Data Science is a very rapidly growing field in industry, as companies scramble to get people in place who can pull useful intelligence out of (sometimes) massive amounts of data. Who are the people with the right skills for this job? Physicists, of course! I get that answer from DJ Patil via an Insight Data Science white paper. The paper quotes the former Chief Scientist at LinkedIn as saying, “the best data scientists tend to be ‘hard scientists,’ particularly physicists, rather than computer science majors. Physicists have a strong mathematical background, computing skills, and come from a discipline in
which survival depends on getting the most from the data. They have to think about the big picture, the big problem.”
The paper goes on to show a study from the McKinsey Global Institute that reports that the “United States alone faces a shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 people [50 to 60% of supply by 2018] with deep analytical skills” to analyze big data.
So if you are finishing up your physics PhD and considering your options, you may very well be thinking about Data Science. If you are, you might want to check out these blog posts from physics and astronomy PhDs who have made, or are making the transition.
Here are two brief "how-to" guides:
http://insightdatascience.com/blog/from-phd-to-data-scientist.html
http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2013/01/datascience.html
These two give more personal reflections on the decision:
http://marcelhaas.com/extronomer.html
http://www.craigmbooth.com/farewell-to-astronomy/
This is all on my mind because yesterday (Friday, 4/25/2014) in our alumni seminar series we heard from Guillermo Breto Rangel, now a data scientist, who left Davis with his PhD in experimental heavy ion physics less than a year ago. Things move fast in this area and he's already moving to a second employer. In two weeks he is heading off to Princeton to start up a research group at Bloomberg LP. It was also just yesterday I discovered a colleague of mine, Sudeep Das, who did great work analyzing and interpreting cosmic microwave background data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, is now a data scientist at Open Table.
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Non-academic Careers and the Invention of Slow-roll Inflation
My friend and colleague Andreas Albrecht used his Facebook page to spread the word about this blog. He included these important remarks at the end:
"Many physics students undertake their studies with dreams of following an academic path. You should not take our efforts to communicate the alternatives as an intent to discourage you. Knowing there are alternatives can in fact be very liberating. That has certainly been the case in my own career. When I was in grad school there were very few faculty opportunities on the horizon. Knowing that there were many options out there allowed me to take risks and choose a research direction that matched my passions with out worrying too much about practicalities."
Feeling at liberty to take risks allowed Andy to pursue work that turned out pretty well, to say the least. Together with his advisor, Paul Steinhardt, they invented slow-roll inflation, a discovery also made independently by Andrei Linde. This was highly speculative work at the time. As the data have improved over the past 30+ years it seems to be what nature has chosen to do, which is quite amazing. As many readers undoubtedly know, Andy went on from this graduate work to a highly successful academic career.
If you want to pursue an academic career there is indeed bad news. Your odds of obtaining a tenure-track position at a PhD-granting institution are about 30%. According to the AIP from 2010-2012 an average of 566 PhDs were granted each year while in 2007-08 only 160 people transitioned into tenure or tenure-track jobs at PhD-granting institutions, also according to the AIP.
But the good news is that physicists go on to do a variety of interesting things that they find very satisfying, and they generally regard their education as extraordinarily valuable. As Andy also wrote in his Facebook post, "The creative technical problem solving that we enjoy teaching and applying to the great puzzles of physics is highly valued in diverse careers."
"Many physics students undertake their studies with dreams of following an academic path. You should not take our efforts to communicate the alternatives as an intent to discourage you. Knowing there are alternatives can in fact be very liberating. That has certainly been the case in my own career. When I was in grad school there were very few faculty opportunities on the horizon. Knowing that there were many options out there allowed me to take risks and choose a research direction that matched my passions with out worrying too much about practicalities."
Feeling at liberty to take risks allowed Andy to pursue work that turned out pretty well, to say the least. Together with his advisor, Paul Steinhardt, they invented slow-roll inflation, a discovery also made independently by Andrei Linde. This was highly speculative work at the time. As the data have improved over the past 30+ years it seems to be what nature has chosen to do, which is quite amazing. As many readers undoubtedly know, Andy went on from this graduate work to a highly successful academic career.
If you want to pursue an academic career there is indeed bad news. Your odds of obtaining a tenure-track position at a PhD-granting institution are about 30%. According to the AIP from 2010-2012 an average of 566 PhDs were granted each year while in 2007-08 only 160 people transitioned into tenure or tenure-track jobs at PhD-granting institutions, also according to the AIP.
But the good news is that physicists go on to do a variety of interesting things that they find very satisfying, and they generally regard their education as extraordinarily valuable. As Andy also wrote in his Facebook post, "The creative technical problem solving that we enjoy teaching and applying to the great puzzles of physics is highly valued in diverse careers."
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Greg Spooner: A Medical Device Physicist
Greg Spooner is a physicist and engineer with a B.S. in applied physics ('85) from UC Davis
and a PhD in physics ('92), also from UC Davis. Greg works in the fields of medical devices,
medical laser applications, optical engineering and intellectual property. He has worked
for laser companies Coherent, IntraLase and Cutera, and has served on the Board of
Directors of the American Society for Lasers in Medicine and Surgery. Greg has been
operating as an independent consultant to the medical device industry for five years, and
is presently developing a new medical device startup company.
In Brief
During our 45-minute Skype interview we discussed major milestones and decision points in his education and career. Greg was very open about initial concerns about employment when he decided to major in physics, the discomforts in the transition from course work to research, and the importance of beer in his job search. Some of the useful things Greg got out of graduate school in physics: 1) A scrappy resourcefulness, 2) an ability to do back of the envelope estimates, and 3) a confidence in his ability to learn what needs to be learned.
Things Greg had to learn on the job: Tons! He knew about quantum mechanics and atomic
physics but just because he had been hired by a laser company did not mean he actually
knew anything about lasers! Greg discovered working was not just applying what he’d
learned in school, just “turning the crank.” Instead, work was always going to involve more
learning. He also had to learn on the job how to work as part of a group and how to lead a
group.
Greg paints a picture of a difficult job market for the physicist with only a bachelor’s degree. I have to say here if your plan is to enter the job market after a bachelor’s degree, you can do really well. There are also some things you should know that will help you to do well. This is a subject to which we’ll return, both with interviews of people who did launch successful careers without any physics education beyond the bachelor’s degree, and with discussion based on employment data collected by the American Institute of Physics.
Greg paints a picture of a difficult job market for the physicist with only a bachelor’s degree. I have to say here if your plan is to enter the job market after a bachelor’s degree, you can do really well. There are also some things you should know that will help you to do well. This is a subject to which we’ll return, both with interviews of people who did launch successful careers without any physics education beyond the bachelor’s degree, and with discussion based on employment data collected by the American Institute of Physics.
The Interview
Q: How big of a concern was the struggle
to find a job?
I wouldn’t say it was back burner, but I also wouldn’t say that it was the primary thing. I really wanted to study what I was interested in, but I was pretty poor and so I knew that I would need to find a job. What I decided was: I’ll do both. I studied Engineering all the way through my undergraduate degree and I ended up with a degree in Applied Physics with specialties in Engineering. I kind of convinced myself through those undergraduate years that I could become some kind of engineer if I can’t make Physics work for a living. Then, it was in graduate school where I decided to become a physicist and not worry so much about the engineering and the job prospects. It will work itself out somehow.
Q: How
did you decide to go to graduate school?
In
candor, it was a little bit like the decision to major in Physics. At my
commencement junior year, I said I wasn’t going to be able to do that much with
a Physics undergraduate degree. While I wanted to study Physics and was
interested in learning more, I felt like I couldn’t get a job. I went through
the process in that senior year of trying to get a job, doing the usual things
seniors do, interviewing and cold-calling people, networking, without really
any luck. It was partly a decision that was practical in nature and partly one where
I decided that I really did want to study this stuff. Those two things came
together gradually.
I wish I
could tell a different story, and say I was driven from the very beginning, but
it was really more of an evolutionary decision that I think that a lot of
students find themselves in.
Q: Did
you have any anxieties about starting graduate school at UC Davis? That period
can be a fragile time. How was your experience?
It was
definitely fragile, and maybe brutal at the same time, because it’s such a tough
initial year or two. I did my first year of graduate school in Livermore at the
lab. That decision was partly made because they actually offered a fair amount
of support, but also because I thought that this could be a tremendous place to
play around in the lab, an enormous playground of science and engineering. I
went through the usual year there, struggling through the first year of the
Physics program as everyone does, but also going through a bit of a crisis with
my decision. I did not fit in with the culture. I felt like I was doubly damned
in the sense that I was struggling with all of the heavy course work and having
made the wrong decision. I spent that year also planning my escape, and the
easiest thing to do, for me, was to escape back to the Davis Physics department.
If I had to do it all over again, I would have gone somewhere else because I
think it’s important for people to have a variety of experiences in their
training. Definitely, that first year was fragile and brutal and fraught.
Q: Who
became your adviser at UC Davis proper, and how did you connect with a research
adviser?
When I landed back at Davis
proper, it was such a relief. I spent a month just breathing again. It was
great to come back. Of course, I ended up having to retake a lot of the classes
because there wasn’t complete congruence between the curricula. It was a little
bit like I was a first year student again, and I knew I wanted to study
solid-state physics and its order and disorder topics. I was left with a really
good impression with the professor who became my adviser, Larry Coleman. I took
an undergraduate class in solid-state physics from him, and I felt like our
interests were really closely aligned. I gravitated toward Larry in that first
year.
Q: How was the transition for you from coursework to research?
That transition was a bit
difficult to navigate because I felt a strong allegiance to coursework, and I
was prioritizing that first, even as I was finishing my major courses. I felt
like I had to do a good job; I was trained to be a studier. It was hard to let
go of that, and I ended up putting off my research obligations and my research
experience more than I should have. I remember at the time not feeling very
good about it, like I really needed to be grabbing hold of this research stuff,
but I have to do well in this course because it’s going to be on the
comprehensive exam. I definitely struggled to let go of the coursework and
embrace the research. I think my adviser was a little frustrated with me, too,
because I kept not being around as much as I said I was going to be until my
coursework was done.
The “I
suck at this” was kind of a dominant feeling at first, but as I matured I
started feeling that less, and I stopped thinking about it. I just had so much
to do, and I really wanted to get it done. I stopped worrying whether I sucked
or not. But, at the beginning, there was definitely a feeling of “I don’t
really know what I should be doing here.” I struggled with the formlessness of becoming
a researcher and deciding what activities I should be engaging in. I remember
spending a lot of time in the physical sciences library, where I was plowing
through the stacks and reading papers and feeling like I should be down in the
lab designing the next generation spectrometer. When I would go down there and
try to figure out what I should design, I’d want to be reading about it in the
library. I felt constantly torn between the activities I was doing and what I
thought I should be doing. Again, that faded over time. You come to live with
that discomfort and ambiguity about the right thing, and it doesn’t stop you
from figuring it out. It’s okay to be uncomfortable with it.
Q: How
did you get your first job?
It was
beer that got me my first job. I did all the things you’re supposed to do to
get a job outside of academia – resumes, tons of formal interviews, informal
interviews, informational interviews, networking – and it was really going nowhere.
My girlfriend at the time said, “Well, I know this guy, who’s connected to an
interesting company, and we’re going to have a beer after your interview today.
Why don’t you join in, and see if you can make a connection with him?” I said,
“Nobody ever gets a job that way. That’s stupid. But, I’ll have a beer with
your friend.” This guy happened to be good friends with someone who was running
a division of a medical laser company and who happened to be looking for some talent.
He connected us up, and that was the beginning of my modern career. If I hadn’t
been trying to get a job, I probably wouldn’t have stumbled into the
serendipitous situation. You have to be ready to do something good and to prove
that you’re an able worker and researcher.
Q: How has working been different and similar from school? How have the skills you acquired in school supported what you have done professionally?
As a
researcher with no budget, operating on a shoestring in an experimental
setting, I had to get good at finding resources and people and materials. That
kind of resourcefulness has really served me well. I remember my actual samples
were manufactured by somebody at Xerox Park, who I’d basically talked into
letting me use his molecular beam epitaxy machine. That kind of poking around to
get what I need is something I use all the time now. Just this week, I went to
one of the Hackerspace places and was trying to talk the guy into letting me
ship eyeballs to his facility. Also, as an experimentalist, I learned to do a
lot of estimation and back-of-the-envelope physics calculations. What’s
important, what’s not important, how to quickly arrive at some estimate; that
kind of rule-of-thumb-ness that I learned as an experimentalist I use every day.
Yesterday I was helping a client to determine the right set of laser parameters
to heat a particular kind of tissue. That kind of experimentalist sense has
really served me well.
Q: What did you not learn in school that you had to learn on the job?
When I
first started studying laser engineering, laser science, and clinical use of
lasers, I didn’t actually know laser science. I felt a little bit like I was
going back to school again and relearning the specific discipline. It didn’t
daunt me because I knew how to learn things, but it was a bit of a surprise to
me that I found myself in a situation where I’m studying so soon after grad
school. I didn’t have the meta knowledge at the time to realize that this is
the way it is always going to be. I’m always going to be learning the area that
I’m presently working in.
Q: What resources did you find valuable as you began to work in a team environment?
I did
have a couple of supervisors that led by example. It was pretty informal. I
would say I had some good examples and some bad examples. I don’t think anybody
ever said “I’m your mentor and you’re my protégé,” but they allowed me to watch
because I had an interest in learning and they had an interest in developing it
in me. Engaging with people that you admire, that’s probably the best way to
learn that stuff.
Q: Did
you ever ask the bosses if you could observe, or was it less clear than that?
It was
more ambiguous than that. I would express an interest, or pose a problem. Maybe I would get
some specific advice, or a couple of supervisors would tell stories about how
they did things, or they would invite me to something. They’d say, “Why don’t
you come to this meeting I’m running, and you can see what’s happening there.”
There was nothing so explicit as “Teach me how to be a team leader.”
Q: How
much satisfaction have you drawn from your career? What meaning and value have
you derived from your work?
There
have been a couple of peak experiences that made me feel like I was doing
something that had broader meaning. At one point, I was working on a retinal
project and we ended up restoring sight to a couple of individuals somewhat
unexpectedly. It was just a moment really, but it had a lasting impact on me
when I think about all of the other projects I’ve worked on, and how they had
effects on people I don’t even know. That is definitely something I think about
regularly and it makes me feel that my work has some larger connection to the
world. It isn’t just an intellectual exercise I’m engaged in; I’m sometimes
helping people. A lot of times I’m just earning money or solving some boring
regulatory problem, but those peak moments remind me that a significant amount
of what I’m doing is helping people in some way. I definitely value that.
Sometimes
I’m working in a group of people who haven’t had that experience. Because I
have had a few moments like that, I can say things or help people see the
broader path to where we’re going. Sometimes I’ve been able to provide a
perspective to others. On the negative side, I worked for years in laser
dermatology, these aesthetic procedures, and I decided after some years that it
was not really helping anybody, so I chose not to work on it anymore. Those earlier moments let me see that more clearly than if I had never
had them.
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