A Physicist’s Engineering Career in a Federal Research Laboratory

How does a condensed matter physicist transform into a radar engineer in a federal laboratory, and why would he or she want to make such a career change? I will describe my decidedly non-ballistic career trajectory and discuss how I have leveraged a physics education as an engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a NASA-supported federal research center. I will also describe how federal laboratories offer an intermediate career path between academics and industry, and what tradeoffs one chooses by pursuing this path. Finally, I will share my perspective on critical non-physics skills, especially communication, project management, and discipline flexibility, that students should develop for success in any professional endeavor.