Career exploration program cultivates student success

For 15 years the Translational Plant Sciences Center’s Career Exploration Initiative has planted seeds of diverse opportunities in future agricultural professionals.

This year, 14 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows took part in the initiative's annual industry tour. They visited agricultural businesses in St. Louis, Missouri, with the goal of expanding the emerging professionals’ mindsets related to future careers and collaborations.

“St. Louis has become a major hub for innovation in food, farming, and sustainability,” said Kathryn Liu, a Ph.D. student in the School of Plant and Environmental Sciences in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and an organizer of this year’s excursion. “The center felt it was important to take the graduate students there to expose them to something different, to broaden their perspective, and to spark ideas by seeing what’s possible when industry, research and technology all come together.”

With financial support from the Virginia Tech Graduate School, students toured Bayer Crop Science, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center,  KWS Gateway Research Center, and 39 North. Several participants also took part in flash talks at Bayer and Danforth, lunch with Bayer employees, and panel discussions at KWS and Danforth.

“We weren't just there to observe, we wanted to engage meaningfully with the people in these companies,” said Adam Sumner, Ph.D. student in the School of Plant and Environmental Sciences and one of this year’s organizers. “By presenting our research and sharing our interests, we were able to introduce ourselves in a professional but personal way. It created a space for real conversations, and, hopefully, it laid the groundwork for future opportunities in industry.”

Since 2005, the Translational Plant Sciences Center’s graduate education — out of which the initiative grew — has helped students and postdocs branch out from the traditional agricultural career path. 

“I always wanted to be part of product development and be part of something in innovations that becomes utilized in the world, and I guess I’m technically living the dream,” said Ryan Anderson '11, who earned his Ph.D. in plant pathology, physiology and weed science and was in the first program in 2005, then called the Molecular Plant Sciences program.

Anderson has helped cultivate the deeply rooted support system for current affiliates. Now working in North Carolina at the Swiss-based agriculture company, Syngenta, Anderson serves on the Fralin Life Sciences Institute’s Translational Plant Sciences Center external advisory board and participated in a panel discussion as part of last year’s Career Exploration Initiative.

“It was cool because we’re all from the same program,” Anderson said. “I’ve connected with a lot of the students over LinkedIn now, and I’ve offered to look at their resumes to give them some advice.”

Likewise, Nina Wilson '17, who earned her Ph.D. in plant pathology, physiology, and weed science, participated in the Career Exploration Initiate's tours as a graduate student and recently established roots at Verb Biotics, a small start-up company that the group toured last year.

“The industry tour came at a great time for me because entering graduate school I wanted to be a professor, and then I realized in my third year that that was not what I really wanted to do anymore,” Wilson said. “I loved going on the industry tour. I didn’t have an idea of what it actually looked like, and it was really beneficial to speak with people that were in industry and get their perspective.”

This year’s tour followed suit, opening many participants’ eyes to both the diverse possibilities in the field and the supportive nature of Hokies who’d come before them.

“We had support from Virginia Tech alumni who now work at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. They were instrumental in helping us make connections and set up parts of the tour,” said Matheus Ogando Granja, a Ph.D. student in the School of Plant and Environmental Sciences. “They really wanted to give back and help create opportunities for current students.”