Stoneleigh Fellow Daniel Semenza reflects on his nonlinear path into research, rejection, and finding purpose as a gun violence researcher.
Gun violence research has grown dramatically over the past decade, but the field is still small relative to the scale of the problem. Across the country, more students and early-career scholars are expressing interest in studying violence prevention, public health, and the social conditions that shape community safety. I’m often asked how someone actually ends up doing this work. The honest answer is that there isn’t a single path. Mine certainly wasn’t straightforward.
I spend a lot of time writing about research and very little time writing about myself. I’m a pretty normal dude (I think??) who loves his family, his pugs, horror movies, and early 2000’s punk and emo music. I also happen to be a gun violence researcher and professor who really loves his job.
Over the past few years, I’ve had the honor of working with the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center, helping mentor people who are just starting out in their careers. Working with graduate students and postdoctoral fellows is one of the most gratifying parts of my job, hands down. I’ve received feedback that sharing my own research trajectory—from a very confused undergraduate student who just wanted to play in rock bands to tenured professor—has been helpful to others considering a career in research and academia.
So this blog post is a little different from my typical writing. Instead of focusing on findings or data, I want to talk about the path that brought me here and how I became a gun violence researcher. If you’re reading this and still figuring things out, I hope it shows that you don’t always need a perfectly mapped plan to end up somewhere meaningful.
