Claudia
is a biologist, but it didn’t take long for her to find her passion for the
corporative side of science. Her story teaches us the power of mentorship!
With a BSc in
Biology, Claudia always thought she would be a researcher working in her
country. She started with an internship
in cancer research, but it didn’t take long for her to understand that she
needed to get out of the country to get better opportunities. She also found
a mentor, Mónica Bettencourt Dias (our first interview – see here!) - With
the support of her Portuguese mentor she found a PhD abroad in the UK. Soon Claudia to started exploring the corporative side of science
with experiences in consulting and as a business developer. Now, Claudia is the
senior market strategist of a medical device company.
Claudia, what is the skill you most appreciate in
young scientists or colleagues?
Be able to see the
big picture and envision what the future might bring. It is important not to be
narrow-sided and predict where current activities may be of use in the future.
In your opinion, what is going to be the greatest
breakthrough in science in the next 20 years?
In my opinion, “the breakthrough” would be if we all started to think
more holistically and create an environment where there would be more
communication/connection between basic science and translational science. I
don’t know if that will happen in 20 years…or ever! But it’s what I hope for.
What skills acquired during your PhD you found useful
as a business developer and consulting?
A PhD gives you a lot of transferable skills. As a business developer, I
think that my ability to project management was highly stimulated during my
PhD. As a PhD student, you must handle a
lot of projects at the same time and be able in a short amount of time to come
up with solutions and answers to a lot of different questions. That ability to
changing your mindset from project to project is now very useful to me. As for
consulting, I think the PhD prepares you for problem-solving. After some time,
you start to understand that although different problems might have different
surfaces, their solutions are similar.
On a bad day, how do you clear your head?
(Sign), I love sports! Lately, I have been doing a lot of body combat.
0 comments