On Wednesday, April 9, 2014, we will welcome new PROMISE Mentor, Dr. Michael Penn, Vice President of Strategy at Gladstone Institutes (and author of “Finding Your North,” a book that we featured at a past SSI), and Dr. Jaime Bonilla, Dean of the School of Engineering at  Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico.

Dr. Penn (in-person) and Dr. Bonilla (via Skype) are among leaders from 15 organizations who are coming to talk to graduate students about job opportunities. Dr. Penn is interested in finding talented biomedical researchers who are ready for postdoctoral positions. He is coming to Maryland so that he can go beyond just having people apply for positions on a website. He is coming from California to meet you in person! You never know what opportunities might transpire, so if you do research in any of the areas that Gladstone covers, e.g., HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer’s and other neurological disorders, virology and immunology, bioinformatics, cardiovascular disease, and more. Read more about the research at Gladstone Institutes, a partner of the University of California, San Francisco: http://gladstoneinstitutes.org/

After connecting with Dr. Jaime Bonilla at the International conference of the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) in Atlanta in 2013, and again at the 2013 World Engineering Education Forum (WEEF) in Cartagena, Colombia, we learned that Dr. Bonilla had developed a unique “Visiting Professors” program that is available to engineering Ph.D.s around the world. In an effort to expose his students at Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico with a global perspective, he wants to bring in new faculty from around the world, to teach technical courses in English. These short assignments would give you, participants in PROMISE, an opportunity to have an international short-term visiting professorship. An example of the kinds of  positions that are on the table can be found here: http://www.higheredjobs.com/m/details.cfm?JobCode=175866267&Title=Visiting%20Professor%20-%20Engineering. Come and talk to Dr. Bonilla, a member of the Global Engineering Deans Council, to find out more about this opportunity, including opportunities that have not been discussed here.

The event is the Career Pathways for Graduate Students Dinner Seminar, which includes a concurrent panel discussion on global careers. Both graduate students and postdoctoral fellows are invited to this event.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

UMBC’s Campus

A.O.K. Library, 7th Floor

RSVP:

• UMBC’s graduate students and postdocs: http://my.umbc.edu/groups/promise/events/19713
• Graduate students and postdocs from other schools within the University System of Maryland: Please RSVP by writing a message in the comment section below with your name and department. Alternatively, you may send email to promisestaff@gmail.com, with the subject “Career Pathways 2014.”

Other guests include representatives from:

• Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
• Creative Staffing International
• Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
  
• Kelly Government Solutions
• National Security Agency
• Soft Tech Consulting
• The Canton Group
• The Hilltop Institute, UMBC
• U. S. Census Bureau
• UMBC, Research Administration
• Urban Teacher Center
• Viggorr Innovative Systems and Solutions Company
• The Fulbright Program
• The U. S. Department of State

About Dr. Penn:

Dr. Michael L. Penn, Jr, is VP for Strategy at the Gladstone Institutes and Chief Executive Officer of the Gladstone Foundation. Dr. Penn oversees the Communications Department and the the core laboratories and provides leadership for the conception, analysis and implementation of Gladstone’s strategic initiatives. Prior to joining Gladstone in 2012 he worked for more than 8 years at Genentech Inc., where he helped advance innovations in drug development. In 2001, Dr. Penn co-founded Building Diversity in Science, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering underrepresented minority students to pursue careers in science. From 2002 to 2004, he served as Commissioner for San Francisco’s Health Commission, the policy-making board of the Department of Public Health. Dr. Penn earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Morehouse College and an MD and PhD in biomedical sciences from the University of California, San Francisco.

About Dr. Bonilla: