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VOICEOVER: This is Alumni Aloud, a podcast by Graduate Center students for Graduate Center students. In each episode, we talk with the GC graduate about their career path, the ins and outs of their current position, and the career advice they have for students. This series is sponsored by the Graduate Center’s Office of Career Planning & Professional Development.

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JACK DEVINE, HOST: Welcome to another edition of Alumni Aloud. We are joined by Dr. Anastassov. Thank you so much for joining us. 

DR. ANASTASSOV, GUEST: It is my pleasure. I’m so happy to be here. 

JACK DEVINE, HOST : We are very happy to have you on Alumni Aloud and we like to begin this with talking about how you got where you are but also what is your passion… what drives you. The first question we have for you is along those lines. You want to start off telling a little about yourself and your research. You’ve pursued a career in researching the biology of vision and comparative retinal neurophysiology. What questions drive your research?

DR. ANASTASSOV, GUEST: Sure. So first off I’m an Assistant Professor at San Francisco State University. I’m in the Biology Department there. I consider myself a neuroscientist and a neurophysiologist. So broadly speaking my interests are in the comparative neuroscience of vision. My work here is mostly on the evolution and development of retinal circuitry. So I’m very interested in unusual model organisms that have unique evolutionary adaptations that teach us about the fundamental principles of retinal design. 

The basic question is how many different ways are there to put together a functioning retina. To take a quick step back the retina is the nervous tissue that lines the back of your eye that enables you to see. That’s the light sensitive part of your eye. There are a lot of things that nature can teach us about it.  I’m really interested in understanding that are the minimal requirements for putting together this tissue that is so important in our daily lives. And in fact are those elements present in all vertebrae retinas. Can we learn something from animals with sort of unusual retinas that will someday enable us to restore vision in humans? 

By, perhaps, looking for these long dormant qualities of a retina that have been inherited but are sleeping away somewhere. And so I use a variety of approaches in the lab from physiology to cellular biology and here I have graduate and undergraduate students in the laboratory helping with the research.

JACK DEVINE, HOST: That sounds like really compelling research that could really transform the lives of millions of people. Going out and looking at these exceptional animals and looking at how they could help so many people seems like something that is absolutely worth pursuing.   When did you first make the decision to pursue the academic track? What steps did you take along the path to end up at San Francisco State University?

DR. ANASTASSOV, GUEST: Sure so let me answer your first question. So first of all I’m a very proud through and through CUNY graduate. I went as an undergrad to the Hunter College of CUNY and then I went to the Graduate Center for my PhD where I split my time between Hunter and the Graduate Center and a research station in Massachusetts. Thinking back I would say that the first spark was as an undergraduate at Hunter I got an opportunity as a Junior to work in one of the research labs on campus in the biology department in one of the faculty labs. It was Dr. William Cohen’s lab who unfortunately is no longer with us. He passed away. 

But he gave me this opportunity to come in there and work on the microscope and prepare my own samples and figure out how to do my project on thrombocytes. So all that was just really really exciting times and I was premed at the time. I was thinking, oh, I would really like to some lab experience because it would look really good on a Med School application, but what happened was that I decided not to pursue Medical School because I just loved the work so much. I just really loved the idea of research. The camaraderie of research in the lab. The intellectual pursuit of it. 

And these steps that I took from there to end up where I am now. I’m at San Francisco State University which is a part of the Cal State System. I probably can’t enumerate them. They are quite a few. I would say that there are a number of, there are a few important things that you need to pay attention to if you would like to pursue this type of work. First of all, be realistic. Know what you’re getting yourself into. I tried to ask a ton of questions. Especially the moment after I got into Grad School into the biology program, the neuroscience program at the Graduate Center. I just was constantly seeking out information. How do you get to have your own lab? What do you need to do? What’s important for you to pay attention to? How long does it take? What are the chances of being able to do that? And so I asked around. 

I talked to as many people as I could. I talk to the faculty and made myself available and I made sure that people knew that that’s what I wanted to do. And that I would happily accept their help and advice. Any workshops that had to do with people talking about they their lab, I went to that, any workshops talking about how to write a paper, I went to that. I just tried to do the research but also tried to get out of the lab as much as I could. I know it sounds cliche but try to expand my networks. Importantly ,I never burned any bridges. You just don’t know who will be able to give you one piece of advice or this little bit of help that is going to propel you in the right direction. You build relationships in science that last a lifetime.  So I think it’s very important to keep that in mind.

Another thing that I practically did was that I worked a lot of my writing. Any opportunity that I had to learn or to write a portion of a paper, help out with reviews with papers, understand how you write a grant, all these things are the nuts and bolts of what it means to be a scientist with your own lab. You need to be able to do them. It takes practice. It’s not about how good you are, about how clever you are, it’s about how much you practice that. I tried to put a lot of time into that. 

Something else that I think was a huge help that was somewhat by accident was that I ended up with my first mentor being a really fantastic mentor. Then seeing what that did for me I sought out good mentorship everywhere I went. I just made that a priority. In my opinion good mentorship is crucial to get you to where you need to be when it comes to an academic career. I think the finally the last thing I was going to say about this is that there are a lot of graduate students that are partners with other graduate students in the sciences. This sort of two body problem and it seems like an insurmountable problem. But it isn’t. My wife is also a scientist. She is also a faculty member. And there’s a sort of empowerment in that. You can help each other succeed. As long as you give it time and are strategic about the steps you take, it is not an unachievable goal. It is difficult, but it is achievable. There are probably many many other things I could say, but I’ll stop here. 

JACK DEVINE, HOST: You’ve said already a lot of many great things. I share your enthusiasm for the CUNY system as a whole and the Graduate Center in particular. The comment you made about the importance about making relationships is so key in anything but I think in academia it’s essential and part of the reason why the CUNY system is such a great place because it gets you in contact with so many great people who could become your mentor or many mentors. So you already hinted at this when you brought up potentially applying to medical school, but were there any other career paths in science that you considered:

DR. ANASTASSOV, GUEST: Absolutely, I think that goes back to what I was saying previously which is: you need to be realistic. You need to understand that pursuing an academic career requires patience and also requires the ability to take in disappointment if you will. Almost like an actor going into auditions and getting rejected multiple times. You have to develop thick skin. Early on it became apparent to me that getting a faculty job is by no means a certainty. In fact it is going to be difficult to do that. I thought okay I’m going to give it my best shot. I’m going to do whatever these mentors have been advising me to do.  I will do all the necessary steps. I will publish. Learn how to write. Network. But I will have to be okay with knowing that even if I do that I might not be successful. There are not that many of these jobs out there. So you need to have that realistic expectation. I still have a PhD at the end of this so can I find any other jobs. 

Absolutely. I had a plan B. For example I did a number of informational interviews especially as a Postdoc when it was time for me to start, even before that, when I was looking for faculty jobs. What can I use my expertise for? I did a lot of microscopy so I reached out to somebody that I knew at Leica, the company that makes all these fancy microscopes and I was considering applying and getting a job as a specialist there. I reached out to Grant Administrations and was considering that. Looked into scientific writing. I looked into different internships at, for example, I was a postdoc at UCSF, they have an office that deals with patents. They had an internship so I looked at that. Anywhere where there was a career workshop I tried to attend it. Where it said alternative careers for postdocs because I wanted to have options. I didn’t want to put all my eggs in the same basket. In some ways that freed me up mentally to say it’s okay. I’m doing everything I can. It’s okay if it doesn’t work out. I can do something else. Maybe that’s something that takes away some of the stress and allows you to be more natural and more relax when you talk to people during interviews. 

The final thing I want to say about this. When you get a PhD, especially in the sciences, but really in any discipline you have been developing skills, analytical skills, ways of thinking about problems, regardless of what those problems are. A lot of places find those skills very helpful, useful, and valuable. You might not know it, but there are a bunch of consulting firms that have PhDs in the sciences with these types of skills. It pays to have a broad horizon with a broad view of things. 

JACK DEVINE, HOST: Preparing for the alternative or multiple alternatives is always a smart plan. Taking advantage of the education and how it has developed your skills at a place like CUNY is what this is all about at the end of the day. You’ve already discussed this in a certain sense but maybe just expand on this further. What role did the Graduate Center have in your intellectual development? How did your experiences at the GC transform you into the professor you are today?

DR. ANASTASSOV, GUEST: Oh boy I have to tell you that [laughs] this I can talk about for the whole day. The Graduate Center and the CUNY system as a whole is just a magical place. Let me try to be a little bit briefer than that. In two words the Graduate Center had a huge role in my development, intellectually and otherwise. First of all it gave me confidence. All of my professors, all the faculty members, many of the faculty members in my department. They were all were there for me if I needed help with science, help with career development, help with writing. They just gave me confidence that I can do this and that was huge. The Graduate Center also gave me access to a lot of training and resources. I’m really happy to see that now that there is now officially an Office of Career Development at the Grad Center. There was sort of the fledglings of one when I was a graduate student there not so long ago but I’m really happy to see that it’s a resource now for graduate students now because I think it’s an invaluable resource. 

Other than the faculty members and professors and committee members, actually the staff really helped out. For example, Ms. Joan Reid if she’s still there, I’m not sure, she’s the biology PhD program administrator for the whole Grad Center. She’s absolutely a gem. She always answered my questions about anything and everything to do with the Biology program and all these administrative things that I had to do. She always answered all my questions. She even came to my defense which was fantastic. One of the things that I think is really valuable that the GC and CUNY gives is that it gives you the opportunity to get some teaching experience. By the time I was done I had a good five years of solid teaching experience so I knew what it was like to get into a classroom and stand in front of a group of students and deliver material. So when I was applying for faculty jobs that are in broad departments like mine now that require some teaching I had a huge advantage. Trying to explain biological processes in simplistic ways and terms that don’t involve a lot of terminology and acronyms can be a very very challenging thing, but it really pushes you to improve how you talk about science. I think that was very valuable from my intellectual development so I credit the Grad Center with all of these things. 

The one sort of last thing I wanna say about that is that I had a lot of caring faculty members as a graduate student and even as an undergraduate. That is something that I try to emulate as a faculty member and a mentor myself. The example that I got from everybody at the Graduate Center and CUNY is something that I will forever follow. 

JACK DEVINE, HOST: As a historian in a different department I’ve definitely had many great examples within the faculty that I have tried to follow. I think you’re completely right about how the experience in the classroom and learning to communicate your research in terms that are relatable is so crucial for spreading the great work that so many academics are up to at the Graduate Center and all across the country. What were some of the challenges you encountered as you transitioned to becoming a faculty member?

DR. ANASTASSOV, GUEST: That’s a great question. The first is that there are a lot of unknowns. You may think you know how a faculty member’s time is taken up but you don’t know until you get there. There are a lot of things that you just don’t know and you kind of have to learn on the job. One of the big things is that, one of the big challenges, and to this day, they said that there are a great many more demands on your time. And one of the things that you have never enough of is time. There are always meeting and committee meetings and lab meetings and department meetings, and university-wide meetings and university-wide committees. All of these things that I didn’t know existed at all. I said my goodness when am I gonna have time to actually finish writing that paper, the grants. You have to learn, you have to learn how to protect your time. You have to expect that there’ll be a lot of demands on your time. You have a lot of new responsibilities that have nothing to do with science to be quite honest. I have had to learn how to be an accountant. To keep track of how I run my lab. 

You have mentorship responsibilities and I think those are… I take those very seriously. I’m sure all faculty members do. But they require attention and time. They can be challenging. Nobody prepares you for that. Nobody prepares you for sort of dealing with people and that’s why I think it’s really important, early on, even as a beginning graduate student, and definitely as a postdoc to just get comfortable talking to people and understanding what they are telling and also kind of reading between the lines. Because like it or not you will become a little bit of a people manager. You will have to manage people that you mentor for example. You will have to manage and have relationships with all sorts of personalities in your department and all around the university. You have to kind of have to learn how to do that. You have to be just smart about it and understand that there is a great deal importance in being professional. 

Other than that I would say that one of the surprises probably is that you get very little time to actually devote to the things that you think you’ll have time for. Oh I thought that when I’m a faculty member I’ll be able to sit on the bench for a half a day and do experiments. That’s not how it works unfortunately. You have to learn how to delegate, delegate responsibility. You have to learn how to plan. And it’s something you keep learning for many many years. On that part I’m a little bit thick and I have to keep learning it myself [laughs]. 

JACK DEVINE, HOST: You’ve already given so much great advice to our listeners. I just have one last final question. What would you recommend to current graduate students interested in pursuing a career as a faculty member in the sciences?

DR. ANASTASSOV, GUEST: The first thing is to get out of the lab. Get out of the lab often. If you’re not in the sciences, get out of the library. Talk to people. Seek out other people’s advice. Seek out mentorship. Just ask for help. You’ll be surprised how willing people are to give you help and advice. Especially in academia that help is not just empty help. People really want to help young academics  and they want to assist them. Attend workshops. Take internships. Get yourself informed. If you’re in the sciences but really in any sort of academic environment, you’re going to have to write a lot so get comfortable with writing. Write, write, write, write, write, write grants, write papers. Use anything that can sharpen your writing skills. If you need to do a postdoc I would say and that’s really something that really happens in the sciences, in biology, a lot obviously in biochemistry. I’m not really sure that that’s something that happens that much in other disciplines. But if you’re somebody who’s in a discipline like that and it’s in the sciences and you need to do a postdoc, start looking early and emphasize good mentorship. Good mentorship is key to your success. You want to have a mentor that’s there to support you, not just through your graduate career but after and long long long long after. At this point I think I defended essentially 20, January 2013. It’s been a while now. I still am in touch with my graduate advisor. In fact, just last year in the year before the pandemic we did some work together. Build your relationships. Protect your relationships. Start early. Actually just before I end with this, I would say that one thing that I learned after a while with a lot of trial and error is that it really pays to focus, to focus your attention on the minimal things you need to do to finish your work. I’m not saying don’t do the work. I’m saying practically speaking what do I need to do to get from point A to point B. Try not to get distracted in too many different directions because that seems like a good idea at the time it just adds on to how much more you have to do in order to finish up. 

JACK DEVINE, HOST: It’s always crucial to have a strategy to where you’re gonna go next. I just want to thank you so much for joining us on Alumni Aloud. It was really great having you on. I look forward to checking in on your research and how it goes. It’s really exciting stuff to me. 

DR. ANASTASSOV, GUEST: Thank you very much Jack. It was a pleasure. I’m really happy and grateful that you invited me and I hope this was helpful and I encourage all your listeners to contact me if they need help or have questions. I’m always always happy to help. 

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