Do you have encouraging advice for young researchers to succeed in the world of science?
- You can learn anything and pursue whatever career you’re passionate about, so discover what you love and do that – then the hard work required to get really good at it becomes easy!
- Find mentors and don’t be afraid to pester them with questions (ask me to be a mentor if you’re having trouble finding one! pjhscott@umich.edu).
- Learn how to network today – no one is good at it to begin with but it’s easier than you think to learn, and an extremely important skill to develop.
If I were not a scientist, I would be …
A chef – cooking is essentially applied organic chemistry and a similarly intense career choice!
What is your paper that you are most proud of? Why?
Of everything we have published together, this paper is the one I am most proud of for a number of reasons:
i) the article reports the first example of aromatic C-H radiofluorination (the ability to transform an aromatic C-H bond into a C-18F bond), which has proven one of the most difficult transformations to accomplish in radiochemistry. David Donnelly (PET radiochemist at BMS) and I used to talk about how we could do aromatic C-H radiofluorination in Ashley’s Pub in Ann Arbor as post-docs in Mike Kilbourn’s group in 2006, but it took 13 years for PET radiochemistry and organometallic chemistry to become sophisticated enough, and the hard work of a brilliant post-doc (Dr. Lee) and graduate student (Ms. Makaravage) to accomplish it!
ii) I have worked tirelessly to create a lab culture that is inclusive of all people, including female colleagues and trainees. I am therefore extremely happy that 3/5 authors of this paper are rockstar Women in STEM, and am very proud that it was selected for a special issue highlighting Women in Chemistry.