attending science conferences in early pregnancy

Traveling to neuroscience conferences has been such a major part of the last 7 years of my life that I now consider myself a pro. What I am absolutely not a pro at is traveling while pregnant.

This year on International Women's Day, I attended my first scientific conference as a pregnant woman.

This week, I am 16 weeks pregnant. I am starting to show. And I flew from California to Maryland for the first conference of my post doc. It was a long (fortunately non-stop) flight. It was a week of putting myself in front of new people and assertively introducing myself, and semi-hiding my condition.

Here is what I learned about flying during early pregnancy:

1. Nobody is going to offer to help you. I was able to lift my own carry-on into the overhead storage, but if you are not, find a nice looking person to ask for help. It's not worth the round ligament pain.

2. Whether it's to pee every 20 minutes (me) or just to get up every hour or so to stretch your legs and relieve your back (me) or belly cramps (me), you are likely to turn a few eyes. People are nosy on planes -- what else do they have to look at? What helped me was to make sure I got an aisle seat, and sit toward the middle/back of the plane where families tend to sit. Families will be moving around as much as you are. No one will judge you. If you strategically cradle your fledgling baby-bump, someone will likely even ask you how far along you are.

Here is what I learned about conference attendance during early pregnancy:

1. Stay hydrated. Most conferences provide water and chamomile tea for those stringently avoiding caffeine. Do not shy away from keeping hydrated in order to avoid getting up during one of the day's 22 seminars. Because I have Crohn's disease, I am comfortable going to the bathroom whenever I have to, sometimes wherever I have to. I have built up a mild immunity to people judging me for getting up to leave the room every 20 minutes. But if you are uncomfortable, sit in an outside edge seat or toward the back (I personally hate the back).

2. Bring snacks. Although continental breakfasts are typically safe (breads, fruit, yogurt), lunch is always a toss-up and dinner can be as well. Because I also have Crohn's disease, my diet excludes dairy and red meat. If the salad is pre-dressed, if the potatoes are doused in cream sauce, if the only protein is steak -- forget about it. With my personal pregnancy restrictions (no deli meat, no hotel fish, etc.) I am even more limited. I kept apples and carrot sticks in my bag throughout the conference. I splurged on room service so that Neonate and I could have late night nourishment when needed.

3. Not drinking coffee is really hard. I'm not normally a coffee drinker; tea is my hot beverage of choice. At conferences, however, I depend on 1-3 cups of coffee a day to keep me at attention and socially present. Since my body is not used to high input of caffeine, it's not something I'm about to test during my pregnancy so I've just avoided coffee altogether. I'm finding that this means that during my many walks to the restroom throughout the day, I quicken my pace and take a few stairs for stimulation. But I also skip out on a session here or there to lay down and relax (and again, to give my back some relief).


I ended up having a great time over my three day event. Have fun and put yourself out there. People are not nearly as observant as your nerves give them credit for.

on challenging your post doctoral mentor

When I interviewed at my now postdoc lab, I was told by my mentor and lab personnel that he was good at getting grants. When I pointedly asked if he was good at helping his students and postdocs get grants, the answers I got were more along the lines of "he is invested in our future and is good at helping us and being available."

At the time, I did not recognize this as a misdirection.

In my 6 months, I have been preparing to apply for 3 fellowships, all of which are specific to first-year postdocs. This preparation includes some confidence in my own grant writing skills: I was particularly well trained in graduate school, I have a good track record, I am good at it.

In my postdoc, this self-knowledge has seemed to fly out the window. There is something to be said for waiting to challenge your boss and colleagues until you understand their approaches and methods. All labs have a different style, all lab PI's do things a bit differently. And so, I initially questioned but did not challenge my boss, even though his input on my fellowship proposals seemed wildly inappropriate for the fellowship goals:

We had a brief meeting after I showed him my first draft, and he made suggestions about the experimental approach that I thought were very extravagant and outside the goals of the fellowship. When I asked whether he thought this would be problematic for reviewers, he said, "absolutely not. Reviewers should be able to look at the track record of our lab and conclude that we are obviously equipped to do whatever we propose." That is paraphrasing, of course, but it was a huge red flag. Nevertheless, I believed that my mentor simply did things differently and it had obviously worked for him. For him. And I chose to go with it and compromise out of trust because he is my mentor.

Only weeks later did I learn that although my mentor may be good at getting his own grants, he has a terrible track record of helping his students and postdocs get grants. Seconds after learning this I realized that I should have challenged him earlier on; it might have made all of the difference if I had just pushed back harder. I beat myself up for days, simultaneously trying to rescue my grant proposal without totally discarding my mentor's input. This was the end of my career, I thought. He has sabotaged me. I have sabotaged myself.

I made my first deadline. The other two are coming up in two weeks. If I somehow manage to get them submitted in acceptable form it will be no small miracle.

As I navigate several situations like this with my post doctoral advisor, the most important thing that I am learning is that putting trust in your mentor or boss is not a weakness. It is their job to rise to the occasion of leadership. Caution as you learn to understand your mentor's personality, communication style and ego is not a weakness -- just the opposite, it reflects your propensity to learn and adapt. And should you lose out on an opportunity during this learning period, before you are prepared to straight-up disagree, be kind to yourself. There will be other -- although, perhaps different -- opportunities.

The Black Hole of Early Postdocdom

If I were ever directly asked in an interview what my biggest weakness is, what I would say out loud is my risk of over-commitment which can lead to burn-out if I am not mindful. But that is not my actual biggest weakness as a professional.

My biggest weakness is fear of appearing less than independent. Which often leads me to a lack of asking for help, even when I know this might speed things along. Which leads to stunted progress and lack of momentum.

I have spent the first month of my post doc in a Sisyphus-style loop of working as independently as possible, then running into a major road-block which forces me to overcome my fear of being burdensome to ask for a small bit of advice from a colleague/mentor. From there, I begin pushing my rock uphill again.

In the lab that I was incredibly fortunate to join, there are teams of scientists whose independent research is connected by a common theme (i.e., a disease, a biological systems function). When I interviewed to join the lab, I met my likely future teammates and was thrilled to be able to work alongside and get to know them. However, the week before I started my PI advised a complete project switch [allegedly] based on facilitating my career goals. Now, I don't really have a team. I am isolated both conceptually and geographically from everyone except the lab manager (who is fabulous, but not the person from whom I need to absorb training).

My "team" consists of two tangential and very senior [read: checked out or physically not around] lab members, who I have to force to meet together once a month, and who I occasionally see individually during the week. I am pursuing experiments on my own using techniques that I have never used, in an environment where I have not been shown the rules of conduct (e.g., which centrifuges are so old they have particularities, or that we have a core of microscopes instead of our own). This forces me to ask any one of the 52 members of the lab where things are, how to arrange time on apparatus, and how to generally function in this world.

Everyone is very kind and helpful with small or vague bits of information, but without teammates I am not being trained, nor ingesting information about my new field beyond the literature. I am trouble-shooting in re-inventing the wheel when I should instead be trouble-shooting new questions and pursuing experiments that at least have the illusion of forward momentum.

I have always been in smaller labs prior to my post doc, but this massive operation with 12 postdocs among many others is a whole new world for me. Etiquette is different. Expectations are different. Independence is different. I have met with my new PI once since I started 6 weeks ago, and still being in the early stage of needing to appear competent was too scared to bring up any questions of real substance.

--

The black hole of Early Postdocdom is eclipsed only by the ominous cloud that is HMO health insurance, and the anxiety over missing my first treatment in 7 years due to inherent absurdities of the "system".

things i need to work on

I have an unfortunate tendency to let people walk all over me.  Sometimes because it is not worth my time [read: energy expenditure] to argue, sometimes because I am -- despite my best efforts -- afraid of appearing the "bitchy woman".

I am not a fan of when people try to one-up me constantly, especially when I have worlds more knowledge of the subject at hand than they do.  This is not easy to avoid in any profession where men feel that they must appear the wisest and most knowledgeable.  I test the waters on occasion when the opportunity arises.  For instance, in lab the other day the topic vaccination came up and I mentioned the fascinating tidbit that Edward Jenner had created the first smallpox vaccination in 1796, which I knew because I had recently read the book Pox: An American History by Michael Willrich.  My labmate responded, "oh yeah, absolutely" as if this was a very obvious fact of which he was obviously aware (which was not even remotely the case).

I am particularly not a fan of the general response to my willingness to ask people about their perspective or experience being interpreted as weakness or stupidity.  For instance, when I observe that a  colleague uses a different technique than I practice, I inquire as to the reasoning behind it.  I am typically met with a verbose pontification explaining what is trying to be achieved and why their method is best.  Thereafter, I typically share the method that I use and express interest in both methods working equally well (although, not to toot my own horn, but often it turns out that the way I do things is more appropriate).

An occasion arose this past week on Friday when I attended a lecture on the Jewish perspective on stem cell research.  The talk was fascinating and I went home that evening and did some research on as many religious perspectives on stem cell research policy that I could find (note: there are surprisingly few books on this subject out there!).  During the talk, the lecturer mentioned that in the 19th century doctors only received 1-2 years of schooling.  A renowned professor in the audience then quipped, "of course: one year for blood-letting, and one for leeches."  Needless to say, having read several books on the evolution of medicine in the 19th century, I cringed.  I wanted so badly to raise my hand an mention that this was actually because at the time, the surgeons and dentists did many years of both apprenticing and schooling, and performed 90% of all medical procedures as the doctors themselves disliked physical involvement, believing that it separated them from God and made them "dirty".  Of course, as meagerly as I would have phrased such a correction, I said nothing as I did not want to appear the "bitchy know-it-all woman".

Clearly, there are some things I need to work on.  Clearly, if the men around me have no filters for sharing whatever is on their minds -- be it correct or not -- I should not feel shame in doing so either -- particularly when I am correct.  Clearly, I need to remove the sign from my forehead that says, "please, walk all over me and try to one-up everything I say."  Clearly, I need to accept that I probably do not come off as bitchy or know-it-all in the slightest, and be more assertive and exert my presence and my contributions to the environment around me.  Clearly, I need to start being more bitchy.

publishing misnomers

Some may recall that last year when I got married I put an excruciating amount of thought into changing my name, both legally and professionally.  I ended up deciding to publish as Name Initial Maiden-Initial Last.  It has since become apparent that I made the wrong decision.

With this new outpour of publications and grants, my family has realized that they are substantially upset that since my maiden name is represented only as an initial, I am not recognizable as their kin.  I have that distinctive maiden name where I'm related to everyone else in the world who has it, and my family is very upset that it is not represented.  They didn't care nine months ago before I had published or been awarded anything, but feelings change with press coverage...

The obvious solution to this is to scrap Name Initial Maiden-Initial Last and use Name Maiden Last from now on.

A brief refresher on why I did not do this in the first place:

1) Publishing with two last names (and no, Maiden does not pass for an obvious middle name) confuses potential "referencers" who would proceed to cite me incorrectly.  This leads to a dual body problem: one "Last, NameInitial.MaidenInitial." and one "Maiden-Last, NameInitial."... and being two people is not ideal;
2) Publishing with two last names confuses potential bosses who would proceed to not figure out how to administer my paychecks and W2s correctly;
3) I can't hyphenate because I don't legally have two last names, and hell if I'm going to go through that legal name-change bullshit again to do something that I didn't want to do in the first place.

Although all these points remain totally valid, I may have to throw all caution to the wind and change my publishing name.  Indeed, the very thing I thought I had avoided with my previous reasoning.  When I first changed my name, I had no publications yet and it didn't matter.  But now, I'm wrapping up revisions on my fifth manuscript, and I have two (publicized) fellowships.  Good thing that in five years no one will remember my first five manuscripts and two fellowship awards anyway?...

increasing women in neuroscience

The Department Chair Training to Increase Women in Neuroscience (IWiN) is scheduled to meetin in Tucson, at the University of Arizona this April.  The workshop, funded by the National Science Foundation's ADVANCE program, is a three-year program aiming to increase the number of women on neurosciences faculty.  The participants of these workshops expect to leave them with tools to implement recruitment and advancement plans for women within their universities, and to disseminate the information they have gained in "echo" workshops at their institutions.

The IWiN workshops will be hosted in 2011 and 2012 at two of the graduate schools at which I may be a [woman] student at the time... depending on how interviews go at the end of this month.  Three of my four choice graduate schools are already participants of the ADVANCE program, which is not too shabby except that the missing institution has a ratio of approximately 1:3 women to men and does not facilitate an equity program in research.

I mention the IWiN workshops in response to a recent article in the New York Times discussing a nice array of statistics about the paucity of tenured female faculty, and women in the upper administrative echelons of science in general.  This was summarizing a study based out of UC Berkley.  The statistic that I thought was deserving of further attention in the New York Times report was this one:

"Tenured male scientists are considerably more likely to be married with children than tenured female scientists — 73 percent for men versus 53 percent for women. The report noted that among tenured science professors, women are nearly three times more likely to be single without children than men — 25 percent to 9 percent."

 The Berkeley article itself furthers this discussion beautifully, and as a woman weighing the possibilities of children and eventual faculty tenure (albeit, we're talking about ten years down the line), I highly recommend a read and consideration of the original research article:

Mary Ann Mason, Marc Goulden, Karie Frasch (2010). Keeping Women in the Science Pipeline Focus on Workplace Flexibility