Pulling Back a Layer [Career Advisor: Experiences from the Real World]

People working in information technology have long used science training, but information technology giant Hewlett-Packard´s (HP´s) long-time employee Michelle Rand is using it to work with people. Trained in biochemistry, Rand has always been interested in learning about humans—not just the body, but what she calls “pulling back a layer” and looking at how chemicals combine and what it means when you put them into the body. She spent years doing research in immunology and neurobiology and some time with a biotech startup before moving from Massachusetts to California with her husband and deciding that, for lifestyle reasons, she wasn´t going to get her Ph.D.