often, 3) be honest with your committee members about your career goals, 4) keep committee members informed of your achievements and challenges, 5) realize that you are an asset to your advisers and not a drain or a burden to them.  To this last point, I want to add that you should understand that your advisers want you to succeed.  They accepted to be on your committee for altruistic reasons and they genuinely want you to do well.  But you should also understand that their success as mentors is measured by the level of success that their students achieve.  In the article, I am quoted as saying: "Students should remind faculty members whom they invite to serve on their dissertation committee that they are likely to benefit. “One measure of success for professors is the success of their students,” says Dr. Luz Claudio. “When you are up for promotion and tenure, the better your students do, the better you look.”  Read the full article here.