Interview with Hillel Adesnik
Interview with Roger Nicoll
Interview with Hillel Adesnik, UCSF Neuroscience Program Graduate '08, Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley
There are people that are interested in staying on an academic track but have fears about job availability and funding. Did you have those types of concerns?
Of course, and I still have those concerns. But that was never a deterrent. As Roger would say, you do this because you can’t imagine doing anything else. Fortunately I was lucky to get a few offers, like at a great place like Berkeley.
The best thing about being a junior faculty is that this is a unique time in your life, particularly as an academic scientist, that you really can go in any direction that you want provided you get funding. There is a lot of funding to specifically support junior faculty to do more crazy projects.
When did you start thinking about the academic job market?
About half way through my postdoc. Cori Bargmann, who used to be at UCSF and is a very well known neuroscientist, gave a talk at UCSF on “How do you get a job in academia science?” It boiled down to one simple thing, and I took it to heart. Basically you need to have two hits, one as a graduate student and one as a postdoc. High profile papers, one and one. You can be a fluke with one but can’t be a fluke with two. Fortunately I had published well with Roger, but I had to continue that during my postdoc.
Did you find that networking for academia was advantageous?
Yes, but I did not do a lot of it prior to starting the job search. I do encourage my students now to go to conferences and network. There is a big value to getting your name out there while you are postdoc. It should be more encouraged for postdocs and students.
How was Roger as an advisor?
He was one of the best. I aspire to be like him. In a good way, he is very competitive. It is all about truth, reproducibility, compelling, and interpretable science. He is an intellectual guide and everything he has done is pretty much spot on, and that is hard to do. He teaches you intellectually how to think about questions. He is often challenging you and is very supportive, staying positive and optimistic.
How much of your time is split between teaching, doing research, grant writing, etc.?
Your time as a PI in academia is extremely distributed and fragmented. There are definitely moments of it that are extremely enjoyable. You’re directing your own research, and that is very exciting, and it feels good to be able to fund it yourself.
Was there anything that surprised you about academia?
Nothing could prepare you for how fragmented your time is. It’s amazing what it takes to do research. The amount of paperwork, failure, and rejection—it takes a lot of effort. You don’t have that vantage point [as a postdoc or graduate student].
Interview with Roger Nicoll, Professor at Cellular Molecular Pharmacology Department at UCSF and former advisor of Hillel Adesnik
What made you confident that Hillel would be successful in academia? What key strengths made Hillel a good fit for his current job?
Hillel always had the drive to solve problems, and he was self- motivated. He came to me every day with either new data or new ideas. He also came up with new ways of addressing questions in the field that had such general value that he actually changed the direction of the lab. Hillel had the three necessary things for academia: the drive, good hands, and curiosity.
How did you support his career choice?
We only discussed career trajectory when it was necessary. I don’t believe I gave any overt guidance in his early years, but I did encourage him to take a specific postdoc that I knew would be good for his success in academia.
Was his career choice an evolving decision, or was it apparent from day 1?
Oh, he and I knew right way. It was obvious from his enthusiasm to do experiments; he was always questioning, always curious. I predicted his career success from the first week of his rotation. It was a joy to work with someone who was as bubbling over with enthusiasm and ideas as I was.
