Make Sure A Career In Education Is What You Want, Says Sacramento Professor
To say Ilias Tagkopoulos wears more than one hat would be an understatement. Not only does Tagkopoulos teach at UC Davis, teaching as many as three courses in one semester, but he also manages his own lab overseeing the work of a handful of post-doc and Ph.D students. Tagkopoulos certainly didn't enter this profession for the money as his responses stressed the importance of knowing what you want from your work. As most research professors know, your passion sometimes will be one of the few things motivating you when funding becomes a foreseeable issue. But working on the cutting edge of evolutionary, systems, and synthetic biology with a dedicated team answering important scientific questions that will prove useful to the larger scientific community and, ultimately, the world, does provide a sense of fulfillment unparalleled to other professions.
What is your job?
"Teaching, research, and service. I am heading a computational/experimental laboratory, where we create supercomputer models of microbes to study how they behave and evolve. Then, we bioengineer and evolve them in the lab. I supervise three post-docs, six Ph.D. students, and numerous M.S./undergraduates."
What parts of your job do you find most enjoyable?
"Interactions with students, discoveries in science, constant learning, time and topic flexibility."
What is your education and has it helped you in your current position?
"I have a B.S. from Greece, M.S. from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. from Princeton University, all in electrical engineering. I also worked as a quant and relationship manager in Credit Suisse for a little over a year. Yes, my education has helped me."
Do you have any advice for those who want to get into research and teaching on a university level?
"Make sure this is what you want. Long hours, minimal pay, constant pressure over results, papers and grants if you are in a top research institution. Lack of funding makes the job almost impossible. Although being very dedicated and talented, most candidates don't make it to a tenured position, ."
Paulo Acoba is a California native raised in the Bay Area and living in the Central Valley. He enjoys distance running, cycling and grassroots motorsports. He holds a degree in management from the University of California Merced. Paulo has been writing for Examiner.com since 2012 and covering the Fresno area.
