Monday Job Seekers Connection: The Journey of a Job Seeker Panel Discussion

Join other job seekers each week for mutual support, encouragement, inspiration, and empowerment in your job search. Job Seekers Connection energizes and motivates participants by teaching valuable career search strategies and techniques.

Join Monday Job Seekers Connection alumni to learn about their job search journey and participate in a discussion.

Facilitator: Michele Rocray, Harvard Ed Portal

Panelists:

Maria Cervone, Senior Product Manager – Policies, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

Erik Fortune, Partner Manager – Reseller, GroundTruth

Erica Lindamood, Program Manager, Education and Community Engagement, Boston Symphony Orchestra

Germaine Palmer, She/Her/Ella, Manager of Life Sciences Apprenticeship Program, Massachusetts Biotechnology Education Foundation

About the speakers…

Maria Cervone (she/her)

Maria Cervone is Senior Product Manager – Policies at the Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard, where she manages data access controls for Terra, a scalable platform for biomedical research. Prior to the Broad, she was Director of Informatics at Harvard Catalyst, Harvard Medical School, where she designed and implemented numerous web applications to support biomedical research both locally and nationally. Earlier, she designed and managed biopharmaceutical documentation systems at Wyeth BioPharma/Genetics Institute (now Pfizer). Maria holds a Master of Science in Information from the University of Michigan School of Information, and a certificate in public health informatics from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Erik Fortune (He / Him)

Erik started his professional career working for the San Francisco Giants in 1995.  Eventually, he parlayed his experience into joining Real Networks in Seattle helping traditional advertisers repurpose their broadcast assets to streaming media.

After moving back to Boston and working for Celtra for almost 9 years, their publishing business was phased out. He quickly realized that he needed to reassess what he knew about the job search process.

In August 2021, Erik accepted a position with GroundTruth, a location-based advertising and marketing platform.

Erica B. Lindamood (she/her)

Erica is an educator and program manager with experience in arts and museum education, out-of-school time and literacy consulting. She has worked in anthropology, history, and children’s museums; summer, after-school, and arts programs for children and youth; as research and writing instructor for college and graduate students; and as neighborhood education coordinator for a Boston-based historic preservation organization. Erica received her BA from New York University (Anthropology/Writing), and her MA and PhD from University of Pennsylvania (Folklore and Folklife/Ethnography). She has received training in Reggio Emilia, Italy on Reggio approaches to early education, gets fired up by the intersections of arts + equity + education, enjoys ushering creative projects from initial conception to production, and loves learning new content on the job.

Germaine Palmer (she/her/ella)

For the last 20 years, Germaine has actively helped people to build trust, navigate new terrain, and welcome change into their lives. Most of her work history has involved teaching underserved populations new skills and how to better present themselves, both on paper and in person. She excels at building strong teams, career coaching, and fostering a sense of community. She is also passionate about developing diverse and inclusive peer leaders and mentors. Germaine enjoys creating safe spaces and unconventional opportunities to build relationships, rapport, and understanding, beginning in 2004 with a local community journal project. She continues to build trust and peer leadership skills into her present-day offerings of apprentice peer mentoring workshops and networking/interviewing prep and practice.

In Germaine’s current role, she manages two life sciences apprenticeship programs offered by MassBioEd Foundation, a Cambridge nonprofit. These programs offer free training, professional mentoring, and paid apprenticeships at Bristol Myers Squibb, Pfizer, and other Massachusetts biotech companies. She recruits, screens, coaches, and supports career-changing apprenticeship program candidates. Her primary recruitment focus is to connect more women, underrepresented POC (people of color), veterans, and people who are unemployed to these career pathways in the life sciences industry.

Prior to this role, Germaine supported a global health research director at Harvard Medical School, and served 10 years coaching, training, and facilitating as a community workforce development program coordinator, instructor, career coach, and Project Literacy volunteer.

Germaine earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Swarthmore College and a Master of Liberal Arts in General Management from Harvard University Extension School. She speaks Mandarin Chinese and Spanish.

The Monday Job Seekers Connection is offered every Monday, 11:00-12:30 (except holidays) and is open to individuals 18 years and older.

This session will be offered on-line using Zoom. Zoom can be accessed on your computer, tablet and phone. Instructions will be provided on your confirmation.

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