Shea Gillet, PhD, is a Manager in Life Sciences at Flatiron Health, a healthcare services and technology company focused on improving patient care and accelerating cancer research. Shea received her BA in Neuroscience at Boston University and went on to get her PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of California San Diego. With a background in biology and consulting, Shea works to bridge the gap between healthcare, technology, science, and business to provide cancer patients with more effective medications.

Can you describe your academic and professional background? What path led you to pursue this field?

Like many who are interested in science when they are younger, I came into undergrad wanting to be a medical doctor. I majored in Neuroscience at Boston University, and in my sophomore year, joined a research lab knowing this experience would strengthen my future application for medical school. The lab I joined had a strong, collaborative culture, and gave significant independence and ownership to the undergrads who worked there. Through my experience in that lab, I fell in love with academic science, and became increasingly confident in my decision to change course from pursuing an MD to a PhD.

After graduating from BU, I ended up in UC San Diego’s Biological Sciences PhD Program with the goal of one day becoming a professor and having my own lab — one where I could build the same type of impact and culture that I experienced in my time at BU. However a few years into my PhD, I began to have a change of heart and question whether a career in academic science was right for me. While I enjoyed the work I was doing, I came to understand science as a business, one that involved as much selling and politics as any other. I also recognized that through the work I was doing, there was very little chance I would ever see a tangible impact of my research. I questioned the importance of my work, and whether what I was devoting my life to would move science forward in a meaningful way (which I personally defined as whether my research would ever end up helping anyone).

These feelings continued, and in the second half of my PhD, I had settled on not moving forward with a postdoc, but for the following years, I had no sense for what would come next. At the time, I didn’t feel like I had a lot of support or resources in moving forward with a career outside of academia. Fortunately, one of my labmates had also decided to move forward with a non-science career, and I was able to watch and learn from her experiences applying to consulting jobs. At the time, I had discounted consulting for a few reasons, but most notably because I knew working at a large company wasn’t right for me, and I knew I didn’t want to work in industries outside of the life sciences. With this, I continued on with uncertainty.

As I approached finishing my thesis, after years of literally having no idea what I was going to do next - I revisited consulting as an option as it was the only choice I was aware of outside of industry science. Once I started looking for jobs in earnest, I learned that there were many types of consulting firms out there, including small, “boutique” firms that focused exclusively on life sciences. One firm in particular caught my attention through its emphasis on culture, its small size, their Glassdoor reviews, and the number of PhDs they had hired (at the time, ~25% of employees had a PhD). I knew this firm was right for me and was fortunate to be offered a position. 

I ended up spending two years in consulting, and found my experiences incredibly valuable. I worked with brilliant folks with diverse backgrounds and learned so much about business, drug development and commercialization, and our healthcare system. However, I had always known that I wouldn’t be a career consultant, and began looking for positions that would satisfy my interest in business, but also allow me to get a little closer to science and biology once again. I also knew that I wanted to be somewhere where I could come into work every day and feel proud of my company’s mission. 

As a consultant, many of my projects were focused on oncology. I became very interested in the biology of cancer, and Flatiron Health stood out as an obvious next step. Flatiron’s mission is to learn from the experience of every cancer patient, and they work towards that mission by generating real-world datasets on patient outcomes that are used to accelerate cancer research. I knew I would be excited to come to work every day to contribute to that mission, and I was equally excited to put my scientific training to work at a company where understanding the biology of cancer and how it affects patient outcomes is at the forefront. With my PhD and work in consulting, I was fortunate to be offered a position on their Life Sciences Partnerships team and started in the summer of 2019.

Can you tell us about your current responsibilities? What is a typical day or week like in your role?

As part of Flatiron’s Life Sciences Partnerships team, my primary responsibility is to support our biopharma partners in advancing their oncology research using Flatiron data. This takes many shapes. From a scientific perspective, it requires developing a deep understanding of the biology of cancer and treatment practices across tumors and using this knowledge to design research studies utilizing the data available from real-world cancer care. From a business development perspective, it means defining Flatiron’s strategic approach to long-term partnerships with our biopharma partners. This includes ensuring they are getting value out of our data through high-touch training and support, as well as identifying high-priority use cases of Flatiron real-world data based on their currently marketed drugs and R&D pipelines. From an internal perspective, I get to tackle an equally exciting set of challenges, including how to scale a company, how to grow the market for real-world data, and how to set up a long-term business strategy. Between these responsibilities (and many others), every day looks different, which is what keeps my work exciting.

What do you enjoy about your current job and work environment?

What I enjoy most about my work at Flatiron is my contribution to our mission. Every day, I work to enable providing cancer patients with more effective medications faster. This fact makes me proud to come to work.

From a day to day perspective, what I love most about Flatiron is that I get to work with an extremely diverse set of cross functional teams. Every day, I work with practicing medical oncologists, data scientists, engineers, lawyers, the list goes on. This exposure has enabled me to learn so much about so many different topics! From contract negotiations to revenue forecasting to cancer genomics to data storage infrastructure - I am always pleasantly surprised by what I get to be involved in and my job requires me to learn. In addition, my mentor at Flatiron is our General Counsel, someone whose career trajectory on paper will look very different from mine, but someone from who I have so much to learn about management, team building, decision-making, career mobility, and more. I don’t know what my future career has in store for me, but I am confident that my experience working with such diverse teams will set me up for success no matter what comes next.

Do you have any professional plans for the future? What are some future career paths that could open up for someone in your position, 5-10 years down the road?

My plans for the future are very open. For me personally, I have thought of each job as a potential stepping stone to an unknown “what’s next.” I spent the last 2-3 years of my PhD knowing that I wasn’t going to do a postdoc, but I knew the skills I would continue to develop in research, scientific acumen, and communication would be valuable for my future. I spent all two years in consulting knowing that I wouldn’t be a lifetime consultant, but I was confident that developing a strong background in client management and my knowledge of the healthcare industry would set me up for success regardless. 

Now, while I am very happy at Flatiron, I continue to think about how the skills I am developing will serve me in my future. Between a PhD, consulting, and now working in health tech, I think the possibilities are numerous. Some of the trajectories that are top of mind include working at and scaling a very small health tech start up and moving to biotech or pharma. 10 years ago, my current career in oncology real-world evidence didn’t exist, so I definitely have an open mind about what could be possible in the future.

What activities, internships, or organizations would you recommend someone get involved with to help them break into this field?

My advice here would be to get involved in whatever interests you most, even if you don’t see the direct connection to any specific, future career. In my time at UCSD, I was very involved in recruitment and our mentorship programs because that is what I was most passionate about. While these experiences weren’t directly tied to consulting, they did demonstrate my commitment to team building and culture, which was a top of mind priority for my firm in their hiring process. These experiences also fostered skills in organization and cross-functional work, which are applicable to a variety of post-PhD opportunities. I’m sure being involved in the consulting club wouldn’t have hurt, but from my experience, the activities and organizations you are involved in don’t have to have a clear A → B connection.

Do you have any final words of advice for those navigating these career questions? Is there anything you would have done differently given what you know now?

My final words of advice would be: it’s okay to not know what you want to be when you grow up (no matter how old you are!), and it’s okay to change your mind. At 18, I was certain I would go to medical school and be a doctor. At 22, I was positive I wanted to be a neuroscience professor. At 25, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted. I still don’t know what the future has in store, but I’m happy and confident in where I am with that uncertainty. As we learn and grow in our careers, new paths and opportunities will reveal themselves, and ambiguity about what’s next is expected and should be welcomed!