If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to work at a company that uses cutting edge technology to solve some of today’s biggest issues, then the following article is for you. Recently, Beyond the PhD hosted a talk by Todd Jensen, a Manager of qPCR Field Application Scientists at ThermoFisher Scientific. Todd obtained his Masters of Public Health from the Quinnipiac University. Prior to joining ThermoFisher, he was a Research Associate/Lab Manager in the laboratory of Dr. Christine Finck at the University of Connecticut for over 10 years. He began his journey at ThermoFisher in the beginning of 2021, where he was placed in charge of overseeing a team of over 20 Field Application Scientists. Since his arrival, the entire company has expanded from 85,000 employees to over 110,000 following a recent acquisition. With an annual revenue of $40 billion, ThermoFisher is one of the leading industry giants in inspiring innovative technologies for healthcare advancement while also supporting research and development initiatives that promote cutting-edge products. The department that Todd is part of falls under “Global Service and Support” which is comprised of Field Service and Applications, Technical Support, Customer Training, Territory Specialists, Customer Care Service Development, Sales, Marketing and Operations, and Customer Experience. Customers include those from academia and industry as well as applied markets and pharma/biotech services. As a Field Application Scientist, some of Todd’s primary responsibilities include serving as an interface between scientific tools and bench scientists, demonstrating new qPCR technology for labs, providing remote and on-site customer support, giving scientific seminars to large audiences, and becoming a subject matter expert in each application or instrument. Todd also regularly interacts with other teams to coordinate meetings, share new product training tips, and evaluate overall team performance. Since the onset of the pandemic, the responsibilities of his department have extended to providing Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) testing for COVID applications as well as non-EUA testing, which involves wastewater and mutation analyses for COVID variants present in the general population. Because of this work, significant improvements have been made in the diagnosis and prevention of COVID worldwide. These are just a few of the exciting examples that showcase the amazing opportunities Todd and other employees get to be a part of daily. According to Todd, the best piece of advice he has for anyone interested in pursuing a career in industry is to join a company that allows for both professional and personal development, which he has definitely found with ThermoFisher.
Careers in Field Applications at ThermoFisher Scientific
