General Article
August 18, 2005
Projecting calm in the center of science
Molly Josephson reaps the benefits of a broad-based science education as she keeps researchers from sweating a myriad of not-so-small stuff
Researchers in the Clinical Research Division said their work would be 'impossible' without Molly Josephson, a project coordinator who understands and can accomodate their changing priorities and needs.
Photo by Todd McNaught |
What Molly Josephson does is not what comes to mind when most people think about research. Yet her job is essential to the steady progress and breakthroughs that are made at the Hutchinson Center.
Josephson is a project coordinator in the Center's Clinical Research Division, where she eases the day-to-day work lives of four investigators: Drs. Mary Flowers, Paul Carpenter, Paul O'Donnell and Amanda Paulovich. She organizes the paperwork necessary for their clinical trials, submits renewals needed to keep the trials going, coordinates the time they spend with patients, submits their manuscripts to the appropriate journals and schedules their meetings with other researchers. She may help one of them polish a presentation, update a curriculum vitae, make travel arrangements, project salaries or put together a budget. In short, as Carpenter said, she takes care of "all of the time-consuming but crucial bureaucratic work."
Organizational skills
The scientists all set their own research agendas. Flowers, Carpenter and O'Donnell focus on cancer treatment, including graft-vs.-host disease, a common post-transplant side effect, which can complicate treatment for many patients. Because the scientists are both clinical researchers and physicians, Josephson must make sure they are able to fulfill the functions of both roles. For instance, the patients' schedules are generated outside of the Center, and Josephson has to see to it that the researchers' schedules mesh with the patients'. For Paulovich, who heads a lab that focuses on the early detection of cancer, it's vital that Josephson keep abreast of grant deadlines and proposal details.
When asked what their work would be like without Josephson's aid, Flowers said, without hesitation, "It would be impossible." With the complicated, ever-evolving rules and administrative minutia regulating clinical studies, Flowers said, having a project coordinator who is calm — and who understands and can accommodate priorities as they shift — is essential and eases much of the stress that is part of research.
One of Josephson's essential tasks is keeping on top of current guidelines for clinical research studies, and submitting forms on time so that the research can continue without interruption. "It's all about being compulsive in organizational skills," Carpenter said, "not leaving any details out, that's the essential part."
The project coordinator lets the researchers "not sweat the small stuff, that's how I would sum it up," Josephson said. "My job is really to smooth the way for them to focus on their science, to focus on patient care, to focus on writing papers."
Josephson got the job not long after college, when most people are willing to take any job and simply hope that it will turn out to be right for them. But she said that being a project coordinator was "perfect for me, right off the bat."
Josephson first started working at the Center in 2002, as a program assistant in the office of the Clinical Research Division's director. Thus began her love affair with the Center. She said, "I was involved with things that Dr. Fred Appelbaum, division director, was doing, so it gave me a really good knowledge base for what the Center was about and it made me want to keep working here."
She had also expressed an interest in a position that would allow her to build on her biology major. Josephson graduated from the University of Washington with a bachelor's degree in ecology, evolution and conservation. While Josephson's major is only tangentially related to the work done at the Center, she views this as a positive, as an opportunity to keep learning new things.
'Can-do attitude'
After a year working as program assistant, Josephson applied for the position of project coordinator. Agnes O'Connor, division administrator, encouraged and recommended her. "She had that enthusiasm and can-do attitude; people show us what they can do, and we like to provide them with the opportunity to expand their skill set," O'Connor said. For O'Connor, Josephson's is the story of a broad-based science education, solid basic skills and a winning attitude that lead to opportunities.
Central to her success as a project coordinator are Josephson's people skills and her calm demeanor. "She is able to communicate with each scientist in the way that works best for them," said Kristie Logan, Josephson's supervisor. "Dealing with four investigators — with four different personalities and styles — can be quite difficult," Flowers said, "but Molly does it without much stress."
"She's always very respectful and courteous," Carpenter said. "In fact, I don't think I've ever seen her flustered."
