Susanna Harris

Dr. Susanna Harris is a science communicator and multimedia marketer specializing in health sciences company growth. She received her PhD in Microbiology & Immunology from UNC Chapel Hill where she was awarded the NSF GRFP Fellowship and studied plant-bacteria interactions. Since then, she has worked in engagement for Nucleate, a venture capital group supporting life science startups, helping companies define and communicate their big ideas and is currently the Manager of Engagement & Communications at Xontogeny, a biotech accelerator. In addition, she is the founder and CEO of Community Balance LLC, where created PhD Balance and leads a team of volunteers to support an international community of academics in thriving personally and professionally. 

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

Ever since I learned that pretty much everything in the world (including humans) are covered in tiny living things that play a huge role in keeping everything in balance, I knew I wanted to spend as much time as possible learning about microbiology. After this epiphany in high-school, I discovered that majoring in microbiology was a real option, and I enrolled at the University of Iowa in 2010. Over those four years, I was fortunate enough to attend multiple conferences and engage in undergraduate research focused on understanding how soil bacteria interact through producing very specific chemicals. Still unsure of exactly what I wanted to do next but confident in that I loved the idea of getting paid to keep studying microbes, I joined the Microbiology & Immunology PhD program at UNC Chapel Hill in 2014. On top of conducting research on how microbial communities assemble on plant roots, I became involved in multiple different science outreach events. By the time I graduated in March of 2020, it was obvious that my love of science remained but that it had now transformed into a love of sharing and educating about science. I now work as the Senior Manager of Engagement and Communications for a biotech accelerator that helps to launch new human health life sciences startups, and I get to spend my time helping scientists and founders communicate their awesome new tech with investors, employees, and the world.

How did you find this particular position, and what was the hiring process like? Is there a typical structure for this in your field? 

My now-boss (Chris) and I connected back in June of 2020, when I was doing some market research for a different company that also supports biotech startups. During the call, it came out that I had a background in science. Chris looked me up on LinkedIn and found all of the different outreach and engagement work I’d done during grad school. We had several follow-up meetings, through which it became clear that I might be able to use my skills towards helping his team and the companies they invested in and that I could learn a lot about a whole new side of biological research from the vantage point of working in venture capital. Having a full personal website and a large network turned out to be more valuable than I’d ever expected.

This is pretty rare in the world of marketing and communications; where most people land their early jobs through the traditional routes of applying and interviewing. However, that’s not the case in venture capital as a sector. Even more than most sectors I’ve come across, knowing the right people in the right positions is huge. Most jobs are never posted, and you often need to show that you have relevant experience in your role without knowing what that role even is. I’m fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time, and I’m extremely grateful to everyone who encouraged me to practice networking and build a public profile before I thought I would need it.

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

I love that I’m constantly learning new things – whether that’s talking with founders about their technologies so I can create digital content for them or reading books about the history of the biotech industry or even watching YouTube videos about best practices for designing educational content. I’m really engaged in my work and it feels great to know my particular skill sets are considered valuable in such an important field as bringing new therapeutics to patients. I’m also a big fan of working-from-home but getting to travel, so living in San Francisco and working in Boston is ideal.

What are some of the challenging aspects of your job? Is there anything you wish you had known about your job or industry before joining?

I didn’t realize how much more important teamwork would be in industry as compared to academia, even when you’re not specifically enveloped in any team. We are a small firm (~15 people at the moment), so I’m the go-to person for all things marketing and media. Still, everyone on my team is affected by the quality of my work, and vice-versa. Unlike in grad school, where your neighbor could suddenly leave the program and it would likely only provide a short delay in your progress at most, we have to rely on each other a lot to be responsible and accountable for our collective work. Teamwork in a company is so different from collaborative work in a lab, and adjusting to this has been challenging but hugely beneficial.

What’s changing in your industry? Are there any future trends we should be aware of?

Both Venture Capital and Biotech as sectors are pretty young, having each started in earnest in the 1960s. Although some things, like legal documents and corporate structures, have begun settling into place, there is still so much room for people to make changes in the ways they want. Our sectors exist because we believe companies and technologies have incredible potential to be successful, even if they seem ridiculous at the moment. I think that ethos translates into how we see restructuring our own preconceived notions about what “should” be possible, too. Nobody really knows what we’ll be doing in 10 years, but it’s our job to predict it!

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

Anything that produces tangible evidence that you learned necessary skills. Joining classes or organizations that teach you and expose you to whatever your interests are will be a great place to start. But you need to be able to “show” your experience to have it be worth something, and this doesn’t always require getting a paid job to do it. Don’t just attend a SciComm conference – create your own pieces and publish them in a blog or via a group page. Don’t just enroll in a class about biotech VC – find out if your university has a tech transfer office that needs people to help with conferences or evaluating new technologies. Don’t just watch a series of YouTube videos about building a website – make one for yourself, a friend, or volunteer to do it for a small initiative that you care about. Find any ways you can to show that you can do the job you want.

Is it common for people in your field to have a scientific/academic background (i.e. have PhDs)? Can you think of any advantages or disadvantages someone with a PhD might experience while pursuing or working in your field?

It’s very common (and often required) for people starting out in biotech VC at this point. Many of the people I work with are trained first as biologists and second as businesspeople. It’s a lot easier to learn how to create a spreadsheet than it is to review a scientific journal article, and a surprising amount of time spent in this field is on understanding every detail of the science our companies are doing. You probably aren’t ever going to be overqualified for a role in biotech VC, as it’s a hyper-competitive space where people are generally valued for their degrees and experience. 

On the other hand, a lot of people are surprised when they find out I have a microbiology PhD that I use for marketing and communications. If I hadn’t already put in a lot of time during grad school to get non-academic experience, it could have been difficult to get an initial position because I might be overqualified* for what they would want to pay me. The skills, experience, and network I gained in grad school has been hugely important to my abilities to do my work, even though I don’t pipette tiny liquids anymore. (*Side note: I never understood this concept until recently, but the reason they don’t want someone who is overqualified is that you are super likely to leave once you have just a bit of experience, and nobody wants to have to rehire in a year just because they can’t give you a raise. It’s not personal to you at all.)

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? 

Define what you like to do and what you are already good at. Not the title of the role, not what people say you should do, not what sounds the best on a name tag. Sit down and be honest with yourself about what skills you want to be building and what environments you thrive in. If you like some aspect of your current work – why? What parts? How often? Same goes for the aspects that you don’t like. Many jobs don’t exist until someone creates them, and knowing what you actually want to do will help you figure out which opportunities to jump on. Relatedly, creating genuine connections with interesting people will help you find and create those opportunities without spending hours sifting through LinkedIn or company websites.