BOSS, Jeremy M.

PERSONAL: Male.

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322-1100. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Emory University, Atlanta, GA, faculty member, 1986–97, professor of microbiology and immunology, 1997–, director of graduate program in genetics and molecular biology.

WRITINGS:

(With Susan H. Eckert) Academic Scientists at Work: Navigating the Biomedical Research Career, Kluwer Academic (New York, NY), 2003, new edition, in press.

Contributor of more than fifty articles to periodicals, including Nature, Science, Cell, Immunity, Current Opinions in Immunology, Journal of Biological Chemistry, and Journal of Immunology. Deputy editor, Journal of Immunology.

SIDELIGHTS: Jeremy M. Boss told CA: "My interest in writing Academic Scientists at Work: Navigating the Biomedical Research Career was spawned by the great need for a resource that described the process that young scientists face as they develop their careers in academic institutions. The surprise was that there is no formal guidance for how to deal with academic processes or information or what is expected for promotion/tenure. It took me and most of my colleagues more than ten years to understand how academic institutions work.

"All of my career advice articles are written with Susan Eckert, who was the first academic administrator that I met and worked with when I took on my position as an assistant professor. Susan and I have discussed hundreds of academic topics over the last eighteen years. All of these topics have entered into our book/articles or will be in the future. I write in long sessions at the end of the day when the campus life quiets down. In the first session, the opening remarks, outline, and flow of the chapter/article is splashed on the screen. This is followed by filling in the ideas, editing, and discussions, and a final form that works for both of us. We use MS Word's 'track changes' function for our edits and discuss each change and work out a compromise. Most often, the compromise means a complete rewording of the sentence.

"My writing is influenced by the never-ending events that I witness in my profession. These events and conversations with my colleagues become fuel for ideas to write about. One of the surprises about writing is how much fun it is. I enjoy trying to place humor in the prose to keep the reader interested. Of course the goal in our writings is to educate young scientists about how the process works and how to avoid the snags and traps that can stunt a promising career."