2nd Annual Beyond the Professoriate

A Virtual Conference for PhDs in Career Transition

May 2 and 9, 2015
Hosted by Maren Wood (Lilli Research Group) and Jennifer Polk (From PhD to Life)

Speaker Bios
Conference hosts: Jennifer Polk and Maren Wood
Jennifer Polk works as an academic, career, and life coach. Her clients include graduate students
working on dissertations and PhDs figuring out life and work beyond the tenure track. Jen speaks on
campus and at conferences on issues related to graduate education and career outcomes for PhDs, and her
writing has appeared in the Globe and Mail, University Affairs, Vitae, and Academic Matters. Find Jen
online at FromPhDtoLife.com, at her University Affairs blog, and follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Join her twice a month for #withaPhD chat and at the monthly Versatile PhD meetup in Toronto. Jen
earned her PhD in history from the University of Toronto in 2012. She lives in Toronto with her cat, Izzy.
Maren Wood (Founder, Lilli Research Group) is a research consultant and professional development
specialist, working exclusively with graduate students and PhDs. In addition to one-on-one coaching
services, she is a research consultant to the American Historical Association and the Chronicle of Higher
Education/Vitae, studying academic employment trends and tracking PhD career outcomes. She earned a
PhD in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and knows firsthand the challenges
of being an adjunct, having worked as a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of History at UNC Chapel
Hill teaching courses in American History and the History of Sexuality. A proud Canadian, she currently
resides in Denver.

Career Day (May 2, 2015)

11:00 A.M. 12:20 P.M. (EDT): Higher Education
Chair: Jennifer Polk
Panelists: Yanoula Athanassakis, Julia Brookins, Joe Frank, Jane Fiegen Green, Kristy Lamb
Yanoula Athanassakis is an administrator at NYU in the Office of the Provost. Formerly an American
Council of Learned Societies New Faculty Fellow (ACLS NFF 2012-2014) and a postdoc at the College
of Creative Studies at UC Santa Barbara, Yanoula holds a PhD in American literature and researches
environmental justice, food production, and ecocriticism. She worked in the publishing industry as an
assistant editor and for academic publications, most recently JTAS. A published writer in both academic
and nonacademic publications, Yanoula is currently working on her book and on the Environmental
Humanities initiative at NYU. As a certified yoga instructor beginning in 2006 (RYT 400), Yanoula
approaches biomechanics and functional anatomy with the same love of research that drives her off the
mat. She resides in NYC and teaches yoga at Sacred Sounds Yoga.
Julia Brookins has worked at the AHA since November 2010. She assists in developing and
implementing initiatives to advance the historical profession and history in public life, and serves on the
editorial board of Perspectives on History magazine. Her current projects include the nationwide history
Tuning project, the AHA's project to broaden the career horizons of history PhDs, and an effort to
integrate the scholarship of teaching and learning into the disciplinary training of history graduate
students. She received a BA in history from Harvard University and a PhD in US history from the
University of Chicago.
Joe Frank started his career as an advocate for solutions to the digital divide and for economic
development in urban communities. His research focused on disparities in local government service
delivery within urban neighborhoods. Since 2011 he has served as a statistical analyst and compensation
consultant in the Human Resources office at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis,
Missouri. He provides HR metrics, reporting, and analytics services to senior managers and executives
within the School of Medicine and the University, as well as day-to-day compensation analysis, reporting,
and job analysis responsibilities. Joe has also served as an adjunct faculty member at Washington
University, University of Missouri-St. Louis, and Webster University, most recently teaching data
analysis for forensic accountants. Joe completed a PhD in political science from Washington University
in St. Louis in 2009, and has studied at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa.
Joe presents regularly at conferences in the HR field, and chaired a panel on alternative careers for PhDs
at the 2014 Midwest Political Science Association conference. Joe is on Twitter @mrjoefrank and
LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joefrankstl).
Jane Fiegen Green is the Marketing and Public Relations Manager for the American Historical
Association, the largest US organization devoted to the discipline of history. Using her analytical skills,
writing powers, and experience as a historian, she helps grow the AHAs membership and promotes the
activities of its staff and members. Jane previously worked as a researcher and course developer for NBI,
Inc., a leading provider of continuing legal education seminars. She received her PhD in American history

from Washington University in St. Louis in 2014. Her work on coming of age in early nineteenth-century
New England has been published by History of Education Quarterly and Wayne State University Press.
Kristy Lamb is the STEM Career Advisor for juniors, seniors, and graduate students at St. John's
University in Queens, NY, where she also teaches a science course about disease outbreaks for nonscience majors. She earned her PhD in Genetics from Yale University and conducted postdoc research at
Weill Cornell Medical College. From her early scientific days as a first-generation college student at NC
State University, she held a deep commitment to mentoring and advocacy for the benefit of future
scientists and has helped run women in STEM mentoring programs and discussion round tables. As a
postdoc she served as chair of ASBMB's graduate student and postdoctoral advocacy committee, and she
continues to hold a strong interest in science policy. She is active on Twitter (@KLambPhD) and her
website (www.kristylamb.com) has complete social media and blog links.

12:30 P.M. 1:50 P.M. (EDT): Small Business / Industry

Chair: Maren Wood
Panelists: Ada Barlatt, Rachel Bennett, Elizabeth Keenan, Melanie Nelson, Sal Zerilli
Ada Y. Barlatt is your cheerful life engineer! If you are feeling lost, stuck or confused, Ada can show
you how to use your decisions to create a life you love. After finishing her PhD (Industrial Engineering,
University of Michigan Ann Arbor) Ada moved to Waterloo, Ontario, Canada to be an Assistant
Professor. However, a few years later, Ada realized that academia was not a perfect fit. To the surprise of
everyone around her, Ada resigned her faculty position and started a company. Through research and
experience, Ada learned how to use her decisions to create a life she loves. Now she develops engineering
meets self-help approaches to teach you how to do the same! Ada provides flexible, friendly, and
insightful decision support online at sumptu.com. Connect with Ada on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus,
and LinkedIn. Feel free to check out her podcast!
Rachel Bennett is the director of marketing at Mitacs, a not-for-profit organization that designs and
delivers research and training programs in Canada. She has 15 years of experience in marketing
communications, primarily in the area of product marketing in the technology sector. She has a PhD in
English from the University of Alberta, where she specialized in eighteenth-century literature, and can be
found on LinkedIn.
Elizabeth Keenan is a licensed real estate salesperson in Brooklyn, NY. She earned her PhD in
ethnomusicology from Columbia University in 2008. Elizabeth started her current career after several
years as an adjunct professor at Columbia and Fordham University. She has a long-time side business as a
freelance researcher, writer, editor, and proofreader. Follow Elizabeth on Twitter @badcoverversion and
read her blog, Bad Cover Version.
Melanie Nelson is a consultant specializing in scientific data management and the effective management
of people and projects. Prior to starting her own consultancy, she led teams and projects in the
biotechnology industry for more than ten years. She has a PhD in biochemistry from The Scripps
Research Institute. She is also the author of Navigating the Path to Industry: A Hiring Managers Advice
for Academics Looking for a Job in Industry and Taming the Work Week: Work Smarter Not Longer. You
can find her online at BeyondManaging.com and on Twitter at @melanie_nelson.
Sal Zerilli is an Applied Sociologist and Ethnographer earning a living doing research, innovation, and
strategy work in a corporate consultancy. Over the course of his career, hes worked as a researcher in
academic, design, and research settings on projects ranging from medicine invention to medical device
design to global launches of new vaccines. In his current position, he oversees a team of Sociologists,
Psychologists, and Anthropologists, and co-leads innovation and new product development. In addition to
his day job, he maintain an active commitment to teaching at the college level and to documentary film
making, having produced and directed six documentary films. In addition to founding and leading a local
chapter of the Awesome Foundation, he holds a PhD in Sociology from UCLA.

2:00 P.M. 3:20 P.M. (EDT): Writing / Teaching / Editing

Chair: Jennifer Polk
Panelists: Rachel Bundang, Dominique Morneau, Rebecca Schuman, Amanda Sewell, Anna Marie
Trester
Rachel Bundang is on the Religious Studies faculty at Convent of the Sacred Heart High School in San
Francisco. She earned her PhD from Union Theological Seminary (Columbia University), focusing on
Catholic feminist ethics with additional interests in issues of race and religion. Prior to working in
independent schools, she was a postdoc at Santa Clara University and also taught in adjunct and visiting
positions around the U.S. She brings to life religious traditions, questions, and phenomena for her
students every day. As an independent scholar, she is active in the American Academy of Religion (AAR)
and takes on side projects and writing assignments as a religion/ethics consultant and musician.
Dominique Morneau's quest for a PhD started at the tender age of 8, when she was told she could be and
do anything she wanted. Of course, it took 18 years to realize that having a PhD was not a career in and of
itself. Not cut out for the cut-throat environment of academic science, she started looking for ways to use
her PhD outside of academia. After dabbling in policy and research, Dominique packed up her life and
moved from Ottawa to London, UK, and is now working as an assistant editor for Genome Biology, one
of the flagship journals of the publisher BioMed Central. She credits the advice of last years Beyond the
Professoriate conference for her success in finding a post-academic position. Follow Dominique on
Twitter, read her blog, and connect with her on LinkedIn.
Rebecca Schuman received her PhD in German literature from the University of California-Irvine in
2010, and spent two years as an adjunct professor of literature at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and
two years in the German department of The Ohio State University as part of the ACLS New Faculty
Fellows Program. In the spring of 2013, after her fourth unsuccessful academic job search, Rebecca
decided not to return to the job market, and struck out on her own as an essayist and consultant. She is
now a controversial but widely-read columnist for Slate, the Chronicle of Higher Education and its Vitae
hub, and operates a boutique dissertation coaching practice as part of Alison Millers team at The
Dissertation Coach. She is the author of two forthcoming books: the academic monograph Kafka and
Wittgenstein (2015, Northwestern U Press), and the commercial memoir Schadenfreude, A Love Story:
Me, the Germans and Twenty Year of Unrequited Passion (2016, Flatiron Books/Macmillan). Rebecca is
currently on quasi-maternity leave after the birth of her beautiful daughter in January.
Amanda Sewell holds a PhD in musicology from Indiana University, and she works as an academic
editor. Some of her clients have included W.W. Norton and Company, Connect for Education, and dozens
of individual scholars working on their dissertations, manuscripts, and articles. Amanda also works as an
academic coach, helping clients with the challenges of navigating the dissertation or thesis process.
Amandas scholarship has been published in peer-reviewed musicology journals, and she recently
contributed a chapter to the Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop. In February 2015, Amanda was featured
as the Entrepreneur of the Month by Indiana Universitys Project Jumpstart. Please feel free to connect
with Amanda on Twitter @amjsew, on LinkedIn, on academia.edu, on Facebook, or by visiting her
website (http://in-the-write.com).

Anna Marie Trester is an associate on the Learning team at the FrameWorks Institute. Prior to joining
FrameWorks, she served as the Director of the MA in Language and Communication (MLC) Program in
the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University, where she worked with students to apply their
sociolinguistic training professionally. She has taught courses at Georgetown University, Howard
University, and University of Maryland, University College on topics including cross-cultural
communication, language and social media, and the ethnography of communication. She is the co-editor
(with Deborah Tannen) of Discourse 2.0, published in 2013 by Georgetown University Press. She
received her MA from NYU and PhD in linguistics from Georgetown. An applied sociolinguist, Dr.
Trester is particularly interested in exploring performance, narrative, intertextuality, language and identity
and language and social media in the contexts of professional self-presentation and the language of
business. She shares career resources for linguists on her blog Career Linguist and on Twitter
@CareerLinguist.

3:30 P.M. 4:50 P.M. (EDT): Non-Profit & Government

Chair: Maren Wood
Panelists: Katharine Bullard, Nicholas Dion, Christopher Eppig, Alison Ewart, Andrew Miller
Katharine Bullard is a Campaign Support Coordinator for the Service Employees International Union,
working on adjunct and regular faculty organizing. During her graduate work at the University of Illinois,
she helped to lead the recognition fight for the TA union. After receiving her PhD in History, she taught
for 15 years as an adjunct and a regular faculty member before transition into labor work. Find her on
Twitter @kbullard4 and the campaign at http://seiufacultyforward.org.
Nicholas Dion is Senior Coordinator, Research and Programs at the Higher Education Quality Council of
Ontario (HEQCO), an independent research and advisory body associated with the provincial Ministry of
Training, Colleges and Universities in Toronto. In 2012, he completed his doctorate in the Study of
Religion at the University of Toronto, where he also spent time lecturing, planning conferences, and
editing a peer-reviewed journal. He first joined HEQCO out of grad school as an intern, before becoming
the organization's first research editor and eventually graduating to his current role. His research at
HEQCO has focused on issues related to essential skills such as literacy and numeracy, as well as on
apprenticeship. He can be found on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/nicholasdion1.
Chris Eppig graduated from the University of New Mexico in 2011 with a PhD in biology. After two
years of underemployment, he moved to Chicago in 2014 to seek employment in science outreach. He
now works as Director of Programming for the Chicago Council on Science and Technology, a non-profit
organization with the goal of increasing public understanding of science. He blogs at
christophereppig.wordpress.com, and can be found on Linkedin at www.linkedin.com/in/cgeppig and
Twitter @CGEppig.
Alison Ewart holds a bachelors degree from Queens University and a PhD from the University of
British Columbia, both in chemistry. After completing her PhD she knew that she didnt want to spend
any more time inside the lab and began looking for other opportunities outside of research, but still
connected to the academic community. In 2008 she joined Mitacs in Toronto, Ontario as a Director of
Business Development. In that role she worked closely with academics to help build collaborative
research projects with industry partners while at the same time worked closely with industry to showcase
the value of working with academia. From that role she later moved into the Programs department at
Mitacs where she is currently the Director of the industrial collaborative internship and fellowship
programs, Mitacs Accelerate and Mitacs Elevate.
Andrew Miller is a Strategic Leader with the City of Mississauga in Ontario, Canada. He received his
PhD in History from Johns Hopkins University in 2005. He's an expert in public-transit policy and
planning, as well as project management. Hes been a panellist on CBC Radio on the subject of municipal
finance reform, and is a two-time TEDx speaker. Hes currently leading the delivery of a master plan for
rapid transit and intensified urban development for Mississauga. Hes also fun at parties. You can connect
with him on LinkedIn, here: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/andrewmillertoronto.

Professional Development Day (May 9, 2015)

11:00 A.M. 12:00 P.M. (EDT): Reverse Engineer Your Job Search
Chair: Jennifer Polk
Presenter: Catherine Maybrey
Catherine Maybrey is the Graduate Career Strategist in the School of Graduate Studies at McMaster
University (http://graduate.mcmaster.ca/) and the owner of CM Coaching Services. A longstanding
advocate of the need for career services developed specifically for graduate students and the postacademic job search, Catherine has spoken at numerous conferences and events to educate graduate
students and postdoctoral fellows on the realities of and opportunities in the post-academic market, and
has worked with universities in her private practice to develop career programs and services for graduate
students. She blogs on http://cmcoachingservices.com/blog, and contributes to the Rethinking Higher Ed
Forum at http://forum.academica.ca/catherine-maybrey/. A self-described LinkedIn evangelist, you can
find her on social media at https://ca.linkedin.com/in/catherinemaybrey or @Cate_Maybrey on Twitter.
12:15 P.M. 1:15 P.M. (EDT): Identify Your Transferable Skills
Chair: Maren Wood
Presenter: Margy Thomas Horton
Margy Thomas Horton earned her PhD in English from Baylor (2012), where she published on
American literature and was a Presidential Doctoral Scholar. But then, in the middle of academic job
season, two things happened: she moved across the country to Durham, North Carolina, and gave birth to
her son, Abe. From those months at home caring for her infant emerged ScholarShape: a business that
offers tailored coaching, consulting, and editorial support to academics at all stages in their careers, and
across the disciplines from the sciences to humanities. Her clients are as far-flung as London and
Australia, and as nearby as the three major research universities down the street. (Durham is located in the
Research Triangle near Duke, UNC, and NC State). In Margys work with individual clients, she helps
them streamline their writing processes, master relevant genre conventions, and produce polished
manuscripts that articulate the meaning of their research. The business is also growing to include a second
consultant and two support staff. Further, Margy serves as the Dissertation Institute Consultant at NC
State, delivers presentations on academic writing and career transitions, manages a website of free writing
resources (including a blog), and writes for the popular site The Professor Is In. Connect
on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and via email: margy@scholarshape.com
1:30 P.M. 2:30 P.M. (EDT): Writing a Combination Resume
Chair: Jennifer Polk
Presenter: Maren Wood
See above for Marens bio

2:45 P.M. 3:45 P.M. (EDT): Going in Confident: Keys to a Successful Interview
Chair: Jennifer Polk
Presenter: Heidi Scott Giusto
Heidi Scott Giusto, PhD, is a consultant, editor, writer, and speaker who owns Career Path Writing
Solutions, a business dedicated to helping individuals and businesses with their professional writing and
career development needs. Heidi earned her PhD in History from Duke University in 2012 and launched
Career Path shortly thereafter. Heidi has been featured in US News & World Report, PhD Career Guide,
What Are All the PhDs?, and Integrative Academic Solutions. She is a Certified Professional Rsum
Writer, a Certified Employment Interview Professional, a member of the Professional Association of
Rsum Writers & Career Coaches, and a Career Thought Leaders Associate. Follow her on Twitter
@HeidiGiustoCPWS and on Facebook at Career Path Writing Solutions.
4:00 P.M. 5:00 P.M. (EDT): Going Out on Your Own: Starting a Small Business
Chair: Maren Wood
Presenter: Martin Leppitsch
Martin Leppitsch is a Senior Manager at Denver-based Rebound Solutions, a management consultancy,
and a volunteer certified business mentor with SCORE.org. He is a thought-leader with a proven track
record of generating measurable improvements for businesses, across multiple industries. Their areas of
specialization include continuous business process improvement, organizational change management and
project management with the goal of implementing innovative, information technology-enabled business
processes, to increase profitability and organizational efficiency. Martin is an effective leader,
collaborator, communicator, and mentor, grounded in personal integrity.
5:15 P.M. 6:15 P.M. (EDT): The Power of Connecting
Chair: Jennifer Polk
Presenter: Tracy Shroyer
Tracy Shroyer completed her PhD in Organization and Management with a Leadership specialization
from Capella University in January, 2013. She has 19 years experience in the financial services industry
across the areas of operations, risk management, project management, analytics, leadership, and customer
service. Tracy currently works full-time as an Account Executive for a Fortune 500 company and founded
Beyond the Stone Wall, an individual development coaching and small business consulting company in
June, 2014. In addition, she has 3+ years experience as an adjunct business professor, and recently
decided to leave that position due to the growth of her coaching business. You can connect with Tracy
Shroyer via her website at www.beyondthestonewall.com, her Facebook Page Beyond the Stone Wall, FB
Group, and on Twitter at @tshroyer2 and @lifebtsw.