Policy Analyst for Canada's 1st National School Food Program

Name: Nuala Bobowski (she/her)

PhD: Food Science, University of Minnesota, 2013

What was your main area of research?

I studied the associations between taste perception, preferences, and dietary intake among children.

What is your current job?

I am a Policy Analyst for Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) for the Government of Canada based in Vancouver, Canada.

I'm part of the Data & Research Team supporting Canada's first National School Food Program.

Policy work can change from day to day, but broadly speaking, I'm serving as a collaborator on a national grant proposal to examine early impacts of Program implementation. I'm contributing to population-level surveys focused on school food, and I'm helping to manage and interpret data related to the Program as it's collected.

What is your favorite thing about your job?

It is the perfect combination of everything I loved about academia and the private sector: I get to read and write a lot to become a topic expert and then I get to apply that knowledge in a way that has a meaningful impact on Canadians.

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

Developing my analytical thinking skills and the ability to put multiple and disparate pieces of information together to tell a cohesive story.

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

I've found that policy analyst skills are naturally developed as a result of the experience of taking on a research project (or several research projects) and writing a dissertation.

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

I knew I wanted to transition to policy, but it is notoriously difficult to land a role in Canada's federal government. I ended up entering through a policy analyst development program. I was way overqualified, but I knew it was a foot in the door, and that once I was in it would be relatively easy to make connections and move to the position I wanted.

This is exactly what happened. Networking is so important!

PhD graduate ➡️ postdoctoral fellow ➡️ assistant professor ➡️ associate manager/scientist in the private sector ➡️ policy analyst

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

Connect with people doing the job. Find them on LinkedIn and ask to set up brief calls to meet and learn more about what they do.

Then apply for everything for which you're qualified just to get your foot in the door. It may not be your dream position to start, but the most challenging part is getting in. You'll have so many opportunities come your way after that through networking and word of mouth.

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

I found myself less interested in the 'how' and 'why' questions, and more interested in the 'so what' and how I could be using my expertise in an applied nature. It was not an easy decision at all (we're programmed to believe academia is the only option), but once my decision was made, I immediately knew it was the right one and only wished I had made it sooner.

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

Think about your skillset in terms of transferability. You may be an expert on 18th century Rome, but it took a lot of in-depth reading, writing, analysis, and communications experience to get there. By understanding how your skills might apply outside your area of expertise, you'll find you have more options than you may have thought.