One thing is certain both Michael Jacobsen, Ph.D., and Ann Cavanaugh, Ph.D., are incredibly happy in their chosen careers.
If you ask either one of them about their work, they quickly respond: "I love it."
"I get to spend time somewhere I’ve always enjoyed being, in an academic environment where I get to teach and share my love of research with students," said Dr. Cavanaugh, who is an assistant professor in the department of biology at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb.
While Dr. Jacobsen describes his work as the director of Peptide Chemistry at Navigen, Inc., a private drug discovery and development company in Salt Lake City, Utah, as a "high-speed, high-intensity research environment, but I love it."
At Navigen, Inc., Dr. Jacobsen leads the synthesis and development of D-peptide drugs as a potential new class of therapeutics. It’s similar to the work he did as a doctoral student at the University of Utah and as a postdoctoral student at the University of Oxford in England, where he focused on biochemistry and protein chemical synthesis.
The two former INBRE Scholars, (Dr. Jacobsen – 2005 and Dr. Cavanaugh – 2006), were invited to speak about their current professions at the Nebraska INBRE annual meeting in August.
Their enthusiasm for their professions was evident as was their gratitude toward the Nebraska INBRE program for the role it played in their lives.
"There is no way around it, research is hard, experiments constantly fail, and so it requires experience and a strong will to push forward," Dr. Jacobsen said. "INBRE helped me to appreciate and address these challenges."
For Dr. Cavanaugh, INBRE helped prepare her for what she would face in graduate school.
"I felt confident going into graduate school, and really prepared for owning my own project, reading journal articles and talking about science at a level appropriate for a grad student," she said.
Speaking at the annual conference was fun, Dr. Cavanaugh said, as she was able to reconnect with faculty she met while in the program and to chat with those INBRE Scholars who had taken her cell biology class at Creighton University.
Along with her cell biology class, Dr. Cavanaugh runs a research lab, in which she has six undergraduate students and one master’s level student working.
Her research focuses on the microtubule organizing center in yeast and how all of the proteins that are part of the structure evolve.
Both discussed the joy they find in the research they continue to take part in in their respective careers and advice they would give to current and future INBRE Scholars including:
- Explore the variety of career options open to you, from academia to industry;
- If you have a career in mind that you’re interested in, find someone in that field and ask them what kind of decisions they made to get on the career path they are on; and
- Never forget what INBRE teaches you, rely on those lessons you learn to persevere and overcome challenges.