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Pathways Career Symposium 2008
Social Sciences and Humanities Careers Beyond Academia
Time: 10:40-11:40am
Room: 119 Wellman
Many Ph.D.s in the Humanities and Social Sciences seek careers beyond academia yet few are aware of the many exciting and challenging opportunities available. Our panelists will discuss their own transitions to careers in the private and non-profit sectors, including the pros and cons of working outside the academy, advice on the job search, how to be competitive for positions and if the world of work beyond the academy has met their expectations.
Panelists:
Robert Weiner, Ph.D., Executive Director, California Coalition for Rural Housing
Since 1993, Dr. Robert Wiener has been a lecturer in the Department of Human and Community Development, where he teaches in the area of housing and social policy and conducts a summer abroad course on Housing and Community Development in Barcelona, Spain. In 2004, Dr. Wiener was recognized as a “Distinguished Educator” by the UCD student government. In addition, he has been the Executive Director of the California Coalition for Rural Housing (CCRH), one of the oldest state low-income housing coalitions in the country, for 27 years Under his leadership, CCRH has played a major role in federal and state housing policy and program efforts in rural housing, farm labor housing, housing preservation, and other areas of housing provision. In 1999, he co-edited and -wrote a landmark book on Housing in Rural America and is currently working on another book on affordable housing practice in California. He has a doctorate in urban and regional planning from UCLA. In 2006, he was honored as the “Inspirational Nonprofit Housing Leader of the Year” by the Nonprofit Housing Association of Northern California and as a “Housing Hero” by the Cabrillo Economic Development Association.
Anjali Sheffrin, Ph.D., Chief Economist & Director of Market & Product Development, The California Independent System Operator
Anjali Sheffrin is Chief Economist and Director of Market & Product Development at the California Independent System Operator (CAISO). She has twenty-six years of management experience in the electric utility industry. In her current position she manages the direction of market design, develops infrastructure and regulatory policy, and designs new products and services for the CAISO wholesale electricity markets. She has served as interim Vice President of the Market Design and Program Development Division while this division was being established. Previously she was the Market Monitor at the CASIO, responsible for designing the market monitoring program, analyzing market performance, identifying market problems, and recommending changes to improve market efficiency and competitiveness.
Prior to joining the CAISO, Dr. Sheffrin was Manager of Power System Planning at the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. She managed a department of 40 engineers, economists, statisticians, and financial analysts responsible for preparing strategic business plans for transmission, and generation, and demand-side projects. Additional responsibilities included evaluating investments in conventional and renewable generation technologies, conducting load and market research, preparing rate cases with marginal cost of service reports, rate designs, and revenue requirements. She has authored many articles and has testified before US Congressional Subcommittees, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and coalition of state public utility commissions, California State Legislative Committees, and the California Public Utilities Commission.
She received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Davis in 1981.
Bill Byrne, Ph.D., Senior Voice Interface Engineer, Google, Inc. and Consulting Professor, Symbolic Systems, Stanford
Bill Byrne has spent the past ten years working in voice user interface (UI) design in various Silicon Valley-based companies. He is currently leading voice UI design at Google focusing primarily on 800-GOOG-411, among other mobile applications. Dr. Byrne is also consulting professor at Stanford where he teaches user interface design for speech applications. Before Google, Bill spent fours years at SAP Labs in Palo Alto as director of speech solutions and two years before that at General Magic in Sunnyvale as director of speech and language. Before starting his high tech career, he spent two years as a lecturer at Santa Clara University where he taught courses in both linguistics and foreign language. At that time he also did consulting at Lexicon Branding, a naming company in Sausalito. Bill Byrne received a PhD in linguistics from UC San Diego in March 1998.