So You Wanna Be a Reseacher?
Written by Taylor Shea Carroll & Dr. Daniel Leahy
Image from the College of Natural Sciences
The University of Texas, as a flagship university and one of the world’s leading research institutes, produces a great number of students pursuing postgraduate degrees. The University offers 83 doctoral programs and 125 master's programs in varying fields and studies. But for many students, the idea of pursuing an advanced degree is clouded with questions and uncertainty. I recently sat down with Dr. Daniel Leahy of the Molecular Biosciences department to discuss his journey into research, and to offer insight into what a career in science could look like.
The Leahy Lab “is interested in the molecular mechanisms by which specific signals are received and transmitted by cell-surface receptors….These studies are designed to provide a molecular basis for understanding the behavior of specific molecules in living systems.” However, Dr. Leahy wasn’t always interested in pursuing a career in research.
Leahy admits “I had a bit of a circuitous route into lab work. I was a math major as an undergraduate, [but] I had the world’s greatest summer job. I was working at a monkey research field station at St. Kitt’s in the West Indies.” There, Leahy would chart monkey behavior and take biological samples. And there, a love for research was born. He later went on to attend medical school, where he worked in a clinical neurology lab investigating the molecular mechanisms of multiple sclerosis. “That was very interesting and I loved the lab, but I realized that the only way to really go to sleep at night thinking that I’d make some progress toward an answer, would be to do basic science,” says Leahy, “In my second year of medical school, I applied and was accepted into an MD/PhD program… There, I finished the first two years of medical school and went straight into a physical chemistry lab.”
As many students come to realize, Leahy found that actual lab science looked a lot different than the material taught in a classroom setting. He admits, “I struggled. Nothing worked for me. It was increasingly more frustrating. I would do exactly what the protocol said and it wouldn’t work… At about 14 months in, I thought I’d failed, so I figured I’d do something simple. I started being more careful. And then, everything started working. And maybe because I had been failing for so long, when it did start working, even the simplest things made me so happy.”
After finishing the PhD portion of his medical schooling, Leahy fully planned to complete the clinical portion of training, but instead, he made an unexpected decision. “I took the first three-month clinical rotation, and I realized at the early age of 27 what I really wanted to do… and I dropped out…I called up the place I’d arranged for a postdoctoral fellowship after I finished my MD, and I asked if I could come early.” And as they say, the rest is history.
Leahy describes a typical PhD program as being 5-6 years of the program itself, followed by 3-4 years of postdoctoral research, culminating with the transition into a faculty or industry position. He states, “Usually you start your first year in graduate school with three 6-12 week mini rotations in different labs. It’s kind of the scientific equivalent of speed dating. So you determine if you’re interested in the size and culture [of the lab], and vice versa.” At the same time, first-year students are taking introductory courses and working as teaching assistants for other courses. “And then in the latter part of your first year, you pick a thesis lab… and your real job is to go into the lab and create new knowledge. Solve a problem or answer a question. That’s daunting and challenging, but it’s also really exciting… and hopefully, it leads to a paper that you can present at conferences.”
I hoped to detail a typical day as a faculty researcher, but as expected there’s no such thing. Leahy explains, “When I’m teaching, I spend a lot of time on that. Homework has to be written and graded. There’s lectures and class, emails, presentations from graduate students, seminars. I could be doing grant writing, or focusing on lab results, or writing a paper, or dealing with journal editors and reviews. It’s quite variable depending on what crisis is happening in that moment. But it all fits together. It’s all a part of education and research.”
When you reach the point in your career where you’re in charge of your own lab, the work you’re responsible for becomes a lot different. Leahy concedes, “It’s been twenty years since I touched a pipette, and that’s probably a good thing. The administration side involves talking to everyone in the lab multiple times a week, discussing presentations, informal meetings as data becomes available, and of course, I do a lot of data processing on the computer. You need money to keep things going, so grants and papers need to be written.”
Working in an environment like that requires a special kind of mind. Leahy says that “Research is an interesting business. Faculty members need a certain skill set to succeed. You need to multitask, communicate, mentor, and so on… UT is very impressive in that it really values education. Faculty here get evaluated on their teaching. There are endless opportunities to improve your teaching, and people take it very seriously. When I go out in the grocery store and say I work at UT, the first question isn’t what my research is, it’s what do I teach.” And to teach well, you have to communicate well. Leahy offers a Joan Didion quote stating, “The ability to think for one’s self depends upon one’s mastery of the language.” Essentially, if you can’t express your thoughts, it’s equivalent to not having them. “The best scientists are incredibly good articulators. They have this precision of thought…All the best scientists are incredible communicators and writers.”
But ultimately, the reason that faculty choose UT is for the ability to explore their research passions. “People like to do puzzles. That’s our job, to solve puzzles. We have to keep current, and see new results and figure out what they mean… We have to see what’s hidden. In our small ways, we make a big difference… It’s good for society to have many people working on different things.”
When asked if he had any final words of wisdom for students pursuing a postgraduate degree program, Dr. Leahy said “If you don’t love it, it’s probably not the right choice. Actual science is frustrating, but solving the problems is incredible training and incredible fun. As a graduate student, learn how to solve a problem, but also learn how to identify a problem that needs to be solved. I can tell you ten problems that would win you a Nobel Prize, but you have to solve them, and solve them before someone else does. That’s where creativity comes in, you have to be able to see something others can’t. Pick something you love, jump in with both feet, and do it passionately. If you find you’re not interested in it, find something else… I feel so incredibly lucky that I stumbled upon something I love to do so much. I love what I do. It is a privilege to have been able to do this, because not everyone can.”
So if you find yourself searching for a career where you can be passionate, innovative, and problem-solving, the answer may lie within a lab not too far from where you are now. As we love to say at UT, what starts here changes the world. And what you start in the lab, may very well change everything.
Resources for Students Interested in Undergraduate Research:
https://undergradcollege.utexas.edu/our
https://utcatalyst.org/getting-started-research
https://cns.utexas.edu/research
Resources for Students Interested in Post-Graduate Research Programs: