I love being a scientist, I love being a biologist.
With a lifelong passion for exploration, Adair Borges always knew she'd end up with a career in the life sciences.
But what was less clear for this California PhD student was the path she should take to get there.
Most of my experience figuring out what sort of career options were available to me have been very word of mouth.
I have had a hard time finding a standardized data set talking about career paths and career options.
Traditionally, when a student is thinking about where they might go for their PhD education,
they are doing this largely based on the reputation of the institution, as opposed to actual data.
Data is critically important to providing these individuals information so that they can make informed decisions about where they should train, what they should train in,
and then what it's likely that they'll be able to do when they complete their training.
After countless calls to make that data more available,
dozens of universities and research institutes have now joined together as the Coalition for Next Generation Life Science.
Coalition members pledge transparency and consistency in publishing data that helps trainees get the most from their advanced studies.
This will allow those of us who are guardians of this system to make much better policy decisions about the overall structure of the life science research enterprise in this country.
If your institution joins the Coalition, it shows that you believe in data transparency.
That you are committed to multiple career pathways for your trainees, that you are committed to diversifying the biomedical workforce,
and to providing those trainees with an inclusive and supportive environment in which to train.
I think it actually behooves institutions to be transparent.
It has definitely worked very well for institutions I know who have recruited really smart graduate students very much on the basis of being transparent about this.
To learn more about how your institution can join the Coalition for Next Generation Life Science, go to nglscoalition.org.