AWIS Webinar

Thriving in the Leadership Job You Weren’t (Really) Trained For

Led by: Jennifer M. Heemstra, PhD
Wednesday, November 19, 2025
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM ET

About the Session

No matter where you are in your career—or where you’re headed—leadership skills are essential. Yet, the path to gaining these skills isn’t always obvious when your training and day-to-day work focus on science.

Join Jen Heemstra, PhD, for a session on building the leadership foundations needed for a successful STEM career. Drawing from her book Labwork to Leadership: A Concise Guide to Thriving in the Science Job You Weren’t Trained For, Jen offers practical, actionable strategies you can start using right away.

You’ll learn how to:

  • Create long and short-term goals aligned with your values
  • Build resilience through both setbacks and successes
  • Lead with authenticity to build trust without pretense
  • Support and empower those you mentor to grow their own leadership skills

Whether you’re a student, senior leader, or anywhere in between, this workshop will guide you through creating actionable plans to strengthen how you lead—and how you show up for others.

WATCH THE RECORDING (You must be an AWIS member. Join today or contact awis@awis.org for group screening information.)

Speaker

A woman with short, light brown hair smiles at the camera, wearing a white blazer over a patterned blouse, as she prepares to speak at the Jen Heemstra leadership webinar against a light grey background.

Jen Heemstra, PhD is the Charles Allen Thomas Professor and Chair in the Department of Chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis. She received her B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California, Irvine, and her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, followed by postdoctoral research at Harvard University. Her research is focused on harnessing the molecular recognition and self-assembly properties of nucleic acids and proteins for applications in biosensing and bioimaging.

An avid science communicator and mentor, Jen has received numerous awards for her teaching, research, and leadership, including the Cottrell Scholar Award, the NSF CAREER Award, and election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is also the author of Labwork to Leadership: A Concise Guide to Thriving in the Science Job You Weren’t Trained For.