My career path has been non-linear and somewhat atypical.
Childhood until highschool: I grew up in multiple countries including the USA, Italy, Norway and Switzerland. My extended family still lives in the region of Geneva, Switzerland.
Academic training period. I left home young to study abroad: biology at McGill University (Montreal, Canada), graduate school at Cornell University (Ithaca, NY, USA), postdoc for several years at the University of Austin (Texas) before accepting a faculty position at the State University of New York, College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry (SUNY-ESF) in Syracuse, NY, USA. Work was great, and I was thrilled to finally have been granted a faculty position, but I increasingly missed home.
Transition/wandering period: I gave up a tenure-track position to move back to Europe, where I worked for the French government (INRA, in Rennes), and then in the private sector (Geneva, Switzerland). Became a dad, and experienced periods of under-employment. Tough years, with lots of doubts and uncertainty.
I found myself slowly drawn back into academia, first by teaching a single class (on Ecosystem Services) and then progressively more. Today, I work full time for the University of Geneva. I am thrilled to be at the Institute for Environmental Sciences, where I can teach courses on sustainability and conduct interdisciplinary research.