Designing A ‘Both/And’ Career: Moving in and Out of An Academic Car eer

Date: 

Tuesday, March 30, 2021 – 11:00am to 12:00pm

Loc ation: 

Zoom

Gone are the days when earning a Ph.D always, an d solely, led directly to a career in academia. With the deluge of inform ation being retained by modern organizations, many are in dire need of Ec onometric assistance—whether they realize it, or not! PhD careers outside of Academia can be tremendously rewarding, albeit they also come with th eir own set of challenges. While the day-to-day work in academia (outside of teaching) is not too dissimilar from collaborating on research with col leagues, the recruiting, interviewing, and negotiations gates in Indust ry are categorically different from those in Academia.

Richard Saouma , Ph.D., will share his own journey in and out of academia, and show ho w a focus on skills development and meaningful work helps reframe what it means to have a “successful” Ph.D. Career.

Richard Saouma is currentl y the Associate Dean of Professional Master Programs at Broad where he con tinues to serve as an Associate Professor in the College’s Accounting depa rtment. Before arriving at MSU, Richard was an Assistant Professor at the UCLA Anderson School, the Director of Corporate Strategy at Microsoft, and later served as a Visiting Professor at the Eccles School at the Unive rsity of Utah. 

In his talk, Richard will discuss the two-year journ ey between the day he decided to leave academia and the first day on the j ob at industry, highlighting a series of common blind-spots that prolonge d said journey. He’s also happy to discuss Economist/Social-Scientist role s in the tech-sector and how different firms and government agencies eithe r discourage or promote academic research.

Richard earned his PhD at the Stanford GSB (Economics), after completing his undergraduate degrees in Economics and Applied Math at UC Berkeley and an internship at the Fede ral Reserve Board of Governors in Washington DC.

Category: 

Profes sional Development