Fábio Rosa, Gil Costa, Patrícia Monteiro – Taking Opportunities and Blazing Your Own Trail

This episode is a special one – it was recorded live with three guests who were speakers at the 2019 edition of BEBday, a meeting organized by the students of my PhD program at the University of Coimbra, Portugal – the BEB PhD Program. This year’s edition brought a group of scientists who had a diverse set of experiences carving their career path and shared great insights with the grad students. Around the table, for this interview, you’ll hear Fábio Fiúza Rosa, a PhD student/entrepreneur, Gil Costa, a scientific designer, and Patrícia Monteiro, a  researcher with a passion for knowledge transfer and science outreach.

Fábio Rosa

​Fábio Fiúza Rosa is graduated in Biology and holds a MSc in Biochemistry, both by University of Coimbra. He is currently a PhD student at Center for Neurosciences and Cell Biology (CNC) from University of Coimbra (PDBEB) and at the Faculty of Medicine of Lund University. He holds 3 patents and is Co-founder of two start-ups: BRT Blood Reprogramming Technologies, Lda (Coimbra, Portugal) and Asgard Therapeutics AB (Lund, Sweden). Fábio Fiúza Rosa participated in multiple accelerator programs, being awarded with Arrisca C (University of Coimbra, 2016), Entrepreneurship competition Montepio Acredita Portugal (Health Prize 2017). Recently, he was awarded with the Jury’s Best Pitch Award promoted by EIT Health (Oxford University, UK. August 2019).​

​Gil Costa obtained a degree in Biology (University of Coimbra) and a PhD in Neurosciences (PDBEB, University of Coimbra), integrated in Doctor Zachary F. Mainen’s laboratory at Champalimaud Foundation also in collaboration with Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC), Lisboa. Since completing his PhD, Gil Costa has been working as Scientific Illustrator at Champalimaud Research and Gulbenkian Foundation. More recently, he established as a freelancer and here you can consult some of his works: Gil Costa | Science Design.

Patrícia Monteiro

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • As part of a research team, you can take part in translational projects developed in your lab
  • Getting to your dream job is an incremental process with different stepping stones along the way, where you gain experience and skills
  • The important role collaboration plays in scientific research and innovation
  • Why you should say yes to opportunities that arise that may be outside your comfort zone
  • Making use of structures supporting innovation and knowledge translation offered by your university, if you have an research-related business idea
  • How universities have grown to foster researchers developing outreach initiatives
  • How as a woman in the STEM space you can be a role model for girls and young women

This episode’s pearls of wisdom:

“If you’re interested in entrepreneurship and really have an opportunity to translate it or, at some point, to understand the path that you have to take to translate the idea to the clinics, grab it as hard as you can and, no matter what, work for it.”

“Make sure that any idea you’re generating in the early stage, you really understand it, you really know your competitors, you really know your market. And make sure you will have a place whatever what market or field you’re aiming for.”

“Whatever you do, do it with passion. Be the best of yourself in every hat you wear. If you’re a father, be the best father you can be. If you’re a scientist, be the best scientist you can be. If you’re a podcaster, be the best podcaster you can be. But whatever you do, do it with passion, because that’s the only way you will show the best of yourself.”

“You’ll see – there isn’t a solution, there isn’t a formula. Until now, you’ve been following a certain direction that the educational system has provided you, or the society you are in, but you’ll realize that there are so many avenues and so many possibilities. So chill out, get some sun, get positive vibes wherever you can find them, and go for it.”

“I know that it seems like a race, I know that it seems very complicated for many people, but I really feel that there’s always some sort of solution. And you just have to… I don’t know if it,s wait for it, but once you’ve found it, don’t let it go.”

“Know yourself, know what’s right for you, and do what feels right for you.”

Fábio’s links: Linkedin.com/in/fábio-fiúza-rosa-291194a6; Asgard Therapeutics: http://asgardthx.com;

Gil’s links: Linkedin.com/in/gilcosta-design; Twitter: @GilCostaDesign

Patrícia’s links: Linkedin.com/in/patricia-monteiro-32494840; Twitter: @PatMont_

You might also like the following episodes:

Inês Campos Costa – Career advisory: PapaPhD.com/41

Kelly Bullock – Scientific illustration: PapaPhD.com/9

Kirsten Sanford – Science Communication: PapaPhD.com/13

Paulo Oliveira – Entrepreneurship: PapaPhD.com/32

Launching your podcast?

If you’re preparing to launch your podcast, you may be asking yourself what hosting platform to use.

I launched Papa PhD on Bluebrry because I wanted a professional service that would interface with my WordPress website, that would robustly broadcast Papa PhD to all platforms, and that would allow me to grow my podcast in years to come.

And these are the reasons why I’m recommending the Blubrry podcast hosting and syndication platform.

Click on the button below or use the promo code PapaPhDBlue on the Blubrry website to unlock a one month free trial:

If you are starting a serious podcast project, do consider one of the first podcasting hosts out there, offering state of the art services, including IAB certified statistics, based on years of experience in the podcasting space.

Happy podcasting!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

The reCAPTCHA verification period has expired. Please reload the page.