Professions in Computational Biology*
A goal of ISCB is to promote the profession of bioinformatics and computational biology. Even practitioners may disagree about the definitions of bioinformatics and/or computational biology, but we can roughly identify them as the use of computational methods to solve problems in biology and medicine. As computational sciences have become central to science and medicine, computational biology and bioinformatics have grown to become key parts of an enormous number of career paths. People describing themselves as computational biologists might be running research labs, educating students, developing software, starting or running companies, treating or advising patients, or any of a broad range of other roles. With so many life science disciplines intersecting with bioinformatics and computational biology, the path of the profession may seem difficult to navigate. This resource provides some information on the profession of bioinformatics and computational biology meant to ease that process, aimed at those considering a career in bioinformatics or computational biology or rethinking their direction in the field. It includes:
- Career Personas – a collection of biographies of real people working within the discipline, meant to highlight different career trajectories and how one might arrive at them
- Career Resources – jobs boards, advice, and information for those currently looking for a position or interested in seeing what kinds of jobs are available to a computational biologist
- Collaboration and Publishing – guidance on finding collaborators and publishing research in the field
Our aim is to make this a living resources for the greater scientific community. Continue to check back for new resources and information.
* The following people listed here in alphabetical order contributed to this website. Teresa Attwood,
Cath Brooksbank, Fran Lewitter, Aaron Mackey, Nicola Mulder, Seth Munholland, William Pearson. Andreas Prlic, David Searls, Russell Schwartz
