Dr. Gary McDowell kicks off our short-form Abstract series, featuring interviews with up-and-coming thinkers and policy issues and conundrums facing science. Trained as a biologist, Gary is the Executive Director of The Future of Research and runs the day-to-day operations of the organization, funded by a grant from the Open Philanthropy Project. In this episode, we chat about gaps in scientific training and how we can reform the system to better serve science and its practitioners.
Here are some of the links and references mentioned during the show:
- Avital mentioned the excellent feature Nature magazine put out last month on Young Scientists
- You can read some of Gary’s great answers in Agents of change on NatureJobs
- Gary mentioned the “Alberts, et al. PNAS paper, so here’s a link to Rescuing US biomedical research from its systemic flaws
- The Future of Research has a super handy resource for postdocs to know their rights under the Fair Labor Standards Act
- This interview was recorded at the Advocating for Science Symposium, so do be sure to check out our hosts, the Future of Research (FoR) and Academics for the Future of Science (AFS) to learn more about what they’re doing to change the future of science
This episode was recorded on September 16, 2016 at MIT during the Advocating for Science Symposium. Special thanks to Visager for music and to the Future of Research and the Academics for the Future of Science for making this interview possible.