Mark Shalinsky's job gives him an insider's view into the work of some of the globe's most innovative life science researchers, but it was the work of his psychologist wife that took him to the smaller, less tech-chic city of Ann Arbor.
As it turns out, the move brought with it some surprising realizations about how Ann Arbor might compete, and perhaps more importantly, whether it should try.
Shalinksy's job is to ferret out researchers riding the cutting edge of science and convince them to document their work on the academic video journal,
JoVE, or Journal of Visualized Experiments. The Boston-based peer-reviewed journal is the new media equivalent of the print academic journals that researchers have long showcased their work under the rubric of "publish or perish."
It's a rock star gig for Shalinsky, who says he was "the first person whose job it was to act as the apostle of Jove and recruit academic researchers." But when Shalinsky's wife,
Loulia Kovelman, was offered a tenure-track faculty position at University of Michigan, Shalinsky knew a move was in the offing.
It's a particular quirk of academic life that when two of them marry, opportunity and geography rarely match up. Shalinksy and his wife chose Boston as a natural place where they could both find jobs among the best in their disciplines. The area is rife with prestigious academic institutions and life science researchers. Shalinsky became an instructor at
Harvard University while his wife took on post-doctoral work at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
For life science researchers, Boston is a glittery city on a hill. If you can make it there, as the saying goes, you can make it anywhere. In his second year at Harvard, Shalinsky says, he was discovered by Jove founder, Moshe Pritsker. His wife was offered the faculty position at U-M not long after.
The move wasn't without risk. It meant not only relocating from one of the nation's largest life science hot spots -- in Boston, Shalinsky says, "my three year old is pretty much the only one that doesn't have a PhD" -- but possibly giving up his job as Jove's top evangelist.
"I thought Jove would last three or four months after the move," Shalinsky says. But it would allow me to network in Ann Arbor."
Michigan wasn't exactly foreign territory. Shalinsky calls himself an "academic immigrant," and in 2003, he found himself in Kalamazoo, Mich., working for Pharmacia, one of big pharma's largest before being snapped up by bigger concern, Pfizer. And, Shalinksy and his wife had done their research on Ann Arbor.
Ann Arbor is a "shining star in Michigan," Shalinsky says. It's walkable, quaint and "green." It's also close to Detroit Metro Airport, which means Shalinsky can more easily make monthly sojourns to Boston and elsewhere to recruit academics for Jove.
And because it's home to University of Michigan, Ann Arbor has a diverse blend of scientists, engineers, intellectuals and auto industry researchers, he says.
But Ann Arbor isn't Boston. And if it does have a top-ranked university, a position on national rankings on good places to live and a green sensibility that Shalinsky and his wife share, it doesn't have the vast science infrastructure as parts east, or the name-dropping allure that came with "Harvard." As it happens, that may not be a bad thing.
"What Boston has is infrastructure," Shalinsky says. Harvard University, MIT and
Tufts University are all located nearby. The heady academic atmosphere has created its share of high-tech start-ups, and attracted plenty of venture capital dollars.
During the first quarter of 2010, Boston ranked first in the number of life sciences venture capital funding received, with $354 million making its way to Bean Town, according to a new report from
PriceWaterhouse Cooper. Other metro areas making the top five were San Jose ($215 million), San Diego ($141 million), New York ($82 million) and San Francisco-Berkeley ($67 million). Boston, however, was the only metro region to see an increase in funding from the same period last year.
All of which to say, it's competitive.
"My wife and I are not a unique story in Boston," Shalinsky says. "Anybody in life science or biotech has a direct link to Boston. It's just one of those things."
The heady competition has its advantages. Researchers must quickly learn how to differentiate themselves to get call backs from the East Coast intelligentsia; and how to quickly communicate complex ideas to create interest and action.
But it can also be wearing. "What I learned in Boston, is you go to a networking event, you can go through 50 people quite quickly, but bring no value to them. You get 50 cards and you're done," Shalinsky says.
In Ann Arbor, that same networking event may have yielded three conversations with people as diverse as an entrepreneur, an academic researcher and a car salesman, Shalinksy said, but emerge with a solid connection and the possibility of something growing from the interaction. "In Ann Arbor, everybody is coming from a slightly different background," he says. "Not everybody looks the same, everybody has a great value proposition."
Ken Nesbit, executive director of
University of Michigan Tech Transfer Office agrees. "Ann Arbor is unique. We've got a broad base of talent," he says. "The interdisciplinary approach that exists in the university and the community is a little different than a larger town and to some extent, the scale of Ann Arbor compared to an urban setting.
"People here are really hungry, economic uncertainty has given an urgency to our efforts, but the competitiveness is a productive one; and in a larger setting, competitiveness isn't always cooperative."
Ironically, Shalinsky says that his wife's position at
U-M makes him tread carefully when recruiting academics to Jove. "I want to make sure that I'm not overstaying my welcome with my wife as faculty," he says.
The video journal company itself is growing, he says, and at least part of what Shalinsky now busies himself with is looking for talented candidates to join his staff. His wish list includes people who know their way around a wet lab, have advanced degrees in their field, but enough personality to sell the service.*
In the meantime, Shalinsky says, he's going to continue to call Ann Arbor home, at least for the time being. If there's one thing Ann Arbor might learn from its national peers, it might be how to retain its academic immigrants.
"When people come to Ann Arbor, do they come and say that this is going to be a career stop where they want to be for the next 10 years," Shalinsky asks? "When they come to Boston, they're thinking of a 10-year plan. It's an open question," he says.
Michelle Martinez is a
freelance writer and and
editor who has reported on Metro Detroit businesses and issues for five
years. She is also a regular contributor to Metromode. Her previous story was Law School Goes Global.
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*If you're interested in learning more about JoVe send a thoughtful cover letter -- Shalinsky hates
generic cover letters -- and resume to mark.shalinsky@jove.comAll photos by Doug Coombe
Photos:
Youlia Kovelman and Mark Shalinsky in East Hall.
Mark Shalinsky in his wife's East Hall office
Youlia Kovelman in her office
Ken Nesbit of the University of Michigan Tech Transfer Office
Mark Shalinsky and Youlia Kovelman on their way home