By Shreya Chandrasekar, 2nd year PhD student at the Loyola University Chicago
Throughout this pandemic, I have cycled through feeling like the world couldn’t be a larger, more isolated place and feeling like we are so inextricably connected despite our physical distances. On this specific day when I talked with Dr. Holly J. Falk-Krzesinski, a Loyola University Chicago alum who is now a Vice President in the Global Strategic Networks team at Elsevier, the world did indeed feel small and connected. In addition to her numerous professional accomplishments which have been featured previously by AWIS on several occasions (2004 Spring, 2011 Fall, and 2017 Summer), her charming demeanor left me truly inspired to not only succeed as a PhD student but also pioneer new paths for myself and others while doing so. While I could fill pages with the honors Dr. Falk-Krzesinski has received along her distinguished career path, this feature will showcase her roots in advocacy and the subsequent opportunities she helped to create for herself and for those that would come after her.
Dr. Falk-Krzesinski was an advocate for her colleagues right from the early days of her career. As a graduate student at Loyola University Chicago, just as I currently find myself, she was an active member of the Graduate Student Council at the Health Sciences Campus, advocating for good health insurance benefits for graduate and medical students. Her experiences outside of lab, as part of the Graduate Student Council, not only enabled her to drive change but also helped her develop the skills necessary for working with different members of the university and navigating bureaucracy. While Dr. Falk-Krzesinski discovered her passion for biology back in high school, it was through positions and opportunities like these with the Graduate Student Council that she was able to foray into and lay the foundation for her current role in research development and intelligence at Elsevier.
On a more personal level, one of my biggest takeaways from my conversation with Dr. Falk-Krzesinski was her ability to create opportunities where they did not previously exist. In doing so, Dr. Falk-Krzesinski opened doors for herself and, perhaps more importantly, created a legacy for generations of women scientists to follow. For example, very early on, Dr. Falk-Krzesinski knew that she wanted to teach, but opportunities to teach as a graduate student were limited at her institution. Dr. Falk-Krzesinski did not let that deter her. She reached out to the head of her department and requested that she be put in contact with professors at the undergraduate campus who were looking for teaching assistants. By seeking out this opportunity, Dr. Falk-Krzesinski was able to get firsthand experience with teaching, relieving some of the pressure of “knowing without trying” and taking control of her future career path. This trailblazing spirit has echoed throughout her career journey.
Beyond teaching experience, Dr. Falk-Krzesinski also constantly sought out opportunities for professional development and training to add new skills to her arsenal that further enabled her to map out her career from Loyola University forward. Most recently, Dr. Falk-Krzesinski earned an Executive Scholar Certificate in General Management from the prestigious Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management. Dr. Falk-Krzesinski also believes that in order to have a diverse and fulfilling career trajectory, one must endeavor to engage deeply with one’s colleagues, a perspective that has fueled her research and activities in team science. In doing so, you become more than just your job profile to your colleagues and vice versa. In addition, while women are all too often faced with the responsibilities of child and elder care and the burden of battling implicit and explicit biases at the workplace, Dr. Falk-Krzesinski acknowledges that these challenges have been easier to overcome with the tremendous support of her family and empathetic colleagues.
Dr. Falk-Krzesinski’s most recent endeavor in support of women in STEMM fields is the recent research report, The Researcher Journey Through a Gender Lens, which examines critical issues and performance in research through a gender lens using quantitative and qualitative research methods covering 16 regions and 26 subject areas. The report aims to elucidate the role gender plays within the research enterprise in terms of both diversity and inclusion, offering powerful data-driven insights for research institutions to inform evidence-based policies and interventions, and inspire further research studies. Dr. Falk-Krzesinski also continues to be deeply involved with the National Organization of Research Development Professionals (NORDP), an organization that she co-founded over a decade ago to help advance interdisciplinary research and capacity-building initiatives and establish a network of collaborative professionals in research development.
Dr. Falk-Krzesinski was awarded the initial AWIS Chicago Distinguished Service Award in 2007 in recognition of service for the advancement of women in science in the Chicago area and beyond and served as the AWIS Magazine Editor-in-Chief from 2013 – 2016.