Founder
Dr. Paula Chambers has had a pretty versatile career herself. Raised in Los Angeles, she went to Cal Arts film school (B.F.A., 1986) and spent her 20s in the film business as an Assistant Director. Her maiden name, Paula Foster, can be seen in the end credits of “Die Hard,” “L.A. Law” and many other late-80s productions. In 1991 at 29, she left “the Biz” and returned to school, earning an M.A. in English from California State University, Northridge (1995), and Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in Rhetoric and Composition (2000). She loved teaching and won the Graduate Associate Teaching Award at Ohio State in 1998. Midway through her Ph.D. program, however, she realized that she would probably be happier a nonacademic career, and founded a listserv called WRK4US (Work For Us) while dissertating, to provide a safe space where humanities PhD students could discuss non-academic careers–never imagining that helping PhDs find non-academic careers would eventually become her career.
After graduating in 2000, Dr. Chambers returned home to Los Angeles and forged her own successful nonacademic career as a grant writer and fundraiser. While employed in a series of progressively responsible positions in the LA nonprofit sector, she raised millions of dollars for the arts, the environment and social justice. Meanwhile, she continued managing WRK4US in her spare time and the community kept growing.
In 2007, Paula finally realized that helping people transition out of the academy was her deepest passion. No job had ever been more satisfying than her work helping graduate students prepare for the full range of possible career outcomes. So she began developing a plan for how to expand her service to the community while also making it financially sustainable. The Versatile PhD, LLC represents the culmination of that effort. With 29 institutional subscribers and nearly 13,000 individual members, The Versatile PhD community retains all of the great qualities that made WRK4US successful and is a key resource for humanists and social scientists considering non-academic careers. As of fall 2011, the community also welcomes people from STEM backgrounds (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).
Paula lives with husband Gary Chambers in a suburb of Los Angeles and runs The Versatile PhD from her home office.
Team
Dr. Alex Welsch (webmaster): Alex has been a web developer since the 1990s but later earned a Ph.D. in Urban Studies and was a member of the WRK4US community when Paula asked him to be the Versatile PhD webmaster. He lives in the Washington DC metro area and provides research, consulting and services in a variety of areas, including public policy, community development, computer programming and web technologies.
Dr. Lydia Soleil (marketing consultant): A Ph.D. in Physiology and a longtime WRK4US subscriber, Lydia has held several graduate-student-focused positions at different universities, including 2 years as a Graduate Career Consultant at the University of California, Irvine. Now in her third year as Assistant Director of the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning at Georgia Tech, Lydia does part-time private career consulting for Ph.D.s and post-docs and is branching out into marketing consulting.
Jonas M. Grant (attorney): Jonas is a business lawyer focusing on the business organization, contract, employment and intellectual property needs of entrepreneurs, start- ups and small businesses. He earned his B.A. from Northwestern University and his JD/MBA from Indiana University, Bloomington. He is licensed to practice law in California, Nevada and Illinois from his office in Woodland Hills, California. http://www.incorporatecalifornia.com/