Please enter your votes for the NextGen Association for Postdocs & Graduate students. Voting ends Sunday, September 23, 2018 at 11:59 PM. You can vote for up to two (2) candidates.
As a reminder: There are four positions: two co-chairs, and two vice-chair. The highest-ranking candidates will be offered the co-chair positions; the third and fourth ranking candidates will be offered the vice-chair position. Each position is to be held for a one-year term.
Please feel free to contact us if you any questions at aflorent@broadinstitute.org.
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Candidates
Lisa Cervia
I am a postdoc working in the Hahn lab as a member of the Cancer Program. Since beginning my postdoc in February this year, I participated in multiple events hosted by NextGen. Among these great events and resources, the NextGen Retreat and the monthly meetings (with catered lunches!) have stood out as experiences that have made me feel welcome at the Broad AND provided me with a variety of settings to meet other Broadies! During my PhD, I served on the executive board for two student groups: (1) I was the founding president of the Duke University Graduate Chapter of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) and (2) served as the Resources Chair on the Biomedical Engineering PhD Student Association (BEPSA). I sincerely enjoy working with peers to organize events that benefit us socially and in our professional development. I’d be honored to serve as part of the NextGen council and to represent trainees. I look forward to meeting you and hearing new ideas and suggestions that you might have that I could help implement through NextGen!
Joanne Cole – incumbent
As I come up on my third year as a postdoc here at the Broad, I would be both honored and excited to spend another year in NextGen leadership! As a postdoc in two different MPG labs (Florez & Hirschhorn) spanning 3 Boston institutions (Broad, MGH, and BCH), I believe I bring a unique trainee perspective to NextGen in which I can advocate for both on-site and off-site trainees. My long term career aspirations are to stay in academic research, but in a setting in which I can pursue both research and teaching. NextGen is a wonderful organization that helps bring both information and opportunities to scientists with a diversity of interests and aspirations. If elected, I would continue to support trainee events that help better prepare us for the path we choose.
This past year, NextGen threw our first ever trainee retreat, in which we brought in featured plenary speakers from Amgen and Outrageous Acts of Science on the Science Network channel, held breakout sessions focused on negotiation and building transferrable skills, and hosted panelists from non-traditional careers – plus we threw an awesome after-party! NextGen is at it again, and I would love to continue to play a prominent role in NextGen so that we can listen to your feedback and make the 2nd Annual Trainee Retreat even better.
Naomi Li
Hello fellow Broadies! I am a postdoc in Bill Hahn’s lab and I am very excited to be running for your NextGen Association Vice Chair. Prior to joining the Broad Institute, I have served as the Vice President of my graduate school’s analogous association, where I contributed to organizing orientations, conferences and social activities for our students. If elected as the NextGen Association Vice Chair, I hope to continue foster our awesome sense of community, and bring forth what I learned to contribute building more amazing programs for Broad trainees. I look forward to help trainees in exploring future career paths – whether it be in academia, industry, or even non-science related positions. I would promote the organization of more seminars and workshops that expand on the trainees’ professional skills, such as improving interview and presentation skills, as well as writing effective grants and preparing great CVs. Furthermore, I would encourage networking among peers and potential future collaborators through our fun social events, as well as organizing more mentor-mentee lunches with faculty and senior staff scientists to further provide learning and networking opportunities for trainees. Henceforth, I hope to have the chance to serve as your NextGen Vice Chair and bring forth the best experience for us Broad trainees. Thank you!
Colles Price – incumbent
My fellow trainees,
It is with honor that I have served on the NextGen Association and I hope if re-elected that we can make this next year the best one yet. To do that I want to build on the successes of last year. We started the first Broad trainee retreat last year and this year we will make it better than ever. We created a seminar series with postdocs from Whitehead and Koch and this year we will start our own internal trainee seminar series. We have co-sponsored several career building and social activities through our collaboration with the Boston Postdoctoral Association (BPDA). Importantly, we have crushed Postdoctoral trivia night bringing home 2 first place wins, 1 2nd place and 1 3rd place (out of 4 trivia nights)! Further, we are looking at expanding our socials and social events to potentially collaborate with other groups across the Broad and outside the Broad.
Importantly, we did our biggest survey to date last year and a shockingly high number of you responded. This survey allowed us to think about our programming and the kind of programs that would be the best for our trainees. I hope to build on those many successes while address our weaknesses and failures.
Either way I want to thank y’all for the most amazing opportunity to serve you and as usual I love y’all like Kanye West loves Kanye West.
Martine Therrien –incumbent
My name is Martine and I am a postdoc. For the past two years, I have been involved in NextGen and I would like you to vote for me to continue in this position. In particular, I have worked to increase our connections with other institutions through the Boston Postdoctoral association (BPDA) and this collaboration has offered a multitude of new events to all trainees including, trivia nights and a career development symposium. Also, in the past year, I organised the first Broad Institute trainee retreat. It was a great success and, I hope it is the beginning of a recurring event.
NextGen is incredibly important for us, trainees, and is part of what makes a big difference in our success here at the Broad but also in our career. Moving forward, I will work to foster a sense of community across all trainees by promoting professional development where we would learn from our peers. Also, I have learned tremendously from organizing the first Broad trainee retreat and I will use this knowledge to make the second retreat better and large than the first one. I will listen to your suggestions and your needs for the retreat and tailor the program towards what you, as trainee, want. NextGen exists to serve the trainees and I will make sure we develop activities that you desire.
I hope to have a chance to serve as a chair of NextGen and I look forward to being more involved within NextGen.
NextGen Association 