scientist – ⋆ Second Gen Desi ⋆

Reading Time: 7 minutes

I originally wrote this post for my old blog—a post that humorously described the hierarchy of a scientific research lab. I wrote this as a second-year PhD student in February 2016, but I thought it would be fun to reflect on this post as a now post-doc.

The following text is my original post, while my commentary in the present day is in red 😉.

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I often reference how I have to “pop into lab” or “go out for lunch after lab” in many of my posts, but I have not had the chance (or the patience) to go into detail about my life in lab. I thought it would be fun to describe the usual hierarchy of a lab, so you could have at least some idea of what I have to deal with on a daily basis…

Before I became the dedicated PhD student researcher I am today (😅) , I was an overworked, overexhausted undergrad student, who was treated like a grad student during my first lab research experience. Not all was bad though, as I learned a lot, and had face-time with my boss every time I was in the lab, but as an undergrad student I could only spend so much time in the lab. My boss at the time didn’t understand this, and she kept pressuring me to stay longer, work more, etc. I was able to hold on for a year before moving on to my next experience!

I think PIs don’t understand the concept of work-life balance in general…most just want you to get your tasks done, no questions asked. If you speak up and say it’s too much, perhaps if they are the reasonable type you can reach a compromise to prevent burnout, but most scientists keep to themselves and work without question. This has frustrated me over the years because it’s a form of peer pressure that isn’t healthy. We need breaks, we need rest, and we need to prioritize our time so that we take care of ourselves and our work doesn’t suffer…

The undergrads in my current lab are more like these guys though …

They’re not annoying, but most of them work under a post-doc in my lab who likes to call them “minions”. In my lab, they tend to carry out smaller experiments and tasks, but don’t necessarily have a project on their own. In comparison, I would say I had it a lot better as an undergrad (if we’re talking about getting experience and training… if we’re talking about the preservation of my sanity, then perhaps it would be the opposite 😂).

When it was time for me to recruit and mentor my own set of students, I treated them with dignity and respect. I knew that if I wanted them to help me with my work, I had to take the time to carefully train them and of course, practice patience. It’s never the student who is incapable of comprehending information—it’s the teacher’s job to present the information in a clear way.

Next up on the lab hierarchy are usually research techs/lab assistants. Usually people that are at this stage are students that just finished undergrad, and are trying to keep busy while waiting to hear from the grad/medical school programs they applied to. I fell into this stage right after I graduated from undergrad a year early, and fortunately, it was in a lab that was very laid-back. I wasn’t paid (so that meant working evening shifts at a local outlet store for some $$), but it kept me attuned with the research world as I applied, which also helped with my interviews!

But not all research techs/lab assistants are students-in-waiting. In fact, I’ve come across many people who are older adults, or people who got a B.S. or M.S. in some science major and had to take a hiatus from lab work due to personal circumstances.

My sister completed her master’s degree, and is currently working as a research assistant/lab manager at an established institution. She’s a relatively fresh graduate compared to many research techs/lab assistants—I know a woman who has held this position in a lab for 22 years 😱!

In either case, they’re on a never-ending quest to prove that they’ve got what it takes.

Constantly felt the pressure in grad school with having to “prove myself”

Then there are the grad students, the PhD-type 😛. Their origin can be one of these two: a continuing masters student, or one who is constantly replying “No, I came straight from bachelors” to anyone who asks, “Did you get a masters first?“.

Compared to my years as an undergrad, I would say being a grad student is less intense. Shocked? Don’t be! I still have plenty of work, and with my qualifying exam coming up, I’ll probably be rethinking what I type here, but I am being completely honest when I say I felt more stressed/anxious/obsessive about my work as an undergrad than I do now. I view the work I do now as my job, and I don’t necessarily see myself as a student in the traditional sense. I do have classes I have to take, but unlike in undergrad where my focus was on class and doing well in class, now it’s to produce work in lab and just show your face in class.

Yeah…I spoke to soon 😂. My third and fourth years were the most intense of my PhD career. I felt an incredible amount of pressure in my fourth year, as I was in the middle of manuscript writing. A lot of doubt and negative feelings resurfaced, and it was a tough period in my life to get through. Whoever says the path to a PhD is fun and easy is delusional 🙃

Just above the PhD students, you have the post-docs. These guys and gals try very hard to make sure everyone knows that they are NO LONGER STUDENTS and that they do in fact have 100% earned the right to be called _____ , PhD. There is no denying the fact that they do deserve this, but it can get irritating when you have grad student vs. post-doc ~~arguments~~ debates. The PhD student doesn’t want to look stupid when he/she asks a question to the post-doc, and the post-doc wants to make sure that they give the right answer, and “look good” doing so. They also have added pressure to be even more independent than a student, and are often regarded as mini-bosses in the lab.

I’m currently six months into my position as a post-doc in a new lab, and I have to remind myself often that I do indeed have a PhD after my name. That yes, I am a doctor. It may depend on the lab environment, but given the smaller size of my current lab and the lack of available students to help carry out expansive experiments, I’m back to doing all of my work on my own. And this definitely makes me feel like I’m a student 😓.

Finally, we have the primary investigator (Pl). The head honcho. The big boss. The don…

(image source)
LOL Can you imagine Shah Rukh Khan, the face of Bollywood leading a scientific research lab?!

I’ve come across three PIs in my overall experience so far (not including rotations), and while they all have their own quirks and personality traits, a couple things stay common for all. As a Pl, your biggest responsibility is making sure your lab has adequate finances. It’s what gives you the freedom to run your lab the way you want to. It’s no secret that funding is extremely tight, so labs can get competitive when it comes to raking in mon-ayyy. In order to make sure the lab is successful, a Pl needs to be assertive, exact, frank, and be able to compromise if necessary (especially when it comes to collaborations, as science is definitely a “it’s who you know” kind of industry)…

Yup, this PI description is still pretty accurate 😁

It’s kind of funny that as a grad student, I fall right in the middle of all these interesting characters! At times, it almost feels like I’m in a sitcom or a TV show with all the crazy interactions and dynamics that go on around me or involve me. I do love it though…

At a conference two years ago with my then-lab’s budget admin.

Ah, how naïve I was back then! The remaining 3.5 years after this post was written were packed with work, but I did find my footing. As I gained seniority, I became more comfortable with my surroundings, my experiments, troubleshooting protocols, and presenting data. I trained over 20 undergraduate and master’s students who sought research experience, and I’ve presented at conferences and published a first author paper in a well-known journal.

I wouldn’t say I love this life, but when results from experiments make sense, your data is validated by your colleagues, and you are recognized for all of the time and effort you put in, it’s hard not to give yourself a pat on the back and take pride in your work!

Sometimes I wonder why I chose this life, but I have to admit that eventually…the difficult times have the potential to become something worthwhile and rewarding.

The risk is in the wait, and the unavoidable unknown…

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Written: April 29, 2020

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On my most recent trip to India, one of my cousins asked what I would like (as a gift), but I’m not one to be picky about gifts just for visiting family! Of course, I brushed off her offer (politely, haha), but she insisted.

Knowing I’m the “researcher” of our clan of cousins, she gifted me with a book by a favorite author of some of my uncles and my Dad: The Body by Bill Bryson.

It was a hefty book to bring back from India, but I was curious to see what Bryson, a master of science communication, had to say on the broad topic of the human body.

In an effort not to end up writing a blasé book review (because that is not my intention…), my focus will be on specific points Bryson brings up that I found fascinating, intriguing, and even controversial given the all-too-fresh COVID-19 pandemic.

As you can tell from the length of the Table of Contents, it seems to me as if no sub-topic of the human body was left abandoned…

Within the first couple of pages, you can tell that Bryson has a way of describing the components of the human body with humorous curiosity.

He also threads in history throughout the book, noting the quirky, weird, and heroic actions of scientists back in the day, and how their fascinations led to the discoveries we know of today.

There’s also a mix of sociology, with one quote that really stood out:

It makes you think, doesn’t it? That skin pigmentation—the very thing that stirs up wars, targeted-violence, and micro-aggressions—arises from a sliver of skin approximatey 1 millimeter thick.

You could probably guess that my obsession with the “skin chapter” indicates my overall fancy of the book, and you wouldn’t be far off. I found some chapters more interesting than others—for example, a few chapters in, when I got to “The Chemistry Department”.

The section itself discusses the history and difficulties of treating hormone-based disorders, but what caught my attention was the complications with oxytocin, and how the difficulties of studies focused on it describe the trials and tribulations of biomedical research in general.

Oxytocin is famously known as a “motherly” hormone, in the sense that it is what drives the emotional connection between mother and child; it drives uterine contractions in childbirth and induces the production of breast milk. It doesn’t stop there though—Bryson notes that the hormone also plays a huge role in facial recognition and helping us to interpret moods in other people.

You’d think that in vivo animal studies would help us elucidate oxytocin’s mechanisms, but it has done the opposite. In a rat-based study, females given oxytocin were driven to increase production of nests and care for pups even if they were born to a different mother. On the other hand, oxytocin clinically administered to humans had no effect or rather, a negative effect, causing patients to experience more aggressive and less co-operative behaviors. The point is, the very insignificant size of a hormone belies the huge impact it has on our body.

What caught my attention as well was the the “Deep Breath” chapter. The fact that I landed into a discussion about sinuses and lungs in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic seemed like more than a coincidence—this book was published in October 2019, and after I read about the nature of a sneeze, I was wondering why on earth the CDC didn’t recommend the usage of face masks by the general public much earlier at the onset of the pandemic…

Bryson highlighted the work of Dr. Lydia Bouroubia of MIT, a “sneeze expert” if you will. Sneeze droplets can travel up to approximately 26 feet and can drift in the air for 10 minutes before landing on surfaces. A sneeze itself was found to be comparable to a sheet of liquid film versus a collection of individual droplets flying out separately, but together. Temperature also plays a role in how sneeze droplets fuse together, an action more favorable in colder weather.

All of this would have been valuable information for the general public to be aware of pre-COVID. But perhaps these times have ignited a curiosity for people to further their understanding of infections and how they spread…I only hope.

If I’m mentioning covid, might as well highlight the “When Things Go Wrong” chapter. It’s uncanny how Bryson’s paragraphs on epidemics is so fitting for the times. Given that it takes months—years even—from the inception of a book to its release on bookstore shelves, you could almost say Bryson’s depth of (digestible) information on infectious diseases was a foreshadowing event. Like, Bill Gates Ted Talk circa 2015 level.

“A successful virus is one that doesn’t kill to well and can circulate widely,” Bryson writes, when he discusses the 1918 Spanish flu: an epidemic that thrived because of the contagion’s persistence and contractability. On the other hand, Ebola tends to be highly lethal but this characteristic lends it to be slow-spreading.

To me, the most striking characteristic about (most) infectious diseases are their origins—their zoonotic origins. Whether you consume animals or not, the data is there to interpret. The domestication of animals brought along with farming and agriculture also brought along leprosy, plague, tuberculosis, typhus, diphteheria, measles, influenzas, and coronaviruses…

I think nature is giving us big clues about something…

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Overall, the publication of Bryson’s book and when I read it could not have happened at a “better” time—a time of a newfound respect for things science. The discoveries that make science take patience, organization, and creative thinking that only certain individuals may find solace in, but its communication should not be restricted.

Bryson does an amazing job distilling the biology, throwing in creative descriptions, and chuckle-worthy anecdotes to make the human body a topic more approachable to the layperson…and it needs to be.

COVID-19 has proved/continues to prove that it is imperative for the general public to have a solid understanding of science. Like I said earlier, the simple observation that a sneeze is more of a liquid sheet versus individual droplets sprayed out sporadically in various directions paints a better picture for someone, who can then make a conscientious decision to wear a face mask and understand why they should.

Need a good read?

Want to come out of this pandemic feeling like an expert in biology?

Then I recommend this knowledge-packed piece of literature. 👌🏽

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Conceptualized February 14, 2020

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I have a cousin on my mother’s side named Radhika (name changed for privacy). I remember playing with Radhika at extended relatives’ weddings in the early 2000s. I was only 7-years-old, but I picked up on several things:

✏️ Radhika was a “lucky” Indian-born millennial. She was born in ’86, meaning she was at the right age to enjoy the perks of India in the late-90s/early-00s: Hrithik Roshan movies, coding homework on a bulky PC monitor, and constant access to Cadbury’s chocolate (this was definitely a perk for her as seen through my 7-year-old eyes).

✏️ Though she never mentioned it, I had a feeling that she was mentally planning for a future abroad, even though she was always cognizant of the traditions at family functions I saw her attend.

✏️ I felt “special” to think that this teenager, six years older than me, wanted to play with me. Entertain me. She could have easily nestled into a group of older women and chatted with them in “adult fashion” versus running around with young children, but she chose me. And that made me feel damn good about myself.

At an age when my sis and I enjoyed life without questions…

It was almost as if I knew the change that was approaching. As I grew older, our trips to India remained consistent, but interactions with Radhika grew shorter to the point that they disappeared altogether. The last time I saw her in India was when I was 10, and when we came back when I was in middle school, she had already left for college.

Rifts between family members caused us to lose contact with her for sometime. Eventually, more than a decade later, she reappeared in my life.

She was married. She was settled in Dallas, in a large house. And she had a baby boy. Most would say she was living the dream many first-gens crave for…

She was only six years older than me, but she seemed to have checked off everything she needed to accomplish as a high-caste, desi woman by 30:

✔️ Go to college (undergrad), and specialize in IT, biology, or medicine, but preferably IT.

✔️ Find a job abroad. Any “first-world”, white-majority country should cut it. UK, Canada, Australia, sure, but you know “you’ve made it” if you settle in the US 🙄

✔️ Get married. Better to do it in your late-20s or you’re pushing it!

✔️ Have kids! Gotta propagate more STEM babies!

I word this “checklist” with dry humor, but also with a note of frustration. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy for Radhika. Though I feel angered that family rifts distanced us for some time, I’m glad that she reconnected with us, and that we at least have an idea of how she’s doing.

I’m more frustrated by the times I’ve felt this checklist imposed on me, despite being a second gen. Whether it be from distant relatives or my own father, it has been a struggle to demonstrate that my background, my trials and tribulations, and life goals for myself are not in line with the list desi parents normally have for their children…

✖️ I did go to undergrad, and majored in Cell Biology. My social experiences (or lack thereof) were abysmal, given that I was battling depression and an eating disorder. It was a miracle I was able to sit in for exams, let alone make it to class on some days…

✖️ Growing up in California was not bad, but I think I probably could have been happy anywhere as a kid, as long as my environment was nurturing and safe. Knowing that I lived in a state many people dreamed of living in made me feel guilty sometimes when I thought about how much I wish my parents had stayed in India before starting a family. In my formative years, I was dying to feel like I belonged in a culture of a country that held people wishing to be in my position. My Dad would never let me forget I was American…but if so, why did certain things that we never discussed in detail before have to follow…tradition?

✖️ Like, marriage. Or an “alliance” as my folks like to call it. As much as my father is a progressive and forward-thinking man, our recent, later-in-life talks about relationships and family have convinced me that he’d prefer that I marry a desi man—shared culture and all that (?).

And that’s honestly something I struggle with in my head…so much to the point that I’d rather not risk joining the dating game in case I fall for someone who’s not of my ethnicity…there’s no risk in not trying, right?

There’s also the fear and possible reality that I may not find someone who checks off on shared values, interests, and goals in life. He can be desi, but what’s the point if we have nothing in common at all?

And on top of that, what if…

✖️ I don’t ever feel the urge to have kids? I don’t feel like my biological clock is ticking (it’s more like I’m tapping the mic🎤 going, “Is this thing on?“). Perhaps not having a period for almost 6 years when I was in my late teens/early 20s due to an eating disorder created turbulence in my lady hormone profile (who knows?), but when I see a human baby, I’ll admit they’re cute, but my heart does infinite cartwheels and backflips when I see a doggo or a cat.

Only animals 🐕 have the power to make me smile my brightest 😄☀️

My heart yearns for an animal companion, or twenty, haha! I’d rather have a sanctuary of dogs, cats, pigs, cows, racoons, possums, capybaras, etc. than plan for a pregnancy and a baby 😮, if I’m being honest…

Maybe this will change as I get older, as I nestle into my 30s, but my personal experiences and life journey have made me develop a different mindset at this point. The thing is, I don’t know if that will change, and why should it have to 🤷?

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As much as I’ve tried to conform to what I thought was the ‘ideal’ path of becoming a desi woman, I realized that I would never be able to achieve this. As a young girl, I used to think that purposefully being quiet, saying that math was my favorite subject when it wasn’t, and not daring to even look at a boy was my way of signaling to the world that I was a good desi girl.

But fortunately, I woke up. In my mid-twenties, my tumultuous experiences in grad school, eating disorder recovery, and new, burgeoning crushes on ~~men~~ (emotionally immature) boys pushed me to change my perspective on things that I used to be stalwart about.

I’m a woman who’s not afraid to look up and dream big ❤️

It hit me when I was spending long days and nights in the lab, and my emotions were raw and I felt the loneliest I ever remember feeling. Why should I try to be something I’m not, especially for people who aren’t even supporting me at my lowest point in life?

Slowly, I began to learn about self-acceptance, and owning my true self. My path has been different and will continue to be different, and I’ve realized that, even if it seems hard and could be difficult at times to convince those closest to me that my decisions are sound and right for me, I need to do what is best for me no matter what.

And so this is where I currently stand: I am not getting married any time soon. And if I do, it’ll be based on shared interests, morals, and goals in life, not necessarily anything else…

I want a home full of animals to care for and love. I yearn for that more than having kids on my own. This might not be the “normal” goal for many, but it’s mine and one that I truly want to achieve.

I’ve worked so hard for a PhD, so you bet I’d want to continue growing in my career. If that means traveling around the world and not settling in one place permanently, then maybe that’s what I’ll do. Mr. Right, if he exists, won’t mind the nomadic journey either 😉.

If you’re a SGD struggling with your path, the best thing you can do for yourself is give your heart full rein.

What are your truest passions and dreams? If no one was around you to judge or say “no”, what would you do in a heart beat?

That Lab Life

The Body by Bill Bryson

The Path of a (Second Gen) Desi