2026 Ph.D. Connections Career Conference

Join us as we kick off the conference together with a welcome from the planning committee. Dean Mike Solomon will deliver opening remarks and answer pre-submitted questions from attendees about his perspectives on careers and career preparation for Rackham students.

In this interactive session, you will get a chance to connect with Ph.D. holding industry experts across the disciplines who are working in a wide range of professional fields. Industry experts will introduce themselves, and then participants will be led in semi-structured conversations where they can rotate to talk to many different experts. The goal of this session is for you to build networks, practice telling your own story, and understand the many paths down which your Ph.D. may take you professionally.

After everyone has gotten their food, our keynote speaker, Joseph Barber, will share his keynote address titled, “From ChickIntrovert to Wolverines: An Animal-Themed Guide to Ph.D. Careers. Barber is the director of graduate career initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, supporting graduate students and postdocs from across Penn’s 12 schools. He earned his Ph.D. in animal behaviour from the University of Oxford, where he studied the behavior of chickens. As a first‑generation graduate student, he once agreed enthusiastically to a “3:3 teaching load” during a campus interview for an assistant professor role without actually knowing what it meant–an experience that now fuels his commitment to demystifying academic and nonacademic career paths and to staying curious about whatever comes next. Unlike many chickens, Joseph identifies as an introvert.

What is a well-designed life? How do you find a career where you can thrive? In this workshop, you'll learn to apply the design thinking concept of ideation to create three "Odyssey Plans": creative, actionable paths your future could take. Inspired by Stanford’s Designing Your Life curriculum, this interactive conference mini-workshop is designed for Ph.D. students and postdocs who are seeking clarity and inspiration in their career planning process.

Join RELATE (Researchers Expanding Lay-Audience Teaching and Engagement) during Ph.D. Connections for our Elevator Pitch Workshop! Sharpen your skills in presenting your research goals and the motivation driving your work: captivating audiences from fellow scientists to policy-makers. This workshop will elevate your networking abilities and empower you to market yourself with confidence and impact.

About RELATE: 

RELATE is a science communication training and community engagement student organization designed to improve the dialogue between researchers and different public audiences. Our organization is built on the belief that science communication should be a conversation, and not scientists lecturing audiences about their work. Our goal is to support researchers in engaging in this conversation.

In this fast-paced, ever-changing, increasingly globalized world, we need to be able to understand how to work effectively with many different types of people to reach our goals. In this workshop, we will focus on cultural intelligence to assess your own cultural values and behavioral preferences while understanding where others may be coming from. Participants will have the opportunity to practice how to navigate cultural misunderstandings that may occur within your research or a major project team and develop plans for how to continue building your cultural intelligence.

Are you interested in learning how to effectively connect with colleagues and prospective employers? Do you want to know how to sell the transferability of your research to a broad industry audience? If so, this integrative workshop will help you develop a strong pitch that can be used in networking opportunities. Come and learn about the process of networking, develop and practice your pitch, and understand available networking and career development resources.

Choosing a career path after graduate school can feel overwhelming—there are so many possibilities, and it’s hard to know where to start. If you’ve ever felt uncertain about what comes next, this workshop will help you cut through the noise and discover what truly matters to you. You will define your own “Career Compass”—composed of your life needs, career skills, and mission statement—that can help you focus your career exploration and job search strategies. The self-awareness developed through the exercises in this workshop can help you clarify career fields, work environments, and a lifestyle that are the best match for you.

Goals

• Understand the purpose of self-assessment within the career development process

• Identify and articulate your values, skills, life needs, and inspirations

• Utilize the career compass framework to guide career exploration and evaluate career options

• Embrace that your values, interests, and needs change over time and that career exploration and evaluation is a life-long process