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Perspectives on
Professional Development in Psychology: An Interview with Elizabeth
Kensinger
George M. Slavich,
Ph.D.
University of California, San Francisco
The Clinical
Psychologist
Dr. Elizabeth Kensinger graduated summa
cum laude from Harvard University, with a B.A. in psychology and
biology, and received her Ph.D. in neuroscience from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT). Currently, she is an assistant professor in
the Department of Psychology at Boston College, where she is a beloved
teacher and successful early career scientist. Dr. Kensinger’s scientific
productivity is remarkable (e.g., she has published nine articles or
chapters per year since 2003), and she is also the recipient of many
grants and awards. In this column, I ask her to share with us her secrets
for success while discussing her perspectives on professional development!
GMS: First, congratulations on your
many successes, and thank you for offering to share your thoughts on
professional development with us!
EAK: Thank you for inviting me. I think
forums like this are very important because one of the hardest aspects of
starting an independent career is the abrupt transition from having a
large cohort of peers with whom you can discuss career development to
being one of only a handful of junior faculty at an institution.
GMS: What were your primary goals as
a graduate student at MIT and why?
EAK: Going into graduate school, I knew
that I wanted to study human memory, but I had no particular research
question and I wasn’t sure at what analytical level I wanted to
investigate human memory. This meant I really had two goals for myself
when I entered graduate school. My first goal was to expand my knowledge
of neuroscience methods and to gain a better appreciation for how multiple
levels of analysis could be used to address a research question; my second
goal was to focus my research interests. Dr. Suzanne Corkin’s laboratory
was an excellent fit with both these goals because I could study human
memory using multiple approaches: by testing healthy individuals,
interacting with patients with memory deficits, and conducting functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans. I also had the freedom to explore
a number of research topics, and I had Sue’s full support when I found the
topic that I wanted to spend my career researching: emotional memory.
GMS: Following graduate school at
MIT, you returned to Harvard to post-doc with your undergraduate mentor,
Dr. Daniel Schacter. What were the main benefits of this experience?
EAK: I began doing MRI research fairly late
in my graduate career, and I thought that gaining expertise with a wider
array of MRI acquisition and analysis techniques would better prepare me
for leading my own laboratory. I had enjoyed every moment in Dan’s
laboratory as an undergraduate, and so I jumped at the opportunity to
return as a post-doc. For me, doing a post-doc was instrumental in
facilitating a smooth transition to my junior faculty position. In
addition to expanding my research skills, I gained more experience in
grant writing, taught several undergraduate seminars, and served as an
advisor for some undergraduate thesis projects. These experiences enabled
me to tackle the teaching-mentoring-research triad required of a junior
faculty member.
GMS: It appears that you love to
teach. How do you see this activity relating to your research in
particular and your professional development in general?
EAK: Teaching forces me to take a step back
and to think broadly about the importance of my research and its relation
to the field of psychological science. These abilities are essential when
I’m writing a manuscript for a wide-reaching audience or when I’m putting
together a grant application. More generally, teaching keeps me motivated
by reminding me how many questions remain unanswered. It also emphasizes
to me that we’re not going to solve all the mysteries of the human mind in
my lifetime, so it’s essential that we teach the next generation well and
lay as strong a research framework as possible upon which they can build.
GMS: Obtaining major grants is often
important for professional advancement. Acquiring such funding, however,
has become increasingly difficult. What is your strategy for remaining
successful during these times?
EAK: First, I figure out what question I
want to answer and then I look for funding to support that line of
research. When I am looking for funding sources, I search grant databases
at least once a month to learn about upcoming deadlines, and I often look
beyond the obvious federal funding sources for opportunities from smaller
agencies or private foundations. Second, once I’ve identified an agency
whose goals seem to match up with my research interests, I spend time
researching that agency: What are their motivations in funding the type of
research that I do? Who reviews the grant applications, and do they have
expertise in my field? Who has received awards from this agency in the
past and what has been the scope of their projects? I use this knowledge
to tailor my research proposal so that it clearly describes how my
research fits with the agency’s goals. Third, I try to view grant writing
as a way to clarify my thinking on a topic rather than as a way to secure
funding. Trying to anticipate the critiques of grant reviewers helps me to
think critically about my own ideas, so I benefit from the grant writing
process even if the grant is not funded.
GMS: What does the future of
psychological science look like from your standpoint?
EAK: I think that psychological science
will increasingly place emphasis on individual differences and on the use
of multiple levels of analysis to understand human behavior. The line
between psychology and neuroscience will blur, with laboratories
researching how individuals’ genes, brain structure, brain function,
gender, and personality influence behavior.
GMS: What can students do to be
better prepared for this future?
EAK: It is critical for students to gain
broad training in psychological and neuroscience methods. For example,
even if students aren’t planning to use MRI or other neuroimaging
techniques in their own research, they should understand how those methods
work and how to evaluate how well a neuroimaging study was conducted.
GMS: Finally, what is the best
professional development advice that you ever received?
EAK: To keep searching until I found a
tractable research question to which I had to know the answer. Once I
found that question, everything fell into place for me. There are Saturday
mornings when I wake up with the sun to analyze data, not because of an
approaching deadline, but because I cannot wait a moment longer to know
whether or not my hypothesis has been supported.
GMS: On behalf of the student members
of Division 12, thanks for your time!
EAK: Thanks, my pleasure.
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Citation |
| Slavich, G. M.
(2008). Perspectives on professional development in psychology: An
interview with Elizabeth Kensinger. The Clinical Psychologist, 61(2),
10-11. |
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