Off the Beaten Path

By Jef Akst Off the Beaten Path Bench work isn’t for everyone. Find out about alternative careers available to biologists and how to transition out of research. Carrie O’neill © ImageZoo/Corbis Lisa Haile always liked biology. So she majored in the subject in college and then headed off to Georgetown University to earn her PhD in cell and molecular biology. While knee-deep in her research on cancer, however, her enthusiasm started to wan

Written byJef Akst

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Lisa Haile always liked biology. So she majored in the subject in college and then headed off to Georgetown University to earn her PhD in cell and molecular biology. While knee-deep in her research on cancer, however, her enthusiasm started to wane. The science was still very exciting and interesting to her, but there were other aspects that she didn’t enjoy.

“I was starting to wonder if I actually wanted to be a bench scientist for the rest of my life,” she recalls. She didn’t like the tediousness of the work, having to repeat experiments multiple times and seeing meaningful results only every 6 months. “But I had made such a commitment at that point. I decided I needed to keep going.”

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Meet the Author

Jef Akst
Jef (an unusual nickname for Jennifer) got her master’s degree from Indiana University in April 2009 studying the mating behavior of seahorses. After four years of diving off the Gulf Coast of Tampa and performing behavioral experiments at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, she left research to pursue a career in science writing. As The Scientist's managing editor, Jef edited features and oversaw the production of the TS Digest and quarterly print magazine. In 2022, her feature on uterus transplantation earned first place in the trade category of the Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers.
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