How mixing academia and industry opens doors in graduate school and beyond

Completing a postdoc at a company wasn’t always on the radar for Patience Chihomvu. But in 2021, the biotechnologist and recent PhD graduate was facing an all-too-common issue: how to fund her research.

Chihomvu had accepted a postdoc position at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Her plan was to search for potential therapeutic compounds in the…