Dr. Anthony Stender
Dr. Anthony S. Stender, Assistant Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry at Ohio University, had the recent opportunity to organize and preside over two symposia at SciX 2017.
SciX is an annual conference organized by the Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies (FACSS). The two symposia organized by Stender were “Career Transitions: Making the Leap from Graduate School to the Workforce” and “Modern Techniques in Microscopy.”
“This was my second year in a row presiding over the career transitions session,” Stender says. “Just like last year, we had a very lively discussion, and it was well-attended by students, faculty, and industry professionals. Its purpose is to provide graduate students with an honest perspective of the job market, the job-hunting process, and what different Ph.D.-level jobs look like in industry, academia, and national labs. I was fortunate to have a panel of senior and junior scientists who were willing to share their unique and wise perspectives about life after graduate school.”
Of the microscopy panel, he says, “The idea of a microscopy session was originally suggested to me a year ago by Dr. Peter Harrington (also in Chemistry & Biochemistry at Ohio University), and when I approached this year’s program chair with the idea, he immediately approved it. I asked all of the speakers to focus on instrumentation challenges and advances, and the result was a very enlightening session, even though the speakers were working with very different techniques. The speakers were great, the audience was engaged, and somehow the theme of the session turned into the polarization of light. That session was the most fun I’ve had at a SciX conference.”
When asked about next year’s SciX conference, Stender replied, “The programming for SciX 2018 won’t be determined for a few months, but I would love to organize both of these sessions again in 2018.”
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