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Academic institutions may offer some of the best opportunities for exchanges with India.

India's top institutions make up a comprehensive and well-funded research network rivaling those in the West.

“It’s not really for fast trackers,” says Ann Russell, a terrestrial-ecosystem biologist at Iowa State University in Ames. “But if you really want to do it, the important thing is that you have to play by the rules.”

"Every week you are broadcasted, and every week you are praised or despised," says
REDES subdirector Sebastián Grinschpun.

Working with a professor and lab mates from back home make for an easier, more congenial experience than plunging into a strictly American cultural environment.

Here are six examples of behavioral scientists who have stepped off the academic path into some interesting territory.

This is the first time researchers have been able to connect brain activity with a real-life consumer decision.

For behavioral scientists considering a career in public polling research, it helps to have a fascination with numbers.

"Teaching at a community college is not lecturing; it's more hands-on. You have to do a lot more work as a teacher, because students are not nearly as prepared." --Michaeleen Lee

Although efforts to provide real career opportunities for more scientists would create stronger incentives for Americans to seek science careers, the political momentum appears to be on the side of granting more H-1B visas.

"To me, having a Ph.D. and being a professor is a lifelong learning experience. The degree, to me, is to teach you how to teach yourself later on." --Adil Shamoo

"People who go through the Pharm.D. training have a knowledge of the chemicals and the development process, and how it interacts with the patient, that adds a tremendous dimension to the clinical trials." --David Cooper

Franck Diafouka found at the EMEA the opportunity to study the impact of drugs in real life and work in a multinational and multicultural environment.

"My passion is helping patients, and their care comes first in my job. For me, it's all about attaining loyalty and trust." --Heather Free

"If you have already learned how to function independently in a laboratory environment by the time you graduate from your undergraduate institution, then you are really well-prepared for graduate school." --Chris Burge

“The glut of graduate students enticed by the growing support a few years ago have since found it difficult to get their own work funded … and the sudden deceleration in funding has left many researchers feeling slighted even though their funding grew by leaps and bounds in the past decade.” --Yuval Levin

Diana Marques followed her passion for painting and biology separately until one day she saw an ad for a scientific illustration workshop.

Environmental forensics is an established discipline in North America, but in the United Kingdom and Europe, the field has emerged more slowly. It's gaining speed, however.