CAREER PATHWAYS
Career Pathways and Serendipity Intersect at San Mateo Laboratory
By Rudolph Nowak , MPH , senior specialist , Marketing and Communications
Left to right : Fellows Jason Rose , Hedayat Hosseini , mentor Kristina Hsieh and fellow Phoi Tran pose at the San Mateo County Public Health Laboratory . Photo : San Mateo County Public Health Laboratory .
Most fellows are recruited out of college as graduates or postgraduates . Some fellows may be early-career scientists looking for opportunities to advance their careers . But three recent fellows illustrate that every career pathway is different .
Those pathways sometimes intersect and can lead to serendipity .
When Kristina Hsieh , DrPH , became the San Mateo County Public Health Laboratory director in 2023 , she received calls from colleagues asking about opportunities at her new laboratory . They also passed along the names of people looking for positions and even career changes .
Among the names passed along were Jason Rosé , who has a PhD in pharmacology ; Phoi Tran , who has a PhD in biology ; and Hedayat Hosseini who has a PhD in food safety and quality control .
Bringing Them Onboard
Hsieh had candidates , but not necessarily job openings . That is when she learned about the Public Health Laboratory
Fellowship Program : an APHL-CDC Initiative .
“ I was thinking , ‘( Hosseini ) has previous history in food science , and we really need someone to do sequencing . He could easily transition to doing infectious diseases .’ The APHL program allowed us the opportunity to pursue that ,” Hsieh said .
Tran was a colleague of Hsieh ’ s from the California Department of Public Health who was thinking of transitioning out from what is now the Department of Cannabis Control .
“ She ( Hsieh ) said ‘ I have a need for someone to do wastewater testing and you could apply for this fellowship .’ It sounded fun and I wanted a change ,” Tran said .
Tran said the fellowship offered the opportunity to take a break from running the same tests repeatedly .
“ I felt like my ability to research had taken a nosedive because I fell off from the new evolving and emerging science ,” Tran said . “ So , it is fun to be back in science and getting to use new technology .”
Rosé was another recommendation from a colleague within San Mateo County and happened to be a former high school chemistry and biology teacher .
“ I found out Jason has a background of being a retired high school teacher who taught chemistry but also taught different classes that were infectious disease related . And it just so happened that he wanted to switch careers from teaching and pursue a clinical laboratory scientist license ,” Hsieh said .
Rosé forwarded his CV to Hsieh and she contacted him .
Rosé ’ s fellowship was as a laboratory assistant , which allowed him to gain hands-on experience in a public health laboratory since his ultimate goal is to get certified and become a public health microbiologist .
Cultivating Experience
“ San Mateo is a small laboratory of about 15 people . So , everybody does a little bit of everything ,” Rosé said . “ It ’ s a lot of fun seeing how all the basic laboratory science ties into everything that I ’ ve lectured on for the last 20 years .”
Rosé also used his teaching background and his own fellowship experience to develop a training syllabus for incoming fellows to the laboratory .
“ It ’ s to help them because Hedayat and Phoi and I have a lot of laboratory background experience . These ( incoming ) fellows have college , so it ’ s very different for them as opposed to us . I think they ’ ll have a little more support and I ’ m happy to do it ,” Rosé said .
Even with the experience of these three fellows , there was still a learning curve .
“ While they are seasoned , they were unfamiliar with this laboratory and how it operates , Hsieh said . “ The nice thing is that they ’ ve been working for a long time , they understand what ’ s needed , they are independent thinkers and they are proactive about pursuing and completing projects .”
The addition of experienced fellows has also been a benefit to Hsieh .
“ We were able to bring up our sequencing capabilities and were able to expand wastewater and get it into a more consistent place ,” Hsieh added . “ I think the mixture of experience and backgrounds makes the laboratory more efficient , increases our capacity with limited resources , and allows us to be a small but mighty laboratory that can continue to expand with minimal expansion to our budgets .”
Hsieh and the San Mateo laboratory will continue to benefit as Hosseini and Tran have extended their fellowships for a second year and Rosé has accepted a permanent microbiologist position . g
4 LAB MATTERS Spring 2025
PublicHealthLabs @ APHL . org APHL . org