How to Succeed in Academics

This is a how-to book for the academic life based on more than 50 years combined personal experience and 8 years of formal group mentoring as part of a workshop on these topics. The unwritten rules of university life are shared through fictional vignettes that are all too real. Secrets to successfully achieving short-term and long-term goals are provided in the progress timelines and suggested milestones. Beginning with selecting a training program and choosing a job, this book takes the student, fellow, or faculty member through the maze of academic secrecy to a new level of understanding and empowerment.

Dr. McCabe began his research career at the age of 15 in the laboratory of Samuel P. Bessman, M.D., in the Pediatric Research Laboratory at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He received his B.A. with Honors in Biology from The Johns Hopkins University in 1967. As part of his M.D./Ph.D. Program, he earned his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Southern California in 1972 where he was inducted into both Sigma Xi and Phi Kappa Phi. In 1974, Dr. McCabe was granted an M.D. from the University of Southern California where he was inducted into Alpha Omega Alpha. He completed his Pediatrics Residency at the University of Minnesota Hospitals in 1976.Dr. McCabe served as a Pediatric Metabolism Fellow at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center from 1976 until 1978. He remained at Colorado as a faculty member in the Department of Pediatrics and the Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Genetics. He became Director of the Metabolic Diseases Clinic in 1977 and developed it into a national resource serving 10 states in the Rocky Mountain area. As a Fellow, he discovered Glycerol Kinase Deficiency (GKD). He characterized the biochemistry of this disorder and was the first to recognize GKD as part of a contiguous gene syndrome, Complex Glycerol Kinase Deficiency, including GKD, Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, and Adrenal Hypoplasia Congenita (AHC). He was the first to show that DNA could be extracted from newborn screening blotters. This discovery was the basis for the use of blotters for molecular genetic diagnosis, forensics including the DNA dog tag, and infectious disease diagnosis.In 1986, Dr. McCabe left Colorado to direct the Robert J. Kleberg, Jr. Clinical Center at the Institute for Molecular Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine. Under his leadership the clinical service became internationally renowned for prenatal genetics, clinical genetics and biochemical genetics. In addition to outpatient clinics, inpatient services were provided to

Dr. McCabe received her B.A. Magna Cum Laude with Honors in Psychology from Towson State College in 1969. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology in 1972 from the University of Southern California. She joined the faculty of the Department of Psychology at Chapman College in Orange, California in 1972. Dr. McCabe was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Research in Human Learning at the University of Minnesota from 1974 through 1977. She was a Research Fellow in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center from 1977 until 1979. Dr. McCabe joined the faculty in the Department of Psychology at the University of Colorado, Denver, in 1979. She left in 1984 to return to research at the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. In 1986, Dr. McCabe shifted her research efforts to the Institute for Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, in Houston. At this time she also had administrative responsibility for the Baylor Mental Retardation Research Center, the Molecular Genetic Diagnosis Postdoctoral Training Program, and the Baylor Child Health Research Center. In 1992 she and Edward R.B. McCabe, M.D., Ph.D., established the How to Succeed in Academics course for fellows and junior faculty members in the Baylor Department of Pediatrics.Dr. McCabe moved her research to UCLA School of Medicine in 1994. She has administrative responsibility for the Pediatric Research, Innovation and Mentoring Experience, the UCLA Child Health Research Center, and the Human and Molecular Development Training Program. She and Edward R.B. McCabe, M.D., Ph.D. offer How to Succeed in Academics on an annual basis with the exception of 1997-1998, when they offered a Leadership Workshop. She is the Managing Editor of Molecular Genetics and Metabolism. She is a member of the UCLA Medical Human Subject Protection Committee and the Human Research Policy Board Subcommittee on Genetic Research. She is a faculty member in the