Ph.D. Connections Conference Career Panel: Government Organizations

Panelists from local and federal agencies will share their experiences as Ph.D. holders in government positions, details about the opportunities and challenges they face, and insights into what is necessary to launch a career in this arena.

Panelists

Julianne McCall, before her appointment by California Governor Gavin Newsom in 2019 to oversee the state’s precision medicine program, worked on public health and research policy in the California Senate Office of Research and as a science and technology policy fellow of the California Council on Science and Technology. Prior to her career in policy, she spent 16 years in neuroscience research labs, including the Salk Institute, Stanford University, the Cleveland Clinic, and the National Center for Microscopy Imaging Research. She conducted medical research as a Fulbright Fellow in Sweden and as a neuroscientist at the Neuroregeneration Laboratory of Heidelberg University in Germany.

In the community, McCall teaches graduate science policy courses at the University of California-Davis, the University of California-Riverside, and the Japan-US Science Policy Fellowship, serves on the editorial board of the California Journal of Politics and Policy, the board of directors of Future of Research, the board of the Sacramento Chapter of New Leaders Council, and as director of programs for the Journal of Science Policy and Governance, occasionally directs the International “Brain Bee” Neuroscience Olympiad for high school students, and is the co-founder of TEDxFulbright, the Sacramento Brain Bee, and a chapter of the Sustained Dialogue Campus Network for racial justice. She earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Heidelberg University in Germany, a master’s degree in biomedical sciences from the University of California-San Diego, and a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience from Denison University.

William Walsh grew up in Pinckney, Michigan, and earned a B.S.E. and M.S.E. in nuclear engineering and radiological sciences from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota. He spent three years as a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Economics at Pennsylvania State University where he specialized in international macroeconomics and game theory. William currently works for the Department of Energy as an economist in the Energy Information Administration and also served as a program manager in the Office of Nuclear Energy.

Dominick Wright holds a Ph.D. in political science (world politics) with advanced training in research methodologies (statistics, computer modeling, game theory, network analysis, and survey methods). Dominick is a senior analyst for wargaming, planning, and analysis at the U.S. Air Force (SAF/IEN) via Leidos.

Registration is required at https://myumi.ch/ezEQA.

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