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Episode 4 | Otter.ai

Episode 4

Lisa Shen1h 6min

Lisa Shen

00:05

Hello and welcome back to so you got a lifestyle degree. Where are your hosts, Lisa and Frieda to life sigh undergrad students trying to navigate our future careers. This is Episode Four and we're talking to Ciba inom. About his role as a research proposals facilitator at Ryerson University. How are you doing? frita I'm doing pretty good. I think this is like the last probably really nice weather week in Montreal. So I've just been taking a lot of time outside. And I have a squirrel story to follow up last week. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, this week, I was like working outside for a little bit working on assignment on campus, and then the squirrel comes up, like real close to me. To my leg like his tails. Oh,

Unknown Speaker

00:51

yeah. Like

Lisa Shen

00:53

that's crazy. Does he have no like, common sense? Yeah, exactly. That's girls gonna. roadkill. So like, brave. Yeah. And so yeah, I like move my leg a little bit. And then he like jumps out of the way. And then I was like, Okay, cool. And then I like turn just to see like, where the squirrel went. And he's just like, sitting behind me like, hey, so like, his food off the table. Like what is going on? Like, what what do you think I came here to do woman? Yeah, exactly. I was just like, wow, the audacity? That's ridiculous. Yeah.

Lisa Shen

01:35

Yeah. I don't know. Maybe Maybe they are getting braver. Another thing that freaks me out about squirrels is that they're they know how to cross roads.

Unknown Speaker

01:43

Yeah.

Lisa Shen

01:45

Like they know when a car is coming. That's bad. And they know once they go onto the grass, they're safe. The cars don't go on the grass. Yeah, I think like urban animals in general, just like are way smarter than like their forest flowing counterparts. That's what they mean. Like raccoons that live in cities are way way better at like navigating different challenges put out by scientists then like raccoons that live in forests. Yeah, but that's because scientists are human centric. So raccoons that live in urban environments are probably more familiar with human patterns of thinking and problem solving. Yeah, I mean, it all depends on what you define intelligence. Yeah, yeah, that's, that's pretty fair. I mean, off topic, but there was that one, Kurt's exact video, which is a YouTube channel, and they do science educational videos, and they made this one video about intelligence. And the interesting point I took away from that video was that intelligence is a tool for solving problems and for staying alive. So if you don't need intelligence to stay alive, then yeah, it's all fine. You know? Yeah, pretty fair. How's your week been? It's also good. I have kind of an interesting stories. So I'm not sure if I've mentioned him on the podcast before. But I had this professor last semester, whose name is Dr. Stone, he teaches evolution. And he goes by doc rock. And, you know, everyone loves him. He's a great professor cares a lot about his work. And he is currently teaching biology one mo three, which is the introductory first year course for evolution and ecology. And I happen to be a TA for that course, for this semester, and because he is so enthusiastic about his teaching, and wants to make students feel comfortable, and you know, it's hard having a first year of being entirely online with your first year in university, he has been creating the series of videos, where one of his lab students films him walking around campus and just telling random stories, and kind of showing the campus like kind of introducing first year as to what campus is, yeah, and it is adorable. And it is utterly useless if you actually want to, because there seems to be no order in which they visit the buildings. And there's no like filming of the in between parts. It's just like, your ipsp bam, your mgcl How did we get here? Who knows? But I was watching it. And so the student is not actually featured in the video, but I kind of recognised her voice because she was in the class that I took with him. And I kind of talked to her outside of class too. And so I messaged her, and I was like, hey, was that you in the video with doc rock? And she was like, Wow, it was. And we chatted for a bit, and then I asked, oh, have you already filmed the second one? I was just curious. I wasn't insinuating anything. But I think she took that to mean that I was asking if I could be involved. And so she was like, Oh, we already did but if you want to be involved, there's still time to do the third one. Oh my god. I was like no crazy. No, I did but I want but I can't but I want her. She was like you should totally do it would be so fun to do a cameo with the TA of the Corps. And I was thinking well I was planning on maybe doing a short visit to Hamilton by car during reading week anyway and so it might all kind of work out so I'm no promises totally might not happen. But there might just be a small part of the video where he swings over to like me sitting by a tree and it's like oh, Lisa, what are you doing here? Like oh just know you know, grading assignments, you know. So, yeah, that's probably the most interesting thing of my week. Yeah, we were talking about that like between the floor fellows about how pretty much all of our freshers are not going to know what the campus looks like in second year as well. That's true. Oh, no, it's gonna be chaos. You're gonna have like double the number of first years. Yeah, basically. So we're doing like a scavenger hunt event where they just got to run around campus and I saw that I saw that you Marina posted it on Facebook when your friends Yeah. Very cute. Very cute. All right. He is a research proposals facilitator ours in University. He supports faculty members with grant programmes upholds ethical standards and networks within government, private industries and nonprofit organisations see about completed his Bachelors of Science in cell biology and anatomy at McGill University. He also completed a master's degree in experimental medicine at McGill University. Thank you for joining us today. See, but thanks for having me. So the first thing we kind of wanted to ask you was just what your job is. Because just the title research proposals facilitator doesn't people don't automatically know what that means. So can you just describe what your role is at Ryerson?

Speaker 1

06:38

Sure, yeah, I think the title is purposely abstract. Because it's kind of a bit of a catch all. My primary job is to help researchers build their grant proposals that they submit to various funding agencies or corporations to secure funding for their work. So what I do is I essentially try to understand their research, help help them think of bigger and better ways to improve it, and how we could potentially go beyond academia and involve the government or corporations to kind of build better ideas for the better of the betterment of the country in general.

Lisa Shen

07:16

That sounds really cool. Could you possibly give us like an example of a project that you worked on?

Speaker 1

07:22

Sure, um, the one of the greatest things about my jobs is I actually get to work on projects from all different fields. So it's like every week, there's something new, one of the biggest projects I'm working on is kind of building a green energy grid for the entire country. So it's kind of it's based on the research of the professors at Ryerson, of course, but it's kind of giving an idea of how Canada can move towards meeting its emission targets in 2050, and how we can build projects and ideas that can help facilitate the transition into using greener technology.

Lisa Shen

07:59

That is really cool. And I think it's interesting, because it's almost the opposite of being a professor, because instead of delving into one subject and doing it your whole life, you get to kind of sample different areas of research. So that's definitely really interesting. I've never heard of a role like this. So when you say that you help professors write grants, and kind of further broaden their scope of research. What does that really look like? Like what is the process of working with a professor on a grant from start to finish?

Speaker 1

08:28

For sure. So I mean, the idea has always come from the professors, they're the ones who are so passionate about their work that they are spending their whole entire lives trying to build something better. So it initially comes with them reaching out to us or us reaching out to them, if we think they have a great idea that we can build on meeting with the professor's one on one kind of getting a grasp of what they're trying to accomplish. And then seeing what's the best way we can support them to not only simply just write their proposals or write their grants, but also to kind of go beyond the box because we're not necessarily specialists, we kind of have that outside of the field perspective that they really appreciate. And then you're working with them not only to write the proposals, but also helping them think about, you know, who else can be involved in these projects, what other collaborators can get involved, and that often includes government, other not for profit organisations, corporate organisations, so it kind of just helping them kind of just become bigger, so they're not just stuck in the law.

Lisa Shen

09:31

Yeah, especially for something like a green energy grid, I'm assuming that would involve solar panel installers, like you know, contract workers, nonprofit organisations. So I see how that would be a lot for one professor to manage. And especially with writing grants, sometimes you want someone who has more experience with how to actually get that grant approved. So yeah, definitely seems like an interesting and important role.

Speaker 1

09:57

For sure, I think you're absolutely right that sometimes Professors don't necessarily have the scope to think outside of their field, they get so into their work. So our job is really helping them to see outside of their perspective.

Lisa Shen

10:09

Going off of that, like what are your interactions with government and organisations and nonprofits look like when you're trying to bring that research into a more practical use.

Speaker 1

10:21

So those interactions? Well, during the COVID area, it goes mostly in terms of just meeting and talking to them and building these projects. So with governments, the major way that researchers in Canada get funding is through the three government funding agencies. So that's my primary interactions with government agencies and officials from the government is to kind of get a better idea of their programmes, how best we could improve our applications to ensure that they like what they're seeing, and it's meeting the government's expectations as well as their goals. So that's kind of some of the bridge building that we do because researchers have their own goals and objectives for their research and the government has their own goals for what they want to see science and innovation go through. So we try to help bridge those two together. So that often involves meeting with government officials understanding what they're wanting from us and then building our applications around their objectives as well. And with not for profits and other corporate organisations. It's really about building commercialise products or translating the research knowledge into something that can be commercialised to help the public or in general be given to industries or the public to improve their lives.

Lisa Shen

11:35

Right. That's really cool. Yeah, so yeah, like, for example, if you develop this new kind of solar cell that has increased efficiency, you want to it's one thing to develop that product, but then it's a whole other thing to be able to commercialise it and have it be used in the real world. So yeah, for sure. You mentioned that there are three government funding agencies. And I was wondering if you could briefly outline those for us.

Speaker 1

12:00

For sure. So I know this podcast is geared towards people with life science degrees, so most of them would be familiar with the Canadian Institute of Health Research, which is the CIA HR funding agency, as well as the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada, which is called encircle for short. So those are the two that are science students are usually familiar with. And the third one is the social science and Humanities Research Council of Canada or shark. So those three research counsellors, councils have their own funding budgets, as well as their own domains. And they essentially look after those three areas, health research, engineering and natural sciences and social sciences and humanities.

Lisa Shen

12:42

And I guess that kind of ties into another question that we had for you. Because when Frida first described your role to me, she described it as your job is to allocate grant money between research projects at the university. And so just from the past five minutes of talking to you, I've realised that it's more than that. But on the aspect of allocating grant money, do you have a role in that? And if so, what does that role look like?

Speaker 1

13:07

So that role is more towards my office in general, I work for the Office of the Vice President of Research and Innovation, and our offices, in general is responsible for facilitating the entire research environment at our university. So I wouldn't say I'm personally in this ensemble for necessarily allocating the money, my job is more to help researchers secure the funding. And then it's up to the researchers to either allocate the money towards their projects or us to kind of help them we do help them with their budgeting. So that, in a way is how I can help researchers kind of find the best ways to use funding once we have secured.

Lisa Shen

13:44

That makes a lot of sense. So one of the things that we like to ask on this podcast is what does the day to day of your job look like? Because as much as you Google, you really can't get that on the internet. And we think that's such a big part of the job, really, because that's what your schedule looks like day to day. And that's a big part of your life. So yeah, we would we would be really grateful if you could give us kind of a rundown, like what time you get to work. When do you do a lunch break? How many, like how is your day broken down in terms of meetings, work on your own

Speaker 1

14:16

stuff like that. So I'm really fortunate because I do work from home. So the flexibility that my job gives me is kind of immense. It can it can change on a daily basis as it can be one day I'm working like a regular nine to five job and another day, I'm working evenings or mornings and things like that. But on a typical day, I usually start with morning meetings with my entire team, where we kind of give updates on the projects we're working on how they're going. And then we also get a chance to catch up with each other, which is really nice, especially during this time when we're not next to each other. Obviously before we were all sent to work from home, we were in an office space where I I would go down to my, my building where I work downtown, and we'd all get to see each other and hang out. But that's not the case anymore. But we still try to emulate that even with our morning meetings. After morning meetings, I usually spend a lot of times writing like writing and researching that's like the heart of my job, which comes from understanding what the professor's research is. So I can best understand how to talk about it, how to kind of comment on the way that it can be improved and give exactly what funding agencies are looking for from the research. And then I really do just have meetings throughout the day where I'm meeting with professors meeting with the partner organisations we're working with, or meeting with my fellow colleagues, because we also get a chance to collaborate on certain projects. So that would be something we do often to just talk to each other to understand how we can kind of brainstorm and throw around ideas. So a typical day like that is Yeah, meetings, writing and research. I think that's the easiest way to submit.

Lisa Shen

16:06

All right, thank you. Yeah, that sounds really cool. When you're saying like, you work sometimes in the evenings and things like that. Is that like, just for COVID reasons right now? Or is that like, what happens even during normal times.

Speaker 1

16:18

So in our, our schedule is kind of flexible and weird, because we really do have to follow the ebb and flow of when we're meeting certain deadlines. So when we're getting close to deadlines, you'll be finding us working weekends, evenings, nights, anything, we're kind of on the clock, 24 hours when we're approaching the worst of times. But there are, of course, times when we're not doing that, and it's a really chill day or week. But yes, so because of COVID, we have been afforded the flexibility to work on our own schedule. And that's been really nice, because it allows us to kind of cope with all of the complexities that this pandemic has brought. So if we need to do something important, we can always kind of move our day around on a regular basis, we don't really have to let anyone know. And that's been really great for being able to do this job. Now six months into independence.

Lisa Shen

17:18

Right? That's really amazing. And how much like autonomy? Do you feel like you have in this position? Like how much of it is kind of you do your own work and then come together? Or is it like you're really reporting to someone?

Speaker 1

17:31

No, not at all. One of the greatest things about my position is I have a lot of autonomy. When we're, when I'm given a project to work on, I may be collaborating with members of my team, but often they are so low projects that you're working on our own. And we have full autonomy to do exactly what we want to do with the project. So of course, we're working with the researchers to ensure we're following their vision. And we're making sure that they're happy with whatever we're presenting. But at the end of the day, all the decisions I'm making, I do on my own. But of course I relies a lot on my colleagues and my fellow research proposals facilitators, to help me out in my time of need if I need them, and I just isn't available to them as well. But yeah, I would say almost complete autonomy.

Lisa Shen

18:19

Yeah, that sounds really cool. This, this genuinely does sound like a unique position. And it certainly sounds like one that students don't know about. Because before free to mention this to me, I was like, What do you mean people who help professors write grants, or you know, this kind of thing. So you're wondering, how did you come across this position? And kind of what was your path to entering this role?

Speaker 1

18:42

For sure, I think it was definitely an unorthodox path. Like so many students, I had finished undergrad and I did it in something that I didn't necessarily see me achieving a different type of career other than medicine or something related to research. So I did a Master's because I thought, Okay, I guess I'll try research. But that didn't really wasn't really for me. So I ended up just finding lots of jobs kind of adjacent to research or science, things I was looking for. And what interested me about this position was they said, this is you are helping researchers, but you're not doing research. And it's more of a project management related job. It's a job where you can help people kind of go beyond what research means to them just in their lab setting. And that really spoke to me because I always found as a master's student and a graduate student, I always wanted to see what my research could do, but then there was no no real avenue to help me kind of understand or see it. So that's kind of what I do now for researchers I help them see where their research could go beyond the lab. So that's I think what Julia to me, I found it simply by luck. One day, I was looking through lots of universities and I came across virescens job posting website, and it kind of immediately caught my attention.

Lisa Shen

20:10

That's really neat. And you mentioned that there's a lot of like, it's more of a project management role. How well do you feel you were prepared for this role before going into it? And what did you have to learn once you were there that you didn't, that you didn't know about before,

Speaker 1

20:24

I had to learn a lot because I wasn't necessarily familiar with every aspect of it. Given a my extensive kind of experience working in student associations and student councils, throughout university, I felt I had a lot of experience working with university administration, and in general project management that made me comfortable enough to kind of take on roles that required me to work autonomously and kind of help professors guide their projects. But once I got to the roll, I essentially had to learn how to digest an entire body of someone's research over their entire lifetime in about an hour or two. And you have to be confident enough at that point, having just read someone's entire research work to be like, Okay, I know how I can help you. It's that's probably the most daunting part of the task was learning how to do that without without insulting their work in that sense, because you have to respect what they're doing.

Lisa Shen

21:26

Yeah, that's, that's crazy. I mean, I want to know, how did you learn how to do that? How, how do you, you know, in a few hours, like go through the literature of this whole professor's research, because for me, personally, the hardest part of all my courses is always just reading the articles for our presentations, or our reports that we have to write, it can take me somewhere from two to possibly even 810 hours, if I'm just starting from scratch, and I feel I don't know anything about. And I need to understand every little detail about an article. So how did you learn to be able to digest so much information in such a short period of time?

Speaker 1

22:10

That I think I get that primarily from grad school, I had to read a lot of research papers and articles in grad school from my own experiments and my own research and presentations. And I recall that always being daunting, and you're right, it takes hours to digest an entire piece of material. But what I learned as someone who's trying to help a researcher broaden their entire research perspective is I don't necessarily need to know the nitty gritty, but I need to see what big picture you have. I, nature, I always learned. And I think most grad students or even undergraduate students do this, as you read the intro, you read the discussion, and you read the first figure and you hope that you've gotten with within that. And that's actually a really good tip. Because if I don't understand what your research is about by reading your introduction and your ending, then what are you trying to tell me because research at the end of the day, it has to go beyond just what you're studying, it has to be clickable, and we're trying to make research applicable to everyday life. That's not necessarily the case for everyone. But it is the case for the type of research that I personally work on in my job. So I tend to find that that really helps.

Lisa Shen

23:31

Right? I mean, going off of that there's there's two aspects that I find really interesting about what you just said, the first thing is having to give professors tips. And the second thing is about creating a pluggable research. So kind of on the first topic, I feel this too, when we're given an article and, you know, the professor says, you have to read this, and you have to give a presentation. And you have to write a report where you critique aspects of this article. And I'm like, how do I do that? I'm like, I'm like, I barely know this field of research. And so how do you build up the confidence to be able to say, hey, I've read your research, and I know that this is going to help you.

Speaker 1

24:11

Honestly, that's something that was really tough for me, I still find it somewhat tough, having been someone who's graduated relatively recently as well. How do you approach a professor who's spent their entire life working on something and telling them, I think you need to do this better? It's not, it's definitely about the way you approach it. My job isn't to tell them their research is done poorly, or they're not thinking outside of the box. My job is to make suggestions. My job is to say, Have you thought about this? Have you thought about this? approaching it in a way where I'm not only respectful of their work, but they also have a respect for me and knowing that I'm here to help them. I think that's what's the difference between a student speaking to a researcher sometimes as a as opposed to me who's like, I'm Part of the university administration is that we have this understanding that I'm here to help you improve your work as well. Students can do this with their professors, or even their presentations as well, if they look at it as critical thinking, if you look at it as I'm questioning, not necessarily, I'm questioning your research, but I'm just trying to understand other aspects of it. Researchers actually love when you ask them questions that kind of contradict their work, because they want to know, oh, what am I doing? What could I be doing differently? So that would be my number one tip is, don't be afraid to kind of ask questions if you don't understand something, if you don't know something about the work, because that's exactly what they're looking for.

Lisa Shen

25:44

And it's good to know that professors have assistance as well with various components of their research. Because for me, one of the really daunting things about the idea of being a professor is that, wow, I'm basically in charge of a small business, and have to make all these big decisions and decide where my research is going. So it's good to know that there are supports for professors out there. And then kind of getting into the second thing I wanted to address was, in terms of creating research has real world applications. And I think this is kind of interesting to me, because I remember when I first got into university, I was like, Oh, I just want to do research for research sake, because science is cool, and science and discovery and all those things. But I think over time, I've become more interested in stuff that actually has an impact, because oh, we can create this treatment for breast cancer. Or we can develop this technology to help low income communities, that kind of thing. So just this is more of a philosophical discussion, a question. But yeah, just like, what are your thoughts on that? I know, you mentioned that you're more interested in research with real life impacts.

Speaker 1

26:51

I personally, when I did grad school, I did a lot of wet lab research, which is really interesting and can be really focused on what you're doing. But what I kind of wanted to have more experiences was understanding how research could have brought up applications to everyday life. And I think that's something that a lot of people would be interested in, because you would like to see how you can help as many people as you can with the work that you're doing. I really pride myself in the fact that Ryerson as a research institution, really does put a focus on making applicable research. So their focus has always been on involving partner organisations in the research that's conducted at the university. So I think that's what really helps with almost every project I work on is, as soon as I'm working with a researcher, I'm immediately introduced to their whole network of partner organisations. These can be industrial companies, not for profit organisations, government or public agencies. And they're all there to create something that can help the public this can be a commercialised product, like you said, like if you're doing research on a solar panel, you're revitalising how efficient it is. This could be a whole group of people who are working to establish that kind of project across the city or across the country. So that's what I think is been really exciting is that every project I work on essentially, has applications because we're already working with a network of people who are willing to commercialise a product or translate the research in some way where we can build something to help people.

Lisa Shen

28:26

I guess following up with your discussion about how Ryerson really does put a focus on the applications of the research, I've definitely noticed that just in the way that they promote a different programmes that they're coming out with and things like that. So if someone's interested in this position, do you do you know if similar positions exist in other universities or even non University institutions?

Speaker 1

28:49

Oh, well, definitely. several institutions have robust Research Services offices, including every university in Canada. And not necessarily all of the universities will have services like mine, where we provide direct support to the researchers. But other universities, especially in Toronto, in the West Coast, they definitely have it. But I did want to point out that yes, definitely not all universities provide the type of support that Ryerson has provided, researchers, it's not something that I was used to at McGill, even like, it's not I didn't even hear about any such services, even though I think it's such a great way to help researchers build their research.

Lisa Shen

29:33

Yeah, that's cool. I guess it is unique to be able to have kind of more one on one support with things like grants or just a bit of a more personal connection. Um, so I guess going back to the discussion about reading articles and how it's like, you know, usually a challenge at the beginning. I think one thing that really helps me is just having like a little bit of domain knowledge and having read previous stuff in a similar research context. So how often do you get To pick the area of research that you want to help the professor out in, and how often does it stay consistent?

Speaker 1

30:08

I, it's kind of whichever, whatever requires help, I can be put projects on. Okay, I definitely think because of my background in life science research, I definitely get put on a lot of our health science and health research, as well as our engineering and natural sciences projects. But that doesn't mean unlimited. Like one of the biggest projects I'm working on right now is a social science and humanities project. And those are kind of my favourite, because it's so outside of the field of where I work. And like I mentioned, my expertise in my own education definitely helps me build better ideas, I think, or it helps me have a more unique perspective on some of the health research projects. But it also helps me have a great perspective on social science and humanities projects, because I'm thinking differently. So while I do get to kind of choose the projects I work on, often, I'm just given any projects, and you kind of find a way to fill in your perspective within each one.

Lisa Shen

31:05

Okay, have you ever been put on a project that you're like, this is totally out of my league? I don't really know at all what I'm doing here?

Speaker 1

31:12

Oh, definitely. I don't know if I can speak about all of them, or any of them for confidentiality purposes, right. But yes, definitely, there are. More often than not, I'm put on projects that I have no idea. And I've never even heard of the concept, or I'm just given something as that is so out of left field that I know that, okay, I'll have to do some work to understand what's going on. But that's essentially what keeps it exciting, because I honestly, every week is something new.

Lisa Shen

31:42

Right. And in some ways, that's almost what your job is, is having the skill to look at something you don't know anything about, and then being able to make some conclusions about it, which is pretty cool. And then you mentioned that you tend to work a bit more on the more, you know, biology stuff, or life side projects, because you have this life science background. And so I was wondering, when people hire for these kinds of positions, whether it be at Ryerson or other universities? Do you know what kind of people they look for? Like, do you have to have a Master's? You know, like, what are the requirements for this position?

Speaker 1

32:23

Right. So um, I have a master's degree with probably be on minimum for the position I currently have. A lot of my colleagues have PhDs. The qualities that this position really looks for the qualifications, I should say, is the ability to understand research, in a technical sense. So you have to be familiar with not only reading papers, understanding how funding agencies work in a sense of how to write grants, what grants are about and experience with working with an entire network of people, I think I mentioned project management is a big part of the job. But that's because the transferable skills you need from that, I would say more important than your ability to write grants. So your ability to read research and understand it, the biggest part of my job is to question the researchers to help build better projects. So you have to understand how to work as a collaborative team member, you have to understand how to work with different people from different groups. And you have to understand at the end of the day, that you're trying to improve upon what's already existing. So you have to think creatively. So I think those are the three biggest qualities more so than being the best writer or the greatest researcher or academic individually.

Lisa Shen

33:45

Right. So do the people who are in this role in your office or in other universities? Do they both primarily have science graduate degrees? Or do they come from different fields or anything like that?

Speaker 1

33:59

They come from every field. So there, they are science degree holders, a lot of them are science degree holders, because two out of the three funding agencies are related to science. There are many people from social sciences and humanities as well. And I think Yeah, that's it doesn't necessarily matter, your degree per se, but it matters the level of your degree. So having a masters or a PhD definitely helps with this position. Because you're aware of the research world a bit more than an undergraduate student. However, an undergraduate student is fully capable of understanding how research works, how academic writing is.

Lisa Shen

34:40

And then you mentioned that for your role right now a master's degree is sufficient. And I'm curious how well this is a part where it's like I'm interviewing, like, Where do you see yourself in five years, but without making it sound cheesy? What are sort of your future goals? Do you see yourself staying in this position? Or would you like to do some kind of different work in the field Are there any opportunities for promotion within your role that you can tell us about?

Speaker 1

35:06

Sure. I mean, I definitely see myself in this position for the foreseeable future. I started this job just in January of this year. So I know okay. I've been at the role quite relatively recently. However, I think I fit into it quite well to the fact that my office is extremely supportive and ensuring that they would like to see me continue in this role. So I do see myself working at Ryerson and in research for the foreseeable future. And that's not something I could have said before I bought this job, actually, I think a lot of people who finished graduate school and don't want to pursue further education like a PhD, they're often wondering, what can I even do with my degree, because I'm in such a niche field. And this job kind of really helped me understand that, well, I actually have a lot of transferable skills that I learned from research that I can use positions. So I'd like to see myself doing this job and working at this institution for the foreseeable future. They've also made it clear that they're really supportive of me doing further education, whether that be something like an MBA, improving my management skills, or even doing a PhD in something more related to my work. That's something I've also am considering currently. So yeah, we'll see how it goes. But the goal is to move further in terms of personally just moving further in terms of how I can help build these better projects, in a more, perhaps in a management role or something like that.

Lisa Shen

36:46

Yeah, I can totally see why an MBA would be beneficial for a role like that. And that would be a cool background to have, like the mixture of science and business, especially for your position. Another thing you were curious about, which kind of ties into this, is when you were going through your undergrad education. What was your thought process? You know, when you went to the first year, did you have some idea what you wanted to do? When you went into grad school? Why were you doing so? And yeah, just kind of what was it like coming out of grad school and being and looking around and being like, well, what now?

Speaker 1

37:19

I think my first year of undergrad, I went in, like almost every student in the life sciences thinking, Oh, I guess I want to be a doctor. And I found out very quickly, from my first cadaver course that we had, oh, gosh, I want to be a doctor. So, um, if I'm honest, my entire undergrad was a question mark after that, because I had built my entire life. And I think a lot of students do this. They built their entire life around this one goal, and do University and you do undergrad, and at the end of undergrad, I had no idea what I wanted to do. And I thought, Okay, let's do a masters. So I did a masters. And at the end of the Masters, I was like, I have no idea what I want to do. Because I wasn't necessarily fulfilled as much as I thought I would be with doing research in the lab. But I knew I was I was always interested in management. And I knew I was always interested in kind of project management in general, I mentioned previously that I was just really involved in undergrad and in grad school, in my school community and setting. And I think that's what really pushed me to find a position that could utilise my science degrees, but also move me towards more management and with a bit more on project related. So I think that's what got me to the position I'm in currently.

Lisa Shen

38:52

That's really cool. And you mentioned a little bit about how you were really involved in undergrad, just you know, knowing you a little bit Personally, I think you take a lot of pride in like working in student government and things like that. How much do you think that contributed towards? how prepared you felt for this role? And like, what kind of things outside of school would you recommend doing to kind of land a position like yours?

Speaker 1

39:15

Right? I you're completely right. I take a lot of pride in that. And I actually say that I got this job because of my involvement, not because of my degrees, which is kind of funny, but because for obvious reasons I needed the qualifications of my degrees to be to be qualified for this job. But what really pushed me over the edge amongst a pool of other candidates who had PhDs who had MBAs who had degrees more than I did was the fact that I had worked in these settings where I was working with the university administration, while I was working with large budgets, where I was working with researchers and other academics. So I think that I did a lot of student government work throughout my entire grad school and undergrad, like five or six years of it. And those positions really helped. But those are not the only ways to get involved. I think for my position specifically, if you have experience working either with researchers, you have experience working in collaborative teams, and you have experience working in problem solving, or creative thinking. Those are the three things that people look for in this type of position. So I kind of got all three of those experiences from my degrees, my involvement.

Lisa Shen

40:33

Yeah, that is, that is kind of cool. I mean, I kind of was thinking this a few weeks ago, when I realised just how big the budget of some student clubs is, like, it's not a small thing to be the president of, for example, insight magazine, which publishes student artwork, they have a budget in the 10s of 1000s of dollars, because printing a magazine is expensive. And I kind of just never realised what a cool experience that is, it's really no small thing to, you know, be like the leader of a club like that. And yeah, it's just cool at the university just gives you that opportunity and trust you with all that money. It's Yeah, it's a cool opportunity.

Speaker 1

41:15

That's a huge responsibility, too. I mentioned this, because my job requires me to look at budgets of a lot of these projects. And these projects have million dollar budgets and the in, I don't, I didn't have experience working with million dollar projects, doing research at the lab, I had million dollar budgets working in student government. And so that's where I drew that experience. And that's, you're right. Even at the universities I went to when I was five, I was in finance roles in both undergrad and graduate school, both of those institutions had million dollar budgets for undergraduate and graduate students, and we are 20 year olds, 19 year olds responsible for that. So that puts a lot of pressure. Yeah, and you can definitely draw on that into experiences that I currently have in my job,

Lisa Shen

42:04

thinking back as an overview over the path that you took to get to the position that you're in now. Is there anything that you see that you wish you'd done differently when pursuing this?

Speaker 1

42:16

I try not to think too much about what I would have done differently, because I think we're all on different journeys. That's a little philosophical, but I try not to have too many regrets. In that sense. I think Don't be afraid to question what you actually want to do. I think a fear has kept a lot of people from wondering, oh, can I try something different? Or is this the path for me? And I think that was my biggest impediment to actually doing something I enjoy doing. And I like doing like my current job was I was just scared to think, Oh, well, I have to follow this one path of research. It's like, No, you can be in science and in business. And you can find something that can meld those two things together. So that's kind of what I would suggest to everyone who may be listening is if you have an interest, which can supplement your interest in science, then for sure, take advantage of that. And you can definitely find something. I'll be utilising all of your talents,

Lisa Shen

43:16

right. Yeah, I'm like sitting here fully like nodding my head. This girl wants to get out of the Stickley science realm.

Speaker 1

43:26

Yeah, for sure. And I actually encourage everyone, it makes you a better scientist, it'll make you a better doctor will make you a better anything. If you explore other avenues as well, because it's really rough when you just stuck to one line your entire life, and you haven't really gotten the chance to explore.

Lisa Shen

43:43

Okay, and the last question that we have for you is looking into the future or looking into the past. Because, you know, even if you are doing something that's an intersection between business and science, there's still multiple roles that fit into that category. So kind of thinking back or looking into the future. Are there any other career paths that you can see yourself having pursued and still being successful at and happy in?

Speaker 1

44:10

For sure, I think, Aye. Aye. Aye. Have a will always consider careers that involve consulting, especially consulting not for profit organisations. And that's something that I also would encourage a lot of science students to do. There's, you can always join management, consulting associations or case competitions, things like that, that can really help you build how you creatively problem solve and how you think, in different situations. And it's a great way to kind of build your life outside of science and get a bit more experience in applications. So I can see myself pursuing something in consulting. And I would love to see what other avenues of in research institutions universities, that I could pursue in the future, as I mentioned, can There has these three great funding agencies. And they're always looking for kind of new perspectives on how to improve the entire world that is funding the research and innovation of an entire country. So I'm really passionate about the fact that the diversity and inclusion of different marginalised voices in our research is really important. Research in Canada has always been focused on certain groups of people. And I think that's something that needs to change. And that's something that our three funding agencies are committed to changing. But of course, these things take time. So I really do want to see how I could potentially be involved in fostering that kind of change so that we have more researchers and more research that's more representative of the people of this country.

Lisa Shen

45:51

Right. And I mean, I feel like that's a whole other topic in and of itself is just the intersection between science and kind of politics or culture. So we won't get too much into that. And you know, we'll probably just wrap this up. But before we do, so, is there anything else you would like to add? No, I just wanted to thank you both. I think you're doing a great job with this podcast. And I, oh, thank you.

Speaker 1

46:20

And I hope that, you know, a lot of science students can get better ideas of what else they can do with their science degrees, because it's definitely not limited.

Lisa Shen

46:27

Yeah, I definitely haven't been shy with plugging this podcast. Like I go to my poetry class, which, like, 80% of the people are studying like English literature. And I'm like, so I have a podcast. And you can check it out. Yeah, if you would like to follow c bats work, you can connect with him on LinkedIn at the link in the show notes. So you got a project you'd like to vlog creative product, idea, wacky painted hairstyles, new student club about potatoes. If so, we'd love to advertise it on our podcast. If you're interested in having your ad here, contact us at so you got a lifestyle degree@gmail.com with the subject line podcast app, to view our current rates, you can head over to the Services tab of our Facebook page. It's a great way to get the word out about your idea while also supporting this podcast.

Unknown Speaker

47:17

And we're

Lisa Shen

47:19

so Alisa, how do you feel about being a research proposals facilitator? I think his role is genuinely so cool. Like I didn't want to overreact while he was talking. But oh my god, like, I think when you described it to me, you described it as he decides how grant money is allocated. Well, that's what I had the role was, yeah, yeah. Based on what he told you, which now I'm realising maybe our social media post was entirely incorrect. But it's fine. No one responded anyway. Um, but yeah, like, I think it's genuinely so interesting. I think it's actually a role that's required. You know, sometimes people look down on like, quote, unquote, middlemen, admin roles, but I don't think it's like that at all. I think he genuinely has a purpose. And yeah, just I just didn't know that this kind of thing existed. What about you? Yeah, I think I'm, like, genuinely just so annoyed at how great our guests like positions are. Interesting. A. Yeah, I was gonna say all of our guests are, like, so successful. Yeah. And like they all like really seem to enjoy what they're doing. Which is really yeah. I mean, I feel like that's probably partially a selection bias. Like, if you're down to talk about your job, you're probably more passionate about it. Yes, please. That's pretty bad. Yeah, it is cool that we've gotten to talk to, you know, successful and passionate people. Yeah, I think it really goes to show like, there's a lot of things you can do that you will still enjoy, even if it's not the typical roots of like research and medicine. Mm hmm. Yeah, I think it was also kind of interesting that we through doing this podcast, we get a bit more info about the inside deeds of various industries. And in this case, it's about University. Like I didn't know that there were these departments that kind of facilitate research funding. Now that I think about it, it makes sense. But it's just kind of cool to get more insider knowledge. I fully realise this today, which is that I'm more of the hard science, like when we interview guests, I'm more interested in guests that do things that are more like, kind of directly applying their knowledge of what they learned in school. Were you realising this today? Yeah, I'm really I'm realising, like, fully, like, Listen, freedom, there's a difference between knowledge and understanding. Understanding this today, um, sounds like maybe with the exception of Jessica, for the medical illustration, just because that's I have an interest in art. But for the most part, yeah, I'm more like physiotherapy research, like field research, like that's what I'm interested in. But then you on the other hand, every time we have a guest that does something that's like an intersection between science and business, you're like you have a private conversation. Yeah, I think so for sure. Yeah. So I think that makes for a bit of a good balance. Because that ways if we have a guest who their career I'm maybe less personally interested in your your, you might be like a bit more interested in it. So then you can ask more of those questions that are like the questions you would actually ask if you're interested in maybe pursuing a career. Yeah, I think a big reason of the big reason I'm interested in kind of, it's more like science and policy, I would say, is really exemplified by like, the whole climate change issues going on where like, I think you actually brought this to my mind where you were like, yeah, a lot of climate change issues now are really just about like politics and the economy and stuff like that. It's really not that much about the science, because we definitely have the type gets about implementing it, and on a large scale. So I think that to me, is like an very intriguing problem and something I want to be working on. So yeah, I think that's where my interest in like policy and things like that stem from, which is why I was so excited when he basically opened like Seba basically opened about talking, like started the conversation talking about the project, he one of the projects he worked on, which was about clean energy. So yeah, that immediately, I was like, Oh, my God, I didn't even think about this being like stuff that you're working on. I think that's definitely the area of climate change that interests me the most, as well. I had this conversation with my dad once and it kind of, it actually kind of succeeded at making him be like, hmm, second are too big, because I don't know if I've mentioned this to you before, but when we burn things like oil, like all the energy, like contained in plant matter, and in animals, it's ultimately from the sun, right? Like plants, or plants are basically machines that take sunlight and convert it into like plants. They make themselves out of sunlight. And then they die. And over millions of years that get converted into, you know, little carbon molecules that we then burn, right? So it's just so self explanatory. When you think about it that way, you're like, Okay, instead of like, waiting for the plants to capture the sunlight, and then spending millions of years underground, why don't we just capture the sunlight ourselves, you

Lisa Shen

52:11

know, like, skip that whole process? And yeah, it's just so aggravating for me, because eventually, you're going to have to switch to renewables. That's what I find is so sad, like, you're gonna have to, because oil is going to run out. But it's just that I don't know if we're gonna be able to do it in time. And that's just the saddest thing to me. Yeah, I feel like we're already running out of time. But yeah, there's that one. I don't remember if it was a patriot act episode, or like one of the deep cuts on YouTube, which is like their extra little thing. But they're talking about how they basically have already extracted in the US all the oil that like if they burned it all nuun go away over our goals for the temperature range that we want to be in. Yeah, but kind of talking a bit more about the intersection of technology and actually implementing it and also tying it to nonprofit organisations. I got really into rock climbing last summer not actually doing it myself because of my health conditions. But just getting into watching documentaries about rock climbing, and being really obsessed with this person called Alex Honnold. And if you don't know, Alex Honnold is a 30, something year old rock climber, who is best known for his free solo of this cliff face and Yosemite National Park in the US. And that cliff face is called El Capitan. And free solo just means that he climbed it without ropes. It's not like he just walked up there one morning and did that. Obviously, he trained for a decade. He has specialised equipment. He's practised the route with ropes. But yeah, like that's what he's best known for. And so I just kind of got really into googling his life and just watching his interviews and that kind of thing. And through that, I came across his charity called the Honnold Foundation, which started off as just him donating a third of his income to various solar projects every year. And then that kind of just morphed into a charity of its own that he started. And it's currently has only a few handful of employees. So it's pretty small. But what they do is they basically raise money, and then they distribute that to various community based smaller nonprofits. So they really try to do they basically try to fund projects that work very closely with the community. And that would otherwise have trouble getting funding from, you know, someone like me, like someone in I don't know, Singapore and like us, like a low income community probably wouldn't be able to reach me and my money on their own. But that's just kind of like a bit of the work that they do. And yeah, I just I think it's really interesting, and it's gotten me and I've been following some of the chats he's been having like every week On Instagram with various climate leaders and nonprofit leaders, and it's just yeah, it's just nice getting a actually getting a bit more concrete knowledge about how to go about clean energy transitions instead of just having a big this vague idea in my mind. So we're also going to link the huddle foundation in the show notes, because I think it's a great charity. So I'm gonna promote it, put it out there. Yeah, I also want to plug some things just like completely related. I was watching a Simon Clarke video. And he's kind of like a climate scientist who now does YouTube, like educational videos and interesting videos about him. And he basically made this video about like, books you should read to understand climate change. And he gave a suggestion to what I think is like such an amazing book. It's called drawdown by its as Paul Hawken, we can link it in the show notes as well. And it's basically like, outlining all the tech that we currently have that will be effective to reverse climate change. And the main argument of this book is like, we have the tag, it's just about implementing it. So he really goes into like, what basically what we should be doing, and just like, making it finding ways to make it happen. Yeah. So yeah, I just, I like Can't believe a resource like this exists. So now it's like, really our job to find ways to actually implement these things. And the other resource is the United Nations Climate Change carbon offset platform. And I think I've told you about this a little bit before, but it's basically like these projects that get vetted by the UN, that are in developing nations that will offset climate change. So it's usually renewable, renewable energy, like projects. So like solar farms, wind farms, sometimes it's like setting up a nuclear power plant. And you basically can find it from different countries. And the reason it's in developing nations is usually because it's just way cheaper to like, build these things in those countries. Like my plan is basically just to get rich and then throw money at these projects.

Lisa Shen

57:02

Yeah, but it's just like, really cool. Because you can see, like, projects that you're contributing to, and you can there's kind of a sense of satisfaction of like, yeah, I fully funded this project. And it's like, gonna be built like, it's a very concrete thing, which is really interesting to see. Right. I do feel like with our generation with our all of our fears about climate change, and all of our passions about preserving our ecosystems, I think there is a lack of concrete steps we can take to do that one size reducing, yeah, like personal consumption. Yeah, like one of my goals that I put off this summer, but that I'm not planning on doing next summer is actually figuring out like, what are the things that I should actually do to minimise my impact on the planet? Yeah, because it's like, if there's something that has an impact of negative 100. And there's something that has a negative impact of minus one, I might be like, just taking away that negative one thing and being like, Okay, I'm like, doing my part. Yeah, exactly. I'm just, I just completely don't know, like, about, like, the negative 100 thing, you know, whether that be like buying the certain product, or, you know, driving a car, like what actually are the things that make a difference?

Unknown Speaker

58:11

Yeah,

Lisa Shen

58:11

I definitely want to look into that. Yeah, I definitely agree with that sentiment. And I think also, for a lot of people, it's, or at least for me, like in my life, I do want to limit my personal consumption. But I always want to do more than that. And I just like, I just found these resources from being like, Okay, what else can I actually do that will make like a sizable difference? So yeah, I think like for people who are looking for that, it's like, really good resources for that. So I guess tying that back to what we're actually supposed to be talking about in this discussion, it just makes sense that having that intersection between science and business is important for actually having research have a positive impact on the world. Any other thoughts about our actual discussion topic? Yeah, I think this might be like something that I'm actually really interested in now. But yeah, just like we brought this stuff up, I think in previous discussions, as well just like autonomy over a schedule, and then spending a lot of his time, like, getting to read and write, which to me is probably like, my favourite part about like doing science work now is very much like reading papers and like getting to have this coherent understanding of a topic or an issue, which I'm not a huge fan of like really sitting at the lab bench for hours on end. So yeah, I think that's just like, it's amazing that he has these really cool, very scientific elements in his job still, that's cool that you say that you like reading papers. For me, that's one of the hardest things or like maybe things I dread a bit. I think it's worse when it's a topic I don't know much about like right now, for one of my courses. I'm reading this paper that's talking about looking at the evolution of microbes in your gut, and talking about mutations and that kind of thing for my microbial genetics. scores. Right? And it's wrong. It's hard. And it's, it's just because I don't know any of the terms. Yeah. But over the summer when I was reading papers that were more about immunology and breast cancer, I actually found that a lot easier just because I already kind of know the techniques like the molecular biology techniques and all that kind of thing. So, yeah, hopefully, for me, that's something that will get easier if I'm, you know, reading more papers that have are of a similar domain. But yeah, I also, I think I also do like the wet lab stuff. So maybe that's a good balance to have. I don't know. Yeah, I think for me like to clarify, I'm not saying it's at all easy. Like I totally still have a hard time reading papers. Yeah, I was taking like those grad courses last semester. Sorry, wasn't last semester. Yes. Last semester. So we had to read about two to four papers per week. And I literally had to do it, like first thing in the morning with a big cup of coffee, like, you know. Yeah. The normal location. Yeah. Just to like, get full brain power. So yeah, it's definitely like, still really hard for me. But I do genuinely really enjoy it. I just have a hard time focusing sometimes, too. That's very fair. It's very intense work, isn't it? It's awesome that you're doing the task. And your brain is like, it's working, but it's not working. It's like the difference between run like sprinting and a calm jog. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So reading articles feels like sprinting. Yeah, it's like you have to be constantly focused on it. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Any other tidbits about a discussion? You just mentioned offhand for a little bit that where he's working is open to kind of him pursuing higher education in the future. Does that mean like paying for him to do hiring? I don't think so. We should have asked him about that. What exactly he meant. Yeah, a little bit scared to ask. But yeah,

Unknown Speaker

01:01:50

right.

Lisa Shen

01:01:50

I don't think they would pay for it. But it would be like, Okay, if you want to go out and you want to do an MBA, we can guarantee you can still get your position after the two years or something like that. Yeah, I think for MBA, some people might be like, paid a certain percentage, like lower percentage of their salary. Right? Especially if you're doing it while you're working. Now that I'm thinking about it, like if you're a part time MBA student kind of thing. Oh, yeah, I think that's like, more comment. Yeah, you're right. You're right, that that actually makes more sense. It makes more sense in stopping your job for two years. Yeah, so maybe that's, that's more of what it's like. I mean, you can ask him when? Yeah, I might do that. Yeah. But that's just like, so cool to me. Like, you don't have to worry about going back and finding a job. Like you're basically guaranteed a place and you are getting an education and getting paid. Like that's a sweet deal. Yeah, that's what kind of similar to what Jessica, I mentioned, when we interviewed her for last episode, Episode Three about medical illustration, where she mentioned that her company does these kind of lunch meetings, meetings, where they teach you about latest technology, and everyone just kind of discusses it, and how continuing you're learning is just part of the company atmosphere. So that's an interesting thread, I think that we've been seeing in our interviews. Yeah. Yeah. super important. Anything else that I mean, we talked about this, like in the I think Jana interview about just like valuing autonomy in your position. And yeah, I just don't think I can be in a role that's like, very much your bosses breathing down your neck. And I wasn't aware how many positions there are in industries or in other organisations where you have a lot of autonomy. So I think getting to learn more about positions that have that is really interesting for me, actually, now that you mention it. I didn't even think about this before, but it just popped into my head, being a TA has a bit of autonomy, where I'm actually surprised that how many decisions they allow us to make. Yeah, you know, I think like, I agree, 100%, and that they have a lot of autonomy and grad students in general, but like, that's not like a long term job. Yes, I know. I know. I know. I'm just I'm just thinking temporarily. It's what I'm trying to say is that it's it's nice. It's nice having the trust of the organiser that you're going to make your own decisions and that they're going to be good ones. Yeah, for sure. I think grad students have like, probably the most autonomy out of like most people, most jobs. Interesting. Yeah. All right. That's a wrap on our discussion. So to finish up the episode. As promised, we have our new segment, which is the trivia question. So seabolt has kindly provided this question for us. And it is as follows. What is the total annual research funding received by the three Canadian grant funding agencies in the 2019 to 2020 year, a 453 million be 925 million, see 2.3 7 billion, or D 3.6 9 billion. And for context, when we say three ad and grant funding agencies were referring to the three that CBO talked about which are the CIA, HR, and circ. And then the third one for the social sciences. So this question will also be posted on our social media pages and we will be giving out the answer one week from the day that this episode is released. If you're interested, you can comment what you think the answer is below our social media posts. This has been another episode of so you got a lifetime degree with Ciba naam. About his role as a research proposals facilitator at Ryerson University. We want to give a special thanks to our crew of lovely patrons, including our little leaf patron. If you would like to support this podcast, you can visit our patreon@patreon.com slash so you got to Lakeside degree, the music you're listening to is no regrets from audio hub.com Thanks for listening and see you next time.

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