Meet Bénédicte Gnangnon (Béné), PhD, GMS Director of Professional Development
Bénédicte Gnangnon (Béné), PhD, is the new Director of Professional Development for Graduate Medical Sciences. Since arriving at GMS in Summer 2024, Béné has initiated and piloted several programs to help students think about their career journeys and take the next step. We spoke to Béné about her educational and professional journey, her experience mentoring students in professional development, and advice she has for students maneuvering through this unique time in their lives. Read our full interview below!
Can you please tell us a bit about your educational and professional journey?
When I was a kid, I wanted to become a researcher, but I had a hard time choosing which scientific field to do research in. I attended a general engineering graduate school in France to explore different fields – from chemistry, to management, to fluid mechanics, and more. I did a couple of internships in industry, and it was nice to be a generalist in that way. However, I realized that if I wanted to do research in France, I would need to specialize in life sciences or chemistry by doing a PhD, and that I needed to complete a “research master’s degree” to be eligible for PhD funding applications. So, I found a way with my engineering school to come to the United States as an exchange student, learn more about chemistry, biochemistry, and other life sciences, prior to going back to France to enroll in a drug design master’s program. I was interested in learning more about malaria at the time, so reached out and presented a PhD research project to one of the local malaria labs; the project was accepted for funding, and I ended up doing a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology, focused on characterizing a Plasmodium pseudo-kinase.
After my PhD, I wanted to keep on doing academic research in a different context. I found my first postdoc in Boston and did interdisciplinary research between two labs: biology on the one hand and mathematical modeling and epidemiology on the other hand. I was in a school where there was no postdoc office and saw that many of my peers wanting to go into data science, industry, etc., had no idea where to start. So, I got involved in the Postdoc Association and started hosting career-focused events and really enjoyed it. Then, I got the opportunity to do an administrative postdoc here at BU in the Office of Professional Development and Postdoctoral Affairs (PDPA), to build professional development resources for PhD students (PhD Progression) and then postdocs (Postdoc Academy mentoring resources). And I am so grateful to have the opportunity to work in professional development at GMS now!
So, that’s how I ended up moving from a specific discipline to another, to another, to then moving to graduate and postdoctoral career development. Not a linear path at all!
Besides the admin postdoc opportunity, was there something specific about BU that encouraged you to apply to work here?
I think, in my specific case, I was trying to look for a job in professional development to help graduate students and postdocs. For visa reasons, it was tricky to find an actual staff position. BU had that administrative postdoc opportunity that was amazing and quite unique. So, I came because of that, but then stayed because of the people I worked with; I have had (and currently have) amazing and inspiring mentors and supervisors, and great colleagues. I really enjoy working with faculty members and members of different offices and units, as well as student organizations, who support and serve students in different capacities. I like the collegial culture, and the willingness to try and pilot new programs.
You mentioned having more of a non-linear career experience. Why did you ultimately decide to work in professional development supporting graduate students?
It all started because I gradually realized that many PhDs and PhD students had a lot of unmet career-related needs. After my PhD, I got involved in a French association called PhDOOC that created an online course to help PhDs explore career options, craft a career plan, get relevant skills to increase their marketability, and so on. I realized that there were dire needs, and that I really enjoyed filling those gaps through collaborations, creating relevant training opportunities and resources, and building networks.
Seeing the impact of all those different initiatives was what led me to transition into this field. I think it’s more aligned with who I am, as well, in terms of wanting to help people, wanting to fill gaps in concrete ways, more than exclusively doing research (research is now one part of my job), where you publish papers, and the impact of those papers is seen much further down the road.
What have you identified as some of the key professional development needs of this unique population of students?
There are a couple of areas. First, students are very well trained technically and scientifically, through their graduate programs, and these skills are valuable and can be used in all sorts of jobs across sectors. I want to provide opportunities to complement students’ training and develop core skills to support their professional success – the PDPA office and BU-wide partners have developed a list of PhD Core Competencies that I think are key for all graduate students to develop and hone. These include discipline-specific knowledge, research, teaching, communication, but also self-awareness, management and leadership, and career development. All these skill areas are crucial across the board, and I have started hosting workshops to support skill-building in some of these areas.
I also want to help people see that all the non-technical skills they have acquired, whether at the bench or outside of the lab, by being involved in student clubs, or while helping their parents with their business, or through literally any other activities they’ve done, are very valuable. This is crucial, because skills are your currency on the job market, and you can gain relevant skills in many ways. I started collaborating with the Biomedical PhD Student Organization (BPSO) and our Assistant Dean of Alumni Affairs to organize a networking event in the Spring for PhD students and PhD alumni. I’m exploring a couple of options to offer at least one, hopefully two, career fairs to all graduate students at GMS, by partnering with the GMS Student Organization (GMSSO) and the BU Center for Career Development. Once these are scheduled, I will plan to offer training opportunities beforehand to help students tell their career stories in elevator pitches and in writing (CV, Resume, Cover Letter, etc.), and ensure that they communicate well about why and how they have gained and honed relevant skills.
In the last few months you’ve been at GMS, you’ve already initiated so many programs and workshops. What type of programming are you looking forward to initiating in the future?
So far, I’ve been focusing a bit more on grant writing, because we have an F-Grant deadline coming up, as well as career exploration and individual development plans (IDPs). I have also revamped the Professional Development website and created a resource to help PhD students explore 18 career areas across four sectors. I have also had one-on-one career exploration/ transition conversations with a few students and am looking forward to having more of these!
I have some workshops lined up this Fall to try and support folks in different skill areas: developing self-awareness skills, creating and maintaining a LinkedIn account to have a positive online presence. Apart from the networking and career fair opportunities mentioned earlier, I am preparing to initiate collaborations with GMS alumni and professionals across sectors to offer career panels and experiential learning opportunities, like site visits, to help GMS students not just explore careers but put themselves in the shoes of professionals doing various jobs and assess whether those could be a good fit for them.
I have also had nice conversations with PhD program directors, and they have brought different professional development needs to my attention, around academic writing for example, and I am looking forward to piloting specific programs with them too!
What do you find most rewarding about working with students in this capacity?
I think “Aha!” moments are especially rewarding; moments of “Oh, actually, this could be a good fit for me,” or, “Oh, I had not realized that this was an important skill,” or actually, “Oh, I felt really stuck, but now that we’ve chatted, and I have clarity about the next couple steps I can take toward learning more about this career option, I feel unstuck.” There are also “Yay!” moments, of course, after someone has reached a networking milestone, or gotten a job.
More broadly, I like interacting with students. All of them have great and fresh ideas, and enthusiasm. I like providing career mentorship, opening my network to them, boosting their confidence, helping them see that they’ve already done so many different things beyond graduate school that can help them become fulfilled professionals. It’s a privilege to be able to complement the mentoring they receive from faculty members and other mentors.
Finally, the nice thing about mentoring is that it is a two-way street; mentees mentor you back. So, my hope is that by interacting with students and colleagues, I can become more aware of things I need to develop or skills I need to gain myself, or even maybe bias that I had that I was not aware of and that I can address to provide even more helpful and inclusive support.
Graduate students are on a really unique journey. Many of them, like you said, are thinking about their next steps, or don’t know what step to take and potentially feel stuck. What advice would you give to those students who are really trying to navigate this very different part of their life?
Graduate school comes at an important time in the lives of most students, especially young adults; they are in the phase of their life where they are trying to figure out, “Okay, what’s my place in society? How can I contribute? How is that aligned with who I am?” They are developing and forging their professional identity, which is no easy task. I’ve certainly been there. There are a couple of pieces of advice that I would like to offer, and I hope can be helpful.

One is that career exploration and decision-making is messy, and it’s okay if it’s messy. There’s a PLOS One paper I like showing folks (especially Figure 1). Basically, they did a longitudinal study in which they asked PhD students every single year throughout their graduate program, “What are you going to do when you graduate?” And most people changed their mind once or twice, if not more, throughout graduate school. So, that’s the first thing. It’s messy, and it’s fine. If you change your mind, it’s fine, it’s even expected; we are in a global economy in which most people switch jobs, organizations, and sectors multiple times throughout their life.
Second, the good news is that career exploration can be approached like a research project. Since most graduate students have research skills, they can use them to explore different careers, to collect multiple data points about different types of careers by talking with people and analyzing job descriptions.
Third, don’t be afraid to experiment. Try things out, and sometimes trying things out is not necessarily doing an internship; it could be having a conversation with a professional and asking questions to understand what their day-to-day looks like. It could be doing job simulations – I like those because they are a way to do job-related tasks and assess how much you enjoy completing those. Trying things out is a way to assess, could this actually be a good fit for my skills and what I am looking for in a job, or do I just like this job option because I think the title sounds fancy?
Which leads me to my fourth point: try and not have any assumptions about specific jobs or careers. It’s tempting to have assumptions and discard options based on one negative opinion, or to focus solely on one option for the opposite reason. The encouragement that I would like to give people is to collect and draw conclusions from multiple data points.
The last piece of advice is to make the most of the resources here, from online resources to workshops to career advising. I’m always happy to chat with people about their career journey. Lauren Celano, who is a career coach who has supported folks in their careers in biotech, also offers weekly coaching appointments to BU students. Postdocs can reach out to Pallavi Eswara, Director of Postdoc Affairs. This is true for students, but also for mentors. If, as a mentor, a student comes to you and feels lost about something, rely on us and on our resources to provide that support, and let us know if one area requires more support.
I think what you said about trying things out and not having assumptions is really interesting.
I think it is also important to keep in mind that your priorities will change over the course of your life. Maybe at this point in your career, you want the fancy job or the fancy title in a fancy place, because that’s what you’re aiming for. Maybe at some point location or family will become more important, or you will choose to go through a major career transition (for example, corporate job to freelance) because you will have the right skills, network, and conditions to do so. So, it is okay to build the plane as you fly, to try things out, and to not aim for perfection.
Going on a quest to find the perfect opportunity or vocation can be draining. The good news is that if you start building relevant communication and career exploration skills right now, as well as your professional network, you can leverage them, along with your transferable skills, throughout your career journey to move from your current step to the next.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
I want to build professional development programming and resources that help address the needs of all the GMS students. I’m grateful for all the conversations I’ve had with program directors and student leaders from different organizations. We may need to run a survey to collect more data about the professional development needs of students and how they wish to receive support, and I’m always open to having conversations with students, and faculty and staff members about what could be helpful.
I am also lucky because GMS Professional Development stands on giant’s shoulders. The NIH-funded BU BEST Program has helped provide wonderful career and professional development support for PhD students, and I have started to revive some of their programs and am looking forward to bringing more of it back to life and make a difference!