Last week I had the pleasure to give a presentation on careers outside of academia to a group of approximately 100 University of Toronto graduate students during a seminar organized by the Life Sciences Career Development Society. Going back and retrospectively tracing my path to where I am today – on my second non-academic career – was a worthwhile exercise in attaining career perspective. Preparing for the presentation I began to collect my thoughts on a few general truths I’ve come to understand since leaving the university setting. Since I know our blog is read by those currently in graduate school, I thought I’d also share these thoughts here. 1. Tenure-track positions are exceedingly rare: I believe the biggest truth that is rarely shared with those …

Back in the fall of 2008 when Travis and I first decided to emulate Yoni Freedhoff and start our very own science blog, we had no idea what we were doing. I recall writing my first post while sitting in our shared office at Queen’s University, agonizing over the tone of the writing. I spent the better part of an afternoon on that first post, and if you were to go back and read it today (please don’t – even I’m too embarrassed to read it) you might be surprised that it took that long to write something that uninspired. We had countless questions, and few resources from which to draw answers. Should we write only about research papers? Should we get our own url? Should we use …

Our lab is recruiting participants for the below study.  We are especially looking for participants < 18 years of age, in order to broaden our age range a bit.  If you live in the Charlottetown area and are interested in participating, please contact me at the below email address.

A few years ago Active Working founded Get Britain Standing.  Along with Public Health England, they’ve since published guidelines on workplace sitting, and have gone on to create Get Standing organizations in Canada, Australia, and the US. Each of local group is now promoting On Your Feet Day for April 29th (next Friday).  Each of the below sites offers posters, suggestions on ways to sit less at work, and ideas for company events.  If you are looking to promote a more active/less sedentary workplace, I encourage you to check it out. Get Canada Standing Get Britain Standing Get America Standing Get Australia Standing Travis