An Unexpected Path: Discovering my Passion for Science Outreach and Administration

Heather McKellar

I was born and raised in a small town in the northwest corner of Connecticut. I learned to love education and bureaucracy (kidding) from my special-education-teacher mom and state-employee dad. I was an incredibly shy child who learned about imposter syndrome early when I attended an elite boarding school as a day student. But, I also found my love of science in the school’s state-of-the-art classroom labs where I dissected my first fetal pig and applied for my first fellowship.

Dr. Heather McKellar

I went to Boston University as a way to broaden my horizons and escape small town CT for the city. While I took classes that ranged from molecular biology to abnormal psychology and even toyed with the idea of pre-med, it wasn’t until I got into a lab the summer before my junior year that I truly settled on neuroscience as my major. I found a lab that integrated the topics I learned in my classes and encouraged undergraduate students to develop their own projects.

Having some good friends in the lab and a postdoc colleague who was an excellent mentor kept me going through the end of my doctorate.

After graduation, I didn’t have a plan until a friend convinced me to move to NYC. So, I sent a bunch of letters (by mail!) and received an offer to be a technician with Rae Silver at Columbia. After not getting into the neuroscience graduate program at Columbia, Rae Silver saw promise (or took pity) in me and helped my application find its way to the Integrated Program. Unfortunately, that is where I slowly realized that lab life was not for me. While I enjoyed the day to day of my work studying the cellular and molecular changes in a mouse model of psychiatric disease, I became jaded by the lack of significant findings and cut-throat nature of everything from submitting abstracts to getting time on the confocal microscope.

A fellow student dragged me to an outreach classroom visit as a way to recharge, and I became hooked. I helped organize the early stages of the Columbia University Neuroscience Outreach Group and made the connections with the Greater New York Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience (braiNY), the New York Academy of Sciences, and Dana Foundation that led to my job with NYU and my role as President of braiNY.

Having some good friends in the lab and a postdoc colleague who was an excellent mentor kept me going through the end of my doctorate. But I took the opportunity in my last two years to volunteer more and find leadership positions where possible. At the end of graduate school, I realized that outreach could be a career when my friend was named Director of Neuroscience Outreach at Columbia’s new Zuckerman Institute. I emailed some scientific connections at the new Neuroscience Institute at the NYU School of Medicine, and my letter ended up on the desk of the new Executive Director who convinced me to come on as an admin assistant who would receive mentorship from the PhDs on the administrative team and have spare time to develop an outreach program. I found exactly what I was looking for in the new Neuroscience Institute at NYU — a community that was founded to build bridges between labs and departments and prized education and innovation.

I quickly took on more and more and more tasks and projects as I progressed in my career at NYU. This past May, I started my new role as Executive Director and I am still learning the ins and outs. In my free time, I love to cook with my fiancé, have wine nights with my friends from Columbia that are a wonderful and supportive network, and do arts and crafts with my nieces and nephew. I rely on outreach and my volunteer positions to recharge and my favorite item in my office remains the plastinated human brain.

I have been lucky to follow in the footsteps of strong mentors and lean a supportive network of peers. They have all taught me to step outside of my comfort zone and take advantage of the opportunities to learn new things and meet new people. This has led to a career that ten years ago I did not know existed and a position that continues to be interesting and challenging.