Elizabeth A. Stuart is professor in the departments of mental health, biostatistics, and health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and associate dean for education. She is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and has received the mid-career award from the Health Policy Statistics Section, the Gertrude M. Cox Award, and the 2018 Myrto Lefkopoulou Distinguished Lectureship. Stuart has published influential papers about propensity scores and methods to assess the generalizability of randomized trials. For a longer and oral version of this essay, visit The Effort Report.
Had I ever have thought I would be professor of mental health in a school of public health? Had I ever even heard of that type of job? No! But is it just the right fit for me (despite having no formal training in either mental health or public health and taking a rather circuitous route to get here)? Yes! Hopefully my path will serve as an interesting example of finding your way into the job that’s right for you, even if the path isn’t clear when you start out.
This graphic illustrates some of the key institutions and decision points in my life, and here is a listing of some of the lessons I learned along the way:
Don’t pay too much attention to job labels. I never would have thought to apply for a position as an assistant professor of mental health, but talking to people and learning more about the job made me realize it was a great fit. Likewise, people had told me to never do a joint appointment because of concerns about having two bosses. But my joint appointment has worked out well, in part because the mental health appointment is really “primary,” and so promotion decisions, etc., flow through mental health, though I have strong ties (including teaching responsibilities) with biostatistics.
Don’t make assumptions about jobs. The jump to Johns Hopkins was scary—it seemed (from the outside) like an intense place, and people had warned me about a “soft money” environment (like Hopkins), where faculty are expected to bring in a substantial portion of their salary in grants. But what those voices often leave out is that this setting leads to a highly entrepreneurial environment, with the ability to spend most of my time on research. And even at a “hard money” institution, I might end up wanting to have substantial grant support to cover summer salary and some teaching buy-out! So, in the end, the “hard money” vs. “soft money” distinction is less strict than it may seem.
As Don Rubin told me, “Don’t turn down a job before you know what it is.” It takes effort, but it’s worth talking to people at each institution to figure out what the place is really like. Get advice from lots of people, since you have to figure out what makes sense for you, not them, and don’t be shy about reaching out—in my experience, people are often quite happy to give advice and “pay it back” from their own process and deliberations.
Make the job what you want it to be. During graduate school, I sought opportunities to work on social science and public policy application (even if many of the people around me were doing genetics). At MPR [Mathematica Policy Research], I carved out time for methodological work and teaching on the side. At Hopkins, I have spent my time on the type of applied work I want to do; by establishing myself as the “go to” methods person in the department of mental health, I established my career doing relevant, applied work.
Find good people to work with and network. To me, any work is more fun and rewarding when done with kind, collegial, and smart coworkers. I have been lucky to have that throughout my career and have sought out those environments. I then made sure to network with them and others to help keep up those connections. Personal connections are often underappreciated in workplaces.
Find the right work/life balance for you. I have built my career at the same time as having a family—I have two elementary school-age kids now. Yes, I might work on weekends sometimes (e.g., writing this), but I often work short days during the week or take off early on Fridays to pick the kids up from school. To me, what matters more than the number of hours I work is how many of those hours are spent doing things I don’t want to do. I am lucky to have very few of those hours.
Take the leap. I was incredibly nervous to move from my ‘safe’ job at MPR, where I was happy, but it has been worth the risk to try out academia. While it can be hard to leave an environment with people you like working with, it’s worth taking the leap if you’re excited about the new possibilities, and our field is small enough that you often find new ways to work with former colleagues. In my case, I still get to consult on MPR projects, which I love.
In sum, I have found statistics to be a great field to work in, giving me the ability to work across a range of areas (public health, public policy, education) with great people and interesting problems. I do feel like I’m doing my small part to save the world through math!
Leave a Reply