JHU PHutures director, Roshni Rao, on the strengths and challenges of international training

Roshni Rao: PHutures Director at Johns Hopkins

Roshni is the director of PHutures at Johns Hopkins University, a brand new professional development program for doctoral and postdoctoral students. The primary goal of PHutures is to educate students on the skills needed to translate their skills into the jobs that will fulfill them. Building a new career hub from the ground up is an exhaustive challenge–it is a nonstop endeavor to build partnerships, lend an empathetic ear to students’ needs, analyze data, create engaging programming–but mentoring others is in Roshni’s blood; she has had an inclination towards service, communication, and creativity ever since she was a young student. However, it was not until she was a postdoc that she realized she could combine her experiences as a leader and mentor with her scientific training to find a career that resonated so clearly with her core values and personality. “I had become uninspired by traditional bench work,” Roshni shares, and careful self-reflection on her path forward revealed that “the one thing that would bring fulfillment to [her] was helping others”; this is an opportunity that she has found working in career services for higher education.

It is easy to say that people simply need to stay true to their values in order to find happiness in their career. “These are pieces of advice that we would give someone who has a privileged background,” Roshni explains. With this in mind, a central tenet of the PHutures philosophy is to provide a space for culturally-sensitive mentoring that is equitable, accessible, and scalable. Learn more about Roshni’s journey and how she is helping PHutures become a model for inclusive and enriching career services on this week’s episode.

Notes for this episode were written by Caroline Sferrazza.