***Apologies! The wrong episode audio was incorrectly uploaded previously***

Dr. Francisco Delgado, or Frank, has worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University Florida under Dr. Kevin Otto's laboratory for a little over two years. As he plans to move on and pursue his career with the Food and Drug Administration, he reflects back on what he received as working in the Otto lab. Not only does he offer advice to future postdoctoral researchers, he also points out how they can receive the most from their experience as well.

Top Three Takeaways:

1. Postdoctoral careers are necessary to become an academic but less necessary to work in industry.
2. Candidates should try out possible postdoctoral laboratories before making a commitment to ensure it is what they want to do.
3. Mistakes are not failures but ways to view gaps of knowledge to improve upon.

[0:00] Frank explains how he feels odd on his last day and explains how everything is ending and coming together.

[2:00] Frank describes how he is going to the Food and Drug Administration with two offers: one from the Center for Tobacco Products and one from the Center for Devices and Radiological Health.

[3:45] Frank and his girlfriend agreed to move on and find new positions as soon as a clear endpoint arrived in their work.

[5:30] Frank explains how working as a postdoc, he had to put his papers and publications on hold in order to work with DARPA; he was also able to help many people get their projects started.

[7:15] A postdoc career often takes one in may unexpected directions.

[9:00] Frank recommends for postdoc students to volunteer in whatever lab they may choose to work in for a week to ensure it is a good option for them.

[11:30] Frank shares how sometimes he feels postdocs are not helpful because they are irrelevant to many industries; one needs to do a postdoc if they wants to become an academic.

[12:40] Frank's postdoc gave him more confidence in what he could do than his PhD program.

[14:00] Frank describes the pressures of possibly making mistakes in someone else's laboratory.

[15:30] Frank had to apply his past experiences from his graduate career to be able to learn new tasks quickly.

[18:00] Franks shares his viewpoint that people need to be willing to make mistakes in order for progression.

[20:00] Frank strikes down the notion that mistakes are equivalent to failure.

[21:30] Scholarly papers should move towards publishing the mistakes along with the positive results.