Lab Matters Winter 2025 | Page 7

CAREER PATHWAYS

By Rudolph Nowak, MPH, senior specialist, Marketing and Communications

Sin Urban( center, in dark safety glasses). Photo: Maryland Department of Health Laboratories Administration.

Since its inception, Career Pathways in Public Health Laboratory Science: an APHL-CDC Initiative has never lacked applicants for its fellowships and internships. But the same does not hold true for mentors. The program actively promotes how fellows and interns can help fill a workforce gap without costing the host lab a dime, and fellows come with a project supply fund that offers additional funding for hosting a fellow.

Those facts leave some mentors puzzled.

Sin Urban, PhD, Environmental Science Division chief at the Maryland Department of Health Laboratories Administration is one of the mentors who repeatedly signs up for fellows and interns.

“ I think this is a really underutilized program. And I think people don’ t have a good understanding of the benefits it gives,” Urban said. He gave one example of trying to get a project funded by writing a grant. A grant for $ 275,000 would require a 50-to-100-page request and take about a month to write. If the grant is approved on the first review, which, according to Urban, almost never happens, it could be eight months before the project could begin.

“ I can do the same thing with one fellow. Their salaries are funded by APHL, they have a professional development allowance of a few thousand dollars, and they have a research supply allowance, which is( currently) $ 10,000 per year for two years. Boom, I’ m at $ 275,000 having written three paragraphs.”

Fortunately, some scientists and laboratories sign on to mentor cohort after cohort and some even mentor multiple fellows, interns or both. Urban currently mentors six fellows and also had one intern. He also oversees a staff of over 60 scientists. His way of getting everything done is straightforward: the entire process from the interview forward is a team effort.

“ I’ m their direct mentor and I take that very seriously. But they’ re not going to learn bench skills from me, or how to interface with the laboratory supervisor who’ s setting their schedule, approving their time sheets or a lot of quality assurance parts,” Urban said.“ I have them interfacing with various people day-to-day that can provide those skills.”

Urban’ s plan of action is simple and direct.

“ I tell them,‘ Your project is to become a certified analyst in whatever area you’ re joining. So, if you’ re joining the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances( PFAS) laboratory, your job is to learn the method, have training papers( and) demonstrate competencies to our high level’,” Urban said.

That approach paid off when Jesus Bedolla, a food safety fellow at the Maryland laboratory, worked a weekend rotation and helped process samples of Boar’ s Head liverwurst that were eventually found to be contaminated by Listeria.

Curating Experiences

Urban also believes in the importance of customizing the fellowship or internship to the individual.

“ I’ ve had colleagues say,‘ I went through( the candidate pool), I couldn’ t find a trained chemist. There’ s no one suitable

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