POSTDOCTORAL SEMINAR SERIES

This monthly postdoctoral seminar series is sponsored by the RWJMS Office of Research and supported by the UMDNJ Office of Postdoctoral Affairs. All UMDNJ postdoctoral appointees are invited to participate and meet your colleagues. Lunch is provided. Please contact Dr. Richard Nowakowski for additional details or if you wish to participate.

Unless otherwise noted, seminars will be held at:
Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway
Research Tower, Dean's Conference Room, Room 123/124

Friday, May 2, 2008
"Life in Big Pharma: What we do and how to get here."
Time: 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm

Steven P. Braithwaite, Principal Research Scientist
Vasanti Anand, Postdoctoral Fellow
Neurodegeneration Research
Wyeth Research
Princeton, NJ 08543

Steven Braithwaite pursued postdoctoral research at Stanford University, joined AGY Therapeutics, a biotechnology company in San Francisco, and is currently at Wyeth, a top 10 pharmaceutical company. The pros and cons of each will be discussed.
Vasanti Anand is a postdoctoral fellow working at Wyeth, having completed her PhD at UMDNJ in 2007. She will discuss the role of a Postdoc in industry.

Please RSVP Brenda Coleman.

Friday, April 11, 2008
"Career Opportunites for Medical Educators in the Private Sector"
Time: 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
Location: Research Tower, C207

Ken Weisen, Ph.D.
Associate Scientific Director
Science and Medicine
Publicis Medical Education Group

Ken Weisen has had a varied career in both academia and industry. He will talk and answer questions about the pros, cons and opportunities of some of the opportunities in the private sector.

Please RSVP Brenda Coleman.

Friday, March 7, 2008
"Life as a Faculty Member in a Liberal College. How to get here, what we do."
Bruce Wightman.
Associate Professor
Muhlenberg College
Allentown, PA
http://www.muhlenberg.edu/depts/biology/faculty/wightman/page.htm

Dr. Wightman is at a small college. He will talk about what he does, and how much he teaches. He has an active research program.

Please RSVP Brenda Coleman.

Friday, February 1, 2008
"Jobs in a Non-profit, i.e., Foundations, etc."
Alycia Halladay, Ph.D.
Associate Director of Research for Environmental Sciences
Autism Speaks

There are many jobs for Ph.D. level scientists in many different niches. For the next few months we will have speakers who will address "alternative" career paths, i.e., careers outside of the major research universities. What do these people do? How does one get this kind of job? This month Alycia Halladay, Ph.D. will chat with us about her rewarding experiences at the National Alliance for Autism Research (NAAR) and Autism Speaks (AS) and about job opportunities at Autism Speaks and other Foundations. Dr. Halladay received her Ph.D. from Rutgers. She also did a postdoc at Rutgers and was on the faculty at Rutgers for several years before she joined the non-profit universe.

Please RSVP Brenda Coleman.

Friday, January 11, 2008
"The Academic Bandwagon- Career Choices for Women and Men "

Time: 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
Location: Research Tower, Room C208, Piscataway

This will be a panel discussion of how to manage a career. The topic is stimulated by a recent paper (Martinez et al., 2007, EMBO Reports 8:977-981). The panel will consist of young , mid-career and senior faculty of both genders (Chave Carr, Nancy Walworth, Ray Hamas and Richard Nowakowski) who will describe the issue that they face(d) and lead a discussion on this important topic that affects all of us.

Please RSVP Brenda Coleman.

Friday, December 7, 2007, Noon
"Interactive Workshop on Writing Skills"

The success of the recent panel discussion has lead to this follow-up session to give you an opportunity to write one paragraph (short and related to your work) and have your writing sample critiqued. So bring a pen or pencil and your brain and be prepared to write a few sentences on a scientific topic.

Please RSVP Brenda Coleman.

Friday, November 16, 2007, Noon
"Writing and Re-Writing: The Trials and Tribulations of Manuscript Preparation "

A panel of faculty members will discuss strategies for dealing with manuscript preparation, writer's block, editors' comments, styles for different journals, papers vs grants, etc.

Please RSVP Brenda Coleman.

Location: Room C207, Research Tower, Piscataway

Friday, October 5, 2007, Noon
"Postdoctoral Career Development: Authorship "

Who should be an author? Who should be first author? Co-first author? Last, or Senior, author? Are the US standards different from other countries? Do standards vary from field-to-field?

This will be a panel discussion involving 3 faculty members and one postdoc. A Q&A session is planned.

Friday, August 3, 2007, Noon
"Postdoctoral Career Development: What's Involved? "
Dr. Terry Kinzy
Dr. Martha Soto

This will be a group discussion with the goal of covering the goals and problems that face postdocs. On-line and other resources will be evaluated.

Friday, May 4, 2007, Noon
"The Job Interview: What to Expect- The View from all Sides "

Friday, March 16, 2007, Noon
"The Peer Review Process: A Guide for Young Investigators"
Dr. Richard Nowakowski, Ph.D.
Professor, Neuroscience & Cell Biology
UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School

Friday, February 2, 2007, Noon
"Advancing Your Career: The Why's and How's of Applying for Individual Fellowship Grants "
Dr. Richard Nowakowski, Ph.D.
Professor, Neuroscience & Cell Biology
UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School

Dr. Michael Leibowitz, M.D., Ph.D.
Associate Dean, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences
UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School

Friday, January 5, 2007, Noon
"Improving Your Scientific Presentations"
Participants should bring the first 3-5 slides of a talk (job talk, meeting talk, etc.) on a USB stick. Each participant will then have a chance to present the talk and get feedback on presentation style and content.
Everyone is invited

Friday, September 8, 2006, Noon
"Organizational Meeting"
Dr. Richard S. Nowakowski, Director, Postdoc Seminar Program

Friday, April 7, 2006, Noon
"The Translation Elongation Factor 1A: An Essential Component of the Actin Cytoskeleton"
Dr. Stephane Gross
Postdoctoral Appointee with Dr. Terry Goss Kinzy Department of Molecular Genetics, Immunology and Microbiology, RWJMS Piscataway

Friday, January 27, 2006, Noon
"Deciphering the interactions among competing signaling pathways that lead to generation of a distinct V2 interneuron domain in the developing spinal cord"
Dr. Kamana Misra
Postdoctoral Appointee with Dr. Michael Matise
Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology
RWJMS, Piscataway

Friday, December 2, 2005, Noon
"Bioinformatics at UMDNJ"
Dr. Bruce Bryne, PhD
Associate Director for Education
Informatics Institute of UMDNJ
Adjunct Professor, Medicine and Molecular Genetics and Microbiology
UMDNJ-RWJMS, Piscataway

Friday, August 5, 2005, Noon
"Defining the Basis for the Specificity of Aminoglycoside-rRNA Recognition: A Comparative Study of Drug Binding to the A-sites of Escherichia coli and Human rRNA"
Dr. Malvika Kaul
Postdoctoral Appointee with Dr. Daniel S. Pilch
Department of Pharmacology, RWJMS, Piscataway

Friday, July 8, 2005, Noon
"Writing Your Manuscripts"
Ann Steinecke, Senior Staff Associate
Division of Diversity Policy and Programs
Association of American Medical Colleges
Washington, DC

Friday, June 3, 2005, Noon
"A Novel Protein with C-Type Lectin Domains that is Involved in UNC-6/Netrin-Mediated Axon Guidance"
Dr. Gauri V. Kulkarni
Postdoctoral Appointee with Dr. William Wadsworth
Department of Pathology
RWJMS, Piscataway

Friday, May 6, 2005, Noon
"Role of Nonsense Mediated mRNA Decay Pathway and Eukaryotic Release factor in Translation Recoding"
Dr. Anwar Hossain
Postdoctoral Appointee with Dr. Stuart Peltz
Department of Molecular Genetics, Immunology and Microbiology
RWJMS, Piscataway

Friday, March 4, 2005, Noon
"PAF the Octopus"
Dr. Bing Zhu
Postdoctoral Appointee with Dr. Danny Reinberg
Department of Biochemistry, RWJMS, Piscataway

Friday, February 4, 2005, Noon
"TRPM7 is a Novel Type of Molecule Consisting of a Protein Kinase Fused to an Ion Channel: Identification of Substrates of TRMP7 Kinase"
Dr. Maxim Dorovkov
Postdoctoral Appointee with Dr. Alexey Ryazanov
Department of Pharmacology, RWJMS, Piscataway

Friday, December 3, 2004, Noon
"Characterizing Interactions among Cytokine Receptor Chains in Intact Cells with Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer"
Dr. Christopher Krause
Postdoctoral Appointee with Dr. Sidney Pestka
Department of Molecular Genetics, Immunology & Microbiology, RWJMS, Piscataway

Friday, November 5, 2004, Noon
"Bossmanship"
Dr. Nicola Partridge, Professor and Chair, Department of Physiology and Biophysics
Dr. Kathleen Scotto, Senior Associate Dean for Reseach
Dr. Michael Leibowitz, Associate Dean for the Graduate School; Professor, Department of Molecular Genetics, Microbiology, and Immunology

RWJMS, Piscataway

Friday, October 1, 2004, Noon
"A Suppressor Screen to Identify New Players in UNC-6/Netrin Mediated Axon Guidance using C. Elegans"
Dr.Gauri V. Kulkarni
Postdoctoral Appointee with Dr. William Wadsworth
Department of Pathology, RWJMS, Piscataway

Friday, August 6, 2004, Noon
"Lost in Translation!"
Dr. Monika Anand
Postdoctoral Appointee with Dr. Terri Goss Kinzy
Department of Molecular Genetics, Immunology and Microbiology, RWJMS, Piscataway

Friday, June 25, 2004, Noon
"The Elongation Factor 1A-Actin Complex: the Link between Regulating Translation and Cytoskeletal Organization"
Dr. Stephane R. Gross
Postdoctoral Appointee with Dr. Terri Goss Kinzy
Department of Molecular Genetics, Immunology and Microbiology, RWJMS, Piscataway

Friday, May 14, 2004, Noon
"Role of Sirt1in Chromatin Regulation and Epigenetics"
Dr. Alejandro Vaquero
Postdoctoral Appointee with Dr. Danny Reinberg
Department of Biochemistry, RWJMS, Piscataway

Friday, April 2, 2004, Noon
"Developmental Neurogenesis:Implications for Designing Therapies for Spinal Cord Injuries"
Dr. Kamana Misra
Postdoctoral Appointee with Dr. Michael Matise
Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology, RWJMS, Piscataway
CABM, Room 010