Berlin Wall, 1988 (Andrzej Sobolewski) (Andrzej Sobolewski) The Soviet-controlled governments of the former Eastern Bloc valued science and scientific research. But decisions on funding and scientific priorities were controlled by the government, and scientific importance often played little role in those decisions. Research in those countries was done in near-complete isolation from the internat...
On 1 November, Caroline Collard (pictured left), a 29-year-old Belgian national, will join the French CNRS Department of Nuclear and Particle Physics with a permanent Chargé de Recherche position. Getting one of these positions is hard enough for French nationals; foreigners have the added difficulty of understanding the French system. "For me it was really a possibility to apply because I was [a...
Darfur refugees, Sudan (USAID) Whichever field of humanitarian work you choose, you should bring a good dose of realism and endurance. One way or the other, most scientists do work that benefits society, even those who don't think about it quite that way. Some direct their efforts toward enriching the bank of knowledge. Others work to make new medicines, or to create technologies that make work m...
Rebeca de Nalda Minguez (pictured left), 34, has just started her first permanent position, as Cientifico Titular of the Spanish Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) Rocasolano Institute for Chemical Physics in Madrid. She was only 2 years into her 5-year Ramón y Cajal contract, a research position created by the Spanish government in 2001 to bridge postdoctoral and permanent po...
Briefcases. Credit: Kelly B For students who did manage to find an assignment, the program "has been a real professional experience." --Djimila Canet. Nicolas Bozon may still be in the final year of his Ph.D., but he already has experience as an industry consultant and good employment prospects at a start-up company. Bozon, an applied mathematician at the Agricultural and Environmental Engineerin...
The Human Genome Project and recent technological advances have pushed forward the study of how genes affect health and disease--and created new opportunities for genetic scientists.
Plant population biologist Kristina Stinson's application of a population perspective to studying how invasive plants affect forest ecosystems has implications for forest management.
Olivier Voinnet (Courtesy, Olivier Voinnet ) Olivier Voinnet "Many of us were very surprised that the work that he did didn't earn a share of the Nobel Prize." --Timothy Hunt. Olivier Voinnet's first years as an undergraduate student didn't bode especially well for his scientific future. He was kicked out of his preparatory course for entry into the French Grandes Écoles after ranking near the bo...
María Pascual (Courtesy, María Pascual/Cellerix) María Pascual (Courtesy, María Pascual/Cellerix) Pascual's job was not to comply with complex regulations--the job of most regulatory affairs directors--but to help establish them. In 2006, as the phase II clinical trial showing the efficacy of her company's product concluded, María Pascual yearned to tell the medical world about the results. The c...
Leonardo Menchini Leonardo Menchini "I think I have a very rare opportunity to ... do something that is simultaneously motivating, interesting, and [to] conduct work that improves the health of a population which would not necessarily benefit otherwise," says Rebecca Freeman Grais, an epidemiologist at Médecins Sans Frontière's research center Epicentre. Just about any important work benefits fro...
Tiago Fleming Outeiro Tiago Fleming Outeiro Today, Outeiro says he is "still convinced that ... [he] made the right choice" in coming back to Portugal, and others seem to agree. When he was in training to become a researcher, Tiago Fleming Outeiro took every opportunity he could find to expand his horizons. He left his home to earn a Ph.D. in the United Kingdom, followed by a postdoc in the Unite...
Dutch scientist Edwin Cuppen admits to finding his vocation almost by chance. Now he believes that finding a good research niche is essential to making it as a scientist.
Rainforest ecologist Catherine Cardelús has taught herself how to move freely up and down trees, but she's still struggling to understand a key scientific question: Why is there so much plant diversity 50 m above the ground?
Nenad Ban Nenad Ban Once he moved to Yale University for his postdoc, Nenad Ban felt he was in a position to take risks because he had published extensively while earning his Ph.D. When Nenad Ban was an undergraduate at the University of Zagreb in Croatia, he set his eyes on a long-standing biological problem: He wanted to crack the atomic structure of the complex molecular assembly responsible f...
Mihail Barboiu Mihail Barboiu "His main scientific achievement has been to realize the interest of combining supramolecular chemistry with facilitated transport in artificial membranes." --Christian Guizard Born in Romania 40 years ago to nonscientist parents, Mihail Barboiu wasn't exposed to science until high school. But he amply--and quickly--made up for lost time. Once in high school, he deve...
