Alumni

TPCB graduates continue onto successful scientific careers

Our PhD graduates leave TPCB well-positioned for a variety of exciting scientific careers. Both the program and our faculty are strongly committed to our students’ career development and professional advancement, and our alumni have been highly successful at securing competitive positions. Our career development offices at the three participating institutions organize numerous workshops and networking events to help students identify and prepare for a wide range of scientific careers. Since TPCB’s inception in 2001, 150 students have entered the program, and the average time to degree has been 5.5 years (median 5.6 years), well below the national medians in physical sciences (6.2 years) and biological sciences (6.8 years) [NSF, 2017 data]. Our current retention rate is 92%. Overall, 91% of graduates have at least one first-author publication and 99% have at least one publication (mean 5.2, median 4, mode 2).

After completing their thesis research, approximately 60% of our PhD graduates choose to expand upon their training through postdoctoral studies in leading laboratories around the world, 3% pursue an additional advanced degree, and the remainder proceed directly to permanent positions. Our alumni are engaged in successful careers in academia, industry, and government, with 17% holding tenure-track faculty positions in academia; 50% working as research scientists at pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies, and other academic, government, and private research labs; and 31% engaged in careers in science education, outreach, policy, strategy, and patent law. For more information about the overall biomedical research workforce employment landscape, students are encouraged to visit the Coalition for Next Generation Life Science.