What skills do you use every day in your job?

At this stage of my career, most of what I use is actually my connection with physics as a community and as a culture. Though most of my job is about emphasizing careers outside of academia, I have to interact very closely with academics to help them become more effective career mentors – so a deep understanding of the challenges and concerns they have is very important. Since I also give lots of advice directly to students, understanding what they are going through from a first-hand perspective really helps.

I also use all kinds of communication skills (writing articles, writing proposals, creating and giving presentations), an understanding of statistics (when analysing and communicating about career and employment data), project management skills and leadership skills.

What do you like best and least about your job?

What I like the most about this job is that it gives me an opportunity to create a far broader positive impact on the physics community than I would probably have as an individual academic working in a single institution. At the APS, I get a “birds-eye” view of all kinds of efforts that are going on to make physics as a discipline more relevant to the aspirations, interests and identities of 21st-century physics students. Because of this, I get to help make connections between change-makers in the community so that their efforts are more impactful.

The down side is that I really don’t get to do much “physics” anymore – which is something I definitely miss. I loved both teaching physics and doing physics research, and they aren’t really part of my daily activity anymore.

What do you know today that you wish you knew when you were starting out in your career?

I wish I had thought more broadly about the kinds of activities that really make me excited and happy, apart from the physics research I had been doing. There are lots of ways in which your career path can scratch a particular “itch” (for example, a technical sales and marketing career is actually great for people who enjoy teaching physics, because you have to learn to explain the science behind your product to people with lots of different backgrounds so that they understand it). My advice would be to pay special attention to your passion, believe that what you do with your life can align with that, and start finding ways to use your skills and knowledge to pursue that dream.