Hi, I am posting this to seek some advices on a very unusual career change I intend to do. Thanks in advance for your time and advice.

Let me first give you my background.

My education background is in applied mathematics. I own a DEA (Diplome d'Etudes Approfondies, a pre-PhD degree equivalent to a MPhil in France) in Probabilities Applied to Finance that I completed with honours in 1999. (I'm 35 and French living in the UK).
Then, I entered the financial corporate world as a quantitative analyst. The job is mainly designing and implementing financial models. After more than 12 years in this industry, I evolved through various positions which involved more and more management/finance and less mathematical stuff.

My choice for this career was mainly driven by its financial prospects. If I had not been in the need to work early, I would have most likely chosen an academic career to fulfil the desire I had when I was student to do some research in applied maths.

I have been contemplating switching to academia for some time already, without really knowing if i would do it and in which field. And recently I discovered and got interested in mathematical epidemiology. It's  been several weeks I'm reading research articles related to this topic to assess - and actually confirmed - my will to spend many years working in this area. Unfortunately, research in Quantitative Finance - a natural field given my experience - doesn't really motivate me.

The scientific component of my job is comparable to a "very applied engineering". Hence, I haven't practised daily high-level mathematics since I left University and least for the last 5 years where my role has been more about business building and management. Although I guess I have most of the academic background, I would have a steep catch up to come back to the level I had when I was student.

So, put simply, I would go from a corporate job where I did mathematical finance to academic research in mathematical epidemiology. I guess my experience is not completely irrelevant but is not obviously related either. The lack of intellectual challenge in my current and potential future jobs is the main motivation for me to switch to academia.

Fortunately, my job has been rewarding enough so that I can contemplate a significant career change now without taking a huge financial risk. My wife also supports me and is aware of the significant life change this would involve and we are pretty flexible in terms of location.

Obviously, I have some doubts about all this. Having your thoughts - even short ones - would be tremendously useful.
I wonder how realistic this career change is and how it would be received by a research lab/supervisor. Would I have a chance to enter directly into a PhD program (thanks to my DEA diploma) or would I be requested to sit again some exams beforehand? Would I be at a disadvantage for future jobs (post PhD)prospects? Has someone ever had a similar experience (switching to a "non-natura

I don't see your mathematical background as being any type of stumbling block. PhD entrants often have just a first basic BSc degree. The fact that you've gone on to work instead shouldn't be a problem.

What you need to do is explain to potential supervisors why you want to shift to academia, and why the subject area you have chosen. And you will need to be very clear about this in your mind.

It is possible that they will want you to take an MSc course first, particularly to get you back up to speed in your mathematics, partly to prove your ability. Or someone may be willing to take you on in a combined MRes+PhD 1+3 course.

My PhD supervisor worked as a financial analyst for a number of years before going to academia (history lecturer). So it can be done.

Good luck!

I'm currently doing an epidemiology PhD, having completed an MSc in Epidemiology last year.

I really don't think that your background would be a hindrance. On my MSc course around 50% of the students were clinical doctors and the non clinical students had backgrounds that ranged from basic biomedical sciences to mathematics, anthropology, economics... It's actually a subject area that benefits from having a diverse range of perspectives contributing within a research group so a mathematician would not stand out in a bad way.

I must admit I'm not 100% sure what you mean by 'mathematical epidemiology' - it's not a subdiscipline term that's used in the UK. Perhaps you mean the modelling component of epidemiology? People from a variety of epi research areas employ modelling techniques. You might also want to consider Medical Statistics as a discipline depending on what exactly it is you can see yourself doing in the long term.

I would recommend that you get in touch with institutions that offer epi masters programmes or have strong epi research and ask them whether your current qualifications would be enough to enter into a PhD or whether it would be advisable to do a masters. Even if your qualifications are adequate I would strongly recommend trying to get a job/some practical experience in a health research environment first before committing yourself to a PhD - it will give you a flavour of whether academia is for you and help you develop some understanding of the health context in which you might be trying to work.

Please ask if you have any more questions or if any of the above didn't make sense. :)

Thanks Hazyjane, your comments are very useful. I understand "mathematical epidemiology" is a field to model the spread of (infectious) diseases. Based on the articles I've read so far, it can be pretty heavy in maths and the PhD programme I would target are in Applied Mathematics departments. (see for example the following introductory article http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=0C0D83C1CC0041EA9A966720356DDC13?doi=10.1.1.130.1956&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

I was planning, as you suggested, to get in touch with potential supervisor (but wanted to test the water on forums first!). When you mention institution with strong epi programme/research, how can I see which one are the best? I mainly Google to find the relevant contacts but I'm wary I may miss good ones. Is there a (inter)national database of contacts?

Also, thanks to BilboBaggins for your encouraging post!

The Research Assessment Exercise gives a feel for the size and strength of UK research departments. Here's the 2008 assessment for epi:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/table/2008/dec/18/rae-2008-medicine-epidemiology
It's not the be all and end all though. In the UK the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) probably has the best reputation nationally and internationally. In the US it's probably Harvard and Johns Hopkins.

If you were thinking of doing a masters course then in the UK your options are LSHTM (MSc Epi), Imperial (MSc Modern Epi), Nottingham (MSc Applied Epi), Leeds (MSc Statistical Epi and MSc Spatial Epi) and Cambridge (MPhil Epi). (Sheffield and UCL also run programmes but they specialise in genetics and social epi respectively, so not really relevant to you). If you're interested in infectious disease modelling I would suggest your best bet would probably be LSHTM or Imperial, but you should get other opinions too. LSHTM's programme is also available as a distance learning course via the University of London.

If you don't decide to do a masters I would still suggest undertaking a short course or two. As I have said, epi is very interdisciplinary, which makes for interesting working environments, but it also requires good communication between people from different backgrounds. Even if you decide to base yourself in a mathematics department (if, indeed that is possible for such a topic) it would be important for you to be able to communicate your research to less mathematical researchers, so an appreciation of the 'common language' of epi would be useful. Academia isn't just about getting on and doing your own bit of research either - you might make good contacts on short courses which would help you develop networking links in the future.

Overall the good news is that compared to some fields there is a reasonable amount of funding for this kind of research and it is even possible to get funding to do a masters, which is quite unusual, because it's an in-demand skill, so look out for institutions offering MRC Advanced Course Studentships if you go down the masters route. Also the average age of students in this field tends to be older as very few people get into it straight out of undergraduate study anyway.

Good luck!

Hazyjane, thank you so much, you have been extremely helpful. (up)