Exploring Career Options
Exploring Career Options
Graduate Program in Life Sciences (GPILS)
Career Development
Exploring Career Options
Career Options for PhDs
This is a list of common careers explored by our graduates. This list is by no means all inclusive. If there are any other areas that you are interested in, we highly encourage you to use informational interviews to investigate these other careers.
Start your exploration by visiting
myIDP
Clinical Research Management
Consulting
Entrepreneur Science Policy
Principal Investigator at Research Intensive Instituition
Public Health Related Careers
Research Adminstration
Research in Industry
Sales and Marketing of Scinece Related Products
Science Education (K-12) or Public Outreach
Science Policy
Science Writing
Teaching Intensice Career in Academia
Technology Transfer, Intellectual Property and Patenting
Venture Capitalist
Careers in Science Seminar Series
The
Careers in Science Seminar Series
runs throughout the year and introduces students and postdoctoral fellows to the wide range of career paths available beyond traditional academic research. Each session features professionals from diverse sectors—along with alumni from our own programs—who share insights into their roles, career trajectories, and day‑to‑day work.
Previous seminars have highlighted opportunities in areas such as:
academic administration
patent law
industry
science communication
entrepreneurship
government agencies
science policy
teaching faculty roles
science outreach
and many more!
If you are an alum of our university (either graduate or postdoctoral) and would like to give a talk about your career to our current students and postdoctoral fellows, please contact
Jennifer Aumiller, PhD
GPILS Individual Development Plans
The Graduate Program in Life Sciences and the Office of Postdoctoral Scholars are committed to providing a top-tier research training environment for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.
To further support the development of trainees in their trajectory toward independent careers, each program provides an Individual Development Plan (IDP) as a mentoring guidance document.
Each program's IDP is linked below:
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
MBIC IDP for Students Without Mentors
MBIC IDP for Students with Mentors
Epidemiology and Human Genetics
EPIHGEN IDP for All Students
Gerontology
Please reach out to the program coordinator for this document
Molecular Microbiology and Immunology
MMIC IDP for Pre-candidacy Students
MMIC IDP for PhD Candidates
Molecular Medicine
Thesis Committee Meeting Form and IDP
Thesis Proposal Form and IDP
Neuroscience
PIN IDP for Students Without a Mentor
PIN IDP for Students With a Mentor
Physical Rehabilitation Science
PTRS IDP
My IDP by Science Careers
MyIDP
allows you to explore your career options and set goals by using a questionnaire that examines your skills, interests, and values and shows you careers that are the best fit.
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