I’m an evolutionary biologist centered on molecular evolution and phylogenetic inference — coalescent models, dN/dS, selection scans, and BEAST/IQ-TREE workflows — and I’m considering a move after this spring’s grant cycle. For those who’ve transitioned, which job titles should I target in biotech/pharma/conservation (e.g., comparative genomics, lineage tracing, pathogen phylogenetics), and what skills do hiring managers screen for beyond “can run a tree”?
I moved from an academic phylo lab to a pharma infectious-disease team as a Computational Biologist; BEAST/IQ-TREE and coalescent work translated directly to posts mentioning ‘phylodynamics’ or ‘comparative genomics’. Try searching Bioinformatics Scientist (pathogen genomics), Molecular Epidemiologist, or Population Geneticist in conservation and read descriptions for phylo keywords — titles are a taxonomic mess.
@OP I got callbacks when I renamed my skillset to “genomic epidemiology/phylogenomic surveillance” on the resume and targeted Bioinformatics Scientist (Infectious Disease) and Population Geneticist roles — same BEAST/IQ-TREE work, better ATS hits; caveat: conservation gigs often hide under eDNA/metabarcoding.