On May 14th at Sacramento City College, four speakers talked about a wide range of topics related to their careers including the job outlook for chemists, the “two-body problem” of finding suitable jobs for both partners in the relationship, and a lot about teaching and learning as witnessed by the two professors who gave talks.
From left: Miranda Fram, Mary McCarthy-Hintz, Bryan Enderle, Handeep Kaur, Bill Miller, and Hoby Wedler
Handeep Kaur, Wireless R&D Failure Isolation and Analysis Engineer at Intel in Folsom, talked about her pathway from taking classes at American River College, transferring to Sacramento State for her BA in Biochemistry, and then completing her graduate work in Organic Chemistry at UC Davis. Sher was then hired by Intel and worked in the Portland area for a year before coming back to the Sacramento area to work with Intel. Kaur also talked about what she does as an engineer with Intel. She made the point that work was just one part having a happy life. Kaur finished by reviewing statistics showing the employment picture for chemists is, in general, good.
Mary McCarthy-Hintz talked about her career path including her BA in Biology at Cal State Fullerton, then a BS in Chemistry and a MS in Biology at the University of West Florida before coming back to the west coast to get her Ph. D. in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at UC Davis. McCarthy-Hintz’s “two-body problem” involved a husband who was in the military which took her from coast to coast. Those in attendance also really appreciated hearing about her work with students from underrepresented groups while she has been teaching at Sacramento State in the Chemistry Department.
Miranda Fram talked about her career path to working as a geochemist with the United States Geological Service (USGS). She got her BS in Geology from Yale, her M. Philosophy and Ph. D. in Geological Sciences from Columbia, and then held a post-doctoral position at UC Davis in Geology. From there, she went to the USGS and held a number of positions including lab technician, manager, research chemist, and project scientist. Then she reached her current position as lead scientist and program chief of the Groundwater Quality at the USGS. Fram spoke about her work in this capacity dealing with the age of ground water sources based on the amount of uranium in the water.
Bryan Enderle spent the bulk of his time talking about what he has learned about teaching.Enderle obtained two BS degrees, in Chemical and Petroleum Engineering before pursuing an MS and PhD in Chemical Engineering. Since then, he has taught in the Chemistry Department at UC Davis. He went through his teaching methods and brought a demonstration, a key part of his teaching method.
