Dr. Tracy Callahan

Tracy Callahan is a very important person within the Biogen Idec company. Tracy runs the Community Laboratory. Tracy loves this job but didn’t always have this much fun working. Growing up, two of Tracy’s most important role models were her mother and father. Her mother was a teacher and her father worked in a hospital. This is very interesting because she put the two careers together; she is involved in the teaching aspects but she is also involved in the science aspects. She also said that she found a lot of other role models along the way including her high school anatomy teacher and many of her college professors.

Tracy graduated from Bates College in Maine and received her BA in biopsychology. After that she got her Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Rochester. During college Tracy says that she took a variety of different classes because she because she wanted to make sure that she was choosing the right path in life. But also because she was going to have the rest of her life to do science but may not have the chance to take a drama class for example. While in college some of her favorite classes were physiological psychology, literature, and a class where she got to go off and do an independent research project.

After college Tracy did some research and worked as a lab technician but she wanted to change her career. She felt that she wanted to be able to give back to the community in a different way. She also thought that she wasn’t putting all of her skills to use. So she got a job at Boston University teaching at City Lab. She was really enjoying herself and when she found out that she could work at Biogen Idec teaching labs everyday she jumped at the offer. It is really interesting that Tracy is working in a way as a teacher because she said that, "if someone had asked her if she ever wanted to be a teacher she would have said no." Every day Tracy will teach a lab to a certain class. One of the things she loves most about her job is the variety. She gets to teach so many different age groups and do so many different labs. The only thing that can be frustrating is the fact that she only has a limited amount of time and sometimes has to rush her classes. Tracy also runs a summer lab which runs for either a week or two weeks. In the one week session, students will be working with Green Fluorescent Protein and Blue Fluorescent Protein. In the two week session, they will be working with antibodies.

One piece of advice that Tracy has for girls like us is to look for opportunities. There are so many programs out there that can help us make choices about our future; we just have to look for them. She also believes that it is important to try new things because you may find that you have other interests you didn’t even know about. Another important skill is networking. She says that it is really good to talk to people and interview people who are already working in the field that you want to get into because that way you will get more of an idea of what it is actually like to be in this field and that can help you to decide if that is actually what you want to do.

Where is she now?

She'll tell you more herself in this video