By Shreya Chandrasekar

Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to interview Monica Vajani, a seasoned healthcare professional who currently works with CVS Health. Vajani spent her childhood on the East Coast, attended Washington University in St. Louis for her undergraduate, and ultimately put down roots in the Midwest when she started her career in the medical device industry. Multiple factors prompted her decision to pursue a career in healthcare, including a strong interest in science and math, a desire to help vulnerable populations, and the fact that many members of her extended family were healthcare professionals.  

During her time at Washington University, Vajani started to get a better understanding of her specific interests within biomedical engineering. While combining medical sciences and engineering was relatively new at the time, it seemed like the perfect blend of Vajani’s skills and interests. At an informational session by St. Jude Medical, a company that manufactures pacemakers, defibrillators, and a myriad of other heart-related medical devices, Vajani learned about their college hire program. Subsequently, she took all the required classes and underwent a rigorous interview process to land a coveted job with this company. The job offered her the perfect opportunity to combine her interpersonal skills and scientific knowledge gleaned from working with clinicians to implant these devices. It started Vajani on her career path for the next decade where she served as a vital link between patients, clinicians, and manufacturers. This pivotal role helped her develop key skills that would enable her to later play larger roles in marketing and product development.

After working in sales and marketing at St. Jude Medical for over 7 years, Vajani attended the prestigious Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago in order develop a deeper understanding of the business world. As a part time student, she was able to apply key classroom learnings to her role as a clinical specialist at Medtronic. Upon graduating, she spent the next leg of her career working at MATTER, helping start-ups and corporate healthcare organizations develop commercialization and innovation strategies, respectively. Her experience at MATTER prepared her well for her current role with CVS Health, where she is part of a transformation team that is tasked with building new products and services that will drive better patient experiences and outcomes. Especially in the context of the current pandemic, she has sought to turn a generally slow-responding corporate environment into one that reacts faster and more effectively. Vajani believes that the current uncertainty and malleability surrounding the healthcare environment has pushed her to take the reins and continue driving change. While speaking with her, it was obvious that she has been able to make her impact by staying abreast of the most recent advancements and emergent trends across the healthcare ecosystem – including new healthcare technology start-ups as well as mergers and acquisitions between dominant players in health insurance, pharma, and medtech.

While Vajani’s career has been diverse, the continuous drive to help people has been critical to her success. This was a value that her mother instilled in her early in her childhood. Vajani says that her mother was very supportive of her dreams and encouraged her to challenge herself across all aspects of life. In addition to her mother, Vajani’s mentors throughout her career inspired confidence in her that pushed her to reach her professional ambitions. In just over a decade, Vajani has achieved many career goals, and she is just getting warmed up. In the future, Vajani hopes to start her own business and create a formal system that allows her to mentor and invest in small businesses.

Navigating her career in science as a woman hasn’t always been easy, but the difficult experiences have helped Vajani develop skills to overcome challenges and fostered in her a greater appreciation for people who nurture a welcoming and productive working environment. In her free time, Vajani spends time pursuing passions, such as wheelthrown pottery. When asked what advice she would give to a woman early in her career, Vajani emphasized the importance of goal setting early on both personally and professionally, while remaining open to new, seemingly uncomfortable experiences, as these are opportunities for growth.

By Phalguni Shah

“Happiness is more than waking up and smiling every day. I really think it is finding a deep meaning in what you are doing, [even though] it might not always be the most fun thing. For me, success is not being bored and keeping myself intellectually stimulated.”

On Earth Day 2020, I had the opportunity to interview Jennifer Bogs, the Environmental Manager at Great Lakes Coca-Cola Bottling. Bogs develops environmental policies and communicates compliance best practices for the company. With a background in the environmental sciences, business, as well as law, she has carved out a unique career at the crossroads of STEM and law.

“I feel like I’ve always worked,” Jennifer says, laughing. She recalls starting a job just one day after graduating college. Before going to business school, she worked in consulting and thoroughly enjoyed communicating with and learning from professionals from different fields such as science, engineering, and business. Bogs went into law school with an unusual intent of not working at a law firm upon graduation. Her aim was to work at the intersection of business and public interest, which led her on her fascinating career path. 

As an environmental manager, Bogs spends her time on a wide variety of tasks such as designing policies and guidelines, conducting trainings, and communicating with environmental regulators.  The best part of her job, according to Bogs, is that she can take actions to prevent environmental damage before it has happened. When asked about the most frustrating part, she expresses disappointment about “green-washing” in corporate culture, where many companies only consider sustainability as a marketing tool. This is why she enjoys seeing her deep passion for impactful sustainability spread to others. “It makes me very happy when I’ve taught someone how to fish, and they fish for themselves,” Bogs says.

STEM and law are both fields known to not have a lot of women, Jennifer admits.  Though she recalls unfortunate gender bias during her student life, reminding herself of the bigger picture helped her stay focused on her goals. Bogs is grateful to have had great mentors who inspired her, and she stresses the importance of having had a network of like-minded peers she could rely on for support.

Jennifer enjoys spending her free time with her two kids. She also loves staying active and surrounded by nature. Going for a run or hiking in a forest preserve is her go-to way to unwind from a busy week. She recalls receiving the best piece of advice from her business school professor: “You only get one reputation in life.” According to Bogs, it is especially relevant for a career in environmental law. When asked what advice she would give her early-career self, she remarks, “Don’t discount the time that you have for yourself.” She adds that investing in a hobby or having a personal side project can help you persevere through the challenging phases of your career.

By: Vera Kaelin

“[The secret to success is] to have a strong sense of self, to know who you are and to know why you do what you do”. 

Dr. Sylvia Perry is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and an assistant professor by courtesy in the Department of Medical Social Sciences at the Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. She directs the Social Cognition & Intergroup Processes (SCIP) Laboratory, composed of four graduate students, a lab manager, 17 undergraduate students and a dog as their lab mascot. When talking to Dr. Perry, it became evident that she pursues her career in an uncompromising manner and with strong passion. Her innovative research focuses on understanding people’s racial bias awareness and their existing biases towards different racial minorities, people of different weight, or sexual orientation. With clear intention, she provides mentored research opportunities in her lab to first generation college students and students of color. 

Dr. Perry, herself a first-generation college student and underrepresented minority faculty member, provides access to opportunities that she did not have, but wished for, as an undergraduate student. When I asked her how she became so successful, she laughed and said, “I am stubborn.” Indeed, Dr. Perry seems persistent and proactive. Fascinated by her own and other’s experiences with racial biases and bias awareness, Dr. Perry proactively sought to connect with scholars with similar interest. Some of these people became her future mentors, who believed in and nurtured her and her ideas.  One year before completing her PhD, she secured a prestigious NIH R01 supplement to fund her postdoctoral position with Dr. John Dovidio, a well-known researcher in her field. 

Dr. Perry not only knows about biases towards underrepresented minorities through her research but also from her own experiences. “I experienced both subtle and blatant forms of racial and gender bias, and […] I received signals and feedback that my work was not as valuable.” She recalled dealing with this negative feedback to be exhausting, and intrinsic motivation was required to continue. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that Dr. Perry asks her students, “What is it that you are passionate about? What will keep you going even if others don’t believe in your work?” Mentoring students is one of the aspects Dr. Perry likes most about her job. She in particular likes when she can see “a spark in [my] mentees’ eyes when they find something interesting.” 

At Northwestern University, Dr. Perry works on a number of research projects, mentors graduate and undergraduate students, and teaches undergraduate and graduate classes. She also parents her 2.5-year-old son. How does she manage all of this? It must be her strong sense of self. She knows who she is and why she does what she does, even when others might not believe that it is all possible. 

By: Shreya Chandrasekar

Dr. Sangeetha Madhavan was always fascinated by the human body, thus prompting her clinical training as a physical therapist. Subsequently, her decision to pursue training as a research scientist in rehabilitation science arose from the numerous questions she had as a clinician. Dr. Madhavan currently works as an Associate Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy and is also the Director of the Brain Plasticity Laboratory at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

Her lab is primarily focused on developing individualized therapeutic approaches that use technologies such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to advance existing neurorehabilitation practices. With support from NIH, AHA, NIDRR and others, Dr. Madhavan is currently investigating the effects of cortical priming on walking outcomes in stroke survivors. Her passion for her work is evident in the way she talks about her quest for understanding how the brain learns and recovers. According to Dr. Madhavan, the most exciting part of her work is designing research experiments that get her closer to answers of questions that will ultimately contribute to the advancement of science and thus help her target patient population. She believes that designing robust research experiments is the foundation on which successful data acquisition rests. In addition to her work in the lab, she also loves teaching and disseminating what she learns in the lab to students who are training to be future clinicians.

For Dr. Madhavan, the most gratifying part of her job is hearing from a student that he/she was inspired to pursue a particular topic of research because of her lecture. She is motivated by the possibility of playing a small but significant role in her mentee’s professional development and personal success. I believe that Dr. Madhavan’s desire and passion towards mentor-ship stems from the acknowledgement of the pivotal role that her own teachers and mentors have played in her career. However, there are also parts of the job that Dr. Madhavan finds frustrating. According to her, one such frustrating aspect of her job is the constant endeavor to procure funding.

While she does not recollect any major incidents that occurred to her because she was a woman in science, she says that gender plays a role in her professional life in many different ways. She finds that networking opportunities are harder to come by for women and that female scientists have to work twice as hard to build their network in a male dominated profession.

No two days in Dr. Madhavan’s life are similar. Being a mother of two kids who are 10 and 5, a teacher and the head of a research lab means that Dr. Madhavan has to always prioritize her tasks based on what needs her most urgent attention. She is an early riser and uses her time in the mornings for some uninterrupted work, so that she can spend the rest of her day in meetings, teaching or analyzing data. Outside of work, Dr. Madhavan loves spending time with her kids. Apart from reading historical fiction, she also loves to spend her time cooking, gardening and travelling. With so many diverse interests and professional goals, Dr. Madhavan believes that it is paramount to maintain a sense of balance within the chaos. While perfectly prioritizing tasks and getting them done can be a struggle on most days, she focuses on achieving a sense of balance in the long run.

By: Kendra J. Royston

“I am up at 6:15 because of my daughter. The first thing I did this morning was speak to a senior researcher that I’ve been working with for many years. Then I started working on a poster that I am presenting next week. I am on an award committee for our national foundation for research, so I had to prepare for a phone call with the chair of the committee. I often have to run the TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) experiment which we use for evaluation of changes in cortical excitabity of our  research participants at three time points during the study .. I treat inpatients six hours a week.”

The quote above is just another day in the life of actress, parent, occupational therapist, and movement scientist Dr. Mary Ellen Stoykov. You read that correctly, Dr. Stoykov is not only a woman of science, but a thespian and connoisseur of the arts.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Mary Ellen Stoykov last month, and I must say she is an incredible woman with a unique pathway into STEM.

Mary Ellen has a passion for the fine arts, as evidenced by her undergraduate degree in theater. When asked what prompted her shift in careers, she shared that her contact with a disabled student piqued her interest in drama therapy. She decided to enroll back in school to pursue a career in occupational or physical therapy, but quickly realized that she had a passion for clinical research. Because of this passion, she’d be required to embark on her PhD journey.

Never one to shy away from difficult tasks, Dr. Stoykov found her passion in solving complex problems that affected her patients. She gains fulfillment from her efforts in unraveling the answers to rehabilitating arms affected by paralysis as a result of stroke. She is fascinated by bimanual conflict, a syndrome that causes one hand to interfere with the other, preventing an individual from performing tasks with two hands. Thus far, she has successfully aided in the rehabilitation of patients.

Dr. Stoykov approaches research questions differently than some of her colleagues. Her practical experience gives her an edge when it comes to demonstrating positive results in patient recovery. She enjoys also collaborating with other researchers and learning from them.

Ever the renaissance woman, Mary Ellen has tackled the challenge of being a mother in STEM. Raising her daughter and being present for the important milestones is important to her. She’s expressed that remaining competitive in her career while being a full time mom was difficult at times but she embraced the challenge gracefully.

As many women in a variety of careers, both inside and outside of STEM, Dr. Stoykov shared with me that she and other female colleagues feel they have to be 3 times better than the average male researcher in the same field in order to garner funding and publish manuscripts, but in the words of Mary Ellen herself, “Persistence is a good quality to have.”

Outside of the lab and clinic Stoykov has an active spiritual life and still surrounds herself with the talented men and women of the arts in Chicago.

For more on Mary Ellen, have a listen to our candid conversation with her this past quarter.

By: Shreya Chandrasekar

Serendipity is a term that is often used to describe a happy accident. But Horace Walpole, who coined the term in 1754, used the word to refer to a very specific kind of “happy accident”: the kind that can be only exploited by a sagacious person. After having met and interacted with Dr. Toni Pak, professor and chair of the Department of Cell and Molecular Physiology at Loyola University Chicago (Health Sciences Division), I am convinced that she is exactly the kind of person Walpole was referring to!

Growing up in Colorado with a single parent, college was not an idea that was on Dr. Pak’s radar. While she recognized her love for the sciences very early on, she didn’t know that there was much she could do with a degree in biology other than working as a healthcare professional. Nonetheless, Dr. Pak enrolled herself at the University of Colorado as a pre-med and was the first from her family to attend college. Dr. Pak graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Population and Organismic Biology, while simultaneously caring and providing for her three young children as a single parent. During her time as a graduate student pursuing a Master’s degree in Secondary Science Education and working on education reform in secondary schools, she continued to take graduate courses in biology and explore circadian biology in the lab. It didn’t take her long to realize that being in the lab was what she enjoyed the most and felt passionate about. Her PI recognized this passion and suggested that she explore a career as a scientist. Overwhelmed and unsure about fully committing to a career as a scientist, Dr. Pak decided to get a second Masters degree in biology so that she could teach at community colleges.

However, serendipitously, the lab that she applied to wasn’t accepting any masters students; the PI of the lab offered to accept her as a PhD student instead. As a PhD student in Neuroscience at the University of Colorado, Dr. Pak had “500 hamsters to take care of” and absolute free reigns to come up with a project that fascinated her. During her time as a PhD student, Dr. Pak remained resilient, positive and productive. With the guidance of her mentors, Dr. Pak published 5 first author papers as a PhD student, which she believes was key in helping her secure a good post-doc and ultimately, a job in the field.

Her meticulousness, resilience and ability to find and seek advice from good mentors during her graduate school journey, helped her accomplish all of this while simultaneously striking a work-life balance and fulfilling her responsibilities as a mother. However, when I asked her about how she so amazingly struck the work-life balance throughout her career, she laughed and said, “I don’t think I am a good example”. She strongly believes that a good work-life balance in a job like hers that requires intense drive and inherent curiosity, cannot be achieved by “leaving work, forgetting about it and going home”. Instead, she believes that one must plan their day meticulously in order to be fully immersed in and focused on the task at hand.

While her career has scaled great heights and Dr. Pak has successfully stepped up and taken on several leadership roles in her field, her love for science and teaching remains unchanged. According to Dr. Pak, the best part of her job is still nurturing the enthusiasm and curiosity of her graduate students. She is proud of the fact that some of her best work has stemmed from the ideas of her graduate students and she advices all young scientists to fearlessly pursue their passions, and not be afraid to pitch their ideas and projects to their PIs. She believes that although things have improved for young female scientists, with search committees now actively seeking to recruit female faculty members, there is still bias in the way women in science are viewed. Scientists like Dr. Toni Pak are pushing barriers for women in science by not only generating scientific knowledge that speaks volumes but also fearlessly taking on leadership roles and earning their seats at the table in a traditionally male dominated field.

by: Kendra J. Royston

“Helping people had always been my passion.”

Passion, drive, determination, kindness, and philanthropy. After my interview with Dr. Doris Espiritu of Wright College, it was evident that these 5 words would be appropriate descriptors to help us gain perspective into her world view. Influenced by her father’s emphasis on education and higher learning, she embraced her academic journey early.

As a minority woman in STEM Dr. Espiritu understands the need for representation in the field. Serving as an example and role model, she is capable of helping influence and impact other women who  are akin to herself. She is extremely passionate about STEM diversity and teaching, and it is safe to assume that she utilizes her platform as a city college professor to inspire and cultivate young minds.

Dr. Espiritu’s father made her promise to “never give up” on her education, and it was that promise that encouraged her to persevere through poverty. Now, she honors her father’s memory by passing the lessons she’s learned from him on to her students and those who look up to her.

Initially motivated by money, Dr. Espiritu pursued her education in chemistry. After receiving her Master’s degree from the University of the Philippines she worked in industry for a while to help provide for her family. Despite achieving monetary success, Doris felt that “something was missing” and decided to move to the US to pursue her PhD in Physiology and Biophysics with hopes of designing drugs to help people. Her dissertation was centered on kidney physiology and her postdoc work focused on understanding endocrinology with relation to obesity.

It was when Dr. Espiritu began working with students that she felt she had truly found her passion. As an instructor at Wright, the joy she received in the classroom resulted in her continuing her career there. Now, as the Director of the Engineering program, and Professor of Chemistry at Wilbur Wright, Dr. Espiritu’s gifts and passions have made room for her. She has received numerous accolades, established partnerships with Princeton University and the Czech Academy of Sciences, Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, and  Armour College of Engineering, IIT and has even secured a $1.43M National Science Foundation for the “Building Bridges into Engineering and Computer Science” program at the college.

When she’s not teaching and utilizing her research in data mining and computational chemistry to facilitate student learning and development, she enjoys food, baseball, and learning new languages.

It was a tremendous honor learning more about Dr. Espiritu, and we sincerely hope you enjoyed learning about this month’s SOTM!

• Interview and article by: Suchitra Sankaranarayan; Photo by:Alex P. Taylor

Quaternary geologist and paleolimnologist at Northwestern University, Associate Prof. Yarrow Axford likes spending time outdoors. Growing up in rural Maine, Yarrow became fascinated that there’s a scientific explanation for every landscape we see. An undergraduate class at Mount Holyoke College affirmed her interest in geology and she is following her passion in studying the climate history of the Arctic region using sediment from lakes.

She vividly remembers a defining moment in her undergraduate years, where in an environmental sciences class she was shown a graph with some of the earliest data from ice cores drilled from the Greenland ice sheet, showing huge swings in climate that happened many thousands of years ago. “It was a moment of awe,” she recollects. Yarrow then went on to do fieldwork in Alaska, an opportunity she jumped on immediately. Her research work then got her involved early on in studying climate sciences and she hasn’t left the field since.

Yarrow loves her job. Her laboratory and office walls are strewn with beautiful photographs from Alaska and Greenland, where she does fieldwork collecting sediment cores to understand the changes in climate over the years. “Field work definitely generates the best photos”, she laughs, “the other eleven months we’re at the computer or in the lab.” She is delighted that she can combine travel, adventure and exploration and work in places where very little science has been done. It excites her when she visits different environments and witnesses the landscapes with her own eyes to answer questions and fill gaps in scientific information about the climate history of remote places that are challenging to work in. “It feels nice to get away from email for a few weeks,” she jokes. “You’re focused on a very narrow range in your to-do list, that includes staying alive – which you don’t normally think of so much. Life in the field is simpler than our complicated day-to-day lives at home, but still there is a lot to be careful and aware of while being thoughtful and precise in science.” Her role in the field is not limited to scientific exploration; when she is expedition leader she also ensures her team is safe, well-fed and happy. In recent years, experienced graduate students have taken on that role, and Yarrow is very proud to be training another generation of polar researchers.

Being a climate scientist is hard, not just on barren Arctic terrain but also in today’s political context that threatens climate science. Yarrow has been the recipient of angry emails when her work is covered by the media but she deals with this very optimistically. “Within my community, it’s a badge of honour. We tell each other it means your work is having impact,” she says. Nevertheless, it still frustrates her when she finds herself correcting and debunking misinformation and myths repeatedly. She wishes the conversation would evolve as much as the science has over the decades and is disheartened at how the public has been convinced of alleged discord among climate scientists, on topics for which there is a strong scientific consensus.

Added to that, Yarrow is one among relatively few women field scientists in a largely male dominated discipline. She feels she is fortunate to be in her dream role as she is today. However, it took her time and persistence to get there. Through her years of graduate study, she recalls often feeling out of place in classrooms, labs, meetings and field camps where the majority of mentors and peers were men. She cherishes working with women collaborators and finds the interaction helpful in not making her feel like an anomaly. Even in her lab today, a majority of her students happen to be women, an atmosphere Yarrow believes is conducive for women to avoid that feeling of “otherness”. She shares an incident where women students helped each other out on what to expect with mundane things on excursions to Greenland, such as personal hygiene. Hearing them share quirky advice and reviews on different products made her realize how different her own graduate experience would have been in such a work environment.

Challenges exist everywhere but Yarrow keeps her spirits up in doing science. She is driven by curiosity and in uncovering the next discovery. Every new piece of data thrills her, pushing her to answer the next question in advancing climate science. She is inspired by everyone she has worked with, absorbing the little things she has learnt from the many people she has worked with. Many of her role models have been male mentors who have taught her in her years of school, but she has also had a few special senior women to look up to. “Every collaborator, women in particular, can help provide an image of how to project authority and confidence while still bringing your authentic personality to the table,” she says.

Aside from research, Yarrow likes to spend time with her family. Her time and energy are always in demand as she balances running a lab, teaching and parenting. She expresses how it was difficult to do field work when also dealing with an infant as it was not possible being away for extended periods of time and appreciates her husband for being a large force in making her career work. Answering the widely asked question – can women have it all? – Yarrow believes yes, in the course of a lifetime but realistically, not all at once. She ascribes metaphorical seasons to phases of her life and career, where in each season one has different things to focus on with new strengths and challenges. “Things I want to accomplish may not always be compatible with each other so I focus on one or two types of work in one career ‘season.’” And while she may not be able to do everything all at once, this change allows her to shift gears and keep a fresh outlook on life. As she continues to rock at science, she hopes to encourage more early-career women to disregard societal norms and pursue their intellectual passions, so that their energy can go into propelling their careers.

By Rosemary Huggins

Dr. Kay Macleod is known for her pioneering research into autophagy and mitochondrial dysfunction in cancer.  Now an Associate Professor and Chair of the Committee on Cancer Biology at the University of Chicago, Kay created a pathway to success that was uniquely her own. Growing up on the islands of north-west Scotland, Kay’s childhood embraced daily encounters with nature, around shoreline rock pools and forests near her home. This strong affinity with nature feeds Kay’s scientific passion to this day. But Kay’s career-defining moment came when a TV program featuring Bob Weinberg, the renowned MIT cancer biologist, aired around the same time that Kay’s grandmother died from ovarian cancer. A healthy non-smoker, the cause of her grandmother’s ovarian cancer was unknown. This opened Kay’s eyes to the scientific challenge of trying to understand what causes cancer. Bob Weinberg’s explanation of oncogenes and how they drive cancer intrigued Kay and made her realize that this was the scientific endeavor she wanted to pursue.  High school teachers recognized Kay’s inquisitive mind and pushed her towards a career in medicine, which was expected for young students with strong grades and an interest in the disease. But when applying to college she realized, “It’s the science of medicine that’s more interesting to me than patient care.” Kay ultimately decided to study molecular biology at university. Her education and career have taken her around the world – after earning a Bachelor of Science degree with honors at the University of Edinburgh and her Ph.D. at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, Kay ventured to the Pasteur Institute in France for post-doctoral research followed by a highly productive post-doctoral fellowship at MIT. Since 2001, Kay has carried out innovative cancer research in her own laboratory at the University of Chicago. Her experiences throughout her career provide significant insight for young scientists.

Know what you need – and what you don’t.

Kay’s experience as a young post-doc at MIT made her acutely aware of the importance of the research ecosystem in promoting great science. “The thing about MIT that is very empowering is that there are so many spontaneous interactions. You get into the habit of talking to lots of super smart and creative people, resourcing what you need when you need it and working on the latest crazy idea that turns out to be golden.” Even when you are not an expert in a certain field or familiar with a particular technique needed to advance your research, in a good scientific ecosystem, expertise is around you in colleagues willing to collaborate. “Don’t be limited by lack of knowledge. If you want to do something, go talk to people with that knowledge and figure it out!”

Another lesson Kay learned from experience is that time is a key commodity to be guarded preciously. No matter what phase of your career you are in, we are constantly approached with requests to take on additional responsibilities. Serving on a committee, volunteering for an organization, teaching an extra course – there are many tasks we can take on to supplement our career goals. While these can be extremely rewarding, Kay advises that it is critical to know when to draw the line and say no. Kay notes this may not always be the easiest thing to do. “It’s so important to only do things you have time to do without negatively impacting your research or activities important to your own success and career development.”  Don’t be afraid of disappointing others: “You’re not helping yourself or the group you’re working with by overcommitting to stuff. And once you have certain responsibilities, it’s often difficult to unburden yourself of them.”

Follow where the research leads you.

Kay highlights the importance of following what you are passionate about and appreciating the unexpected result – even if this leads you off your original research course. The central goal of Kay’s lab when she first started out as an independent PI was to understand the role of the RB tumor suppressor in cancer. Her lab defined BNIP3 as a RB target gene that, in contrast to published work at the time, was acting to promote mitochondrial turnover (mitophagy). Over the next few years, Kay’s research pivoted away from the RB tumor suppressor to investigating autophagy and mitophagy. Now, as a leading researcher in the field of autophagy in cancer biology, this unexpected direction has paid off. “I like that you can change things up in science. If you just keep studying the same thing forever, it’s not as exciting nor does it have the potential to be transformative.”

Kay draws on her own experience when giving career advice. If you do feel stuck in a situation – whether it be your career, your institution, or your research project – Kay emphasizes the importance of regular self-evaluation and identifying what works for you, what the alternative options are and not being afraid to change. “You usually can tell when something’s going to work out or not, and knowing when to move on and not keep pursuing a bad idea, an unsuccessful project or sticking with a less than the stimulating environment is a critical skill to acquire.”

Be brave and bold in science.

“Have confidence in yourself, don’t ever doubt yourself. Don’t imagine hurdles for yourself, and if you want something badly enough and are willing to put the work in to get it, there’s nothing going to stop you.”

By Rebecca Sturey

Deborah Nelson, PhD, professor with the Grossman Institute for Neuroscience, Wednesday, May 13, 2015, on the University of Chicago campus. (Robert Kozloff/The University of Chicago)

As I rounded the corner, I uncovered the lunch area where the Nelson lab assembled. Smiles were apparent on everyone’s faces, and the warmness of their interactions seemed to emanate from the table. This moment stood in stark contrast to the barren, institutional hallways only feet away. When people discuss mentors, they often list their successes and awards. To me, this would be a horrible injustice to Deborah Nelson. A plaque, an award, or a series of grants cannot capture her greatest accomplishment. She is a living reminder that a brilliant mind and a kind soul go beautifully hand in hand.

As our labs jointly studied exosomes, a relatively unexplored field, our paths crossed multiple times. In less than a month, I witnessed her spearhead a campaign for the best equipment available. She successfully instigated the development of a beautifully crafted website to the benefit of all labs involved in exosome research at The University of Chicago. With a particularly insightful touch, she volunteered to make food arrangements for our budding exosome meetings to help catalyze our community. In a world dominated by objectives, deliverables, and deadlines, her seemingly dichotomous combination of sensitivity and intensity remains an indisputable trademark.
Her perspective and approach are no doubt a by-product of her career path. She fought hard and patiently for the opportunity to exercise her scientific independence. Her postdoctoral advisor gave her a perspective that fuels her to this day. “In a world in which women didn’t build things, women didn’t head conferences, they weren’t strong investigators, it was [Dr. Frederick Sachs] who told me: ‘Debby you can do this. There is nothing magic about it. It just takes time.’”

Deborah began her pursuit of science after falling in love with physiology and anatomy. Interestingly, she never felt pulled towards being a physician. Instead, she knew she wanted to focus on personally interrogating the molecular association between physiology and anatomy. She completed her PhD in Physiology at UCLA, and then two postdoctoral positions, one at the Universitat des Saarlandes in Germany, and the other at SUNY Buffalo. In 1985, she came to The University of Chicago. Here she opened her own lab and applied her expertise on ion channels with broad applications to diabetes, neurodegeneration, cystic fibrosis, innate immunity, muscle excitability, and epithelial transport of molecules. “When I was in graduate school, people worked on the same thing their whole life. When I finally got my own lab, I knew I couldn’t do that.” True to character, her lab has recently begun work on exosomes. This was largely prompted by her entire lab’s scientific infatuation with them and their future career interests. Deborah Nelson feels that her lab is an extension of her family, and that science is at its best when personal relationships are used to promote effective communication.

“I’m not capable of putting in 12 hours a day and having the people around me at a distance. I think you really need to handle people as you want to be handled. [People] need to feel safe in their environment: to tell you that something is not working, to tell you that they feel uncomfortable about something, to tell you that they have needs. You can’t just sit in a room and read a bar graph and know whether it is right or wrong. I don’t think I could do [science] any other way.”

Due to her decades of experience, I knew I was in for a treat when I asked her what advice she would give to future scientists. I was not disappointed. She was unabashedly straightforward. I was immediately humbled by her love of science and her personal sacrifices to the field.
“You have to have passion. You have to care about it in a way that almost everything can go to the side. You have to be intrigued enough by the question to get up in the morning and think about it. When your feet hit the floor, you think about it. When I was a graduate student, if you became pregnant, you had to leave graduate school. And so, it was two decades later that I realized that all my colleagues had families. I think you have to be willing to be flexible. You have to see your way to changing pathways, recognizing new techniques, handling your ‘small business’ in different ways”

As a true scientist and mentor, her dreams are humble and magnanimous. She has a longstanding hope to see science become a community that increasingly supports each other and has open and effective communication. In particular, she expressed that her most pressing goal is to equip the members of her lab with the proper tools to move forward and to ensure that they are “well on their way to a happy career path.” Well, with a caring, inspirational role model such as Deborah Nelson, they are undoubtedly in good hands.