The Mount Sinai Postdoc Periodical Monthly newsletter, November 2015 Interview with Dr. Ana B. Gorini da Veiga, PhD: The First Brazilian to In this issue: finish the 2015 NYC Marathon and a Mount Sinai Postdoctoral Fellow Page 1: By Delaine Ceholski Interview with Dr. Ana B. Gorini Dr. Veiga is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Mount Sinai and she was the first Brazilian to cross the finish line at the 2015 New York City Marathon. With a time of 2:59:24, she is Page 2: making headlines all over Brazil and we were lucky enough to have her share her story and Career Paths: A Scientist Embarks secrets to a speedy marathon finish with us! on a New Role in Government Where did you do your PhD and where are you doing your postdoc? Co-chair Corner I received my Master’s and Doctoral degrees through the Graduate Program in Cellular and Page 3: Molecular Biology of the Center of Biotechnology of Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do “Human Chimeras”: Science Sul (UFRGS) in my hometown of Porto Alegre, Brazil. A good part of my PhD project was Fiction Becomes Reality performed in Bethesda, MD through a collaboration with the National Institutes of Health. Currently, I am a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Adolfo García-Sastre’s laboratory in the Depart- Upcoming events ment of Microbiology at Mount Sinai where I am primarily working with influenza viruses. Page 4: How long have you been running? Are you a member of any running groups or do you Science on a Shoe String: Untangling receive any coaching? Chromosome Conformation in I started running in March 1993 when I was 16 years old and had come to the USA as an Health and Disease exchange student in high school. I gained a lot of weight and running was the way to burn off those extra pounds. Since then running has become a huge part of my life – as a matter of fact, I have spent more years in my life as a runner than as a non-runner. I run by myself and don’t train with a group or a coach. My friends in Brazil who have running clubs sometimes invite me to run a race as a representative of their club, covering registration fees and other costs. Also, sometimes companies sponsor or pay me to run a particular race. For example, I have run for Nike, Olympikus (a large Brazilian sports brand), Asics, food companies, and wineries. How do you balance your work as a postdoc with training for long distance running? Running is one of the easiest sports to do: it doesn’t require a specific time of the day, a team, or any specialized equipment. You just get out there and… run! For me there are no excuses not to go running. I have always been a morning person so I usually run early in the morning. That way, I have all day to do my experiments. Besides that, I avoid running 2 days in a row so I generally run 2-3 times during the week and then on Saturday or Sunday. That doesn’t interfere with any of my other activities and, because I don’t follow any specific training, I can just run whenever I have the time to do it. What are your career goals? My situation here is a little bit different from other postdoctoral fellows. In Brazil, I am an associate professor at Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre (UFCSPA), a federal university specializing in health sciences. I teach, have many administrative roles, and supervise undergraduate and graduate students in my lab in Brazil. All the activities of a pro- fessor in Brazil are time consuming and leave me with very little time to do research, which is why I decided to take 1 year off and come to Mount Sinai to focus on my research project. My long-term goal is to maintain this collaboration or get a permanent position at Mount Sinai. What’s your favorite thing about running? How does it complement your life as a research- er and what are your future goals as a non-professional runner? Dr. Ana B. Gorini Running has made me better able to focus and organize my thoughts. It’s also come with increased self-awareness. Run- ning is about discipline, meditation, and clearing the mind. As a non-professional runner, I enjoy running some races. As mentioned earlier, in Brazil I don’t have to pay registration fess to sign up for a race because usually a sponsor will cover my costs. However, in the USA I have to pay the registration fees, which can be quite expensive. Through New York Road Runners, I ran the Fifth Avenue Mile (13th place among 451 women in my age group, 146th woman among 2881 wom- en finishers) and Grete’s Great Gallop Half Marathon (5th place among 329 in my age group, 28th woman among 2128 women finishers) in 2015. In the NYC marathon, I was 16th among non-professional runners and 53rd among all women, which is interesting since 112 professional runners ran the race and I was faster than many of them. Since coming to NYC, I haven’t been running as many races as I’d like due to the cost plus I want to focus on my project and try to get a good publication before going back to Brazil in 2016. The Mount Sinai Postdoc Periodical, November 2015 Page 1 Career Paths: A Scientist Embarks on a New Role in Government Co-Chair Corner By Andrew Koemeter-Cox After the dust settled on the results of Canada’s 2015 fed- Dear fellow postdocs, eral elections in mid-October, most of the news in the U.S. focused on the new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. Besides We hope you had a fun Halloween and are enjoying the fall! Trudeau, there were over 200 new members of the Canadi- The shorter days and the looming end of year may trigger an House of Commons sworn into office on the fourth of some introspection on the personal and professional fronts. November. As Canada’s politics are not wholly beholden to Perhaps this is a good time to do or update the planning that two major parties, a number of the fresh faces belong to the is key to a successful career. An individual development plan New Democratic Party, or NDP. One of these NDP members is a great way to plan out short- and long-term goals and keep is Dr. Richard Cannings, a biologist who now represents the track of your progress. You can make use of the framework South Okanagan-West Kootenay district of British Columbia provided at http://myidp.sciencecareers.org/ and use this plan (B.C.). as a starting point for discussion with your mentors. Dr. Cannings served for many years on the British Colum- In case you missed the good news, Mount Sinai has a new Di- bia Environmental Appeal Board and the Committee on the rector of Career Services, Dr. Ellie Schmelzer. She has rolled Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. More recently, he out exciting new programs to help postdocs and graduate stu- was a consulting bi- dents plan and develop their careers. This includes periodic ologist on a number workshops and seminars, as well as one-on-one appointments of projects in Can- for advice on career strategy, polishing your CV/resume, or ada and his home preparing for that job interview. Check out the postdoc list- district of B.C. Not serv emails for news on upcoming events or simply reach out a stereotypically shy to Ellie to make an appointment. You can avail of her walk-in scientist, Dr. Can- office hours if you have a quick question. nings was very ac- tive in science edu- Another career development tool at your fingertips is the Post- cation and outreach doc Secondary Mentoring Database. Have you matched to as an author, radio a secondary mentor who can guide you on the path to your host, and even tour career of choice? Have you reached out to her/him to initiate guide. He decided Dr. Richard Cannings the mentoring relationship? If so, do let a member of the Post- to run for political doc Executive Committee, Ryan, or me know how it is going office when, in his words, he “felt that science in general had and if you have any suggestions or comments. If not, you can really been ignored…or discounted by the previous govern- sign up at postdoctoralmentorship.mssm.edu and find your ment.” mentor match. While his outreach efforts prepared him somewhat for the large amount of public speaking required of a political can- Good luck as you prepare for the next step in your careers- af- didate, Dr. Cannings faces numerous challenges in his new ter all, that is what postdoctoral training is all about! career as a politician. Firstly, he must deal with the less glam- Best, orous tasks of finding an apartment in Ottawa, the Canadian capital, and setting up district offices. As a member of the Merina third-most popular party in the parliament, he may not re- ceive his ideal science or environmental related committee as- Ryan J. Cummings and Merina Varghese are your PEC signments, and may find it a little more difficult to advance co-chairs his agenda. The biologist is not completely unprepared for his Ways to keep in touch new role, as he was mentored for over a year by his predecessor • Our website: http://icahn.mssm.edu/education/post- in the office, Alex Atamanenko.