Our Trustees play a vital role in helping to ensure the BSI is well-run, financially sound, and that we can meet our goals and ambitions. In July, we welcomed two new Trustees to our Board, including Dr Carolyn Nielsen, who is a Senior Immunologist working on malaria vaccine immunology at the University of Oxford’s Department of Biochemistry. Dr Nielsen is one of two Early Career Trustees on the Board, and we caught up with her to find out what she’s looking forward to most.
What motivated you to put yourself forward for the role of Early Career Trustee?
I’ve been a member of the BSI since I moved back to the UK to start my PhD, and I’ve really enjoyed participating with the Society in a variety of ways. This role offered an opportunity to look behind the scenes and understand how the Society is run, and contributing to the governance and strategy side really appealed to me. As an early career researcher, I was also drawn to the opportunity to represent people at this specific career stage.
What are some of the challenges that immunologists can face early on in their career?
Something that comes up again and again when speaking to my peers is job security and the balance we have to strike between achieving career stability and pursuing the research we’re really passionate about. People are often on short-term contracts, due to the nature of externally funded fixed-term grants. This can have all sorts of implications in terms of planning your professional development, but also your personal life. Many of us are going through big life changes at this stage of our career, juggling personal and professional priorities. If you’re pursuing independence as a scientist, you need a lot of support to navigate this period of uncertainty.
What can the BSI do to support people at this stage of their career?
I’ve been really encouraged to see the introduction of new schemes from the BSI such as the Career Enhancing Grants and continuation of the Conference Travel Grants. There is clearly a lot of effort being made to provide the smaller, flexible funds that can help people at inflection points in their career, such as by paying for things that are difficult to cover with other core funds. It’s great to see grants that are flexible enough to be tailored to people’s own skill set, or that can help them pivot into a new area. This is precisely the kind of initiative that promotes a healthy and inclusive research culture. I’d be really keen to hear from other early career researchers about what other types of help would be most useful to them, in academia or otherwise.
Can you tell us a bit about your own journey into the field of immunology?
I became very interested in human immunology during my undergraduate degree, and was particularly drawn to vaccine research since there was such a strong translational focus and clear line to potential public health impact. I knew pretty early on after this that I wanted to be part of vaccine science in academia, but I still tried to take advantage of available opportunities to gain some exposure to other sectors. During my Master’s degree at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the United States, I took part in a new internship programme linked to the World Health Organization. This was a really great way to get some insight into public health policy in action, and see the ‘other side’ of the vaccine development pipeline and the types of roles that might be available to me outside the lab later in my career. Then, during my PhD at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, I spent a couple of months with GSK Vaccines in Belgium. It was fascinating to see vaccine research in an entirely different context, and I got to learn about the practical side of clinical trial design and collaboration management from a different perspective. Both experiences broadened my understanding of the vaccine development landscape, and I’m still in touch with people I met in both Geneva and Rixensart. I think giving students and early career researchers the opportunity to experience different research environments can be very rewarding.
What are some of the ways the BSI supported you during your early career?
The BSI Congress has played an important role in my own career development and was one of the first places I gave an external talk. I have noticed over the years that Congress is particularly well attended by students, so the BSI is clearly doing a good job of making it accessible and attractive to emerging immunologists. I always come away with ideas and it’s a pleasure to bump into people I know from different stages of my life. I’ve also participated in the BSI’s mentoring scheme, which was another excellent resource.
What do you most look forward to in your new role as a BSI Trustee?
I really look forward to exchanging ideas with others on the Board and the BSI team, drawing on my own experiences but also hearing from members about what they want and need from the Society.
One area I’m excited to delve into is how people are finding ways to engage across different sectors. I took part in a leadership programme in Oxford a few years ago where we looked at mechanisms to help academics and clinicians collaborate more effectively, and it quickly became apparent how mindbogglingly difficult it can be to find the right person to approach when seeking collaborations outside your own familiar sphere when you no longer know the jargon or have any connections.
So it seems to me, there’s a real opportunity for the BSI to act as a connector. Congress certainly already serves this purpose, but there should be other ways to make this side of things easier, and it would be great to brainstorm what these may be.
Are there any particular challenges facing the field in your view, and what role might the BSI have in tackling these?
Communication with the public is always going to be an important and tricky area, and the BSI really stepped up during the pandemic, in a way that I thought was quite admirable. There are so many potential pitfalls when you’re trying to communicate technical information to a lay audience, without overplaying the data or undermining your own point. Scientists like to state the caveats!
One of the ways the BSI was useful during this time to me personally was in helping me to respond to the questions I was being asked by friends and family. I seemed to mainly get queries about the potential impact of COVID-19 vaccines on fertility, and I was immediately able to draw on the Society’s evidence-based materials that addressed these questions. I realised there is a wide range of similar resources on a variety of topics, that are concise and easy to share. I think communicating solid immunology advice in an accessible format will continue to be something the BSI can support members with very effectively.
Find out more about all our Trustees here.