Careers
Career Planning
As a Western graduate student, you have access to an abundance of quality professional development opportunities, which make it simple for you to self-direct your learning and development, maximize the value of your degree, and ease your career transition.
Development of Skills
As a graduate student in Biochemistry, you will become directly involved in scientific research. Because science goes beyond what we already know, scientific research is a continuous learning process that involves discovery, creative and critical thinking, acquisition of technical expertise, oral and written communication, and problem solving. By engaging in research, you will develop these and other skills that can be used in many different contexts, and you will contribute to a growing body of knowledge about how living systems function. Many careers require this advanced MSc and PhD training including the following:
- Post-Doctoral Research and Advanced Training
- Professional Training - Medicine, Nursing, Law, Business, Dentistry, Teaching, Pharmacy
- Research Associate or Technician (Academic)
- Industrial Research Scientist or Technician
- Intellectual Property Specialist
- Sales/Account Representative
- Clinical Trials Coordinator
- Lab or Project Coordinator, Facility Manager
- Business and Management Consulting
- Government Policy and Research: Health Canada, Agriculture Canada
Examples of Careers
A snapshot of current careers held by PhD graduates from our department includes the following:
- Alan Rigby (PhD 1995) Chief Scientific Officer, Warp Drive Bio Inc., Boston, USA
- Murray Junop (PhD 1997) Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Western University, London, Canada
- Steven Smith (PhD 1998) Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada
- Simon Sharpe (PhD 2002) Senior Scientist/Assistant Professor, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada
- Helen Petropoulos (PhD 2002) Director, Commercialization & Programs, Ontario Genomics, Toronto, Canada
- Paul Del Rizzo (PhD 2007) Scientist I, New Product Development, Cayman Chemical, Ann Arbor, USA
- Sara Hamilton (PhD 2007) Editor-in-Chief, Cell Reports (Medicine), Cambridge, MA, USA
- Brent Stead (PhD 2011; MBA 2012) Marketing Associate, Therapure Biopharma, Mississauaga, Canada
- James Duncan (PhD 2011) Assistant Professor, Cancer Biology, Fox Chase Cancer Centre, Philadelphia, USA
- Elio Cino (PhD 2012) Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Immunology, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil
- Kevin Leung (PhD 2015) Associate Director of Antibiome Centre, UCSF, San Francisco, US
- Stephanie Dorman (PhD 2015) Field Medical Advisor, Hematology, Pfizer, Toronto, Canada
- Ashley Watson (PhD 2015) Scientist, STEMCELL Technologies, Vancouver, Canada
- Caitlin O'Flynn (PhD 2015) Intellectual Property Specialist, OWN Innovation, Kitchener, Canada
- Louisa Salemi (PhD 2016) Research Analyst, Canadian Cancer Research Alliance, Toronto, Canada
- Stephanie Zukowski (PhD 2018) Basic Medical Sciences Undergraduate Education (BMSUE) Laboratory Coordinator, Western University, London, Canada
- Safee Mian (PhD 2019) Management Consultant, Bain and Company, Toronto, Canada
