Dr Rebecca Barnes has always had an enormous love of science and imparting knowledge to others. She applied for a variety of PhDs before ending up in Glasgow to study the molecular biology of parasites, where she realised a passion for the academic environment. She was invited to help set up a lab as a Postdoc by a young academic from the USA and so moved to the States, but the expectation and pressure made it a very stressful time. She transitioned to a project in a different lab and got some good data but the failures of lab work and lack of publications began to get to her. Following suggestions from her PI, she began to teach and demonstrate at a nearby community college, which cemented a desire to find a teaching-focused university role going forward. She applied for a number of jobs in the USA and the UK, ending up at Sheffield. Here, she relishes spending time with the students, supporting other academic colleagues and moving things forward in the department, having the time to direct her creative energies into more innovative teaching methods.
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Rebecca Barnes:
I'm Rebecca Barnes. And I am a university teacher at the university of Sheffield, which means that I'm a teaching focused academic. And I work a lot with undergraduate students at the university of Sheffield. I got into science. Um, it wasn't very strange really because my dad is actually also a science academic. So it didn't seem like a very. You know, unusual career path for me to follow. And I just really love science and figuring out in enormous detail how things work and then explaining that to other people. I studied biochemistry and genetics at the university of Nottingham, and I did well in my degree. I enjoyed studying. I was good at it and I found the subject matter really interesting. So I'm kind of the obvious choice was to go onto a PhD. So. I looked online and I, um, applied for a number of PhDs, looking at the molecular biology of various parasites, because I had all these noble ideas about curing parasitic disease. And I ended up working in Glasgow, uh, on a parasite called the trypanosomes and that was overall a good experience. I really loved the lab environment and, uh, working in a team. In that way, but I think some of my technical skills were somewhat lacking to be honest. And I'm something I wish I'd picked up on earlier and really worked more carefully on is being really methodical, taking really careful notes for everything I did. Um, because that allows you to really progress better when things go wrong and, um, leads to less discouragement. And so, um, even. Maybe all my data, I didn't generate loads of data during my PhD. I really loved the academic environment working in a university on science. And so, um, I wanted to carry on doing that further in my career. So as I was writing up my PhD, I presented my work at a conference. When I was there, a young academic approached me who was setting up a lab at Yale university and they asked me if I'd be interested in joining them as a postdoc to set up the lab. And it was a project that was kind of similar to my PhD work. Um, but working in human cells this time and it sounded really interesting and it was at Yale. So off I went and I moved to the states to help them set up the lab. Um, but unfortunately there was an awful lot of pressure once I got there. So, uh, getting tenure at a good American university at any American university is really, really difficult. And there's an awful lot of pressure on the academics who are starting out there. And it was really, really important to the, to my PI. At the time I generate a lot of really good data, very fast. Um, As I've discussed, perhaps some of my technical skills, my organizational skills weren't quite, um, what they could have been. And, um, so I think there was a mismatch in expectations between what was, you know, what the PI was expecting and what I was capable of at that time. So I was working very hard, but making mistakes, not really getting any good data. And, uh, it was a very stressful time. It wasn't. Wasn't really good for either of us. So at the end of, uh, almost a year, we decided to part ways. And I think what I learnt from that was that it's important to identify problems early on so that you can work on them and also to really make sure what the expectations are, um, in your job of what you're going to need to do. So after the end of my first post-doc, uh, with the help of the postdoc development person at Yale, I was able to transition immediately into another project in a different lab. And that was really a stroke of luck that they happened to have some money available and it worked out brilliantly. I was very fortunate and that was a project in the lab of a more established. Professor working on the same parasites as I had before. And that's a beautiful community of people and it was lovely to rejoin that. And I was there for five years and I got some dates there. I was able to work a bit more effectively in the. In the slightly lower pressure environment. Um, but nevertheless, I did find it quite stressful and just the constant failures every day of working in the lab were getting to me. And also to be honest, um, the, my publication record wasn't. Really good enough to get a research focused academic role. So I don't think that was really on the table for me, even if I'd wanted it. And so I started talking to my PI about what else am I like to do? And I was thinking about, um, the liberal arts colleges in the states where there are lots of academics who concentrate on teaching in the same way I do now in my current role. And also I was doing some outreach, um, around. And you Haven where Yale is, uh, helping middle schoolers, high schoolers learn about science. And I was really enjoying that. So I started to think how I could develop my teaching skills to further explore that. And so I did some demonstrating on a Saturday morning at the local community college, uh, helping teach people who wanted to get into nursing, et cetera about microbiology. And that was really fun. And then I took a course, um, with other post-docs and PhD students about. Developing my teaching. And through that, I ended up leading a weekly seminar as part of the big Yale introductory biology course. And I really loved all of that. And so that really helped cement the fact that I should be doing a teaching focused role, uh, at university level going. So once I decided I wanted to go down the teaching route, I applied for a number of jobs in the U S and the UK. And I ended up here at Sheffield and I'm really glad I love my job here. So I worked with the undergraduate students, especially the first year. In my job. Uh, for example, I coordinate the first year practical module. So I'm down in the practical lab with the students two days a week and they do lecturing. And I do a lot of kind of organizing work for the department teaching, like organizing the tutorial program, things like that and supporting my other academic colleagues in that. And I left my job because first of all, I spend a lot of time with the students, so they get to know me and they can talk to me about their problems and their successes as well. And that's really rewarding. You know that they trust me in that way. That's really great. Um, I love the fact that I'm able to move things forward in the department and help the other academics to have things run more smoothly so they can concentrate on the really important bits of their teaching. And I think that teaching focused academics have a bit more time. I spend the creative energies on doing some more innovative things with their teaching. And that's kind of part of our mission as well, I suppose. So for instance, for one of my teaching sessions, I designed my own card game for the first years to play, uh, to help them learn about protein purification. So we have a bit of creative energy to do stuff like that and move things forward in that way in our departments. And then the university. So I've had some tough times along the way, but now I've ended up in a job that I really love and I think I'm good at it. And it seems to be going well. And so what I would say to someone starting out, it would be, um, first of all, to think really realistically and honestly about what you enjoy about. Current job, your PhD, whatever it might be and what you're good at within that, and what skills you might want to draw on and develop. And you know, what really brings you joy from your work. And then you can go on and there are so many opportunities in universities to do extra stuff. Often, it's a case of asking for forgiveness, not permission, just going ahead and trying some stuff out and you can take that forward. And so even if you're having a tough time, there's bound to be something that you can learn from that and bring it forward to a place where you're really doing your best work and enjoying it.