Interview with Dr. Jorn Coers, assistant professor at Duke University Medical Center and PI of the Coers Lab
I was blessed to be able to interview the PI of the microbiology lab where I am interning, Dr. Jorn Coers. On June 13, 2014, he shared his experiences and wisdom with me. Regrettably, I wasn’t able to quote him perfectly, so I’ve included a summary of the interview instead of a transcript.
Interview Summary
We began by discussing where Dr. Coers received his education, and I was startled to find that he took a windy road to his current position at Duke University. He first attended the University of Konstanz in Germany. While there, he participated in an exchange program with Stony Brook University in New York. Then, he went to Germany to finish some courses there. This was followed by a period at Yale University. After that, he returned to Germany again where he worked towards his PhD. He actually ended up finishing his PhD in Switzerland. Then, he did postdoctoral work at Harvard Medical School before receiving his current position as at Duke.
After talking about all the schools that Dr. Coers attended, I became curious about how his professional goals changed throughout his academic career. He said that he started studying biology out of curiosity and interest, and there was a part of him that was always motivated to do research. His brother, he told me, was the real biologist — the outdoorsy sort, he enjoyed studying birds. I went with my brother, said Dr. Coers, but I wasn’t satisfied just enjoying nature; I wanted to experiment. In a way, doing microbiology research has really been my way of worshipping nature, he said.
How does one become interested in something like microbiology that is so small? I wondered. Chance, Dr. Coers told me. Originally, he had been interested in neurobiology and its intersection with behavioral science. It was when he went to Stony Brook University and worked in a microbiology lab that he discovered he enjoyed microbiology.
Finally, I asked Dr. Coers what he found frustrating about his job. It was tough when I was an experimentalist, he said, because I always found it difficult when experiments failed. Now that Dr. Coers is a PI, he said that he still sympathizes and shares the frustration of the experimentalists when their work fails, but it is different. There are so many things going on in the lab that one setback is not a huge blow for me, he said.
Personal Reflection
I found this interview extremely helpful in understanding the twists and turns that a career can take. This is comforting to me as a rising sophomore at Duke University because I have to make some decisions (like choosing my major) that will affect my career — it’s nice to hear from someone who has been to so many different schools and tried so many different things. It gives me the courage to explore. From the bottom of my heart, I am grateful to Dr. Coers for the time he took to talk to me.
