{"id":66171,"date":"2019-09-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-30T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/newsroom\/2019\/09\/30\/former-ne-inbre-scholars-present-divergent-career-opportunities-2\/"},"modified":"2022-08-29T16:37:15","modified_gmt":"2022-08-29T21:37:15","slug":"former-ne-inbre-scholars-present-divergent-career-opportunities-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/newsroom\/2019\/09\/30\/former-ne-inbre-scholars-present-divergent-career-opportunities-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Former NE-INBRE scholars present divergent career opportunities"},"content":{"rendered":"

One thing is certain both Michael Jacobsen, Ph.D., and Ann Cavanaugh, Ph.D., are incredibly happy in their chosen careers.
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\nIf you ask either one of them about their work, they quickly respond: "I love it."
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\n"I get to spend time somewhere I’ve always enjoyed being, in an academic environment where I get to teach and share my love of research with students," said Dr. Cavanaugh, who is an assistant professor in the department of biology at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb.
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\nWhile Dr. Jacobsen describes his work as the director of Peptide Chemistry at Navigen, Inc., a private drug discovery and development company in Salt Lake City, Utah, as a "high-speed, high-intensity research environment, but I love it."
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\nAt Navigen, Inc., Dr. Jacobsen leads the synthesis and development of D-peptide drugs as a potential new class of therapeutics. It’s similar to the work he did as a doctoral student at the University of Utah and as a postdoctoral student at the University of Oxford in England, where he focused on biochemistry and protein chemical synthesis.
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\nThe two former INBRE Scholars, (Dr. Jacobsen – 2005 and Dr. Cavanaugh – 2006), were invited to speak about their current professions at the Nebraska INBRE annual meeting in August.
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\nTheir enthusiasm for their professions was evident as was their gratitude toward the Nebraska INBRE program for the role it played in their lives.
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\n"There is no way around it, research is hard, experiments constantly fail, and so it requires experience and a strong will to push forward," Dr. Jacobsen said. "INBRE helped me to appreciate and address these challenges."
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\nFor Dr. Cavanaugh, INBRE helped prepare her for what she would face in graduate school.
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\n"I felt confident going into graduate school, and really prepared for owning my own project, reading journal articles and talking about science at a level appropriate for a grad student," she said.
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\nSpeaking at the annual conference was fun, Dr. Cavanaugh said, as she was able to reconnect with faculty she met while in the program and to chat with those INBRE Scholars who had taken her cell biology class at Creighton University.
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\nAlong with her cell biology class, Dr. Cavanaugh runs a research lab, in which she has six undergraduate students and one master’s level student working.
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\nHer research focuses on the microtubule organizing center in yeast and how all of the proteins that are part of the structure evolve.
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\nBoth discussed the joy they find in the research they continue to take part in in their respective careers and advice they would give to current and future INBRE Scholars including:
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