Director of External Scientific Affairs Facilitates Research

Name: Valerie Estela-Pro (she/her)

PhD: Neuroscience, Brown University, 2020

What is your current job?

I am the Director of External Scientific Affairs for the National Disease Research Interchange (NDRI) based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

NDRI is a scientific not-for-profit that works to provide crucial research materials to investigators studying human disease. I manage all of our NIH-funded grants, as well as our partnerships with foundations, other institutions, and our corporate partnerships. My job includes writing grants and reports for the NIH, managing projects related to those grants including our own granting mechanism, writing contracts, and designing and conducting related outreach.

What is your favorite thing about your job?

I love that I am in a position that supports science and scientists, and that I can use a lot of the knowledge and experience I gained throughout grad school and my postdoc to facilitate research more broadly.

What is the most important skill you developed or experience you had during your PhD that now helps you in your current position?

I think I really learned how to problem solve effectively in graduate school. In a PhD, your project is really your responsibility to design, run, adjust, etc. with feedback from your mentors and committee. It was the first time my ideas were the driving force behind what was happening, and it gave me the space to learn how to work through things effectively, how to persist through adversity and setbacks, and how to turn failures into learning experiences.

How did you build the skills necessary for your current role?

I have learned a great deal from my bosses and colleagues since starting my current job. Watching how they do their work, the resources and techniques they use, and how they manage projects and people has helped me develop my own methods.

How did you find this position? What were the career steps you took to get to where you are now?

I used informational interviews to narrow down the areas I was interested in, then I started reaching out to people on LinkedIn, then a recruiter found me on LinkedIn!

Undergrad in biology ➡️ Scientist in industry at a CRO ➡️ PhD ➡️ postdoctoral fellow ➡️ External Scientific Affairs Manager ➡️ Director, External Scientific Affairs

If someone is interested in a similar role, what would you recommend they start doing now to prepare?

Working on science writing and scientific communication to a broad range of audiences is probably one of the most important skills needed for my job.

Why did you decide to not pursue a career in academia?

I decided to stop pursuing a career in academia during my postdoc. It was a very difficult decision as I had been working toward that specific goal for years, but it no longer felt fulfilling. The academic landscape felt like an uphill battle that couldn't be won, with the constant need for more grants, more publications, and more awards. The never-ending grind just stopped appealing to me.

What advice do you have for someone getting their PhD and looking to pursue a career outside of academia?

Talk to everyone you can in different industries and positions. Figure out what drives you, and try to find a position that relies on that. For me, it's science communication.

And for those interested, what was your main area of research?

In my PhD, I studied how the brain represents spatial memories at both the single-cell and network level. In my post-doc, I studied how chronic stress affects learning, memory, and fear responses.