So You Want To Be A Professor: Interview with Assistant Professor Sameer Shah
Sameer Shah (Ph.D., University of California, San Diego, 2002) joined the Fischell Department of Bioengineering in the fall of 2006. We sat down with him at the end of his first semester to find out what becoming a professor and his first semester have been like.
Why did you decide to become a professor?
Two reasons: The first had to do with teaching. I realized as an undergraduate that it was something I'd enjoy, but I needed to get a Ph.D. to teach at the university level. The second was that I interned for a couple of summers in industry, in a non-biomedical field, and I wasn't interested in the subject enough to make a career out of it. I also realized that you could really explore a problem in greater depth in academia than you could in most industrial settings.
Had you taught before?
As a graduate student I gave lectures for a few different professors. I also had to complete T.A.-ships in four different classes.
So that's the groundwork for starting to learn how to put together a class?
Sure. And also just trying to think through how different people learn and how someone outside of your field might perceive or interpret your words are important strategies for teaching.
What do you hope to accomplish as a professor that you couldn't in industry?
If you're in industry, especially if you start your own company, in theory, you can go in whichever direction you want. But practically, a lot of decisions are driven by current market conditions. As a professor, I'm still driven by clinically relevant questions, but I have more flexibility in how I end up reaching a solution. For example, I don't have to start out developing a drug to treat a specific disease –I can spend time understanding how the nervous system functions and use that core information to be a little smarter about coming up with solutions that could eventually be applied to serious problems.
What was the application process to become faculty like?
I applied to about 40 different schools, because at some level, it's a numbers game. There are a lot of graduate students and post-docs, and not a whole lot of open faculty positions. In some ways my strategy was similar to the undergraduate admissions process a high school student goes through—I didn't apply anywhere I wouldn't be comfortable, but I did apply to schools which, if you look at their rankings, were a cross-section of the top 25%. I applied to both bioengineering and cell biology departments, because my work spans both fields. I'm definitely more comfortable in a bioengineering department—obviously I'm here!—but I wouldn't have been unhappy being in a cell biology department, either.
The actual process involves writing a cover letter; a research statement (major research questions, and a little detail about how I intend to answer these questions); and a teaching statement. I also needed reference letters. My bosses from grad school and my post-doc [position], and a few of the other mentors I've had, wrote letters on my behalf to all of these schools—all 40 of them—so I’m sure they really loved me after all of that... [laughs]
It seems like in the sciences, you really need to have the post-doc position before you can apply for faculty positions. Is that true or does it just give you an edge?
I think part of it depends on your graduate school training and on the field into which you're going. In most biology-related positions a post-doc is strongly recommended, almost required, because unless you're at a school that's primarily a teaching school—Maryland is a good combination of teaching and research—you need to have some more training and some publications to be thought of as competitive.
Were you assigned a faculty mentor? If so, who is your mentor, and how is your mentor helping you settle in?
[Department Chair] Bill Bentley was my official mentor. Now that I've been here for a few months, I've been officially or unofficially mentored by both [him] and [Professor and Graduate Program Director] Peter Kofinas. They've given me advice on writing proposals and teaching requirements, and patiently answered whatever questions I've had. [Professor Bentley] has also helped me understand the politics and the service requirements for new faculty. I haven't been shy about asking questions of anyone—everyone is more experienced than I am at this point!
About the service requirements—People may not realize it's required of them when they think about becoming professors. What sort of service requirements do you have for the Clark School and the University?
They fall into three categories: department-, Clark School-, and University-level. I think new professors tend to start at the department level, things like graduate admissions and faculty search committees. There's a lot to take in, so the first year or two you do a little bit and then ramp up. Part of that is just practical—you need to learn the ropes at one level before you can even begin to understand the rest.
Now that you're here, you need to set up your lab—from the ground up! You were probably shown an empty room in the Kim Building, right?
[laughs] More or less. I inherited a couple of freezers and refrigerators, but for the most part it was a blank slate.
So was that intimidating?
Yes, actually!
For those who might find themselves in the same position, where do you start?
The process started before I even got here. During hiring negotiations, I was asked for a proposed startup budget detailing where I'd spend my money. You can do two things with that: you can just give them a rough estimate and say "I'll deal with it when I get there," or you can actually think through, "What will I really need to start a lab?" I did the latter, so at least I knew what the big pieces of equipment were that I would need. After that, I started ordering all of the pipettes and chemicals and minor pieces of equipment as I went along.
How long does it take to get major pieces of equipment?
I'll give you an example: I had to buy a fluorescence microscope. It's a major chunk of my startup budget, so I had to think carefully about what exactly I wanted. I also wanted to negotiate the best price with the vendor. I demoed two microscopy systems simultaneously, to compare performance, and to let the the vendors know they were in competition, so they had put their best foot forward—equipment-wise and price-wise. It was educational for me because I really got to see what these microscopes could do and I think that helped me get a better price. Once you make a decision, you have to go through some university purchasing "rituals"—that's common for everyone buying a major piece of equipment at this school. It can take a couple of months.
Are you teaching yet? Which classes are you or will you be teaching?
I'll start teaching a class next semester that's listed as a graduate class, but can be taken by an upper-level undergraduate. It's called "quantitative cell physiology," which broadly involves understanding basic physiological processes that make a cell function properly. It's a lecture/journal club course. I'd like to integrate current research techniques and quantitative methods that people are using now which aren't usually found in a textbook.
What surprised you during your first semester here?
I've had a lot of surprises of the "learning experience" kind. People had warned me, "You're not going to have blocks of time the way you used to." So the biggest thing was that it required more discipline of me to really block off segments of time. Part of it is self-inflicted because it's a lot more fun to go down the hall and see what someone else is working on, or discuss science with a colleague, than it is to sit and dedicate myself to ordering gloves and aluminum foil and paper towels. I'm also not able to work in blocks of 15 to 20 minutes when I need to write about science—I really need to immerse myself in it. I've had to force myself to "time box" my day.
This semester was the first time you recruited students who might end up being your advisees. What was that like? How do those relationships start?
My first exposure to the students was at a sort of recruiting seminar for the first-year graduate students. I presented some of my previous work and where I'm headed with my projects, then invited some students to come and talk to me about my research. Because my personal pages are not on the web yet and I was not part of the department when the students applied [to the program], I had to initiate a lot of the recruiting on my own. But the other faculty have been good about encouraging their students to talk to me, too.
What advice do you have for students considering a career in academia? Is there anything you wished you would have known?
If you're sure that you want to be in academia, start thinking about your long-term plans as soon as possible. These will certainly be adjusted over time, but it's a good exercise to see what kind of twist you can put on what you've already learned so you can differentiate yourself. In the end, you don't want to compete with your advisor, because he or she is already established in a certain field. You want to do your own thing, which is actually also better for your own creativity. If you overlap too much with your boss, you get in a rut and don't feel like you're contributing anything new.
I think it would have been nice to finish writing up my postdoctoral work while I was still a post-doc, or taken some time off to finish, because that's another one of those tasks that requires a chunk of time that sometimes just isn't there.
If you weren't an engineer and could have any other job, however impractical, what would it be?
I think I'd like to be a journalist. I don't know a lot about it, but I do enjoy writing. One thing I've gradually figured out is that science is half science and half presentation—so a lot of it is in the packaging and selling of your ideas and results. Writing is an important part of conveying the message, and it's an ongoing learning process.
When I was a little kid, the first job I really wanted was to be a garbage man, because I wanted to hang off the sides of those huge trucks!
