52- Prof. Jim Thomas- Focusing the mind

Prof. Jim Thomas was inspired by his father to become a scientist but, after not achieving the best degree in Chemistry at Reading, he opted to teach in the UK before going to Western Kenya with Voluntary Services Overseas, where he taught in a rural high school for several years. 

This lent him a great deal of perspective and led him to revisit his childhood ambition of becoming a research scientist, commencing a PhD as a mature student. While his late entry into an academic career would normally mean that path was closed, he continued to pursue it, despite being offered a job in industry with a top company. 

He achieved a high profile Postdoc position with a Nobel prize winner in France but soon returned to the UK, to Sheffield, where he began to apply for fellowships. 

He was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship but also chose to take on a relatively large teaching timetable to show his commitment to the department and also to get to know students with whom he might potentially collaborate in the future. 

He has also engaged in science communication work, which has honed his skills in terms of writing proposals and technical papers and generally being able to write in a more interesting way.

More about Jim:
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/chemistry/people/academic/jim-thomas

Access career timeline:
https://academicstories.group.shef.ac.uk/jim-thomas/

Transcript

Jim Thomas: 1:16

So my name is Jim Thomas. I'm a professor in bio inorganic chemistry. And one of the reasons I became a scientist, uh, when I was a kid, I had three ambitions. Uh, the first was to be, uh, a member of the Beatles because I was born in the 1960. And that was already taken. So it was going to happen. My second ambition was to be an astronaut and enclose. Unfortunately at that period, the trips to the moon were being closed down. So my third choice was to be a scientist, I guess, from inspired by my dad. He used to do a lot of talking about science and things like. I did chemistry at the university of Redding. Um, to be honest, uh, I had a better social education than, uh, academic education. Um, and I left the, uh, university of not the best degree. But I wasn't too worried because, um, I wanted to do teachers training cause I was very keen to do voluntary services overseas and VSO required you to be, you know, qualified teacher with some experience. So I went on tour for a couple of years in the UK and then applied to VSL and went off to Western Kenya, close to the Uganda. So being, uh, in a community school in rural Africa, focuses your mind. Uh, people have, uh, literally no shoes, there's no water, no electricity. So it really focuses your mind on the opportunities that you have available to you in, in Western world. And I realized, you know, in that, with that perspective, that I'd really liked to go back to my original childhood ambition to become a research. So. So when I came back from Kenya, I went into the one year course called the graduate of the all site, your chemistry, um, which, you know, if you do well on it is equivalent to get in the first. So that allowed me to be, uh, get funding for a PhD then. Um, and I started a PhD in, in Birmingham. Um, and that was slightly intimidating because, um, obviously you've been away for seven years or so from, from any sort of, uh, academic pursuits. And there were a lot of students who were a lot younger than me, who, who had first given a university and things like this. So I was feeling, uh, was I cut up to it. But, um, after applying myself for a while, I realized that, you know, I was doing something I enjoyed and, um, I was learning specialist knowledge that took me up to the level areas required. So in the end, getting through that intimidating feeling, it was, it was removed. Well, one of the thing that was happening while I was doing my PhD was I really didn't know whether I was going to go into industry or academia. And a lot of people who were in academia were telling me that it was probably too late to catch that bus because in the UK, obviously most students, when they start the PhDs to 21 and I was actually 30, by the time I started. And so people thought it would be Enlightly. Um, I could, uh, pick up on that career, but, uh, being headstrong, I carried on, uh, you know, once I made the commitment, I thought, well, you've got to carry on on this way. What really made me make the decision was actually getting offered a job by the company, which is now known as the vanitas and, uh, you know, That offer concrete. In my hand, it made me realize that I really wanted to do academia, even though I didn't have an offer at the time. So it just increased my commitment towards trying to get an accurate. Given my situation, I just knew I had to be ambitious and I needed to apply for the best people in the area that I was interested in. Just people I thought I would enjoy working for areas that I was interested in. And then. Whether they were internationally famous or local or whatever, and just applied to them. So once you've got a rap letter written with introduction and ask him to work for people, you can send it off to as many people as you like, I guess, and which I did, even if you don't feel confident, you really do have to take it on the chin and apply for as many places you can. And you will, by the nature of things, get a lot of rejections. But that's the nature, you know, you just have to carry on, go in and hope for the best. And as long as you get the one positive outcome, that's all that matters. And, you know, I kept that kind of perspective on it while I was doing it. And, you know, I had a number of have replied and, uh, one of them, uh, who responded positively was, um, a recent Nobel prize winner at that time. in Strasburg. So I, uh, jumped at the opportunity to start looking at applying for a fellowship to work. After a year in Strasburg, my fellowship was coming to an end and John did offer me a contract for a year or two. But by that time I had a couple of papers accepted. So, you know, I accomplished what I wanted to from Strasburg, uh, for various personal reasons. I wanted to come back into the UK soon. Including my career. And so I started looking around for, for jobs in, in the UK. And I was lucky enough to be offered a job here in, in Sheffield. After a year of postdoc in, I started applying for long-term fellowships, where I could do my own work, and I was lucky enough to get, um, a prestigious, uh, Royal society, a university research fellowship. So these URS allow you, uh, five to 10 years to start a research career. Um, and obviously as the name implies, it's entirely dedicated to research, but I chose voluntary to, to quite a large timetable of ticket. The reason being that, first of all, uh, it, it's a bit of a recruitment exercise in the sense that the students get to know you as a person. They know what type of research you're doing from the courses that you deliver. And also, uh, on another scale you produce a lot of Goodwill amongst the department with your colleagues, because obviously it shows you a good citizen and you're prepared to, uh, get your feet wet and work. Around this time, I was also doing quite a lot of, uh, science communication work. So for instance, I had a British association fellowship where I worked, uh, on the news debts and new scientists for three or four months. I think it's a really useful thing to do because it hones your communication skills, not just generally for the public, it helps you when you're writing proposals and technical papers, because you know, it makes you write in a way that's interesting and those kinds of skills are always useful for, for any type of community. If I were looking back at my career, I think that there's two things that you, you have to have in spades. If you want to be academic is one thing you've got to be creative. And that means that, you know, when you get to the next step, perhaps applying for postdoc, you've got to show you a creative tip to. Perspective, uh, academics come up with ideas and pitch them towards them. And obviously if you do become a leading a lab, you really do have to come up with ideas then. So you might sort of start up early. The other thing is, I think, as a successful academic, you have to get used to rejection because if you look at, um, Um, sending papers in or putting in proposals, if you're going for the top journals and you're going through a search funding, success rates are like around 20%. If that, and if you can take that on the chin metaphorically, kick the cat and then metaphorically kick the gap and then go on with it, then that's fine. I think you'll succeed.