How did you enter this field?
I always loved science. Even when I was a high school student at Putney, I was interested in biology. When I went to college, I
knew I wanted to focus on science at the cellular and molecular level, so I majored in the cellular, molecular, and developmental
biology. I worked in a lab in college because I knew wanted to do research. I got to continue doing it in graduate school while
getting a Ph.D. I have been here over four years now. This is the fifth year of my program.
How did you feel being a woman in this field?
It’s interesting. Historically, there’s been a gender gap, but it caught up recently. So I’ve always felt really aware that I am a woman
in this field. As an example, there are programs that focus on diversity, and target gender. But Biology is a little bit different than
other STEM fields. I think there are probably more women in my program than men.
Do you feel empowered by working with female coworkers?
Yes, I think so. However, I am young. If you compare graduate students to full professors, the gender imbalance seems to return
and there are more male professors than women.
How’s your experience with male workers? Is it different to work with female workers?
For me, there’s not so much difference. Differences are based on individuals, but not gender. The institution where I work pro-
motes gender diversity and equality. Everything I have experienced is based culturally and individually.
Do you ever confront challenges in this field as a woman?
Typically no. I think it’s a challenging field regardless of gender, but one challenge I’ve had to confront recently is career develop-
ment. I’m nearing the end of my degree program, and sometimes conversations about my future get a little bit awkward because
people consider whether I might be planning on having a family. It’s very hard to balance having a family and I do feel like,
because I am a woman, sometimes when people say “What are you planning for your future?”, there is a subtext of, “Do you want
kids?” In my field, the work is very intense. We often work 12 hrs a day, and it’s very hard to develop a family. But a lot of stu-
dents who graduate do have a families. This is a challenge for most people and also for me.
Is there a limit in your field regarding of your gender?
I don’t think so, but sometimes, when I work with people who are more senior than me, I can tell they may not listen to me. That
makes me wonder whether this is because I am a student or because I am a woman. I’ve heard stories about other people my age
who work for big companies in the Stanford area, and they experience more sexism. In general, I feel fortunate that the people I
work with don’t treat me differently because of my gender.
Along of the way pursuing degrees and biology, did you meet any voices against you?
Definitely not. I can only think of two examples where I had different experience because of my gender. One of them is the
assumption that women tend to be less quantitative than men even within the sciences. As an example, biology tends to be a less
quantitative than other sciences like engineering. You can tell this when you go to a student mixer. For a given group of people the
men are probably in engineering while women are in biology. So people make assumptions about your academics and your gender
because of this difference. The other example is, no matter who you are, you have to choose between prioritizing family and ca-
reer, and I’ve seen the burden of making this decision fall more heavily on women.
How do you see the balance between family and career?
I am concerned about it. Now, for me, I’m in a certain age group, where people are starting families, but I don’t really know what I
am doing. I will graduate next year, and I feel there’s a lot of flexibility in terms of what I will do, which ends up also feeling really
unstable. It’s intimidating that the decision to have a family is coming at the same time as I graduate with my degree. When people
graduate from my program, they go a lot of different directions. Some will stay in academia, some will go to industry, and some
will leave science to wor