Sponsored by the USC Career Center, Tom was an invited panel member in the Beyond The PhD: 6th Annual PhD and Postdoctoral Career Conference (conducted on March 28, 2017) designed to inspire the USC doctoral community to pursue fulfilling, innovative, entrepreneurial careers in academia and industry. As part of the "Careers in STEM Panel", Tom provided USC doctoral candidates and postdoctoral fellows with strategies for presenting their unique research skills, scholarly perspectives, and teaching experiences on the job market and beyond. Ideas for pre-PhD job searching as well as insights into specific elements of transitioning from academia and applying to work in industry were also discussed. The interdisciplinary STEM panel members included (from left-to-right): Dr. Bill Martin (Chief Scientific Officer and Head of R&D at Blackthorn Therapeutics); Dr. Parag Havaldar (Software R&D Lead at Blizzard Entertainment); Dr. Tom Barrera (President LIB-X Consulting), and Dr. Farhan Baluch (Moderator, Senior Data Scientist at Netflix ).