Dr. Lanzi is an academic speech-language pathologist and has dedicated her clinical research career to helping rehabilitation health professionals treat functional cognitive deficits that result from Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. She earned a Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of South Florida and received advanced clinical training specializing in cognitive rehabilitation and person-centered care. In 2019, she completes a research postdoctoral fellowship in applied cognitive assessment and rehabilitation with Dr. Matthew Cohen, an academic neuropsychologist at the University of Delaware. In 2020, she joined the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Delaware as a Research Assistant Professor and is currently the PI of a 5-year K23 career development award from the National Institute on Aging.
During this conversation, Dr. Lanzi discusses her previous experience in a postdoctoral position where she applied for, and was awarded, her own K23 grant funding. We also discuss how she strategically chose her postdoc position and negotiated her responsibilities. Dr. Lanzi then shares how she transitioned into her Research Assistant Professor position at the same institution and describes what this role entails. This is a great listen for anyone interested in a postdoc position or research-intensive academic position in the field! You can connect with Dr. Lanzi on Twitter @AlyssaLanzi and learn more about her work at https://sites.udel.edu/recall-lab/.
Transcript
NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by a free tool called Otter.ai. Please forgive any typos or errors.
Danika Pfeiffer
Hi, Alyssa. Thanks so much for being here today to share your journey.
Alyssa Lanzi
Hi, thank you so much for having me. I’m excited for our conversation.
Danika Pfeiffer
Absolutely. Let’s start with you just telling us a little bit about yourself growing up before you started your academic journey.
Alyssa Lanzi
I am born and raised in the small state of Rhode Island. And my dad had not gone to college. My mom went to college for a nursing degree, but really higher education was not strongly understood in my family, I think is for lack of better word. So I really had no intention of continuing on beyond my master’s and really had no role models or kind of experiences of what life would even look like in higher ed so I really by going into a master’s program, that was a really big move, personally, and also for my family as well. There was kind of no one before who had gotten their masters. And I really was extremely well supported by my family to do so which was wonderful, but I really had no idea what I was getting myself into even in my master’s nevermind my PhD so I went to Duquesne University, which was a straight through five year master’s program from bachelor’s degree, which really was great for me because I knew I wasn’t going to have a ton of knowledge from my family to help for Master’s applications and to really navigate graduate school. So the idea of getting into graduate school from the start was extremely appealing. So I enrolled in Duquesne and was kind of right away, accepted into the master’s program and became fully immersed in the master’s program. And I really joined this field because I wanted to be a clinician. My plan was to be a school SLP and be able to coach sports on the weekends. And through nights and it’s funny because I’m doing anything but that now, but that was really kind of the drive in the beginning, really to be a clinician and actually to work in the schools and the start. And then once I became more involved in my master’s program, I met Dr. Sarah Wallace was my professor at the time and adult neuro Genex and Katarina stole Tari, who is the adult neurogenic speech pathologist, and I just became obsessed for lack of better words I fell in love with the field of adult neurogenic Zhan, specifically cognitive disorders, and thinking through functional practice and functional goals. And fortunately, they saw something in me and really encouraged me to get involved in research and to possibly consider a PhD. I had never heard of a PhD before that I had no idea what that even stood for, to be completely honest, and only had really kind of negative stereotypes in my mind of what a PhD even was. I envisioned kind of the white coats and the very sterile type of research and they really opened my eyes to the things about research, which I now love the most, which is mentoring and functional and implementation outcomes. So I was lucky and have really great mentors from the start, who encouraged and pushed me and from Duquesne I then went on to the University of South Florida, to work with Michelle bourgeois and really specialize and cog calm and dementia care. I had a very close relationship with both of my grandmother’s growing up and really love the aging population and thinking about how to age well and in our field of speech language pathology, there’s very few academics who are researching in that area. However, we know it’s a massive area of clinical practice. So it was a space in research that I could possibly make an impact on because there were a ton in this space. But it was also very near and dear and close to my heart so became enamored with dementia care and Alzheimer’s disease and ConCom and my PhD and did a lot of clinical work at that time, as well and just really kind of jumped in and dove in full force and haven’t looked back but that was by no means a PhD and Nevermind the position that I’m in now we’re by no means the plan when I was entering the speech language pathology field.
Danika Pfeiffer
Wow, thank you so much for sharing that it sounds like we actually have a lot of things in common with going straight through in that kind of a five year master’s program. Yeah. And having the intention to go into the schools from the start. That’s actually what I was planning to do as well. I wanted to be a school based SLP you also mentioned that you kind of had this negative stereotype of research at the start. What experiences did you have that started to change that for you?
Alyssa Lanzi
Yeah, and I think that people need to talk about this more. So I’m so happy you asked me about that because I have had negative stereotypes about most things that I actually am currently in right now. Same with the research assistant professor and so I think with research, you know, I really had that like Hollywood view of what I thought research was of kind of biological basic science research. I just didn’t exactly even know, clinical application translational research existed. Because once again, I just that wasn’t in my family. I didn’t have models in that way in my home life. So really, sitting in Dr. Sarah Wallace’s office I will never forget just the idea of being able to brainstorm ideas and collaboratively talk back and forth and I just had so many questions about why SLPs practice the way that they do or why we’re getting this assignment versus that assessment and the idea that like I could do a study to actually answer those questions was just so exciting to me and to be able to make my own rules of how I design the treatment or how I develop the assessment tool that was just really exciting and freeing to me. I really liked the idea of kind of having this thought in my head and then actually being able to create it and then test it. But really what I fell in love and what changed my idea of research was the conversations I had with Sarah and with Katarina soltara as well, really, were such an impact on my own life and how I grew as a person and how I grew as a critical thinker. I’m an appraiser of evidence that I wanted to be able to do that and give back to students as well and that way and I think research allows you to have those conversations with students outside of kind of constrained classroom and textbook knowledge. So it really was in the field although I did have a lot of questions. The driving force was that idea of that I could mentor students and help them build out their knowledge and their skill set and their confidence outside of the classroom the way that Sara and that way that Catalinas, Valtteri did for me, as well.
Danika Pfeiffer
So I’m glad that you’re highlighting all of these really real world impacts and real world applications that research can have because I think a lot of people probably do think of the typical lab science kind of research and there’s so much more out there. So it’s great that you were exposed to that in your masters and in that that knowledge. Another thing that we have in common is that we were both the first PhDs in our families. How did you decide? I mean, that’s already a lot of education there. And you decided that you wanted to continue on and do a postdoc after that. So how did you make that decision?
Alyssa Lanzi
It was tricky. Because I couldn’t My family has been beyond supportive of education. It just they didn’t know how to advise me they didn’t have the knowledge of what a PhD even was. So they there was just there was no way I could have those conversations with them. I knew they would support whatever decision I made but they wouldn’t be able to exactly help me decide. So to be honest, I don’t even think I actually told my family that I was applying until I got close and I had to decide because I just knew those would kind of they just wouldn’t be able to help in that way. But that’s why I having mentors and having those conversations with them. I remember several conversations with Sarah and with other than with Michelle later on when I decided for my PhD. And fortunately our field has some amazing mentorship opportunities. Through our national organizations. So ASHA has programs like Mark and like the research mentoring, town hall meeting and the research pair which is on Saturday after Asha. And then and CDs has programs or there’s programs in the child language world as well. But I really took advantage of all those mentoring opportunities and all those fellowship opportunities through our national organizations. And just continue to ask questions. Each time I ask questions and get different answers. Those broke down the stereotypes of kind of I had a very negative stereotype of what a PhD was a very negative stereotype of what a postdoc was. But as I got to ask more questions and talk to more people in those roles, I was eventually able to break down those stereotypes and really realize that it was actually a lot of what I wanted to do was in those positions versus what I had actually thought that those positions were.
Danika Pfeiffer
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. How did you go about applying for postdocs or finding those opportunities?
Alyssa Lanzi
Speaking of those kind of national association fellowship meetings, I remember, there’s the clinical of a theology conference. I was a student fellow, the last year of my master’s program going into my Ph. D. program. And I remember there was only two of us who were masters students and the rest were PhD students. And I remember most of the conversation focused around postdocs. And at that point, that was the first time I had ever even heard of what a postdoc was. And I to be completely honest, was I think I said out loud, there’s no way I would ever do that. Like I can’t even comprehend that people would go on and continue to work and learn after your PhD. I, from the start, had it very much in my mind that I would not be doing a postdoc because it was time to work. My family already couldn’t understand that I wasn’t working. I was like, there’s not a job. There’s no way but then, the last year of my PhD program, I was thinking about options and a few people had said, you know, really postdoc is becoming more typical. I was able to go through my PhD program relatively quickly in three years. So I was like, I could do one more year possibly. But I really wanted it if I was going to do a postdoc and I encourage this to anybody who is thinking about doing the postdoc, to it be a training in a new skill set of some sorts that it really should be a new skill set, an opportunity for you to strengthen your CV and a certain area or for a certain skill set. So because I do all Alzheimer’s disease research, I speech pathology is one player but they are definitely more of the applied player and the puzzle that I really wanted to gain more interdisciplinary knowledge of the field. So I fortunately at a breakfast at once again, actually the clinical physiology conference was introduced to Dr. Matthew Cohen who is a neuro psychologist. And we had lunch that day and really kind of just hit it off. So I think a lot of postdocs are through informal conversations with mentors and through word of mouth once you tell people you’re kind of on the market, but it is difficult to navigate because there’s no direct path or even no one location that you can look at for all these postings, but from my experience now on the other end of hiring postdocs, I think a lot of it is through word of mouth and through networking and attending these meetings is really where you get to learn about postdoc positions and also see if it is a good fit for you. But I feel strongly that if you are considering doing a postdoc, it should really be to acquire a skill or to strengthen your CV in a certain way.
Danika Pfeiffer
Yeah, absolutely. I love how you also highlighted the interdisciplinary aspect because up until that point in our training, we’re very focused on CSD SLP and this is an opportunity to branch out and get experience working in different fields or with other collaborators. I also did my postdoc outside of our field and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and I would have never thought about that when I initially started. stocks. You know, I was really thinking, Okay, I need to be in this ESD department. But if you are trying to strengthen your skills in a new area, then that might mean a different kind of department.
Alyssa Lanzi
Yeah, I’m so happy you shared that experience. But I totally agree. Like I had no idea that it would be so aligned with neuro psychology just as I’m sure you felt with psychiatry, you’re different departments that I really encourage anyone looking to also look outside of the speech pathology field because just doing a postdoc in different labs in different fields will also widen your network, your interdisciplinary network of colleagues, the meetings that you go to the types of grants and mechanisms that you apply to, and I which I think similar to you, as you were just describing was very on a great strong path, but very CSB specific path. And I didn’t even realize how narrow that path was, until over the past, you know, four years I’ve really been immersed in the interdisciplinary world, but I think that in itself was a huge advantage in my career of just being able to step outside the field of speech language pathology, not only for my critical thinking skills, but really for my networks and social connections as well.
Danika Pfeiffer
Right and those really set you up for becoming an independent researcher. Having those networks is really important in building your future connections, your future collaborators, so postdocs are a wonderful time to do that.
Alyssa Lanzi
From year one. Every person that you meet or field is so small, could be a potential mentor could be you so you are kind of always putting your best foot forward and always networking from the start, I think from the first year of your PhD program, but really, I think about a year to a year and a half in advance. You shouldn’t be having more serious conversations about your postdoc and next steps.
Danika Pfeiffer
Yeah, that’s great advice. That’s something I definitely did not realize as a PhD student myself how important networking was during the Ph. D program. I think I always thought about that as kind of the next step after the program ends. But starting those relationships, building those relationships during your program is is really important. So I’m glad that you highlighted that. So it sounds like you had this great interdisciplinary postdoc experience. How did you start thinking about what was going to come next?
Alyssa Lanzi
Yeah, so to back up one more step. So I know I needed interdisciplinary knowledge. I was really interested in that but a huge poll also with my deciding to do a postdoc was when I was thinking about what type of faculty position I would apply to, I really felt like I was well equipped to apply for teaching positions, or less research intensive positions. But I really was unsure if on our one research intensive university was the right fit for me and what I wanted to do once again, had pretty negative stereotypes, what that would mean and what grant writing looked like and really couldn’t envision that being my life because honestly, I had no experience with it before and had kind of construed all these negative stereotypes of what that looks like. So when I was deciding, I kind of said, hey, I want to do a postdoc that is pretty grant intensive, so that I can decide whether or not that’s a lifestyle and a type of career that I want to pursue. I worked in an amazing lab with Dr. boudoir. But she was towards the end of her career. So at the time, there was no active funding. All research that was happening in the lab was conducted by myself and Vanessa versus Nick, who was a doc student also at the time, so I had no experience during my doc program of working on active grants and even actively applying for grants. So I really wanted to give it a shot. Although to be frank, it intimidated the daylights out of me. But I thought with a postdoc, it was a one year out that if it was really horrible, I could get out of it, and it would be fine. So that’s why in every position that I was looking at for postdocs, they were pretty research intensive labs that I knew I was going to have a lot of experience grant writing because I needed that skill set. So that’s what I spent the whole first year of my postdoc doing. Matthew Cohen is one of the best people to ever come in my life for a number of reasons, but really because he was exceptional about having me involved in every aspect of the grants that he was managing and working on and I was able to learn so much because he included me on every single conversation from budget spreadsheets to meeting with potential collaborators to talking to program officers to everything so it was a full on your experience of learning everything about how to write grants, how to manage grants, what to do with post awards, how to conduct research, so that’s really all we did and we spent so much time writing, and so much time managing the current grants that we have. And also during that postdoc time, we had a very clear outcome that the goal of the postdoc was for me to write a K 23 for me to write my own grant. So in addition to managing his grants on employing a co investigator role I spent most of that entire year writing my own K 23 Award, which is what led me to the research assistant professor position that I currently have.
Danika Pfeiffer
Wow, that’s great. I’m wondering how you figured out the plan for your postdoc. It sounds like there was a lot of great mentorship that was built in and also your ability to pursue your own grant, which is not always included in a postdoc experience. So how did you navigate making a plan for your postdoc?
Alyssa Lanzi
Yeah, it’s a great question. I talk to a lot of people during my Ph. D. program about their own postdoc experiences and things that they liked and the main things that they didn’t like, and a lot of people talked about, who had unsuccessful postdocs often said they didn’t have time to write their own grants or have support to do their own grant. I think that’s unfortunately pretty common. And to me, that was a deal breaker, because I wanted to see if that was something that I would be potentially interested in. So I needed that own experience to write my own grant as well. So before I accepted the position, Matt, I actually wrote up a document that agree that had my explicit objectives of what I wanted to get out of it and what type of training that I wanted. And he provided input on what type of training the lab could provide, but also what roles he needed because he needed somebody to actually execute His grants and things like that. So we came up with a percentage of effort allocation of how much I was going to give to his projects versus how much time he was going to allow me to support my and do my own work, as well. So we actually wrote that and agreed upon that prior to me accepting the position. So that was kind of all done before and we had a numerous back and forth conversations. But I think with anybody doing a postdoc, I think sometimes people are afraid to advocate for themselves have what they need out of the position. And it’s really important that you view it as a training opportunity, as well as work and I think if you can find that sweet balance between building your own skill set, but also contributing to the lab, that’s really the amazing part of it. So I think don’t be afraid to advocate for yourself and what you would like out of a postdoc position. And if it doesn’t feel right, it’s probably not the right position for you and I had plenty of those conversations as well, that they weren’t going to be as willing to allow me to write grants. So I just knew that kind of wasn’t the right fit for me or what I needed to get out of it as well. Because remember, we’re also our fields in a massive shortage right now. So there are jobs that you can apply to and probably wouldn’t be successful in without this postdoc position. And I think that’s important to remind yourself as as well. So I kind of set that plan before we had agreed to that plan. Fortunately, Matt and I also just worked exceptionally well together and he has done nothing but provide me with unbelievable mentorship and respect. So I have fortunately I can never deal with some of the challenges that I know some people deal with during their postdocs and had a postdoc mentor who wanted nothing but for me to be able to independently lead a research lab as well.
Danika Pfeiffer
So great, I’m so impressed that you were able to have the knowledge ahead of time of the importance of advocating for yourself through this process. So I’m I’m so glad that you had such great mentorship because I think that’s so important in making the switch from PhD candidate into the next phase and knowing how to navigate those things. That’s wonderful. I’m so glad that you shared that advice of having a plan and being really upfront with what you want to learn from the experience and taking the time to really figure that out. I think that’s so smart.
Alyssa Lanzi
Once again, I just think that advocacy is just so important and to realize you’re a PhD graduate, and that you did it, you did something and it’s amazing and now is taking what steps do you need for your career, and it’s just any type of advocacy that you can have and looking outside of the field of speech language pathology as well I think can be really helpful. But I think personally in our field, you should never feel like your back is up against the wall that you have to do this position. I think fortunately our field has many options that are conducive to the learning that you need. And also you don’t have to follow the exact same footsteps that your mentors did as well.
Danika Pfeiffer
Yes, that’s another really important thing to highlight, which can sometimes feel like the only path because that’s what you’ve seen and that’s what you know. It’s very good to know that there’s other ways and that it’s okay to go a different direction if that’s what’s gonna make you feel fulfilled. I mean, like you said, You’ve done so much hard work and you want to want to find a position that is going to make you feel fulfilled. Okay, so you mentioned that this postdoc been led to your next position as a research assistant professor. So how did that happen?
Alyssa Lanzi
Yeah, so my plan after my postdoc was to apply to tenure track positions. That was the plan, but then I had kind of first six months really writing this k 23. And the way that you write a K 23 grant involves a very comprehensive mentoring plan at a specific institution. And I realized that the University of Delaware continuing to work with Matt Cohen was really the place that this grant made the most sense and really, that my career made the most sense to continue in a lot of ways. So because of that, I kind of needed to be clever. Okay, well, what does that mean? Do I continue on as a postdoc? There’s no tenure track line. What positions are exactly available? So because the research that Matt was conducting and because of research that his collaborators were conducting at the time, they were able to fund what’s called a research assistant professor position. So it is a faculty position that is primarily funded mean it’s funded through grants. And the goal of the position that I currently was in was that I would be soft funded through others grants for one to two years and then be able to self fund myself through other grants. Mine was relatively unique and that the position was kind of created for me with the labs that I was in. And that’s kind of one model is that you pull together resources and are kind of able to fund this faculty level. position. Because for our K mechanism, you have to be are for K 23 specific mechanism. You have to be a faculty member. So that was kind of how we were able to do it for that position. However, the other types of positions or positions that you apply to that are research assistant professor positions, and once again, they’re primarily soft funded. So for example, at the University of Delaware, we have a center that does a lot of psychometric promise and problem research. And because they have so many aro ones in such strong grant funding, they often have research assistant professor positions available that are funded through the lab through these are ones through these larger grant mechanisms, but our faculty positions and are for you to contribute and to conduct research for specific way so primarily, they’re self funded. They’re usually affiliated through a department that the funds are coming from a specific lab or Research Center. And the goals are mostly to conduct research, but what type of research and how you’re conducting that is really specific based on the type of funding source that your position is funded through.
Danika Pfeiffer
Okay, that’s really helpful. So it sounds like you entered into this postdoc experience. You really wanted to get some grant writing experience. You had tremendous mentorship during your postdoc and you were able to write your own grant, and then it was funded and you were able to stay on at the same institution then and transition into a research assistant professor, is that all correct?
Alyssa Lanzi
Yeah, the so I had the position before the grant was funded. I was just fortunate that my grant was funded on the first submission, which was not the plan by any means, but was fortunate so that I was just able to completely self fund myself and some research assistant professor positions similar to postdocs actually, some of them allow you more opportunities to write your own grants and some do not. So some are really designed for you to be a co investigator and to serve them very happy co investigator role on several grants, which is really great for a lot of people who don’t necessarily want to leave their own lab but want to be involved in research and all aspects of it that where I think a research assistant professor position like that is a really great fit for those who may not want to exactly leave their own lab. I want to be strongly involved in research. And then my position was once again, it started as a really beefy kind of CO investigator of grants. However, my K 23 hit right away. So then I was on completely funding myself versus being a co I on other grants.
Danika Pfeiffer
Great. Thank you for clarifying that. That’s helpful. So you took on now this new role as a research assistant professor, and what are your primary responsibilities in this role?
Alyssa Lanzi
I am completely 100% research. I dedicate 100% effort to research I technically do not do any service to the department or any teaching for the department. If I was to do teaching, I have to kind of be hired as an adjunct, which is what I actually do. So it is 100% research, but what that research is depends on what type of grants is funding that so for my case, I am mostly on my tail board. So I do the research and the training activities that are described in that grant. So it’s a small oral one in a lot of ways, but also with a lot of training objective as well. So my normal every day is I run a clinical trial. Right now. So I do all the logistics and management of running a clinical trial. I write a lot of grants, I write a lot of manuscripts, I mentor doctoral students, I do a lot of recruitment, I help with different centers and research objectives. So much of it is like a typical tenure track faculty member, except that I don’t have the service and teaching components as part of my annualized effort and anything if I do service in teaching, it’s above that 100% effort. That’s my typical kind of allocation. I also am on a 12 month contract versus a nine month contract.
Danika Pfeiffer
That’s helpful. Is there a promotion process that you’re able to go through in this position?
Alyssa Lanzi
Yeah, every university is quite different with that and every university in college is much more familiar with some are much more familiar with research faculty than others. We are trying to figure that a bit more out at the University of Delaware. What that promotion process was was like, but it’s kind of similar to the tenure track typically, you would go up in five years, and then move to Research Associate Professor, to be honest, that’s in my to do list of figuring out what that looks like in the next six months of that promotion process. But I think what happens a lot of times as people stay in these types of roles indefinitely and these bigger labs who really just don’t want to leave their own lab, which I think also comes with a lot of advantages, right? Like you don’t, you’re not the PI but you’re really the strong Kalai and work really well on this cohesive team. So I think a lot of people just stay in these roles for a long time. And then the alternative I think, when people transition out, which is more than likely what I will do, I will transition out into a tenure track position at a university and more than likely will be able to use the time or will try to advocate for using the time that I’ve spent in this research assistant professor role to count towards my tenure track time as well. So that is one of the advantages of research assistant professors is that you often can use the time that you have put in if you were productive during that time. If you were to transition to a tenure track position, you will often use that time but it all depends on how that university that you’re trying to Is it a similar University their procedures so it is not set in stone but that is often the thought process is through doing a research assistant professor position. If you were to transition you could come in as more of an advance assistant professor role, but that’s very dependent on the university that you’re applying to and the productivity that you put in during that time. So hopefully in five years Danika we can have a nother conversation that says how I could transition from this role into more of a traditional tenure track role.
Danika Pfeiffer
And that’s great to know though that it can kind of go either way it can be a temporary position or if you really like being where you are and you like contributing to other people’s grants and not always having to be the main ti that there’s the option to do that as well because I think there’s a lot of unknowns with research assistant professors. There’s not as many of them out there. So that’s really helpful that you highlighted that they can go a few different ways.
Alyssa Lanzi
And I think it depends on what your goal is out of it. Right like I have a lot of colleagues or a few colleagues I can say a lot but I have a few who are research assistant professors who really just liked serving as the CCO I role and are going to continue to kind of do that and serve this really strong coli role and continue to make sure that the lab is successful. The goal of my research assistant professor position is for me to submit our ones as a PII so as you can see, because of that, you would see them the Trent the transition is for me to become a PII independent investigator, similar to the postdoc, right? Like some set you up to kind of do a research assistant professor, someone set you up for a tenure and I think a research assistant professors thought of the same way. It’s typically longer than a postdoc. So you’re typically in those positions for a little bit longer and is much more kind of grant research intensive in those ways, but you can see how, based on what you negotiated early on, and based on what type of role that you’re in that the outcome could easily be continuing in this position and having a really strong career as a co op, or could be to set you up for the next position which could be an advanced assistant professor or an assistant Associate Professor, as well.
Danika Pfeiffer
As you’re talking about this, I’m wondering about what you said earlier about how you had these negative stereotypes of our ones and really research intensive positions. And I’m wondering how you ended up here so what happened during this process where you made that switch and and thought that research really is for you and that you are really passionate about it?
Alyssa Lanzi
Yeah, so I when I was a doc student, I made the switch that I want to do research I decided that I love to research and I wanted to do research, but I was unsure whether that meant grant writing or whether that meant like helping you know, smaller research projects and helping student led research a lot of ways. And then I did the postdoc to really figure out like are these are one these grant and kinds of jobs, soft money jobs. Was that really appealing to me? And Matthew calling in I just the idea of collaboratively writing with somebody and to he’s a neuro psychologist. I’m a speech language pathologist and to have such a respect for each other’s disciplines but also want to bridge the gap between the two. And really working with him and collaboratively writing grants with him and another. A number of other colleagues really made me fall in love with grant writing. I had such a negative stereotype again, in my mind of your writing alone, and it’s miserable. And I know for several of my colleagues out there, that is the case. But for me, I am fortunate and get to write in a really collaborative, exciting environment and know that regardless of what my next position is, I want to continue grant writing in that collaborative nature. And know that for example, even if I don’t continue at the University of Delaware that colleagues like Matthew Cohen that I established early on in my career are collaborations that we will have you know, for a lifetime and that idea of writing grants together and then watching them and now training doc students to do these things. It’s just really exciting. You’re kind of able to make a greater impact because you have more restart. resources through your brand financially and also personnel wise as well. So I now I’m in a sick and twisted wave. I really can’t believe I’m admitting but it’s really because I get to do it with others and because it is also a little bit of a fun game. of racing to the deadline as well.
Danika Pfeiffer
Some people just really thrive off of that and others do not. That about yourself. So now I’m wondering kind of as we close out here, now that you’ve been in this position for a little while, what are some things that you think people should know about research assistant professors when they’re thinking about whether or not to apply?
Alyssa Lanzi
You should have a really clear knowledge of where your funding sources coming from and the length of time of that funding source. Is it a brand new or a one that hit and you have five years? Is it your three have an r1 and you have to yours will so knowing your funding source, knowing what your role on that project would be? And then knowing the length of time as well because it will allow you for an out if you want that out but it will also doing a one year position may not give you enough time or you know you’re it can be really stressful if the position is completely dependent on funding that you have to hit next year, for example. So knowing what the funding sources knowing the length of time of that funding source and then knowing your role is is really important. And then also really internally reflecting off of what it is that you want out of it and can that position give it to you. So if you want opportunities to write your own grant is the lab in the position respectful of that. If you want opportunities to mentor doc students, are there doc students available? Would you be able to do that? If you want opportunities to conduct statistical analysis and serve as a co Why are you able to do that in the position or is the expectation that you would write your own grant or x y&z So I think identifying for yourself what you want out of it and making sure that those opportunities are present. And then the last thing that I think is important is because you are considered a faculty member and knowing what that means for you at your department level. So I am a faculty member in our department. I’m included in all of our faculty meetings. I’m included in faculty decisions, I get to wait and in my opinion, I technically do not have a vote, things go down to a vote, but I am part of our faculty at the college I am part of the faculty from benefits for schedule and that’s very specific for each university and even within each department and every university. So I would also want to know about how that position is viewed at the department and also university level. I am super fortunate at the University of Delaware and in the College of Health Sciences and then our Department of Speech Language Pathology. I have had nothing but respect for my position and an immense amount of mentorship amongst colleagues who are not even my direct mentors. For example, Amanda Van Horn has played amazing role in learning about clinical translational research and choose a faculty member in our department as well. So to summarize, figure out the funding sources the length of time for the funding source, and what’s expected for you to do what is it you want out of it? Are there opportunities for that? And how is the position viewed at the department and college and university level?
Danika Pfeiffer
Thank you. I think this is gonna be so helpful because a lot of this information you can’t find on the internet, it’s not out there. So nobody tells you all these things.
Alyssa Lanzi
Yeah, and I do want to say just like postdocs, it’s really specific to the lab that you’re in. So I hope that a lot of this is applicable to other places, but it really is specific to the mentor that you’re working with the grants that you’re working on. And to the departments and universities that you’re at. So make sure you ask a lot of questions before you accept the position because to your point, there’s a lot that we just don’t know and there’s no specific guidelines and every department and university works very differently around these self funded positions. So just you’re not being a pain. If you’re asking questions. It’s really important that you try to ask as many questions and learn as much as possible about the position before you accept the position because there’s just a lot of unknown, but those out there should be able to give you the answers to make an informed decision.
Danika Pfeiffer
Thank you. Okay, I just have a few questions. Now to close this out. These are my rapid fire questions that I asked all my guests. The first one is what is one resource that you couldn’t live without?
Alyssa Lanzi
These days, it’s Twitter, which is kind of crazy to gas but through Twitter is where I’m learning a lot of interdisciplinary knowledge of talks going on and other departments and other organizations so Twitter but following specific universities, organizations and professionals outside of CSD has been really helpful.
Danika Pfeiffer
Great, what has been a defining moment in your academic journey?
Alyssa Lanzi
Seeing the impact of the treatment that I’ve been working for on my actual clients that I was in our participants a year and a half later. So I had the opportunity to conduct some longitudinal data after I conducted my clinical trial and seeing these older adults continue to use the memory strategies that I taught them a year and a half later, really gave me that motivation that I needed that the treatments and the assessment tools that we could be working on may actually make a difference in the lives of our clients and patients.
Danika Pfeiffer
That sounds really rewarding. What is one thing on your professional bucket list?
Alyssa Lanzi
One thing on my professional bucket list would be to help our to have a doc student or postdoc successfully get a grant. I think that would be extremely rewarding to serve as a mentor role on either an F 31 F 32 or K 23. sometime down the line.
Danika Pfeiffer
Definitely I’m sure that will happen. What has been your favorite part about your job as a research assistant professor so far?
Alyssa Lanzi
Every day working with Matthew Cohen is pretty exciting. So having a colleague who challenges me and now transitioning, we co direct now the resilient cognitive aging lab at the University of Delaware so don’t take for granted how great it is to have to enjoy and to be challenged by the colleagues that you work with. So it’s pretty great to love those who you work with and have some great doc students who you enjoy engaging with every day as well.
Danika Pfeiffer
Awesome. And last question, how can people connect with you or learn more about you and your research?
Alyssa Lanzi
Absolutely. So I am on Twitter @AlyssaLanzi. I am on LinkedIn as well. But our lab page on the University of Delaware resilient cognitive aging lab, we constantly are developing resources specifically for clinicians. We’re an extremely clinical practice focus lab. So we try to come up with a lot of resources for clinicians and also for older adults in the community. So our lab at just constantly updated with some new resources, but also feel free to reach out to me and I’d be more than happy to chat as you a common theme of our talk today has been mentorship. So I of course love to give mentorship and guidance to others as well. So feel free to follow me on any of those platforms and the work that we do in the lab, but also, don’t be afraid to reach out to myself and Matthew Cohen directly. We ourselves are always looking for doc students and postdocs as well.
Danika Pfeiffer
Great. I’ll put all that information in the show notes too so people can find it easily and connect with you. Thank you again so much. For being here. I think you have such a unique experience and it’s so great to hear about different paths that others have gone down and all the options that are out there. So I really appreciate your time.
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