How we eat. What we eat. Where we eat.  This may not seem like a jumping off point for PhD appropriate careers, but the food sector (broadly defined) is at the center of scientific and commercial innovation.

Food and agricultural enterprises–public and private–are also large employers.  In the US alone, the food and beverage industry exceeds $1.5 trillion annually and employs millions.  When Ark Investment, a fund management firm, identified its view on leading “disruptive innovations” in a recent 2020 report, food delivery services (some by drone) and the companies that run them (Uber, Deliveroo, Meituan in China) were front and center.  Leading venture capital funds are doing significant investment in food innovation and employing thousands of scientists.  Ethical foods, the ability to feed the planet more efficiently, and food safety are just a few other areas gaining attention and investment.  And these ventures require highly trained people.

By way of example, our selection below includes a global marketing position for farm animal treatment, content marketing for a personalized nutrition company, agriculture specialists, parasitologists, and public policy analysts, not to mention a wide range of career opportunities within large and small enterprises in the US and around the world.  Take a look yourself.

If there are areas of work you would like us to explore in more depth, please contact at smartjobs@versatilephd.com. 

We want to hear from you.

HSS

Vice President. Customer Success, Granular

Director, Global Market Engagement, Farm Animals, Humane Society

Director, Content Marketing and Social Media, DayTwo

Senior Gender and Agriculture Specialist, ACDI/VOCA

Senior Manager, Strategy and Execution, Saputo Dairy Foods USA 

STEM

Product Analyst, Uber Eats

Parasitology for Food Safety, US Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Director, Carbon Strategy, Indigo

FDA Next Generation Sequencing Technologies, Fellowship

Quality Assurance Supervisor, American Sugar Refining (AMR)

For access to more jobs as well as archived and searchable opportunities, visit our SmartJobs page. Note: SmartJobs access requires a university affiliation. User-generated jobs are open to all members and can be accessed here.

The number of new ventures requiring people with skills to assess, predict and enhance human behavior continues to multiply.  From technology companies and NGOs focused on climate change, to  health care institutions and government agencies, understanding human behavior has become a critical and highly employable skill that draws from a wide range of STEM, Humanities and Social Science disciplines. A quick glance at LinkedIn’s job board yields over 7,000 jobs with a “behavioral science” description, many of which requiring advanced degree-level skills.

We have posted on this theme previously – see here – and revisit it this week in the first SmartJobs feed of 2020.  Notice the ample opportunities across many domains and job types, ranging from artificial intelligence to agriculture, civil rights, human resources and market research.

Let’s start this year by exploring PhD career options more broadly, and frequently.

If there are areas of work you would like us to explore in more depth, please contact at smartjobs@versatilephd.com. 

We want to hear from you.

HSS

Senior Research Director, Behavioral Science, Ipsos

Post-Doc Researcher, Economics, Microsoft

Chief Research Analyst, County of Los Angeles 

Civil Rights Analyst, US Department of Homeland Security

Global Partnership and Donor Relations, Precision Agriculture

STEM

Quantitative Researcher, HigherEd, Cengage

Customer Consultant Research Intelligence, Elsevier

Director, UX Research and Innovation, Brilliant 

FDA Health Communications Research Fellowship

Senior Specialist, Business Project Manager, At Motion!

For access to more jobs as well as archived and searchable opportunities, visit our SmartJobs page. Note: SmartJobs access requires a university affiliation. User-generated jobs are open to all members and can be accessed here.

“Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists,” the noted economist John Kenneth Galbraith quipped decades ago.  How things have changed. Today the application of economic and financial skills stretches across nearly every industry segment and is a critical skill set for many non-economists.

To underscore this point, the job outlook for Economists (narrowly defined) is forecasted at a growth rate 8% higher than the market average between 2018 to 2028.  According to the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) the list of transferable skills and job functions related to economic analysis is also robust, and this too is reflected in the job market,

This week’s focus on economics and finance fields focuses mainly on research-oriented positions within the private industry, policy advocacy, academic institutions and government.  But any further research on how economic skills can apply to the job market will os certainly take you even wider afield.

Start with a few examples below – or discover a larger set of opportunities on our SmartJobs page.

HSS

Economist, US Department of Treasury

Policy Director, Washington Center for Equitable Growth

Business Development Manager, Midwest, Oxford Economics

Policy Program Associate (Housing Finance), Urban Institute

Director of Academic Relations, CoStar

Economist II, FedWriters

STEM

Health Economist, Institute for Clinical and Economic Review

Director, Survey Research and Quantitative Modeling, JUST Capital

Food Systems Economics and Science Fellow, National Resources Defense Council

Director of Data Science, Analysis Group

Manager, Advanced Analytics, Levi Strauss

If there are areas of work you would like us to explore in more depth, please contact at smartjobs@versatilephd.com. 

We want to hear from you.

For access to more jobs as well as archived and searchable opportunities, visit our SmartJobs page.  Note: SmartJobs access requires a university affiliation. User-generated jobs are open to all members and can be accessed here.

As we have noted in previous posts, the Digital Media and Marketing career fields are increasing research and data-intensive and often require a more sophisticated set of skills. These jobs may include everything from research design and surveys to assessing consumer behavior to professional writing to performing statistical analysis. Many advertised positions require or prefer advanced degree holders as well as specific domain expertise. It is common for such job descriptions (at Manager level or higher) to include “advanced degree preferred” and sometimes PhD “preferred” or “required.”

Importantly, it is an expanding field. To use only one example: employment in the so-called media industry, ranging from publishing to entertainment, is flourishing (see chart below) and expected to continue generating quality opportunities.

This week’s sampling (and more on our SmartJobs page) attests to the wide range of jobs available across the public, private and non-profit sectors.  There is much to discover, whether you are looking for work today or further into the future.  Start by generating your own ideas.

We encourage you to explore.

HSS

Research Supervisor, DCG Communications

Manager, Analytics and Insights, Spark Foundry

Senior Associate, Business Insights, m/Six

Polling and Research Fellow, Sierra Club

Director Brand Marketing, Perot Museum of Nature and Science

STEM

Engineer, Machine Learning, CoPilot

Marketing Science Research Lead, Snap

Senior Manager, Media Analytics, Merkle

Director, Market Research, Optimer Pharmaceuticals

Data Privacy Officer, Ipsos

If there are areas of work you would like us to explore in more depth, please contact at smartjobs@versatilephd.com. 

We want to hear from you.

For access to more jobs as well as archived and searchable opportunities, visit our SmartJobs page.  Note: SmartJobs access requires a university affiliation. User-generated jobs are open to all members and can be accessed here.

This week’s SmartJobs sampling includes research and clinical management positions within the nation’s leading university health centers, hospitals and private sector health and medical providers, as well as investigative and research positions within government agencies, such as the US Department of Homeland Security.

But there is more activity afoot within the sector.  This week Google acquired the health tracking company Fitbit, representing another large technology company–following Apple–which is moving into the healthcare area.

This has broad implications for healthcare employment and investment.  Indeed as the chart below illustrates, healthcare is currently the second largest recipient of venture capital flowing to new companies and innovations within the US.

There are other ideas on the horizon as technology is further integrated into healthcare and new ways of care are adopted.  An example of future healthcare jobs across disciplines are summarized at this article at Forbes and this infographic exploring technology areas such as nano-medicine, artificial intelligence, virtual healthcare and robot-assisted surgery.

These are only a few ideas to consider. We recommend that you explore existing opportunities and ideas and use some of these job categories and descriptions in support of your career research and development.  (Note: this week’s job upload is heavier for STEM disciplines but there are HSS-related positions available on the research, policy and editorial functions within various healthcare and medical entities). You can start below.

STEM

Trends Editor, Microbiology, Elsevier

Staff Scientist, Baylor College of Medicine

Clinical Research Coordinator, mHealth, UCSF 

Director of Information Systems, BostonPublic Health Commission (BPHC)

Director, Research and Evidenced Based Practice, Mount Sinai

Pediatrics, Health Services Researcher, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta

Associate Principal Investigator, Microbiology, National Biodefense (DHS)

HSS

Clinical Quality Measure Lead, Mathematica

Biomedical Writer, Syneos Health Commercial Systems

Director of Strategic Alliances, Consultant and Carrier Partnerships, Grand Rounds

If there are areas of work you would like us to explore in more depth, please contact at smartjobs@versatilephd.com. 

We want to hear from you.

For access to more jobs as well as archived and searchable opportunities, visit our SmartJobs page.  Note: SmartJobs access requires a university affiliation. User-generated jobs are open to all members and can be accessed here.

Employers consistently place work experience high on the list of recruiting attributes. This can be particularly important for PhD candidates and graduates, where years of academia can be perceived as a lack of “real” experience.  Internships are one way to improve this perception.

If you are considering a PhD-level internship next spring or summer, or simply interested in seeing what is on offer, the time to start looking is now.   You can find lists of internships directly on enterprise websites that fit with your interests, from Greenpeace to Google to the Central Intelligence Agency. For reasons on why internships can create a positive outcome, see this report from NACE.

To get started, we have collected a wide range of PhD or advanced degree internships on our SmartJobs page this week, including a few representative internships below including within think tanks, national security research agencies, environmental groups, financial firms and space travel ventures.

Perhaps it’s time for you to explore.

HSS

Program Intern, Partners for Development (PfD)

Communications Research Graduate Internship, ACLU

Private Sector Engagement Intern, World Wildlife Fund

Research Intern, National Security, CNA

Communications and Special Projects Graduate Intern, Aspen Institute

STEM

Data Science and Analytics Intern – TransUnion Insurance

Quantitative Analyst, PhD Intern, D.E. Shaw

2020 Summer Intern, Engineering, Aurora Flight Systems (Boeing)

Editorial Intern, Cell Press Internship Program

Systems and Integration Engineering Intern Program, Barrios Tech (Johnson Space Center)

If there are areas of work you would like us to explore in more depth, please contact at smartjobs@versatilephd.com. 

We want to hear from you.

For access to more jobs as well as archived and searchable opportunities, visit our SmartJobs page.  Note: SmartJobs access requires a university affiliation. User-generated jobs are open to all members and can be accessed here.

Climate and environmental sector jobs continue to increase as both the public and private sectors focus on research solutions, advocacy, communication strategy, regulatory compliance and new scientific innovations.  The sector is also benefiting from long-term trends in cost reduction for alternative energy and a band-wagoning effect among enterprises to improve their environmental efficiency and social impact.

There is ample supporting evidence of opportunities for PhDs, not least the number of jobs advertised consistently in the marketplace.  In the past, we have include some career narratives related to conservation in our PhD Career Finder, which we would encourage you to explore.

For a more global perspective on demand green jobs, refer to our SmartJobs post last year. A specific breakdown of the emerging “green workforce” in the United States can be found in this Grantham Instuitute summary report, with a basic illustration in the pie chart below.

For graduate students, PhDs and post-docs there is a breadth of jobs available inside enterprises, research groups, non-profits and government, in the US and globally.   The climate needs you.

HSS

Clean Energy Fellow, Third Way

Program Analyst Environmental Health, National Association County City Health Officials

Food Systems Economic Science Fellow, National Resources Defense Council

Senior Government Advisor, Government Relations, Tesla

Kleinhans Fellowship Community Forestry Research, Rainforest Alliance

STEM

Data Scientist, Deep Learning, The Climate Corporation

NGEE – Arctic Vegetation Modeling Post-Doc, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab

Climate Change and Worker Health Science Fellow, National Resources Defense Council 

Scientist, Wood Environment and Infrastructure Solutions

Manager, Renewable Thermal Energy & Climate, World Wildlife Fund

Project Manager, Wastewater Facilities, Cambrian Innovation

If there are areas of work you would like us to explore in more depth, please contact at smartjobs@versatilephd.com. 

We want to hear from you.

For access to more jobs as well as archived and searchable opportunities, visit our SmartJobs page.  Note: SmartJobs access requires a university affiliation. User-generated jobs are open to all members and can be accessed here.