Fellows Who Lead & Pathways to Non-Profit Careers Inside Cancer Careers

In this episode, we hear from NIH fellows, Dr. Vasty Osei Amponsa and Dr. Marja Brolinson on resources, leadership opportunities, and more at NIH.  We then hear from Dr. Eugene Manley Jr., Director of STEM Initiatives at LUNGevity Foundation who shares his path from bench science to a successful career in non-profit organizations.
 
Segment 1:  Fellows Who Lead
Vasty Osei Amponsa, Ph.D.
NCI Center for Cancer Research - Center for Structural Biology
Marja Brolinson, M.D.
Todd Macfarlan Lab
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
Fellows Committee (FelCom)
Office of Intramural Training and Education (OITE)
Nina Schor, M.D., Ph.D.
 
Ad: NCI Tech Transfer: Transition to Industry Fellowship T2I
 
Segment 2: Pathways to Non-Profit Careers
Karmanos Cancer Institute Research & Training Programs
LUNGevity Foundation
LUNGevity Health Equity Speaker Series
AACR Translational Cancer Research for Basic Scientists Workshop
American Society for Cell Biology Biotech Course
R25 Youth Enjoy Science (YES) Research Program 
Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minoritized Scientists (ABCRMS)
Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS)
Black in Cancer
Black in STEM
Black in BioPhysics
Your Turn: Guest Recommendations
Podcast: Fertility and Sterility On Air by American Society for Reproductive Medicine
Book: 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan Peterson
Movie: John Wick Chapter 4
[UPBEAT MUSIC] 
OLIVER BOGLER: Hello and welcome to Inside Cancer Careers, a podcast from the National Cancer Institute, I'm your host, Oliver Bogler. I work at the NCI in the Center for Cancer Training. On Inside Cancer Careers, we explore all the different ways that people join the fight against disease and hear their stories. Today, we're talking to two fellows at NIH, Dr. Amponsa and Dr. Brolinson about being at NIH and their work in NIH Fellows Committee FelCom. Then after the break, Dr. Eugene Manley from the Lungevity Foundation is joining us to talk about his work in the non-profit and professional society sectors. Listen through to the end of the show to hear our guests make some interesting recommendations and where we invite you to take your turn.
OLIVER: It's a pleasure to welcome Dr. Vasty Osei Amponsa and Dr. Marja Brolinson to the podcast. Dr. Amponsa is a post-doctoral fellow in the Center for Structural Biology at NCI. She's involved in fellow leadership at the NCI and also serves as the Basic Science Co-Chair of the NIH Fellows Committee or FelCom. Dr. Brolinson is a clinical fellow at the NIH Clinical Center and the Clinical Fellows Co-Chair of FelCom. Welcome.
VASTY OSEI AMPONSA: Thank you.
MARJA BROLINSON: Thank you. Happy to be here.
OLIVER: So, I want to talk with you a little bit about FelCom but before we get there, I wonder if you'd share with our listeners your career journey so far. Perhaps we'll start with you Dr. Amponsa.
VASTY: Yeah, sure, thanks for this opportunity to have me on the NCI podcast. So as Dr. Bogler mentioned, my name is Dr. Osei Amponsa and I'm a post-doctoral fellow at NCI. I joined NCI back in 2019 when I finished my graduate studies at Penn State at Hershey Medical Center. And I graduated in biomedical science and clinical translational science. I started my journey in science because I was passionate about finding solutions to, not really in the field of cancer, but it was mainly for infectious diseases, immuno disease, because I grew up in Ghana, I was born in Ghana, but later on grew up in Italy so all my years as a child I was like "Okay, I want to find something, be part of the community that tries to solve issues for diseases especially infectious diseases." The truth of my journey, I was pushed by serendipity and by forces so out of my control, then to be in the cancer field which turned out also to be quite interesting and quite an exciting field to work