Tammy Collins, PhD, is transitioning after 10 years in her role as Director of the NIEHS Office of Fellows Career Development (OFCD). Collins will soon begin her new role as Program Officer at Burroughs Welcome FundMuch like her work at NIEHS, she will support biomedical researchers in their quest to improve human health.
Environmental Factor recently spoke with Collins to find out more about her proudest accomplishments, her thoughts on the value of mentorship, her fondest memories, and more.
environmental factor: Tell us how your journey at NIEHS began.
Tammy Collins: After graduating from Appalachian State with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, I attended graduate school at Duke University. I learned about NIEHS when I attended the annual NIEHS Biomedical Functions Symposium, after which I worked with Bill Copeland, PhD, on the Mitochondrial DNA Transcription Group.
I had the mindset that once I got to NIEHS, I was going to participate as well as do research, so Join the Postdoctoral Society(https://factor.niehs.nih.gov/2010/september/inside-fellows.cfm#:~:text=Tammy%20Collins%2C%20Ph,community%20among%20trainees.2%) He became president of the NIEHS Trainees Association [NTA]. At the same time, the former OFCD director left, and I managed to fill in some of the gaps by developing and teaching new workshops. I did this to ensure the trainees continued to be supported, and I really enjoyed the role. This is what ultimately led me to decide to apply for the job.
OFCD has changed a lot since then because I was a single office when I first started. I have been fortunate that the institute supports her so much and has allowed her to grow. We now have a team of four and that has really affected what we accomplish and the services we can provide.
EFThe objective of OFCD is to support trainees and help them acquire core competencies in five core areas: career readiness, communication, leadership and management, education and mentoring, and wellness. You and your team have created many other exercises and experiences in each of these areas and more. Which ones have special meaning to you?
TC: There are a lot of things that stand out but perhaps among the two I’d like to highlight are the Research Mentors Course and our Career Outcomes Tracking Ranking and Dashboard.
Mentoring is critical to the trainee experience, and we recommend a whole person approach. We train our colleagues on what it means to be a good mentor and ensure that mentoring extends beyond supervision or advice. It involves supporting someone as a whole – both professionally and personally – and maintaining this relationship throughout their life. Mentoring does not apply only to the research environment, so training fellows on how to become good mentors will have effects that extend into whatever career path they choose.
Secondly, our team which included ex-trainee Richard GilliamAnd the Creation and publication of a new classification of occupational outcomes – a highly detailed analysis and visual representation of NIEHS postdoctoral professional outcomes over the past two decades.
accompany it Nature Biotechnology publication is the NIEHS Alumni Career Outcomes dashboard, which has been tracking more than 1,100 NIEHS alumni since 2000. The site’s dashboard allows visitors to visualize statistics such as where interns end up in the world and the types of jobs they have settled in.
This post has helped dispel myths about what it means to be a postdoctoral researcher in government. For example, there’s the idea that if you complete a postdoc in government, you can’t get an academic job, but what we’ve been able to show is that we have a large percentage of alumni who go into academia and we also have alumni doing a lot of other things as well. .
I was surprised by the breadth of access to the article; It was an influential paper, and it changed the attitudes of many.
It is customary at NIEHS to send interns with a picture of the NIEHS lake and campus, so the scholars, interns and staff all signed a picture card to send Collins with good wishes for her future. (Image credits to Steve McCaw / NIEHS)EF: As you reflect on your time at the institute, what memories stand out the most?
TC: I really cherish the relationships I have built with my colleagues and interns over the years. My OFCD teams – Hong Xu, Katy Hamilton and Edith Lee – have been fantastic to work with and have been a pleasure to collaborate with them to support the NIEHS trainees. It will be hard to find another team that pulls together like we have. Nor would we have done our work without the support of my supervisor, Paul Deutsch, PhD, Deputy Scientific Director, and NIEHS Scientific Director Daryl Zelden, MD
Some of my favorite memories are those one-on-one conversations when alumni tell you how they landed a new position and how much they love what they do. Just seeing that you make a difference and can actually help people figure out what they want to do with their lives, which is why I loved working at NIEHS.
When I started cleaning my desk, I came across all the thank you cards I’ve received over the years. I was reading back through some of these, and they brought tears to my eyes. These are the things that are most important to me.
the quote: Xu H, Gilliam R, Peddada S, Buchold GM, Collins TRL. 2018. Detailed visualization of postdoctoral employment trends using the new occupational outcomes classification. Nat Biotechnol 36, 197-202.
(Jennifer Harker, Ph.D., is a writer and technical editor in the Office of Communications and Public Communications of the National Foundation for Occupational Health and Safety.)
Watch the slideshow below for many of Collins’ favorite memories from her time at NIEHS.
from San Jose News Bulletin https://sjnewsbulletin.com/environmental-factor-september-2022-farewell-fellows-collins-reflects-on-a-decade-of-support-for-interns/
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