Fireside Chat with Professor Paul S. Weiss
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INTERVIEW
Fireside Chat with Professor Paul S. Weiss Ali Khademhosseini 1
# The Regenerative Engineering Society 2020
Paul S. Weiss, Ph.D., is a leading American nanoscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He holds several positions, including UC Presidential Chair; distinguished professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Bioengineering, and of Materials Science and Engineering; and founder and editor-in-chief of ACS Nano. He has over 400 research publications and holds over 40 patents. He received his SB and SM degrees from MIT in 1980 and his Ph.D. in chemistry from UC Berkeley in 1986. He was a postdoctoral researcher at Bell Labs from 1986 to 1988 and a visiting scientist at IBM Research at Almaden from 1988 to 1989. He was a professor at Pennsylvania State University from 1989 until 2009. He moved to UCLA in 2009. Ali Khademhosseini (AK): What do you think are important characteristics that one needs to have to be a good professor? Paul S. Weiss (PSW): I think you want to work on problems that get you out of bed in the morning. If you come up with an idea for one of the problems you are working on, you just cannot wait to get started. That is the kind of motivation you need to have the persistence that is required to be successful. We have some experiments that we started in 1988, which are getting close to working now! Sometimes that is what it takes. Other times, the first time we turn on the instrument we have built, 10 min later we have gotten data that that is worthy of showing to the world. But typically, it takes a lot of effort to get to the point where you have something to show for your work.
* Ali Khademhosseini [email protected] 1
Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation, Los Angeles, CA, USA
AK: One of the things I have noticed about you is that you are always extremely positive no matter what the circumstances are. How do you maintain such a positive attitude all the time? PSW: I have a very bad memory! Joking aside, I basically look at whatever is in front of me, and something that happened before or something somebody said in the past, those disappear very rapidly into the background. You can always look forward and be excited about what is to come. I have certainly faced downturns in my career, such as when I left Bell Labs. The reason I went to IBM is that I did not get a faculty job on the first try; it is not been a linear trajectory in any way. You always have to push for what you want, and, where you want your career and your science to go. AK: What kind of advice do you have for the postdocs right now who are searching for their academic jobs and planning to start their careers in academia, and particularly in this time of pandemic? PSW: The first thing you want to do when you are looking for a position is to figure out what the most important thing to you is. You should be passionate and excited about your problem, since you need to pitch it to others, whether it is prospective grad students, the prospective department where you are interviewing, fundin
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