Emily Rubinson was one of the first two graduates to earn a Ph.D. in Chemical & Physical Biology from Vanderbilt. (photo by Joe Howell)
Graduation 2011: Ph.D.s set out on new paths of discovery, problem solving
Bright umbrellas and merry laughter greeted the dripping rain at last week's Graduate School commencement ceremony. Emily Rubinson, Ph.D., flashed a broad smile as she processed into the tent on Library Lawn.
“It feels great to be done, great to get a Ph.D.,” she said.
Rubinson and Steffen Lindert, Ph.D., are the first two graduates to earn a Ph.D. in Chemical & Physical Biology from Vanderbilt University. The multidisciplinary Chemical & Physical Biology (CPB) program became a degree-granting program in 2007.
Vanderbilt awarded 93 Ph.D. degrees to an accomplished group of students in Medical Center-related departments and programs, said Kim Petrie, Ph.D., director of Career Development in the Office of Biomedical Research Education and Training at Vanderbilt.
Every student published at least one first-author paper, and 56 percent of the Ph.D. graduates published two or more first-author papers.
“During their training, our students have published in premier journals including Nature, Science, PNAS and others,” Petrie said.
About half of the students made presentations at national or international meetings, and 30 percent of them had independent fellowship funding.
Most of the newly minted Ph.D. graduates — 80 percent — are continuing their training with postdoctoral fellowships, Petrie said. These include traditional positions in academic research laboratories as well as non-traditional industry, government and clinical fellowships.
Maria Alfaro, Ph.D., who earned her degree in Pathology, opted to pursue a Clinical Genetics Fellowship at Vanderbilt. Upon completion of the two-year program focused on the clinical tests that are used to diagnose inherited and acquired genetic diseases, she will be eligible to become board-certified in Genetics and manage a Clinical Genetics laboratory.
Alfaro saw this route as the “perfect marriage” between her molecular biology knowledge and her desire to have a tangible impact on patient treatment.
Joshua Buckholtz, center, who earned his degree in Neuroscience, received the Graduate School’s first Founder’s Medal from Dennis Hall, Ph.D., vice provost for Research and dean of the Graduate School, left, and Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos. (photo by Joe Howell)
Joshua Buckholtz, Ph.D., who earned his degree in Neuroscience, will join the faculty of Harvard University as an assistant professor of Psychology this fall.
Buckholtz was awarded a Founder's Medal — the first time such an award has been presented to a student from the Graduate School.
The award recognizes individual scholarly accomplishment and will be awarded on a rotating basis to a Ph.D. graduate in one of four broad subject areas. The subject area for the 2011 Founder's Medal is Biological and Biomedical Science.
For his graduate studies, Buckholtz focused on mechanisms of substance abuse, addiction and psychopathic behavior.
His research findings were featured by National Public Radio and other popular media outlets.
Most of the biomedical science Ph.D. graduates began their studies in either the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program (IGP) or the CPB Program at the Medical Center.
Both graduate programs organize the training — intensive coursework and laboratory rotations — of students during their first year at Vanderbilt. At the end of the first year, students choose mentors and home departments or programs where they complete their coursework and doctoral dissertation research.
Vanderbilt's biomedical graduate programs were particularly appealing to Rubinson, who said she had general career goals, but no specific research interests when she applied to graduate schools.
“The CPB program seemed like the greatest graduate program ever — a sort of 'design your own' graduate program,” she said, explaining that it allowed her to select courses that were directly related to the research she chose to pursue.
Rubinson is continuing her research as a postdoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt while she looks for her next position, either as a postdoc or as an industry research scientist.
She feels confident about her training.
“I know how to be a scientist. I know how to find resources. I know how to approach problems,” she said. “I learned all of that during graduate school.”