Abstract:
What does a career in science really look like beyond completing a PhD? In this informal and interactive session, Pingtao Ding will share reflections from his own journey from PhD student and postdoc to group leader, including some of the choices, challenges, successes, and setbacks along the way. The discussion will explore career development in and beyond academia, communication and mentorship, managing uncertainty and pressure, and maintaining well-being while building a scientific career. Rather than a formal lecture, the session is designed as an open conversation, with students and postdocs encouraged to bring their own questions and experiences.

Bio:
Dr Pingtao Ding is an experienced molecular biologist and geneticist, and his group focus on understanding the molecular basis of plant disease resistance. Dr Ding obtained his PhD training from Prof. Yuelin Zhang and Prof. Xin Li at the National Institute of Biological Sciences (NIBS), Beijing and the Michael Smith Laboratories at the University of Columbia (UBC), Vancouver. He joined Prof. Jonathan Jones as a postdoc at the Sainsbury Laboratory (TSL), Norwich. At TSL, Dr Ding has been awarded a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship and a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) Future Leader Fellowship to establish his independent research with the support of Prof. Jones. During his PhD and postdoc research, he has contributed multiple breakthrough discoveries in identifying key regulators and concepts in plant innate immunity. He has also contributed a few highly cited review articles in this field. Now, Dr Ding is leading an international research team as a tenure-track assistant professor at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), Leiden University, with funding support from a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant, several other EU and Dutch (NWO) grants.