Behind a table laden with a mix of food platters, chips bags, drinks, and slow cookers, a large map of the U.S. presided over a gathering for the NCI Frederick postbaccalaureate and postdoctoral fellows finishing their assignments.
The map, speckled with colored spots that indicated where fellows were heading next, was a focal point of the afternoon. The celebration was the second annual Fellows Sendoff Potluck, so differently colored dots marked the journeys of last year’s versus this year’s fellows.
The event was planned by the Frederick Postbac Committee, who decided, after its initial success last year, to make the event an annual tradition.
“The Frederick community is so tightly knit … this is a nice event to celebrate the folks [we know] that are going to be transitioning into Ph.D. programs or med school, or [elsewhere]. And we invite deputy directors and training officers … folks who can officially congratulate the people that are leaving,” said Olga Drozdovitch, event co-organizer and a co-chair of the Frederick Postbac Committee, who will be leaving NCI Frederick this summer to begin a Ph.D. program at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.
A Celebration of Hard Work and Opportunity to Connect
The chatter and laughter crescendoed as the available food dwindled. Fellows clustered to chat and mingle, discussing their upcoming moves and plans for their next year, whether they were staying or leaving, as well as weekend plans, hobbies, potluck recipes, and lab happenings.
The “graduating” fellows went up to the map in pairs or small groups to add their dots and guess which fellow had put the mystery dot in Canada, if they didn’t already know who was going there.
Events like this, Drozdovitch noted, are important on a small, spread-out campus like Frederick, where fellows may not have many other opportunities to get to know one another. It also offers a space for networking and to learn about other opportunities or resources.
“Sometimes you look across the hall, and you don’t see anyone you know,” Drozdovitch said.
‘You Are the Future’
Before the event’s conclusion, Mary Kearney, Ph.D., and Dan McVicar, Ph.D., deputy scientific directors in NCI’s Center for Cancer Research (CCR), offered their congratulations and words of encouragement to the fellows.
“I want to thank you all for your work and let you know that what you do here, the energy that you bring to the labs, and the science that you do, it’s what really pushes the science forward here at the NCI,” said Kearney, who is also the deputy director for CCR’s HIV Dynamics and Replication Program.
McVicar, acting chief of CCR’s Cancer Innovation Laboratory, echoed Kearney’s sentiment about the value fellows bring to the organization.
“Congratulations, is the obvious [thing to say]. And I hope you all realize that CCR puts a lot of value on you. … You are the future,” he said.
Kearney also offered a piece of advice to all the fellows as they begin their careers. She encouraged them to carry their experiences into their new positions and remember to embrace the next phases of their careers.
“You’ll never think you’re ready. But I encourage you to do it anyway. … And in the end of your career, I encourage you to really give back to the next generation,” she said.
As the party wound down, the “graduating” fellows took photos in front of the map, and Brandi Carofino, Ph.D., a program manager in CCR’s Office of Cancer Research Capacity Building, presented the Frederick Postbac Committee with certificates. Carofino thanked the Fellows Committee for “going above and beyond being in the lab and [for] taking on a leadership role to create the experiences you want” and encouraged those staying to continue to be as proactive in the Committee as they were last year.
As the event concluded, the remaining fellows helped each other clean up and talked about the remaining work in their labs, displaying the community and camaraderie they’d built up throughout their fellowships at NCI Frederick.
