Career Development Strategies E030 Grant Advisory for PhDs – Is Grant Advisory at Universities a Career Path You Should Consider?
Dr. Irina Sheftel (Simanova) is a neuroscientist with ten years of experience in neuroimaging research, as well as in coordination and management of research projects. She holds an MSc degree in human physiology (2008, Moscow University) and a PhD in cognitive neuroscience (2014, Radboud University). During her PhD and postdoc at the Donders Institute, she studied multimodal perception and object recognition in the brain. Last year Irina worked as Grant Advisor at the Vrije University Amsterdam, and she is about to start a new job as a Grant Officer at One Planet Research Centre. In this new position, she will develop public-funded projects within the program Precision Health, Nutrition and Behaviour.
Next to her research career, Irina is a yoga teacher and yoga educator . She has been teaching hatha yoga since 2014. Irina works on integrating contemplative traditions and innovative research. In 2018 she joined Network Yoga Therapy, an international platform for education and support of healthcare professionals, where she helped to organize the Yoga Therapy Conference and several other science courses. Currently, she contributes as a guest teacher to the Yoga Teacher and Personal Development Training for Healthcare Professionals in Amsterdam.
“I will be happy to talk about my experience in the field of grant advice/research support. I do not consider my path as a failure of a science career. Instead, it’s a shift to a new role that allows me to stay in the academic world, and fits my personality well. For a long time, I did not know that was possible. I will also be happy to answer questions about yoga and yoga therapy.”