Explore Lab Careers

by Joe Shea, MS, research assistant, Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health My career as a laboratory scientist started in a yogurt factory. Yes, you read that correctly. And no, it was definitely not your typical lab experience. Instead of putting on a lab coat each day, I would change from my street…

By Linette Granen, MT(ASCP)DLM, director, Marketing & Membership, APHL After reading the comments made by Tim Hunt, the biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2001 for his work on cell division, I was appalled! His comments about his “trouble with girls” (his words) in laboratories made me look back over my many years…

April 20-26 is Laboratory Professionals Week! This year APHL is focusing on environmental health and the laboratorians who work to detect the presence of contaminants in both people and in the environment. This post is part of a series. ——- By Kathryn Wangsness, Chief, Office of Laboratory Services, Arizona State Public Health Laboratory Ever since I was a little…

April 20-26 is Laboratory Professionals Week! This year APHL is focusing on environmental health and the laboratorians who work to detect the presence of contaminants in both people and in the environment. This post is part of a series. ——- By Henry Leibovitz, Ph.D., Chief, Environmental Sciences, RI State Health Laboratories Growing up along the south shore of Long…

April 20-26 is Laboratory Professionals Week! This year APHL is focusing on environmental health and the laboratorians who work to detect the presence of contaminants in both people and in the environment. This post is part of a series. ——- By Laurie Peterson-Wright, Chemistry Program Manager, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment Who would…

By Laura Siegel, Specialist, NCPHLL It’s fellowship season at APHL! Last month we received over 315 applications for the 2014-2015 class of EID fellows. As the review committee evaluates this year’s applicants, let’s take a look back and see what members of last year’s class are up to. ______________________________________________________________________________ “It boggled my mind that there…

By Linette Granen, Director of Membership & Marketing, APHL This was a question recently posted to one of my LinkedIn groups’ discussion boards, and I realized I needed to share my answer with as many people I could. I turned my answer into an essay* about my years in the laboratory profession and I do want…

By Royden Saah, North Carolina Public Health Laboratory Bioterrorism Coordinator It was the summer of 2001. I had defended my master’s thesis in microbiology about a year and a half prior when I noticed an open position in the state public health laboratory in the area of bioterrorism. My preconceived opinion of public health microbiology…

Sally Ride never intended to be a hero. In fact, she was a shy girl who never raised her hand in class, loved to play tennis and read Scientific American religiously. When she r...

By Sally Liska, DrPH Being a public health microbiologist can mean more than just working at the lab bench helping diagnose communicable diseases or being involved in public health outbreak investigations. There are many opportunities available. One activity I particularly enjoy is teaching and mentoring clinical laboratorians in developing countries. And now retired, I have…

By Sharon Master, Biological Sciences Bureau Chief, Scientific Laboratory Division, New Mexico Department of Health If I were yanked off the street five years ago and informed that I would soon be working in public health I might have been aghast, to say the least. I was exceptionally clueless as to what public health was…

The Laboratory Education Group Outreach (LEGO) is a collaborative mission at CDC to call attention and raise awareness to laboratory science education. This ...

By Kara MacKeil, Senior Technician, Public Health Preparedness and Response Even in an essential, exciting field like public health, summertime in the office can seem a little…slow. You might be doing exactly the same things that filled your days in February, but when the sun is out and the temperatures are rising, it does start…

Sally Ride was dedicated to encouraging girls to participate in math and science, to establishing camps to writing children's books.

By Laura Siegel, Specialist, National Center for Public Health Laboratory Leadership, APHL Last Tuesday around 8:30am I was standing in the Student Activity Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Normally I wouldn’t expect to see much of anything on a college campus this early in the morning, but that morning students decked out…