Season 1 |
Season wrap-up: Putting lessons into practice
[00:00:00] RORI: This right here, listeners, is our season one wrap-up.
[00:00:04] EMILIA: We got the opportunity to talk to so many women and learn some lessons.
[00:00:08] RORI: We are going to talk about some of those lessons. There's too 'many to talk all about. It's been too rich for that, but we'll talk about some of it, and we'll answer a couple of listener questions.
Hey, Emilia.
[00:00:19] EMILIA: Hi, Rori.
[00:00:20] RORI: We recorded a whole season of Science Wise.
[00:00:22] EMILIA: I know.
[00:00:23] RORI: So many brilliant, super inspiring women in science. It's been like such a privilege.
[00:00:30] EMILIA: Yeah, I mean, it's been nice to be able to listen to their stories, their journeys, and to learn some lessons.
[00:00:39] RORI: Yeah.
[00:00:40] EMILIA: You know, I'm a scientist, you're a scientist, and One of the questions that we asked these women is what got you into science? And I thought it was really nice to see that you don't have to grow up in a culture of science to become a scientist.
[00:00:56] RORI: Totally.
[00:00:56] EMILIA: And these women were attracted to science in different ways. So if we think back to Leti, she envisioned herself as a scientist because she used to watch cartoons. She watched some cartoons with Bugs Bunny and where he was a scientist.
[00:01:14] RORI: That was enough to like light the spark for her.
[00:01:16] EMILIA: Right. And, uh, you know Carmen, she used to go to museums.
[00:01:20] RORI: Yeah. And then there was Francine, who was in all of these conversations with her elders about medicine and health and different traditional health systems and kind of modern Western health systems.
[00:01:35] EMILIA: And Maria Elena, she used to do puzzles, and her grandmother was a curandera, so she used She knew about remedies and plants.
[00:01:44] RORI: And I mean, I've had some of this in common, right? Like she did puzzles as a kid too. She was like, that's how she got into it. Her mom bought her puzzles. She felt so grateful for that.
[00:01:52] EMILIA: And some like, uh, Dr. Jackson, you know, she made an interesting observation. About clothing?
[00:02:01] RORI: She's just like, my clothes don't fit. She's like, these jeans are not made for my body. What's going on with morphology?
[00:02:08] EMILIA: I was not aware that science was infiltrating people's minds in these ways.
[00:02:13] RORI: I think it's just like you said, Emilia, that all of these people came to science from so many different angles and they all became incredibly successful scientists. So it's really like case in point that like, you don't have to come from a culture or a family of scientists. Traditional Western science to become a scientist and in fact, coming from different perspectives actually enriches our science.
[00:02:34] EMILIA: Right.
[00:02:34] RORI: You know, Emilia, listening to all of these women, I feel like there are a couple things that I've learned and have already changed my life.
You feel that way?
[00:02:43] EMILIA: Yeah, I do. How has that impacted your life, Rori?
[00:02:47] RORI: One example I can think of. is when we heard from Dr. Domingo, Carmen Domingo, who talked about how she really integrated her family and her science life in a bunch of ways, right? Like [00:03:00] she took her kids with her to the lab and on like field trips.
She like went into her kids' classrooms and did squid dissections and whatever. And I feel like this kind of inspired me to kind of, you know, To, for this SMBE, I'm gonna go see you at this Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution meeting.
[00:03:17] EMILIA: Yay!
[00:03:17] RORI: But I'm taking my older child! She's gonna come with me. And this is like one way to kind of start to better integrate science and my family life.
So, and I have Carmen to thank for my inspiration for making that decision.
[00:03:30] EMILIA: Aww.
[00:03:31] RORI: Another thing that I did that kind of integrates science and my family life. Inspired by Carmen, is, well, a little surprise move to me and many people who know me, is I am now a Girl Scout Troop Leader. And in that capacity, I'm doing all kinds of little science experiments with this troop of kids.
And it's so fun to bring some of that scientific perspective to my family life in that capacity as well.
[00:03:58] EMILIA: Nice. Very nice.
[00:04:00] RORI: What about you, Emilia? How has your life been changed?
[00:04:02] EMILIA: There's a few things that I want to implement based on what they said and one of them, I think Leti made a point that stress can make you unhealthy in some ways.
Being cognizant of the fact that too much stress is not good for you has made me think about, okay, You know, sometimes we stress a lot about because we have so many things to do during the day and so many deadlines and you have to finish this and that and you're always trying to find time to do things.
But hearing it from her, it was a reminder that we should be serious and intentional about, you know, taking care of ourselves as well. And for me, that translates to enjoying the life that I'm living. That means making the time with my family really special and being present with them. So I want to have space to, you know, make those memories and be with my kids.
[00:04:59] RORI: I mean, that's so beautiful. You sent me the photos of you and your family on the rollerblades around Dublin. And that is very special. That's a gift to yourself and your whole family. Thank you, Leti.
[00:05:11] EMILIA: Another thing that Leti said that I remember is that when you're making an argument, think about how to frame it in a way that whatever you are saying, it's valued.I mean, thinking about, okay, what are the values of your environment, right?
[00:05:26] RORI: Yeah.
[00:05:27] EMILIA: And how can I make my case based on those values, I guess.
[00:05:32] RORI: Like the shared interest of the. person or organization that you're working with, you need to make your case in terms of those values, not in terms of what matters to you that they're not particularly interested in.
[00:05:43] EMILIA: Exactly. In some way, it's finding that common ground or space that it's valued by both you and, and the people around you. When I talk to junior faculty members, they want something or they need something, really.
[00:05:58] RORI: Like something for their success.
[00:05:59] EMILIA: Yeah. [00:06:00] One thing that I tell junior faculty is, you know, think about how you can frame this or how you can get this by sort of arguing that this will help you get tenure.
[00:06:12] RORI: Because the university cares about tenure. And so frame your argument in terms of what the university cares about.
[00:06:17] EMILIA: Yeah, because that's something that's important for both you and they want to help you be successful and get tenure.
[00:06:25] RORI: I mean, it's kind of a negotiation strategy. This kind of framework is useful in so many conversations.
Another lesson that I learned that like, I mean, for me, it struck like kind of deep was Maria Elena. When we asked her what she would revise and resubmit, and she was like, nothing. She said, you know, I already did my revisions. I already adjusted my life as I went and adjusted my career as I went. And that's, that's it.
She's like, you can never go back. You can't go to the same river twice. And I mean, some of this is like a literal cliche, but something about the way she said it really stuck with me. [00:07:00] And I mean, I'll be a little tender and share that I had made like a pretty big career decision and then had some second thoughts about it.
And after hearing Maria Elena say that, I kind of felt. empowered to let those second thoughts go and move forward. To think like, I can revise moving forward, I can change what I'm going to do moving forward, but I can't go back and I can't let that continue to bother me.
[00:07:27] EMILIA: I think that's important to be able to let go of that, I don't want to say baggage, but that burden of those thoughts and you know, your headspace is occupied with just thinking about what, what, what if this or what if that.
[00:07:42] RORI: Yeah.
[00:07:42] EMILIA: Which reminds me of something else, Sue Rosser. She talks about the road not taken.
[00:07:49] RORI: That's right.
[00:07:50] EMILIA: And how difficult it is to evaluate. I do, I don't know about you Rori, but I think a lot about the what if this, or what if that.
[00:07:59] RORI: Totally.
[00:07:59] EMILIA:But we don't know that because
[00:08:02] RORI: we didn't do it.
[00:08:02] EMILIA: We've never taken the road.
[00:08:04] RORI: I know. I mean, it's so interesting. I feel like so many of these women also said something about like, don't do what I did, which is interesting. There's like, they did a thing and they decided it didn't go good. So they're like, don't do what I did, but they did a lot of things that were really great. You know, that I'm like, I see them as a role model.
So I don't know. It feels a little complicated there. Well, we did get a couple of listener questions. We got a question from Dr. Pliny Pennings. So she was curious, after hearing Sue Rosser's episode where she said that she earned an extra 40, 000 a year giving talks, Pliny was like, can you really do that as an academic?
Can you earn an extra 40k a year? And we asked Sue, I got her email up here, she says that by the time she was doing that, she was Director of Women's Studies and pretty well known for her work in feminist science, women's health, etc. She was often invited to give a keynote for Women's History Month or a conference focused on women in science.
Or a keynote for a major interdisciplinary lecture sponsored by the university or several departments, you know, kind of these like-named lecture kind of. And those are not your typical like invited speaker to a department colloquium or conference kind of talk. For that kind of talk that she was giving, yes, you can get yourself a stipend of a thousand dollars.
And then if you do 40 of them, you can make 40K. But that's, I'm not really invited to give that kind of talk. Maybe someday, I don't know.
[00:09:27] EMILIA: Yeah. I think it would be difficult for us to do that.
[00:09:31] RORI: There's your answer, Pliny. And we got another question. This one is from Carolina de Lima Adam, and here's her question.
[00:09:38] Speaker 3: Hi Emilia and Rori. After talking with women from so many different backgrounds, from different areas of science, is there a prevalent message that you think stood out? and can maybe sum up all the lessons you've learned throughout these interviews. And how do you think we can apply that on our own academic careers?
[00:09:58] RORI: Oh, [00:10:00] Emilia. Okay. That's what we're trying to do. So what do you think? What's a prevalent message from what we've heard from all these women?
[00:10:06] EMILIA: I think. One thing that I realize now is that all these women had very supportive families who encouraged them and appreciated, they had families that appreciated education and wanted them to be educated, but at the same time, they learned from, from their families, even though a lot of them were not scientists themselves.
[00:10:28] RORI: They all had major gifts from their families of origin. Like they learned important. skills and ways of being that have been important for them in science, even though very few or none of them came from families full of Western scientists. And those families were supportive, like for the families that hadn't been to college, they were still supportive of these women, which is another major gift.
[00:10:51] EMILIA: Yeah, so I think One needs to have support in some way, maybe if not through their family, in a different way. They have to [00:11:00] find supportive communities. I think it's hard to do this completely on your own.
[00:11:05] RORI: Right.
[00:11:05] EMILIA: That would be very difficult.
[00:11:07] RORI: Yeah. Yeah. But the support of communities is important. And the, like, taking the gifts from your family that you grew up with.
I think both of those are really key.
[00:11:15] EMILIA: What about you Rori?
[00:11:17] RORI: Okay, I'm thinking about Ive for a minute. Okay, Ive talked about when she was working on her thesis and she had this like moment, you know, she kind of like was getting a bit strayed from her focused thesis work and she had this conversation with her advisor and this like moment where she reflected on what she was doing.
Um, she kind of had this critical and loving reflection of herself, and then she realized that it wasn't going to serve her and she changed what she was doing. She like evaluated and she adjusted. And for her that meant like, Focusing on her thesis. Or, like, later she did the same thing. She was, like, evaluating her life and where she was putting her energy, and she was like, Simu is incredible, but it's taking up all my time.
I need to stop it, actually. And she made that adjustment. So I feel like this is both [00:12:00] deeply scientific to, like, look at something, gather some data. make an evaluation and move forward differently.
[00:12:09] EMILIA: Yeah.
[00:12:09] RORI: But it's also like they're doing it for their lives, not just for their science. They're doing it to like make decisions.
Like Francine, all her PhD work was in population genetics in Native Alaska communities. And then she was like looking at the political landscape and she was like, I absolutely can't publish this. And I probably can't continue in this field because of what's going on with the HGDP. And so I'm going to shift.
I'm going to move towards public health instead. That's so brave! That's so powerful! And like, thoughtful.
[00:12:39] EMILIA: Yeah, what you're saying is to use your own scientific training to make decisions about your life.
[00:12:44] RORI: Scientific life decisions.
[00:12:46] EMILIA: Yeah.
[00:12:48] RORI: Really though?
[00:12:49] EMILIA: I think they, they probably all had to do that at some point.
[00:12:52] RORI: Definitely. And something else they all had to deal with is, I mean, challenges. And especially like in the scientific and academic [00:13:00] system, you know, of course, there's like some inherent racism and misogyny. And all of these scientists persisted through many challenges. How did you see them doing that? What strategies did you see them use?
[00:13:12] EMILIA: Well, um, I think they had different strategies, you know, Being able to find supportive communities, for instance, Marilena, she had a community in Sagnas, you know, Sue was able to find like a group of women.
[00:13:28] RORI: Their consciousness-raising groups, right?
[00:13:30] EMILIA: Right. You need a supportive community to give you a sense of, of how you're doing yourself.
I think it's nice to find a supportive community where you can brainstorm ideas with, talk about issues and, you know, evaluate, and gather information.
[00:13:48] RORI: Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, I mean, they came from supportive families, but then to like to create a supportive scientific community is a different thing. I mean, I was inspired by Dr.
[00:14:00] Jackson's talking about the conference that she held. And she was like, people are still talking about this. There were historians, there were population geneticists. There were like people from all different fields. Like she created that and literally brought them together. And then having that like helps you persist.
I mean, what about you, Emilia? Like you have this like awesome collaboration with Maria and Flora.
[00:14:20] EMILIA: I think I've mentioned this before, right? I like to work with other people.
[00:14:26] RORI: Yes.
[00:14:26] EMILIA: I, I love to talk about science, to brainstorm together, to work on projects. You know, there's an idea first, then there's some research and then there's the finished product, like a publication.
I enjoy this process with other people that are supportive of me, who I enjoy working with and so on.
[00:14:49] RORI: I mean, the community is key. And then I feel like there's some other ways. That they manage challenges too. Like Carmen, she took a break, right? Like back at the end of her [00:15:00] undergrad, she had this like fucked up experience in science.
And then she was like, you know, I'm going to do something else for a little bit. I feel like it's important to know when you need a break, whether it's a, that was like a substantive break, like leave science for a bit, or whether it's. It's more of a micro-break, like I'm just going to, I'm so frustrated with this code.
I'm going to go take a walk this afternoon for a half hour.
[00:15:21] EMILIA: Yeah. One thing that I like to tell my students is that if you're, you're, you're facing a challenge at work and I'm talking about actual science work.
[00:15:29] RORI: Yeah.
[00:15:30] EMILIA: Like if you're thinking about a problem, I think sometimes you just have to, yeah, take a break.
Like if you work for another hour, it's not going to help you fix the problem.
[00:15:38] RORI: Totally.
[00:15:39] EMILIA: You need space. Yeah. Totally. So, if you have been trying to fix something for the last five hours, your mind is probably tired.
[00:15:46] RORI: Yeah.
[00:15:46] EMILIA: So you need to switch to something else to give you some space and come back and tackle that problem the next day.
[00:15:54] RORI: It's a little like acknowledging that we're humans. We're not just like science robots who can just like feng shen, crank out science. It's like, no.
[00:16:03] EMILIA: I think we have to focus and work. on a problem, but it's not really the number of hours that you work in a single day. There are some diminishing returns after some time.
[00:16:13] RORI: And there's one more kind of strategy for challenges that I would point out. I mean, there are many, but for this season wrap-up, I feel like both Fatima Jackson and Francine Gachupin had this like knowing of their goals, like what are their scientific goals? What are they in this for? And being really driven.
By that. I feel like that carried them through some major challenges. Major derailments. They were like, they know what they're in it for.
[00:16:44] EMILIA: Yeah. I think for Dr. Jackson, she, she wanted to study malaria. Right? Malaria was,
[00:16:50] RORI: yeah.
[00:16:50] EMILIA: The thing, she was interested in
[00:16:52] RORI: uhhuh
[00:16:52] EMILIA: and that's because it was something that affected her.
She experienced that. And then she made this covenant, [00:17:00] right? And for Francine, I think it was also something that was very close to her heart, you know? She wanted to improve health in tribal communities and that's something that she's still fighting for and she wants to continue to fight for.
[00:17:13] RORI: And that solidness of mission, I think, brought them through a lot, which is a lesson.
Oh, Emilia, it's been a pleasure. An incredible time making this podcast with you. This season one.
[00:17:26] EMILIA: Whoa.
[00:17:27] RORI: I know. Is that wild or what? We made a podcast y'all.
[00:17:30] EMILIA: Oh my God.
[00:17:31] RORI: Emilia, do you remember when we were like sitting in the office and I was spitballing ideas and I was like, well, what if we did this? And then we turn it into a podcast.
What if we like to do this? Panel discussion at Saksis and we turned it into a podcast and you were like, yep, that one, we actually did it.
[00:17:47] EMILIA: Yeah. I remember when we made the list of people we were going to invite to Saksis.
[00:17:52] RORI: Yeah.
[00:17:53] EMILIA: And I always get a little bit intimidated when I have to email people that I think are [00:18:00] really important.
And I think you emailed three people and I emailed three other people. And I thought we were not going to hear back, to be honest.
[00:18:09] RORI: I remember. And we were like, of course, we were doing it at the last minute. And we were worried about insulting them by inviting them so much at the last minute.
[00:18:16] EMILIA: But everybody replied within 24 hours.
[00:18:18] RORI: Yeah. And they're busy people. You know who we invited. They're like busy people. I can't imagine what their inboxes are like, and I feel so grateful.
[00:18:26] EMILIA: Yes, so I want to thank them all.
[00:18:28] RORI: Yes.
[00:18:29] EMILIA: For taking the time to talk to us and to share their stories and it's been
a delight for me.
[00:18:38] RORI: Oh my god, it's been so fun.
It's been a lot of work too, and it's been so fun. Well, listeners, we are hoping to make season two of Science Wise, so we're gonna leave you with this for now. But we hope that we will release some more starting in February 2025.
[00:18:57] EMILIA: Bye!
[00:18:57] RORI: Catch you then!
[00:00:04] EMILIA: We got the opportunity to talk to so many women and learn some lessons.
[00:00:08] RORI: We are going to talk about some of those lessons. There's too 'many to talk all about. It's been too rich for that, but we'll talk about some of it, and we'll answer a couple of listener questions.
Hey, Emilia.
[00:00:19] EMILIA: Hi, Rori.
[00:00:20] RORI: We recorded a whole season of Science Wise.
[00:00:22] EMILIA: I know.
[00:00:23] RORI: So many brilliant, super inspiring women in science. It's been like such a privilege.
[00:00:30] EMILIA: Yeah, I mean, it's been nice to be able to listen to their stories, their journeys, and to learn some lessons.
[00:00:39] RORI: Yeah.
[00:00:40] EMILIA: You know, I'm a scientist, you're a scientist, and One of the questions that we asked these women is what got you into science? And I thought it was really nice to see that you don't have to grow up in a culture of science to become a scientist.
[00:00:56] RORI: Totally.
[00:00:56] EMILIA: And these women were attracted to science in different ways. So if we think back to Leti, she envisioned herself as a scientist because she used to watch cartoons. She watched some cartoons with Bugs Bunny and where he was a scientist.
[00:01:14] RORI: That was enough to like light the spark for her.
[00:01:16] EMILIA: Right. And, uh, you know Carmen, she used to go to museums.
[00:01:20] RORI: Yeah. And then there was Francine, who was in all of these conversations with her elders about medicine and health and different traditional health systems and kind of modern Western health systems.
[00:01:35] EMILIA: And Maria Elena, she used to do puzzles, and her grandmother was a curandera, so she used She knew about remedies and plants.
[00:01:44] RORI: And I mean, I've had some of this in common, right? Like she did puzzles as a kid too. She was like, that's how she got into it. Her mom bought her puzzles. She felt so grateful for that.
[00:01:52] EMILIA: And some like, uh, Dr. Jackson, you know, she made an interesting observation. About clothing?
[00:02:01] RORI: She's just like, my clothes don't fit. She's like, these jeans are not made for my body. What's going on with morphology?
[00:02:08] EMILIA: I was not aware that science was infiltrating people's minds in these ways.
[00:02:13] RORI: I think it's just like you said, Emilia, that all of these people came to science from so many different angles and they all became incredibly successful scientists. So it's really like case in point that like, you don't have to come from a culture or a family of scientists. Traditional Western science to become a scientist and in fact, coming from different perspectives actually enriches our science.
[00:02:34] EMILIA: Right.
[00:02:34] RORI: You know, Emilia, listening to all of these women, I feel like there are a couple things that I've learned and have already changed my life.
You feel that way?
[00:02:43] EMILIA: Yeah, I do. How has that impacted your life, Rori?
[00:02:47] RORI: One example I can think of. is when we heard from Dr. Domingo, Carmen Domingo, who talked about how she really integrated her family and her science life in a bunch of ways, right? Like [00:03:00] she took her kids with her to the lab and on like field trips.
She like went into her kids' classrooms and did squid dissections and whatever. And I feel like this kind of inspired me to kind of, you know, To, for this SMBE, I'm gonna go see you at this Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution meeting.
[00:03:17] EMILIA: Yay!
[00:03:17] RORI: But I'm taking my older child! She's gonna come with me. And this is like one way to kind of start to better integrate science and my family life.
So, and I have Carmen to thank for my inspiration for making that decision.
[00:03:30] EMILIA: Aww.
[00:03:31] RORI: Another thing that I did that kind of integrates science and my family life. Inspired by Carmen, is, well, a little surprise move to me and many people who know me, is I am now a Girl Scout Troop Leader. And in that capacity, I'm doing all kinds of little science experiments with this troop of kids.
And it's so fun to bring some of that scientific perspective to my family life in that capacity as well.
[00:03:58] EMILIA: Nice. Very nice.
[00:04:00] RORI: What about you, Emilia? How has your life been changed?
[00:04:02] EMILIA: There's a few things that I want to implement based on what they said and one of them, I think Leti made a point that stress can make you unhealthy in some ways.
Being cognizant of the fact that too much stress is not good for you has made me think about, okay, You know, sometimes we stress a lot about because we have so many things to do during the day and so many deadlines and you have to finish this and that and you're always trying to find time to do things.
But hearing it from her, it was a reminder that we should be serious and intentional about, you know, taking care of ourselves as well. And for me, that translates to enjoying the life that I'm living. That means making the time with my family really special and being present with them. So I want to have space to, you know, make those memories and be with my kids.
[00:04:59] RORI: I mean, that's so beautiful. You sent me the photos of you and your family on the rollerblades around Dublin. And that is very special. That's a gift to yourself and your whole family. Thank you, Leti.
[00:05:11] EMILIA: Another thing that Leti said that I remember is that when you're making an argument, think about how to frame it in a way that whatever you are saying, it's valued.I mean, thinking about, okay, what are the values of your environment, right?
[00:05:26] RORI: Yeah.
[00:05:27] EMILIA: And how can I make my case based on those values, I guess.
[00:05:32] RORI: Like the shared interest of the. person or organization that you're working with, you need to make your case in terms of those values, not in terms of what matters to you that they're not particularly interested in.
[00:05:43] EMILIA: Exactly. In some way, it's finding that common ground or space that it's valued by both you and, and the people around you. When I talk to junior faculty members, they want something or they need something, really.
[00:05:58] RORI: Like something for their success.
[00:05:59] EMILIA: Yeah. [00:06:00] One thing that I tell junior faculty is, you know, think about how you can frame this or how you can get this by sort of arguing that this will help you get tenure.
[00:06:12] RORI: Because the university cares about tenure. And so frame your argument in terms of what the university cares about.
[00:06:17] EMILIA: Yeah, because that's something that's important for both you and they want to help you be successful and get tenure.
[00:06:25] RORI: I mean, it's kind of a negotiation strategy. This kind of framework is useful in so many conversations.
Another lesson that I learned that like, I mean, for me, it struck like kind of deep was Maria Elena. When we asked her what she would revise and resubmit, and she was like, nothing. She said, you know, I already did my revisions. I already adjusted my life as I went and adjusted my career as I went. And that's, that's it.
She's like, you can never go back. You can't go to the same river twice. And I mean, some of this is like a literal cliche, but something about the way she said it really stuck with me. [00:07:00] And I mean, I'll be a little tender and share that I had made like a pretty big career decision and then had some second thoughts about it.
And after hearing Maria Elena say that, I kind of felt. empowered to let those second thoughts go and move forward. To think like, I can revise moving forward, I can change what I'm going to do moving forward, but I can't go back and I can't let that continue to bother me.
[00:07:27] EMILIA: I think that's important to be able to let go of that, I don't want to say baggage, but that burden of those thoughts and you know, your headspace is occupied with just thinking about what, what, what if this or what if that.
[00:07:42] RORI: Yeah.
[00:07:42] EMILIA: Which reminds me of something else, Sue Rosser. She talks about the road not taken.
[00:07:49] RORI: That's right.
[00:07:50] EMILIA: And how difficult it is to evaluate. I do, I don't know about you Rori, but I think a lot about the what if this, or what if that.
[00:07:59] RORI: Totally.
[00:07:59] EMILIA:But we don't know that because
[00:08:02] RORI: we didn't do it.
[00:08:02] EMILIA: We've never taken the road.
[00:08:04] RORI: I know. I mean, it's so interesting. I feel like so many of these women also said something about like, don't do what I did, which is interesting. There's like, they did a thing and they decided it didn't go good. So they're like, don't do what I did, but they did a lot of things that were really great. You know, that I'm like, I see them as a role model.
So I don't know. It feels a little complicated there. Well, we did get a couple of listener questions. We got a question from Dr. Pliny Pennings. So she was curious, after hearing Sue Rosser's episode where she said that she earned an extra 40, 000 a year giving talks, Pliny was like, can you really do that as an academic?
Can you earn an extra 40k a year? And we asked Sue, I got her email up here, she says that by the time she was doing that, she was Director of Women's Studies and pretty well known for her work in feminist science, women's health, etc. She was often invited to give a keynote for Women's History Month or a conference focused on women in science.
Or a keynote for a major interdisciplinary lecture sponsored by the university or several departments, you know, kind of these like-named lecture kind of. And those are not your typical like invited speaker to a department colloquium or conference kind of talk. For that kind of talk that she was giving, yes, you can get yourself a stipend of a thousand dollars.
And then if you do 40 of them, you can make 40K. But that's, I'm not really invited to give that kind of talk. Maybe someday, I don't know.
[00:09:27] EMILIA: Yeah. I think it would be difficult for us to do that.
[00:09:31] RORI: There's your answer, Pliny. And we got another question. This one is from Carolina de Lima Adam, and here's her question.
[00:09:38] Speaker 3: Hi Emilia and Rori. After talking with women from so many different backgrounds, from different areas of science, is there a prevalent message that you think stood out? and can maybe sum up all the lessons you've learned throughout these interviews. And how do you think we can apply that on our own academic careers?
[00:09:58] RORI: Oh, [00:10:00] Emilia. Okay. That's what we're trying to do. So what do you think? What's a prevalent message from what we've heard from all these women?
[00:10:06] EMILIA: I think. One thing that I realize now is that all these women had very supportive families who encouraged them and appreciated, they had families that appreciated education and wanted them to be educated, but at the same time, they learned from, from their families, even though a lot of them were not scientists themselves.
[00:10:28] RORI: They all had major gifts from their families of origin. Like they learned important. skills and ways of being that have been important for them in science, even though very few or none of them came from families full of Western scientists. And those families were supportive, like for the families that hadn't been to college, they were still supportive of these women, which is another major gift.
[00:10:51] EMILIA: Yeah, so I think One needs to have support in some way, maybe if not through their family, in a different way. They have to [00:11:00] find supportive communities. I think it's hard to do this completely on your own.
[00:11:05] RORI: Right.
[00:11:05] EMILIA: That would be very difficult.
[00:11:07] RORI: Yeah. Yeah. But the support of communities is important. And the, like, taking the gifts from your family that you grew up with.
I think both of those are really key.
[00:11:15] EMILIA: What about you Rori?
[00:11:17] RORI: Okay, I'm thinking about Ive for a minute. Okay, Ive talked about when she was working on her thesis and she had this like moment, you know, she kind of like was getting a bit strayed from her focused thesis work and she had this conversation with her advisor and this like moment where she reflected on what she was doing.
Um, she kind of had this critical and loving reflection of herself, and then she realized that it wasn't going to serve her and she changed what she was doing. She like evaluated and she adjusted. And for her that meant like, Focusing on her thesis. Or, like, later she did the same thing. She was, like, evaluating her life and where she was putting her energy, and she was like, Simu is incredible, but it's taking up all my time.
I need to stop it, actually. And she made that adjustment. So I feel like this is both [00:12:00] deeply scientific to, like, look at something, gather some data. make an evaluation and move forward differently.
[00:12:09] EMILIA: Yeah.
[00:12:09] RORI: But it's also like they're doing it for their lives, not just for their science. They're doing it to like make decisions.
Like Francine, all her PhD work was in population genetics in Native Alaska communities. And then she was like looking at the political landscape and she was like, I absolutely can't publish this. And I probably can't continue in this field because of what's going on with the HGDP. And so I'm going to shift.
I'm going to move towards public health instead. That's so brave! That's so powerful! And like, thoughtful.
[00:12:39] EMILIA: Yeah, what you're saying is to use your own scientific training to make decisions about your life.
[00:12:44] RORI: Scientific life decisions.
[00:12:46] EMILIA: Yeah.
[00:12:48] RORI: Really though?
[00:12:49] EMILIA: I think they, they probably all had to do that at some point.
[00:12:52] RORI: Definitely. And something else they all had to deal with is, I mean, challenges. And especially like in the scientific and academic [00:13:00] system, you know, of course, there's like some inherent racism and misogyny. And all of these scientists persisted through many challenges. How did you see them doing that? What strategies did you see them use?
[00:13:12] EMILIA: Well, um, I think they had different strategies, you know, Being able to find supportive communities, for instance, Marilena, she had a community in Sagnas, you know, Sue was able to find like a group of women.
[00:13:28] RORI: Their consciousness-raising groups, right?
[00:13:30] EMILIA: Right. You need a supportive community to give you a sense of, of how you're doing yourself.
I think it's nice to find a supportive community where you can brainstorm ideas with, talk about issues and, you know, evaluate, and gather information.
[00:13:48] RORI: Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, I mean, they came from supportive families, but then to like to create a supportive scientific community is a different thing. I mean, I was inspired by Dr.
[00:14:00] Jackson's talking about the conference that she held. And she was like, people are still talking about this. There were historians, there were population geneticists. There were like people from all different fields. Like she created that and literally brought them together. And then having that like helps you persist.
I mean, what about you, Emilia? Like you have this like awesome collaboration with Maria and Flora.
[00:14:20] EMILIA: I think I've mentioned this before, right? I like to work with other people.
[00:14:26] RORI: Yes.
[00:14:26] EMILIA: I, I love to talk about science, to brainstorm together, to work on projects. You know, there's an idea first, then there's some research and then there's the finished product, like a publication.
I enjoy this process with other people that are supportive of me, who I enjoy working with and so on.
[00:14:49] RORI: I mean, the community is key. And then I feel like there's some other ways. That they manage challenges too. Like Carmen, she took a break, right? Like back at the end of her [00:15:00] undergrad, she had this like fucked up experience in science.
And then she was like, you know, I'm going to do something else for a little bit. I feel like it's important to know when you need a break, whether it's a, that was like a substantive break, like leave science for a bit, or whether it's. It's more of a micro-break, like I'm just going to, I'm so frustrated with this code.
I'm going to go take a walk this afternoon for a half hour.
[00:15:21] EMILIA: Yeah. One thing that I like to tell my students is that if you're, you're, you're facing a challenge at work and I'm talking about actual science work.
[00:15:29] RORI: Yeah.
[00:15:30] EMILIA: Like if you're thinking about a problem, I think sometimes you just have to, yeah, take a break.
Like if you work for another hour, it's not going to help you fix the problem.
[00:15:38] RORI: Totally.
[00:15:39] EMILIA: You need space. Yeah. Totally. So, if you have been trying to fix something for the last five hours, your mind is probably tired.
[00:15:46] RORI: Yeah.
[00:15:46] EMILIA: So you need to switch to something else to give you some space and come back and tackle that problem the next day.
[00:15:54] RORI: It's a little like acknowledging that we're humans. We're not just like science robots who can just like feng shen, crank out science. It's like, no.
[00:16:03] EMILIA: I think we have to focus and work. on a problem, but it's not really the number of hours that you work in a single day. There are some diminishing returns after some time.
[00:16:13] RORI: And there's one more kind of strategy for challenges that I would point out. I mean, there are many, but for this season wrap-up, I feel like both Fatima Jackson and Francine Gachupin had this like knowing of their goals, like what are their scientific goals? What are they in this for? And being really driven.
By that. I feel like that carried them through some major challenges. Major derailments. They were like, they know what they're in it for.
[00:16:44] EMILIA: Yeah. I think for Dr. Jackson, she, she wanted to study malaria. Right? Malaria was,
[00:16:50] RORI: yeah.
[00:16:50] EMILIA: The thing, she was interested in
[00:16:52] RORI: uhhuh
[00:16:52] EMILIA: and that's because it was something that affected her.
She experienced that. And then she made this covenant, [00:17:00] right? And for Francine, I think it was also something that was very close to her heart, you know? She wanted to improve health in tribal communities and that's something that she's still fighting for and she wants to continue to fight for.
[00:17:13] RORI: And that solidness of mission, I think, brought them through a lot, which is a lesson.
Oh, Emilia, it's been a pleasure. An incredible time making this podcast with you. This season one.
[00:17:26] EMILIA: Whoa.
[00:17:27] RORI: I know. Is that wild or what? We made a podcast y'all.
[00:17:30] EMILIA: Oh my God.
[00:17:31] RORI: Emilia, do you remember when we were like sitting in the office and I was spitballing ideas and I was like, well, what if we did this? And then we turn it into a podcast.
What if we like to do this? Panel discussion at Saksis and we turned it into a podcast and you were like, yep, that one, we actually did it.
[00:17:47] EMILIA: Yeah. I remember when we made the list of people we were going to invite to Saksis.
[00:17:52] RORI: Yeah.
[00:17:53] EMILIA: And I always get a little bit intimidated when I have to email people that I think are [00:18:00] really important.
And I think you emailed three people and I emailed three other people. And I thought we were not going to hear back, to be honest.
[00:18:09] RORI: I remember. And we were like, of course, we were doing it at the last minute. And we were worried about insulting them by inviting them so much at the last minute.
[00:18:16] EMILIA: But everybody replied within 24 hours.
[00:18:18] RORI: Yeah. And they're busy people. You know who we invited. They're like busy people. I can't imagine what their inboxes are like, and I feel so grateful.
[00:18:26] EMILIA: Yes, so I want to thank them all.
[00:18:28] RORI: Yes.
[00:18:29] EMILIA: For taking the time to talk to us and to share their stories and it's been
a delight for me.
[00:18:38] RORI: Oh my god, it's been so fun.
It's been a lot of work too, and it's been so fun. Well, listeners, we are hoping to make season two of Science Wise, so we're gonna leave you with this for now. But we hope that we will release some more starting in February 2025.
[00:18:57] EMILIA: Bye!
[00:18:57] RORI: Catch you then!