Fall 2025

 

"Duke

The Careers Beyond Academia Series is sponsored by the Office of Postdoctoral Services and The Graduate School.

Thurs Aug 28, 11-1:45 am

WHAT: What Can I Be with an Advanced Degree? Identifying My Transferable Skills
REGISTER: https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8zVRZgRtEgamyTY

This workshop will help you identify the transferable skills you’ve already developed in graduate school or your postdoc experience, brainstorm opportunities to continue growing your skills, and connect with tools to help you plan for further development. Our workshop facilitator is Melissa Bostrom PhD, Senior Assistant Dean for Graduate Student Professional Development.

Thurs Sept 4, 11-11:45 am

WHAT: Research Tools for Exploring Your Career Options with a PhD
REGISTER: https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3sXIOitFy788P9I

This workshop will help you identify the transferable skills you’ve already developed in graduate school or your postdoc experience, brainstorm opportunities to continue growing your skills, and connect with tools to help you plan for further development. Our workshop facilitator is Melissa Bostrom PhD, Senior Assistant Dean for Graduate Student Professional Development.

Tues Sept 9, 11 am – 12:15 pm

WHAT: Communicating Your Strengths: A CliftonStrengths Workshop

This workshop has been cancelled due to low enrollment.

How do you describe your five greatest strengths? How can you leverage this information to communicate your capabilities to colleagues and potential employers? Using the CliftonStrengths assessment, this workshop will help you explore a new way to talk about your skills. We will investigate strategies for communicating your strengths to others, the challenges that your strengths might pose for you, and ways you can use information about your strengths to thrive in a team setting. Our facilitator is Melissa Bostrom, PhD, Senior Assistant Dean for Graduate Student Professional Development.

The online CliftonStrengths assessment is offered free to all registered participants in this limited-enrollment workshop open exclusively to Graduate School students and postdocs. If you have not yet taken the assessment, please request your code by Thurs Sept 4.

Weds Sept 10, 4-5 pm

WHAT: What is Management Consulting? An Introduction with the Members of Duke Advanced-Degree Consulting Club
REGISTER: https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2h5X61yoIs7PCaG

Are you curious about how you can apply your research skills in a consulting career? Join us this workshop offered by the Duke Advanced-Degree Consulting Club (DACC) to learn about careers in management consulting. Past DACC members have landed positions at Big Three firms (McKinsey, BCG, and Bain) as well as IQVIA, Accenture, LEK, ZA, EY, and Oliver Wyman.

Thurs Oct 2, 11-11:30 am

WHAT: Alum Zoom: Five Career Questions with Devjanee Swain Lenz PhD, Director, Duke Sequencing and Genomic Technologies Core Facility
REGISTER: https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bNtkEufo7ecfWCy
As part of a series of short, focused career conversations with former Duke postdocs and PhD students, we’ll feature Devjanee (Devi) Swain Lenz, PhD (former postdoc, Duke Biology), who is Director of the Duke Sequencing and Genomics Technologies Core Facility (SGT) ) and Assistant Research Faculty in the Department of Molecular Genetics & Microbiology. Devi earned her PhD in Molecular Genetics and Genomics at Washington University in St Louis. After her postdoc, Devi also worked in medical/scientific writing at Eva Garland Consulting in Raleigh.

Devi will tell us how she transitioned from academic lab research to medical writing in industry, and then back to academia to run a core lab.

We will ask Devi five career questions:

  1. Can you tell us about your background?
  2. How did you get your job?
  3. What’s a typical day like at your organization?
  4. What can grad students and postdocs who would like to work in this field or explore it further do to prepare?
  5. What is the employment outlook for this field?

Weds Oct 8, 11-11:30 am

WHAT: Alum Zoom with Carolin Benack PhD, Public Outreach Specialist, European Central Bank
REGISTER: https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9Ych4NQ8M1VqYB0

As part of a series of short, focused career conversations with former Duke PhD students and postdocs, we’ll feature Carolin Benack, PhD ’23 (English). Dr Benack has built on her master’s-level training in both economics and literature at the European Central Bank. Since launching her career with the ECB in 2023 as a public communications trainee, she has risen to roles as public outreach coordinator and was promoted to her current position as public outreach specialist in November 2024. She’ll share the skills and experiences she built to craft her unique career path in this conversation, which will not be recorded.

We will ask her five career questions:

  1. Can you tell us about your background?
  2. How did you get your job?
  3. What’s a typical day like at your organization?
  4. What can grad students and postdocs who would like to work in this field or explore it further do to prepare?
  5. What is the employment outlook for this field?

Thurs Oct 9, 10-11 am

WHAT: From Vision to Reality: 4 Steps to Creating & Executing Your Individual Development Plan
REGISTER: https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6Ap7iL8xFQE423A

For better or for worse, your experiences and the training you receive as postdoctoral researchers and graduate students can greatly shape the rest of your career. However, there are strategies and resources that can increase your chances of getting what you came for. During this program, participants will learn how to develop clear and specific goals and objectives, along with a plan for executing them in an Individual Development Plan (IDP).

You’ll learn:

  • An approach to setting meaningful, achievable goals aligned with your long-term vision.
  • A structured planning routine to manage your time effectively.
  • How to speak with your mentor about your goals and strategies to address any misalignments in expectations and needs.

Speaker: Dara Wilson-Grant is Director of Postdoctoral Career and Professional Development at the UNC-Chapel Hill Office of Postdoctoral Affairs and a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor. With over fifteen years experience providing career management education and counseling, Dara’s mission is to help individuals develop a framework for choosing a meaningful and rewarding career path, plus develop the skills necessary for a lifetime of career success.

Thurs Oct 16, 10-11 am

WHAT: From CV to Resume: Repackaging Your Academic Experience for Industry Employers
REGISTER: https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_7QVqW68PlUPoy3k

Are you considering a career outside of academia? If so, you will need to convert your curriculum vitae (CV) into a resume, and this session will show you how. In addition to learning the differences between an academic CV and a resume, you will learn specific steps and strategies to help you craft a resume that effectively promotes your qualifications in a way that appeals to a broad audience.

In this session, you’ll learn:

  • Key differences between an academic CV and an industry resume.
  • How to assess job requirements and demonstrate your qualifications effectively.
  • Strategies for brainstorming and repackaging your experiences to highlight relevant skills for the job.

Speaker: Dara Wilson-Grant is Director of Postdoctoral Career and Professional Development at the UNC-Chapel Hill Office of Postdoctoral Affairs and a Licensed Professional Counselor. With over fifteen years experience providing career management education and counseling, Dara’s mission is to help individuals develop a framework for choosing a meaningful and rewarding career path, plus develop the skills necessary for a lifetime of career success.

Tues Oct 21, 11-11:30 am

WHAT: Alum Zoom with Susannah Duerr PhD, Human Data Team Lead at xAI
REGISTER: https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2f47hQxaMYi2xa6

As part of a series of short, focused career conversations with former Duke Ph.D. students and postdocs, we’ll feature Susannah Duerr, AM’16, PhD’24 (Religion). Dr. Duerr began growing her AI skills as a freelance writing evaluator as she finished her PhD, then took a role as an AI Tutor with xAI after graduation before being promoted to her current role in October 2024. She’ll share insights into the value of a humanist in the data world.

We will ask her five career questions:

  1. Can you tell us about your background?
  2. How did you get your job?
  3. What’s a typical day like at your organization?
  4. What can grad students and postdocs who would like to work in this field or explore it further do to prepare?
  5. What is the employment outlook for this field?

Weds Nov 5, 10-11 am

WHAT: Networking: How to Build Professional Relationships for Long-Term Career Success
REGISTER: https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_d5nSOuC6dPmFQIm

Networking is one of the most effective ways to advance your career. It can help you make informed decisions, expand your professional connections and influence, and improve your reputation. This session will provide techniques for effective and tactful networking. Participants will leave with a networking action plan that can be implemented immediately.

Speaker: Dara Wilson-Grant is the Director of Postdoctoral Career and Professional Development at the UNC-Chapel Hill Office of Postdoctoral Affairs and a Licensed Professional Counselor. With over fifteen years experience providing career management education and counseling, Dara’s mission is to help individuals develop a framework for choosing a meaningful and rewarding career path, plus develop the skills necessary for a lifetime of career success.