Salon 31: How We Make a Scientist

Dr. Hannah Gelman (Genome Sciences)

An ever-increasing percentage of scientific research in academia is performed by trainees - students and postdocs preparing for the next phase of their career. Recent recommendations from NIH have proposed changes to the current training model in the biomedical sciences, and recent policy proposals like the “grad student tax” (taxable tuition waivers) and unionization efforts across academia (including here at the UW) have highlighted the fuzzy line between student, trainee, and employee. We’ll discuss the variation in training models across fields and countries and the role of funding paradigms in establishing and supporting these models. The discussion will focus on attendees’ own experience training in academia and their perspectives on what, exactly, we’re training for anyways.