Season 1 |
Bonus Episode 1: How to create a more supportive environment in academia
[00:00:00] RORI: Hi Emilia.
[00:00:00] EMILIA: Hi, Rori. Wow, Carmen. What a story. What a journey.
[00:00:06] RORI: Yeah, from like being a badass undergrad, but like super stressed and having your work not believed to leaving science, coming back and making her way to be Dean.
[00:00:18] EMILIA: Oh my God. I was, that comment that she got on her thesis was so insulting.
[00:00:22] RORI: So fucked up.
[00:00:23] EMILIA: really fucked up.
[00:00:24] Hi everyone.
[00:00:26] Welcome back to Science Wise.
[00:00:28] RORI: it's just Emilia and me, and we are gonna be talking about some of the take home lessons from Dr. Carmen Domingo.
MX MUSIC INTRO OUT
[00:00:35] EMILIA: For me, I think one of the big takeaways of interviewing Carmen was to solidified the concept that environment really matters have to have a good environment. And that's been so true for me, Rori. I have been able to blossom when the environment is supportive. And I mean, her story about what happened at UC, Irvine as an was so insulting, and painful.
[00:01:06] RORI: Yeah. Like, this is the best I've read. Too bad the student didn't write it. Yeah, that's, that's a real way to make someone feel like they don't belong. Oh, yeah. No. Awful. It makes sense that she was like, I have to leave for a while.
[00:01:19] EMILIA: that really obviously affected her self esteem and she had to, you know leave science for a little bit.
[00:01:26] RORI: And she was like, well, clearly science might not be the right place for me. But then we're lucky that she decided it was, maybe because the air freight, the, the misogyny and the air freight management was worse, but
[00:01:37] EMILIA: I like her story because it was like she rediscovered her love for science.
[00:01:42] RORI: She was like, oh, it is a place of creativity. And she came back, uh, and. you know, it sounds like she really kind of persisted. It wasn't easy, it wasn't a supportive environment through her PhD and postdoc, but she made it through, she got to SF State and that's where she found a supportive environment.
[00:02:00] EMILIA: Yeah, I mean just like the way she talks about, you know, how the students really appreciated her, what she was doing for them, that she felt so much loved. I think that environment really helped her just blossom and create all these programs,
[00:02:17] RORI: and
[00:02:19] EMILIA: then she became Dean.
[00:02:20] RORI: yeah, she totally like did the thing. She advanced through the university and now she's Dean in a supportive environment. So now I'm curious, Emilia, what about you? Have you, supportive environments? How did you like find them or make them?
[00:02:34] EMILIA: I mean, I've been lucky and I think I have been in lots of really supportive environments and I, I'll mention one at East Berkeley since we, I mean, she mentioned that. UC, Berkeley was UC, Irvine times 10.
[00:02:46] RORI: mm-Hmm.
[00:02:48] EMILIA: Um, and so my experience, I was not a PhD student at at Berkeley, but I was a postdoc with you. And I think for me, I was able to succeed at Berkeley, I think because I was surrounded by people who were willing to help me and support me and teach me things which was probably different than her experience. these people wanted to help me and they were creative scientists who wanted to make more science with me and, and collaborate with me. And so I think that was really helpful for me to be able to have a good experience at Berkeley.
[00:03:27] RORI: And in that environment with all of these positive relationships with your peers, who would help you learn new technical skills, you did amazing, right? Like you learned new skills and you applied them to data that you hadn't done before and answered increasingly interesting and complex questions. Uh and I feel like it's just an example of how in a supportive environment you can thrive.
[00:03:51] EMILIA: Yeah, and I think now that I have a lab and I'm part of a bigger research community beyond my lab, that's something that I, I think it's really important for us to create for trainees because that's how they're going to succeed and make better science, in my opinion.
[00:04:08] RORI: think there's like, there's different lessons for different people here like for people who are near in my position where we can make an environment, there's a key lesson from government that making a supportive environment is a way to make your students thrive or support your students to thrive and make the science happen and for people who are earlier in their careers it's really important to know that if you are in a tough or an unsupportive environment, it is probably impacting you even if you're not aware of that and that your performance in that environment doesn't define you.
[00:04:38] EMILIA: I think students who feel like they're not thriving in an environment should, you know, they could, they could make little changes like join, a group of students, or find a group of students who are gonna be their people and this could be, you know, identifying them. In courses or you know, in the PhD program or joining something like a NUS chapter where NUS is the Society for the ADV Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans
[00:05:10] RORI: In science there are these like student organizations that can be really useful but like you're saying, also just like find your people. I mean, you could do something more dramatic too. You could like switch your program, but there are smaller steps that you can make that can make a huge difference.
[00:05:24] EMILIA: if the environment is really toxic, of course people need to make, uh, bigger changes and that could mean changing labs or changing departments or changing schools.
[00:05:36] RORI: Yeah, well I'm, I'm grateful for this lesson of the importance of environment I think about it because I was in an environment where Garmin was. Literally the leadership. And she created a welcoming and supportive environment there by managing and cultivating collegial relationships over years in this way. That's, kind of unique to me.
[00:05:59] EMILIA: So one of the key takeaways for me Is her strategy to really identify what are the shared values of a group of
[00:06:08] RORI: mm-Hmm.
[00:06:09] EMILIA: how to bring back, especially when there's a lot of disagreement, like how do you bring, bring everybody back
[00:06:16] RORI: right?
[00:06:17] EMILIA: agree on something and I think her strategy was to, you know, think about what is a shared value, and that was the students and asking the question, is this good for the students?
[00:06:29] RORI: right? So when you're faced with conflict, go back to your root shared value. And I think it, it works, you know?
[00:06:37] EMILIA: I, I, I completely agree because then, um, at least we're improving something that we all care about.
[00:06:45] RORI: Totally. I think another thing that I really appreciate from Carmen is this idea that, you know, She knows she's not gonna please everybody. And I think especially as people who are socialized as girls and women we're sometimes have this idea that we should please everybody. And she's like, clearly I won't, not everyone's gonna leave my office happy. Uh, I'm gonna say no to people. I’m she wasn't gonna get caught up in that, but she was going to make sure she was really transparent in her reasoning. Even when she's displeasing somebody, she doesn't try to make them happy, but she tries to be clear.
[00:07:19] EMILIA: Yeah. I think that's, that's also really important, even when we talk to our own students. I think being transparent so that people don't feel left out or like they're being slighted or, you know, it's, it's, it's important for, for people to have some justification that is clear makes sense even if it's not the answer that we want.
[00:07:43] RORI: and I feel like there was one more major lesson from Carmen, or one of my favorite take homes was about how she balances her parent life and her science life. And she really does it by like integrating them together.
[00:08:00] EMILIA: Yeah, I mean, this is something that resonates with me because, you know, the way my mom is with me, it's not the way I am with my kids. And I have a very lovely mom who cooked all my meals every day when I was in her house, and you know. She's a really good cook
[00:08:22] RORI: wait, let gonna interrupt you, Emilia, because, people listening to this probably have not met Cita, but people need to understand that Cita is an incredible cook. She spends hours a day preparing each ingredient for whatever she's making like she's at the stove for. Hours making these meals. It's a different way of life.
[00:08:44] EMILIA: Right. And so for me, I enjoy that a lot. I still enjoy it, and I don't take it for granted. you know, I love my mom a ton but when I think about my own relationship with my kids, II do cook their meals sometimes, but not, you know, it's, here's some
[00:09:01] RORI: You're not spending hours by the stove. Yeah.
[00:09:03] EMILIA: uh, eat it.
[00:09:06] RORI: You don't make like 17 ingredients for each meal.
[00:09:11] EMILIA: No, it's more like five and they're big.
[00:09:14] RORI: Yeah.
[00:09:14] EMILIA: but I liked how she connected with her kids through science and, you know, by bringing them on field trips whenever she was taking the students in her RU to a field trip or, just being involved in their school. Like, that story where she. connected undergraduate students with second graders so that the second graders would be able to know
[00:09:35] RORI: the
[00:09:35] EMILIA: university life.
[00:09:36] RORI: Yeah.
Uhhuh. That was so sweet and like experts let the second graders ask their questions. I loved that. Yeah, I mean, I really agree. I feel like some of the lessons here are to let go of ideas about how you should be that don't work for your life. And to find ways to put the different parts of your life together and by integrating them together, by literally taking her kids on the summer program, student field trips, and by literally bringing squid dissections into her kids' schools, she find some balance.
[00:10:14] EMILIA: and I think it's a different way. It's not the only way, it's different way of having this sort of balanced relationships and or having a relationship with your children.
[00:10:23] RORI: I mean for any of these interviews we're doing, it's just like one person's incredible example. It's not the only way and that's why we're doing a lot of them. 'cause there are a lot of incredible ways. Well, thank you Carmen. We are so grateful for your insights.
[00:10:42] EMILIA: Thank you, Carmen.
[00:00:00] EMILIA: Hi, Rori. Wow, Carmen. What a story. What a journey.
[00:00:06] RORI: Yeah, from like being a badass undergrad, but like super stressed and having your work not believed to leaving science, coming back and making her way to be Dean.
[00:00:18] EMILIA: Oh my God. I was, that comment that she got on her thesis was so insulting.
[00:00:22] RORI: So fucked up.
[00:00:23] EMILIA: really fucked up.
[00:00:24] Hi everyone.
[00:00:26] Welcome back to Science Wise.
[00:00:28] RORI: it's just Emilia and me, and we are gonna be talking about some of the take home lessons from Dr. Carmen Domingo.
MX MUSIC INTRO OUT
[00:00:35] EMILIA: For me, I think one of the big takeaways of interviewing Carmen was to solidified the concept that environment really matters have to have a good environment. And that's been so true for me, Rori. I have been able to blossom when the environment is supportive. And I mean, her story about what happened at UC, Irvine as an was so insulting, and painful.
[00:01:06] RORI: Yeah. Like, this is the best I've read. Too bad the student didn't write it. Yeah, that's, that's a real way to make someone feel like they don't belong. Oh, yeah. No. Awful. It makes sense that she was like, I have to leave for a while.
[00:01:19] EMILIA: that really obviously affected her self esteem and she had to, you know leave science for a little bit.
[00:01:26] RORI: And she was like, well, clearly science might not be the right place for me. But then we're lucky that she decided it was, maybe because the air freight, the, the misogyny and the air freight management was worse, but
[00:01:37] EMILIA: I like her story because it was like she rediscovered her love for science.
[00:01:42] RORI: She was like, oh, it is a place of creativity. And she came back, uh, and. you know, it sounds like she really kind of persisted. It wasn't easy, it wasn't a supportive environment through her PhD and postdoc, but she made it through, she got to SF State and that's where she found a supportive environment.
[00:02:00] EMILIA: Yeah, I mean just like the way she talks about, you know, how the students really appreciated her, what she was doing for them, that she felt so much loved. I think that environment really helped her just blossom and create all these programs,
[00:02:17] RORI: and
[00:02:19] EMILIA: then she became Dean.
[00:02:20] RORI: yeah, she totally like did the thing. She advanced through the university and now she's Dean in a supportive environment. So now I'm curious, Emilia, what about you? Have you, supportive environments? How did you like find them or make them?
[00:02:34] EMILIA: I mean, I've been lucky and I think I have been in lots of really supportive environments and I, I'll mention one at East Berkeley since we, I mean, she mentioned that. UC, Berkeley was UC, Irvine times 10.
[00:02:46] RORI: mm-Hmm.
[00:02:48] EMILIA: Um, and so my experience, I was not a PhD student at at Berkeley, but I was a postdoc with you. And I think for me, I was able to succeed at Berkeley, I think because I was surrounded by people who were willing to help me and support me and teach me things which was probably different than her experience. these people wanted to help me and they were creative scientists who wanted to make more science with me and, and collaborate with me. And so I think that was really helpful for me to be able to have a good experience at Berkeley.
[00:03:27] RORI: And in that environment with all of these positive relationships with your peers, who would help you learn new technical skills, you did amazing, right? Like you learned new skills and you applied them to data that you hadn't done before and answered increasingly interesting and complex questions. Uh and I feel like it's just an example of how in a supportive environment you can thrive.
[00:03:51] EMILIA: Yeah, and I think now that I have a lab and I'm part of a bigger research community beyond my lab, that's something that I, I think it's really important for us to create for trainees because that's how they're going to succeed and make better science, in my opinion.
[00:04:08] RORI: think there's like, there's different lessons for different people here like for people who are near in my position where we can make an environment, there's a key lesson from government that making a supportive environment is a way to make your students thrive or support your students to thrive and make the science happen and for people who are earlier in their careers it's really important to know that if you are in a tough or an unsupportive environment, it is probably impacting you even if you're not aware of that and that your performance in that environment doesn't define you.
[00:04:38] EMILIA: I think students who feel like they're not thriving in an environment should, you know, they could, they could make little changes like join, a group of students, or find a group of students who are gonna be their people and this could be, you know, identifying them. In courses or you know, in the PhD program or joining something like a NUS chapter where NUS is the Society for the ADV Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans
[00:05:10] RORI: In science there are these like student organizations that can be really useful but like you're saying, also just like find your people. I mean, you could do something more dramatic too. You could like switch your program, but there are smaller steps that you can make that can make a huge difference.
[00:05:24] EMILIA: if the environment is really toxic, of course people need to make, uh, bigger changes and that could mean changing labs or changing departments or changing schools.
[00:05:36] RORI: Yeah, well I'm, I'm grateful for this lesson of the importance of environment I think about it because I was in an environment where Garmin was. Literally the leadership. And she created a welcoming and supportive environment there by managing and cultivating collegial relationships over years in this way. That's, kind of unique to me.
[00:05:59] EMILIA: So one of the key takeaways for me Is her strategy to really identify what are the shared values of a group of
[00:06:08] RORI: mm-Hmm.
[00:06:09] EMILIA: how to bring back, especially when there's a lot of disagreement, like how do you bring, bring everybody back
[00:06:16] RORI: right?
[00:06:17] EMILIA: agree on something and I think her strategy was to, you know, think about what is a shared value, and that was the students and asking the question, is this good for the students?
[00:06:29] RORI: right? So when you're faced with conflict, go back to your root shared value. And I think it, it works, you know?
[00:06:37] EMILIA: I, I, I completely agree because then, um, at least we're improving something that we all care about.
[00:06:45] RORI: Totally. I think another thing that I really appreciate from Carmen is this idea that, you know, She knows she's not gonna please everybody. And I think especially as people who are socialized as girls and women we're sometimes have this idea that we should please everybody. And she's like, clearly I won't, not everyone's gonna leave my office happy. Uh, I'm gonna say no to people. I’m she wasn't gonna get caught up in that, but she was going to make sure she was really transparent in her reasoning. Even when she's displeasing somebody, she doesn't try to make them happy, but she tries to be clear.
[00:07:19] EMILIA: Yeah. I think that's, that's also really important, even when we talk to our own students. I think being transparent so that people don't feel left out or like they're being slighted or, you know, it's, it's, it's important for, for people to have some justification that is clear makes sense even if it's not the answer that we want.
[00:07:43] RORI: and I feel like there was one more major lesson from Carmen, or one of my favorite take homes was about how she balances her parent life and her science life. And she really does it by like integrating them together.
[00:08:00] EMILIA: Yeah, I mean, this is something that resonates with me because, you know, the way my mom is with me, it's not the way I am with my kids. And I have a very lovely mom who cooked all my meals every day when I was in her house, and you know. She's a really good cook
[00:08:22] RORI: wait, let gonna interrupt you, Emilia, because, people listening to this probably have not met Cita, but people need to understand that Cita is an incredible cook. She spends hours a day preparing each ingredient for whatever she's making like she's at the stove for. Hours making these meals. It's a different way of life.
[00:08:44] EMILIA: Right. And so for me, I enjoy that a lot. I still enjoy it, and I don't take it for granted. you know, I love my mom a ton but when I think about my own relationship with my kids, II do cook their meals sometimes, but not, you know, it's, here's some
[00:09:01] RORI: You're not spending hours by the stove. Yeah.
[00:09:03] EMILIA: uh, eat it.
[00:09:06] RORI: You don't make like 17 ingredients for each meal.
[00:09:11] EMILIA: No, it's more like five and they're big.
[00:09:14] RORI: Yeah.
[00:09:14] EMILIA: but I liked how she connected with her kids through science and, you know, by bringing them on field trips whenever she was taking the students in her RU to a field trip or, just being involved in their school. Like, that story where she. connected undergraduate students with second graders so that the second graders would be able to know
[00:09:35] RORI: the
[00:09:35] EMILIA: university life.
[00:09:36] RORI: Yeah.
Uhhuh. That was so sweet and like experts let the second graders ask their questions. I loved that. Yeah, I mean, I really agree. I feel like some of the lessons here are to let go of ideas about how you should be that don't work for your life. And to find ways to put the different parts of your life together and by integrating them together, by literally taking her kids on the summer program, student field trips, and by literally bringing squid dissections into her kids' schools, she find some balance.
[00:10:14] EMILIA: and I think it's a different way. It's not the only way, it's different way of having this sort of balanced relationships and or having a relationship with your children.
[00:10:23] RORI: I mean for any of these interviews we're doing, it's just like one person's incredible example. It's not the only way and that's why we're doing a lot of them. 'cause there are a lot of incredible ways. Well, thank you Carmen. We are so grateful for your insights.
[00:10:42] EMILIA: Thank you, Carmen.