Category: Life Sciences
Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
– Edritz Javelosa – The luscious vegetation, crawling critters, warm beaches, and the tropical climate of the Philippines – an archipelago with more than 7,000 islands, tons of natural resources, and a wide range of biodiversity – was the setting...
Science Inspiration and Breaking the Mold – Mixing Fashion and Science
– Andrea Hadjikyriacou, Ph.D.- Ever since I was a young child, I knew I wanted to pursue science. In third grade, I vividly remember being excited for the new science text books/workbooks we would receive throughout the year. My favorite...
Stride On
– Kwasi Agbleke, Ph.D. – My journey through two decades has been that of mission, vision, and determination. As a young boy, I always had difficulty answering the question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” For...
The Anxiety Fights Back
– Erica Hawkins – – The story below originally appeared on Erica’s Phd Freaking Out Blog on August 9, 2017 – Anxiety ebbs and flows. One week you can feel super chilled, and the next feel on the edge all...
Babies and Biochemistry: My Path to Finding Balance
– Cara Florance – I’m the daughter of a physicist and chemist. My parents exposed me to many types of science from an early age and I loved it. I always wanted a career in science and I successfully sought...
Crystals are a Girl’s Best Friend
– Julia Bates – “Oh look at my pretty crystals!” I squealed in delight. “Remember, the pretty ones aren’t always the best,” the postdoc sitting next to me commented. I rolled my eyes, even though I know he was right....
Forever a scientist: How I found my career niche
– Julia Bates – “No Julia, you are still a scientist. You will always be a scientist”. Those were the words spoken by my mentor Professor Jenny Martin, as we sat drinking coffee in a sunny café in my hometown...
Academic dreams: they come and they go
– Bill Hinchen – Is it time I let go of the academic dream? I seem to have been battling with this question for several years now. For as long as I can remember, I wanted to do science — I mean proper...
Discovering My Passion for Teaching
Jennifer Gatti - "My message to my students is simple: don’t be afraid to try new things and don’t get stuck doing something simply because you think it is what you are supposed to do. You never know where you...
Playing in the Dirt and Calling it Science
– By Stephanie Halmhofer | Bioarchaeologist – For some, the line from point A to point B is fairly straight. For others, it’s a zig-zag. I am definitely a zig-zagger. I didn’t find an easy, straightforward path into becoming a...
How To Be a Superstar With No Instructions
– Marguerite Matthews, PhD – . At 4 years old, I was sure I’d be a superstar! My father has endless video recordings of me prancing around, belting out my favorite songs or performing mundane tasks with Shakespearean theatrics. I was ready at a moment’s notice to...
Scientist, Educator, or Both?
Dr. Khameeka Kitt-Hopper: "There are so many questions still unanswered, and my role as a scientist is to shed light on these basic questions and encourage a new generation of diverse scientists ready to take on the challenging conundrums of...
Be more confident and optimistic
– by Claudia Segovia-Salcedo | Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas ESPE | Coordinator and co-founder of the Ecuadorian Network of Women in Science (REMCI) – The story below was originally published by The Female Scientist which aims to make the work of female scientists...
The Courage to Say No
by William Yakah | Undergraduate Student (Neuroscience) | Michigan State University | Like many others in middle school, I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to be in the future. In 6th grade, my class had a group of college students talk...
Why I Sci
by Natalie Hamer | Biomedical Science Student at Newcastle University | My favorite question has always been ‘why?’ As a child, this question frustrated my mother to no end. I asked her a million questions, and interrogated all of her answers....
From rural China to Harvard and beyond
By Jiang He | Postdoctoral Scholar | MIT | I grew up as a farmer in China in a pre-industrial farming society. When I was born, my village had no cars, no telephones, no electricity, not even running water. Electricity...
Ordinary Folks Doing Extraordinary Things
by David Denlinger | Department of Biology | Utah State University Everyday when we wake up, whether we recognize it or not, our lives are inspired by science: not being crippled by polio or smallpox, the food we eat, the vehicles...
The words that changed my life
– Lia Paola Zambetti – Senior Project Officer |Research Development and Collaboration |The University of Sydney On a dull Saturday morning in the lab, I heard the words that changed my life. I had just finished changing the medium for...
From Grandma’s Backyard to the Bench
Rodolfo Jimenez My parents were so young when they had me. They both had to put school on hold in order to provide for their new family. Because of my parents’ varying work schedules, my grandmother had a big role...
I always thought I wanted to be a scientist
– Michelle Dookwah – Graduate Research Assistant at the University of Georgia I always thought I wanted to be a scientist, yet I considered other careers at brief points in my life. When I was really young, I wanted to...
From engrams to psychiatric disorders and back
– Steve Ramirez – – Principal Investigator | Center for Brain Science| Harvard University – I‘m often asked how I got into neuroscience, so here’s the story. In college, I was one of those students who loved every subject, from...
Surviving as an underrepresented minority scientist
by Stories in Science Team <> In case you missed this article, songbird neurobiologist Dr. Erich Jarvis of The Rockefeller University was the recipient of the 2015 Ernest Everett Just Award from the American Society for Cell Biology. He wrote a...
A non-linear path to the career I never knew I always wanted
By Valerie K. Haftel Ph.D | Associate Professor of Biology, Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA I was always fascinated by animals, and how they work in nature. I had a fondness for playing in streams with friends, catching frogs, collecting buckets of...
The Inner City Scientist
By Ketema Paul, PhD – Associate Professor at UCLA I have known I wanted to be a scientist since I was a kid. My earliest memory of wanting to be a scientist was 7 years old. Science was my favorite class and...
Love The Path You Travel
Jessica Rauchut – Research Associate at Penn State Hershey Medical School || At 22, many of us are graduating, starting new jobs, becoming doctors, getting married, or having kids, while the rest of us are still trying to figure out how...
A Lab-Coat AND Hiking Shoes
I've spent my professional life juggling two careers. First, as a lab neurobiologist, I study rats and cultured neurons, trying to understand how stress damages the brain. Second, as a field primatologist, I study the effects of social stress and social subordination...