Here’s a career you might not have heard of before: Pipette Calibration Technician. For you, this job title might sound like a lot of jargon or simply be a total mystery, but for Bryan Parker, it’s all in a day’s work.
As a pipette calibration technician, Bryan Parker works in a laboratory environment and his job is specific but absolutely essential to the scientific process. His responsibility is to ensure the accuracy and precision of pipettes, a laboratory instrument used to measure and transfer liquid. It’s a vital tool in science and medicine, and it’s often required when precision in liquid handling is essential.
“There are many different applications for pipettes. There is the Department of Agriculture, university research, laboratories and more,” says Bryan Parker.
“I come in with my equipment, which is used to calibrate the devices,” says Parker.
Bryan Parker says it’s called an analytical balance, which is a high precision hybrid scale, or a dependable weighing mechanism fine-tuned to get the job done.
The job of a pipette calibration technician is not as repetitive as it sounds since there are different applications and environments to work with at all times. Bryan Parker also has a passion for the details and the gritty work to ensure that the scientific process goes smoothly and precision and accuracy are accounted for at all times.
Besides, with so many pipettes to choose from, how could one ever get bored? You have micropipettes, macropipettes, serological pipettes and more.
A lot of Parker’s attention is also devoted to understanding the requirements of his client.
“With every customer, I go over with them what they require as far as their testing requirements,” says Parker.
Pipettes work by creating a vacuum or positive displacement mechanism to draw the liquid into a disposable tip or the pipette itself. That’s a fancy way of saying that often the pipette is squeezed at one end, sucks in the liquid and then displaces it when it is squeezed again. This is the standard, but each pipette is unique and used for a specific application.
Pipettes are used in various scientific fields. You have biology, chemistry, medicine, pharmaceuticals and various other research applications.
No matter the field or the application, everyone using pipettes relies on one thing – that they are calibrated and functioning correctly. While it’s a small and highly specific duty in the long chain that is the scientific process, it’s crucial.
So, how did Bryan Parker learn about pipette calibration and start his career in such a niche field?
“I kind of fell into it,” says Parker.
“Somebody reached out to me on Indeed and they had an opening position. I was living in Texas at the time, and I’m from Chicago. At the time I was doing calibration of high capacity weight scales.”
Bryan Parker took what he says was a leap of faith, and he decided to take the job. Even though at the time he didn’t know what a pipette was, he found that the position was a perfect match and opened doors to a whole new world of possibilities.
“The people you meet and the things you learn in a laboratory environment are helpful,” says Parker.
