Article by Eun Ji Chung, Ph.D.

I met Christine McCary during graduate school. Although our research circles had never overlapped, we both applied to and were accepted to the Management for Scientists and Engineers summer program held by the Graduate School and Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University. In sum, this certificate program aimed to “equip promising doctoral students with the necessary business and leadership skills,” in order to address the gap between the challenges faced when managing and leading teams associated with the commercialization of research and the extremely focused doctoral experience. Attendants of the program can be generalized as open-minded, acutely interested in the application of science, well-versed, and on a personal note, up for a challenge. Christine epitomizes these traits.

Christine McCary, Ph.D., received a Bachelor of Science in Cellular/Molecular Biology from the University of Maryland. During college, she was pre-med and was determined to be a part of science through medicine. While preparing to take the MCATs, Christine had an epiphany. She knew she would love the academic and intellectual experience of medical school, but the unforgiving working hours of a physician would not grant the time she wanted to devote to her family and friends. She decided then that her value system and priorities would be the ultimate arbitrator of her career choices. After this time of introspection, Christine decided that she would need to choose a career in which her curiosity for learning, her passion to mentor and teach, and her desire for work-life balance would be satisfied.

Christine attended Northwestern for graduate school where she looked forward to “taking the academic challenge and overdosing on science.” Her thesis aimed to investigate the effect of Vitamin E on the migration of leukocytes within the lung. Christine enjoyed exploring unchartered territory through novel research, but she also started to investigate post-doctorate options beyond the traditional academic track; while she loved benchwork and teaching, these parts of the job were often minimized by the grants-driven reality of the profession. After graduate school, Christine did a postdoc at the University of Chicago’s Office of Biosafety before joining the Career Advancement team as an Assistant Director for Graduate Services (https://careeradvancement.uchicago.edu/). Specifically in her current position, Christine works with students and postdocs from the Biological and Physical Sciences Divisions, helping them make informative choices on their career paths through various seminars, CV/application review, and one-on-one sessions. The focus is equally split for the academic track and the nonacademic track. The mission she says is to “help you do what you want to do.”

Article by Eun Ji Chung, Ph.D.

In March, we introduced Dr. Chinonye (Chi-Chi) Nnakwe who is the Director of Graduate Diversity Recruitment at the University of Chicago (https://www.awis-chicago.org/community/march-2012-scientist-of-the-month-chinonye-chi-chi-nnakwe). We wanted to follow-up with her and this newly-created position that aims to increase the population of traditionally underrepresented groups in the graduate population.

After we do quick introductions, Chi-Chi is on the white board and gets right to the point. She explains that name recognition of the University of Chicago among academic circles of underrepresented minorities needs to be improved. Often times, only students that have undergraduate faculty mentors and advisors are presented with the U of C as a top choice and are provided the encouragement to apply. In addition, while careers such as doctors and lawyers are prevalent enough where there is a general understanding of their roles and contributions to society, explaining what someone does with a Ph.D. degree is not as obvious. Therefore, Chi-Chi’s main objectives are to make the Ph.D. degree tangible to students as early as high school and to increase name recognition, recruitment, and retention.

Chi-Chi lists out 5 initiatives that she has been implemented to achieve these goals:

1. UC Weekend (March): This event was started in 2012 and includes the entire campus with activities such as Scientific Diversity Symposium, alumni/career panels, and faculty presentations in order to welcome prospective minority students. Mark your calendars:  This year’s event is April 4-6, 2013.
2. School Visits (year round): Chi-Chi’s travel schedule includes college and high school visits as well as conferences to attract students to the U of C. Chi-Chi also follows-up with students that want to experience it for themselves through the campus visitation program, continuing the conversation and relationship started through her initial visit. In addition to campus tours, prospective students are introduced to graduate students from their relative departments.
3. Student Advisory Board: This is a new initiative that includes a board of current students who will partner with Chi-Chi to speak to issues of recruitment and retention.
4. Pipeline Programs:  Chi-Chi collaborates with the directors of pipeline programs to provide students with a more intimate experience than campus visitations through internships that may serve as a pipeline to attract prospective students to UChicago.  Social media avenues such as Facebook and Linkedin have been implemented to continue to foster these relationships.
5. Evaluations: Chi-Chi takes part in evaluating various past programs, like UC Weekend, to gain strategic insight for grants development and future recruitment initiatives.

While Chi-Chi’s research experience as a graduate student and her time as a consultant provided great technical and managerial experience, Chi-Chi recognizes her interaction with students and the ability to mentor in her role as the Director of Graduate Recruitment Diversity to be incredibly rewarding. She also recognizes the great enthusiasm and the support from faculty, administrators and students from all parts of campus.

Article by Agnella Izzo Matic

“It’s naïve to think science could be a neutral topic.”  That is the headline promoting ETOPiA’s most recent theater production, “The How and The Why,” which examines conflicting theories about female evolutionary biology from the perspectives of a female professor and a female graduate student.  Dr. Matthew Grayson founded ETOPiA (Engineering Transdiciplinary Outreach Project in the Arts) at Northwestern University in 2008 and has produced, and sometimes starred in, the autumn productions.  For Grayson, the ETOPiA plays serve to start a conversation about the purpose and relevance of science in our lives.  Previous plays have delved into the life of Marie Curie, human cloning, and the atomic bomb during WW II.

When he is not on stage, Dr. Matthew Grayson can be found in his role as Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Northwestern University.  After receiving his PhD from

Princeton University, he followed with a post-doctoral fellowship at the Technical University of Munich.  Dr. Grayson has been awarded a CAREER fellowship from the NSF and is also a Humboldt fellow.

Currently, his research group studies the electronic properties of materials and engineers them to have a novel function.  One major area that they focus on is thermoelectrics, where waste heat can be converted into electricity or, alternatively, electricity can generate a temperature differential (refrigerate or heat).  For instance, rub your hands together.  Grayson plans to turn that small amount of heat generated in your hands into a kilovolt (that’s 1,000 Volts) of electricity using his thermoelectrical materials.  Among other things, this might be useful to generate low-intensity X-rays, which need very large voltages to accelerate the electrons but don’t require a lot of current.

To see this research in action is to better understand it.  The semiconductor-based electronics being tested are so fine that they need to be viewed under a microscope for the proper connections to be soldered.  For testing, these electronics are placed in a super-cooled magnet, which has been mounted in the floor of one lab and extends downward into Grayson’s second laboratory one floor below.  From the top, the magnet appears like a Medusa of wires, hoses, and connections protruding in all directions.

It is not often that you encounter individuals who combine such unique interests: theater and electrical engineering.  Dr. Grayson credits his involvement in theater with a positive influence on his teaching, both in the classroom and in seminars.  He has received two teaching awards while at Northwestern University and warm reception for his conference lectures.  Students are at ease talking with him during office hours and he keeps an encouraging eye out for talented young minds.

To him, one of the most important roles he fills as a mentor is making sure that people, especially female students, are aware of opportunities that they might have otherwise missed.  For instance, Grayson and his lab members invite middle and high school girls from the Chicago area into their lab every spring as part of the Society of Women Engineer’s Career Day for Girls.  His first two PhD students were women and he has mentored 3 other female undergraduate students in the last 2 years.  In addition, he perceives the ETOPiA plays as an unconventional experience that can ignite an interest in science for a younger generation that comes from multiple perspectives, ethnicities, and genders.

As with most other academic researchers, Dr. Grayson sees challenges ahead in publishing the next manuscript, getting the next grant, and graduating the next student.  However, he views these as part of the reason he chose this profession, because he enjoys taking on those challenges.   Grayson says, “In the end, you have to know your field and you have to know yourself.  When you think something is interesting, you have to be confident enough that, when no one else even understands why you’re doing that, you “That’s ok, I’m sure it will become clear eventually”.”

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Dr. Grayson was nominated for the 2012 AWIS-Chicago Motivator Award by Ms. Sunanda Prabhu-Gaunkar, a PhD candidate in Grayson’s laboratory.

Article by Marina Pazin

For the past year, I have been fortunate enough to be working as a regulatory writer at Randstad Pharma. Regulatory writers support the progress of drug development to the market by drafting appropriate, highly-technical documents to be submitted to drug-regulating agencies, such as the FDA, and to the countries in which the clinical trials in humans and/or marketing approval is sought.  I enjoy my job and enjoy daily interaction with my colleagues. On a daily basis, I am surrounded by warm and very intelligent females with whom I frequently talk about not just work-specific issues, but of issues affecting women in the workforce. Dr. Angela Kwiatek, PhD is one of my colleagues who is not only great at what she does but is very optimistic. I recently took some time to learn more about how she reached this chapter in her professional life.

Angela has long been interested in science. “As a child, I was always asking “Why?”. My mother encouraged my curiosity by taking me to the library whenever she didn’t have the answer. Therefore, it was an easy decision to pick one of the majors that tackle the world’s mysteries.” As such, between 1997 and 2001, Angela went through a rigorous undergraduate training leading to a degree in biochemistry from Bradley University in Peoria, IL. Fueled by motivation and a strong desire to better herself, Angela’s quest for education did not stop with her B.S. degree. Instead, she immediately enrolled in the Department of Pharmacology of University of Illinois as a graduate student.   Angela explained her thesis project in a net shell: “Thrombin is a pro-inflammatory mediator that increases vascular permeability in endothelial cells by activating store-operated calcium entry (SOCE). SOCE is activated by thrombin stimulation of cell surface protease-activated receptor-1, which causes a rapid and transient increase in intracellular calcium due to the release of calcium stored in the endoplasmic reticulum. Subsequently, calcium enters through a plasma membrane cation channel called transient receptor potential channel 1 (TRPC1). TRPC1 is localized within cholesterol-rich invaginations of the cell membrane known as caveolae that are coated with a 22 kDa protein, caveolin-1 (Cav-1). The Cav-1 scaffolding domain binds many signaling molecules and regulates their function. My studies showed that Cav-1 regulates SOCE and the resulting changes in endothelial permeability by binding TRPC1’s C-terminus with its scaffolding domain.”  Ultimately, her hard work paid off as she received doctoral recognition in 2006. Already a co-author of several peer-author papers and conference abstracts, Angela still persisted on, completing two rounds of post-doctoral training at Northwestern University, studying proteins involved in pathogenesis of angiogenesis in cancer in the lab of Dr. Olga Volpert   and cardiac hypertrophy/heart failure under the guidance of Drs. Rishi Arora and Gary Aistrup.  All throughout, she enjoyed progressing in her career as a scientist while having the freedom to choose and to direct the research projects with which she was involved.

While in school, Angela discovered another passion: writing. “All through school, I always got A’s in English with minimal effort. Writing comes naturally to me. I was shocked to discover how little good writing is regarded in research. After my second post-doctoral position, I decided I wanted to switch career paths and go into Medical Writing, a career that combines my love of writing with my love of science.” Angela enrolled in additional coursework at the University of Philadelphia, receiving certificates in Regulatory Writing and Marketing Writing to reach her ultimate career goal.  Now, as a regulatory writer at Randstad Pharma, Angela does what she loves to do. “I enjoy writing documents for drugs that are about to be approved and marketed to the public. It’s exciting to know that the documents you are writing will help bring a drug that many people need to the market.”

Always an optimist, Angela offered a simple explanation when asked about why she continued to push herself so much: “Learning never ends.”

by Elizabeth Sefton

Trust your data. Laura Marie Letellier learned this critical lesson early as a young engineer for the Navy and it has influenced her entire career.

Laura has been able to make significant contributions to engineering with the U.S. Navy and with Baxter by trusting her data. Although, she initially wanted to go to law school, she began her path to engineering before college while working for her family’s steel fabricating business. Her work with the family business enabled her to earn a scholarship through the U.S. Navy to attend Purdue University and earn a degree in Aeronautical Engineering. While in college, Laura realized that she had a gift to see the world differently and provide unique solutions, and this cemented her desire to be an engineer.

After college, Laura entered the Navy as an active duty officer and engineer. During her first assignment, she was fortunate to work with Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, the “Father of the Nuclear Navy” and inventor of nuclear power, nuclear, submarines, and designer of the first civilian nuclear power plant. From his guidance, Laura learned the power of trusting her data and scientific tools. She says, “Admiral Rickover believed that there was no problem that we could not solve using science and engineering.” He also believed that “no matter the situation there was always 30 seconds to think about your decisions and try to do no harm with your actions”. Admiral Rickover’s lessons instilled a powerful sense of confidence in Laura and the mantra that problems can indeed be solved no matter how challenging. Following her work with nuclear power and designing nuclear ships, Laura switched to the Naval Reserve and also held a civilian engineering job. Although, her Naval Reserve work was not continuous she was able to become Executive Officer of an amphibious warfare unit. While Executive Officer, she designed and maintained the watercraft that transported marines from the main ship to shore for amphibious operations. Amphibious warfare challenged Laura differently because she had to make immediate decisions in the field. While Laura enjoyed the intellectual challenges of being an engineer for the Navy, even non-continuous Naval Reserve assignments did not mesh well with her family life; and she asked to be reassigned to a non-deploying desk job. Laura says that getting the reassignment so that her family could benefit was “extremely difficult”. Despite the challenges she encountered designing nuclear powered ships and operating amphibious warfare craft, she says that balancing work and family was her hardest assignment.

Laura claims that her largest professional achievements were the contributions she made as an engineer at Baxter. She says her switch from a military centered profession to an area that is designed to sustain life was a conscious decision. She remembers walking through a warehouse filled with components for nuclear weapons and thinking, “this is not what I went to school to do.” Indeed, at Baxter, she became a Product Design Owner and Lead Systems Designer for infusion pumps for intravenous medication, thus helping to better countless lives. She states that her technology is “responsible for about 30 million infusions each year”. Her team also developed the technology for the first FDA-approved remote sensing in medical infusion systems. The technology was aimed at helping to alleviate the understaffing of hospital floors by delivering infusions remotely and detecting medication errors. Laura also helped write the claims for nine published patent applications relating to that system for which she is a co-inventor. Laura states, “This was the work that woke me up at 2 and 3 am because of the amount of harm that could come to millions” if she made a mistake. However, the lessons that Admiral Rickover taught her enabled Laura to trust her data and create extraordinary products. This remarkable trust in her data and understanding of science enables Laura to brand herself as a scientist engineer. According to Laura, “There is nothing more gratifying than seeing something that came out of your head translated into a usable product that helps people.”

During Laura’s time at Baxter, she mentored a junior engineer named Megan Bosley through Baxter’s mentoring program. Although, Laura was ostensibly Megan’s mentor, Laura says that both women learned from each other. Laura passed along her confidence for her data to Ms. Bosley while Ms. Bosley, a biomedical engineer by training, taught Laura Organic Chemistry, and how to be comfortable using the metric system. Laura says that it feels wonderful to see Megan have the confidence to solve problems and be formally recognized by Baxter with professional promotions. Ms. Bosley has been so positively impacted by Laura that she nominated Laura for the AWIS Innovator of the Year of the Chicago chapter.

Laura retired from Baxter this year but plans to continue her collaboration with Ms. Bosley and Baxter through a contract position developing nanotechnology. Along with her planned contract position Laura is a partner with another family member in a court reporting business, Lake-Cook Reporting Ltd. Laura is responsible for organizing the technical aspects of the business, such as video conferencing and recording.

Thinking back, Laura is extremely happy that she decided to be an engineer. She firmly believes that her ability to see solutions is a gift and that her abilities serve the greater good. Her advice for young women is that “science and engineering are for you” and that women should not be receptive to the “subtle messages that science and engineering are only for men”. In my short conservation with Laura, was just as interested in my research as I was in learning about her life. She and I agreed to keep in touch and she requested to write the Scientist of the Month article about me when my time comes.

Nomination by AWIS member Megan Bosley and article written by AWIS Chicago Staff Writer Beth Sefton.  Ms. Sefton is a PhD candidate at Northwestern University.

Know a scientist you think should be featured in an upcoming “Scientist of the Month” article?  Send nominations to communications@awis-chicago.org. Your nominee does not need to be an AWIS member or a woman, but should promote the advancement of women in science, technology, mathematics and engineering.

Want to keep yourself up-to-date on AWIS Chicago activities? You can request to be added to our listserve by clicking here, and join the AWIS Chicago group on LinkedIn and Facebook by clicking the icons on the bottom right of this page.

by Joanna Rowell

If you ask any scientist why they chose to pursue research as a career, they will often point to an inspirational mentor or teacher. It could be a high school biology teacher showing a student how to dissect a worm, or an undergraduate professor demonstrating how our ancient hominid ancestors made stone tools out of flint. These crucial moments can generate in us a sense of wonder about how our world works, which can provide the foundation for a successful career in science.

Perhaps the very best teachers are able to change our perception of what we think we are capable of doing with our lives. Ami LeFevre, a high school biology and chemistry teacher at Niles West High School in Skokie, Illinois and recipient of the 2012 AWIS Chicago Motivator Award, is one such teacher. Although she started out studying marine biology, and then had aspirations to become a medical doctor, she said that, “eventually I found my way into education.” This turned into a lasting and fulfilling career as a science educator.

LeFevre loves teaching high school students. One challenge she faces as a teacher is to get students to think critically, and, in her words, “to understand that it’s not just about straight memorization, but what you do with that information.” LeFevre also enjoys that she is always learning new things as a science teacher. Part of her job is “keeping up to date with the science and bringing that information to the kids,” which is a part of teaching she finds very intellectually challenging. One of her favorite aspects of her job, however, is helping her students figure out what they want to do after high school, and exposing them to the world of science beyond the classroom.

To do this, LeFevre organizes several career development programs, such as the Girls Empowered by Math and Science (GEMS) conference. This program brings together women from various points in their scientific education, including girls in grades 4 through 6, high school students, university students, and women with established careers in science. Past sessions have included a Motorola engineer who guided the girls in the dissection of old cell phones, and an anthropology major from Indiana University who discussed her research on non-human primates. One of LeFevre’s colleagues, Margaret Donnelly, mentioned that at the GEMS conference “the energy and enthusiasm was contagious.” She went on to state that her daughter “began to see how exciting and fun science can be.”

LeFevre is also the main faculty sponsor of the Niles West Chemistry Club. This club allows students to have fun with science by, for example, making ice cream with liquid nitrogen. LeFevre also provides her students with opportunities for science outreach. For example, this year they performed a forensic chemistry demonstration for the younger students at Edison Elementary School. “If you see their faces, you see just how much fun they’ve had,” LeFevre said. “They feel like they’ve done something really special for the younger kids.” The students also reach out to the international community, organizing relief efforts after the earthquake in Haiti and tsunami in Japan. They also shadowed graduate research assistants at Chicago universities such as Loyola and Columbia, and attended the Argonne National Laboratory Women in Science Day.

During our interview, LeFevre told me a striking story that really emphasized the importance of programs such as GEMS. After having performed a chemistry demonstration at her son’s elementary school, LeFevre ran into the mother of a girl in the second grade. This woman told LeFevre that after the chemistry demonstration her daughter said that she “didn’t know that women could be scientists.” The mother thanked LeFevre for changing her daughter’s perception of what women are capable of doing with their lives.

LeFevre is very much aware of these gender stereotypes. “It’s amazing to me that a lot of the girls still believe that boys are better at math than they are,” she said. “Even though they’re great at math, often times they don’t have that self confidence.” By showing girls that women can excel at math and science through programs like GEMS, LeFevre is making a big difference their lives. These programs show conclusively that women can excel at science and that science matters. LeFevre is a true motivator, and we could not be more thrilled that she is this year’s recipient of the AWIS Chicago Motivator Award.

by Joanna Rowell

Counting our Blessings: How Language Shapes Mathematical Thought

“There are three types of people – those who can count, and those who can’t.”

We take so much for granted. Human behaviors such as walking down the street, eating an apple, speaking our native language, or counting to ten seem so simple and easy. When you delve deeper, however, it becomes evident that these actions are actually incredibly complex. Take, for example, walking. As we walk we have many muscles in our legs moving synchronously. Those muscles are controlled by motoneurons in our spinal cord, which in turn are regulated by complicated networks of neurons in brain regions such as the cerebral cortex and cerebellum. Meanwhile, we are monitoring our environment with our eyes, and that visual information is processed and integrated to prevent us from tripping over rocks or other such impediments. Not to mention the fact that our legs were patterned during embryological development, and evolved over geologic time. When you really think about it, it’s amazing that we can walk at all.

Studying what we take for granted, such as walking or counting, can teach us a lot about the world and about ourselves. For instance, counting feels so straightforward that it seems safe to assume that every human being can count. But how valid is this assumption? Is the ability to count genetically encoded in our brains, or is it a learned behavior that relies on linguistic or cultural input? Dr. Liesje Spaepen, a post-doctoral fellow who works with University of Chicago psychology professor Dr. Susan Goldin-Meadow, is currently studying how language shapes the way we think about numbers and mathematics. For example, she is asking whether it is possible to understand the concept of exactly seven without a word or linguistic symbol for ‘seven.’

These fundamental psychological questions cannot be studied in a laboratory setting using animal models. Instead, Spaepen looks to a remarkable population of humans known as ‘homesigners.’ These are people that were born deaf but never had the opportunity to learn a sign language, often for economic or geographical reasons. As a result, they are among the only humans on the planet who do not receive conventional language input. To communicate with family and community members, each individual homesigner develops his own gesture system, which are collectively called ‘home’ or ‘kitchen’ signs. Although home signs are not a conventional language, they allow homesigners to live remarkably normal lives within their communities. “They do have some ways of getting around in the world, communicating with the world, and picking up the cultural milieu,” Spaepen explained, “but what they aren’t given is a conventionalized way of communicating.” Spaepen’s studies address whether these cognitively normal adults, who are exposed to every aspect of human culture except language, have developed a way of conceptualizing exact numbers.

To address this question, Spaepen works with adult homesigners living in Nicaragua. With them, she performs simple but incredibly informative exercises. For example, she places a specific number of poker chips on a table, covers the chips, and asks the homesigner to match exactly that number of chips. In another experiment, she knocks fists with the homesigner, and asks them to knock her first an equal number of times. Amazingly, the homesigners were only able to complete these tasks successfully when presented with one, two, or three poker chips or fist-knocks, and for numbers greater than three they were only approximately correct. For example, if Spaepen knocked their fist eight times, they might knock her fist seven or nine times. “It’s because he has no way of counting,” explained Spaepen. “He doesn’t have a way of clarifying how seven is somehow different from eight.” This fascinating result suggests that we need language to understand the concept of exact numbers beyond three.

This raises some intriguing questions. First, how do homesigners get by in this world, holding down jobs, using money, and even gambling, without being able to count beyond three? Spaepen explained that although understanding exact numbers is critical for learning mathematics, in our day-to-day lives we approximate most of the time. Homesigners even have a reasonable grasp of money, which inherently is a number-based system. According to Spaepen’s research, homesigners are able to use money in part because Nicaraguan denominations are different in terms of color and size, and homesigners learn that, for example, “the orange one gets me more stuff than the red one.” Homesigners are also supported by their families and communities, and Spaepen mentioned that it was unlikely they would be cheated because, “the people they’re buying goods from know their whole family.”  Nevertheless, the resourcefulness of the homesigners is remarkable, and Spaepen stated that, “I stand in awe of what they are able to do all the time.”

Another question brought up by Spaepen’s work involves how these findings relate to how children learn to count during normal human development. It turns out that children learn counting very gradually, first learning to recite the count list by rote, and then very slowly learning what each number actually means. “They learn what the word ‘one’ means,” Spaepen explained, “and six to nine months later they learn what the word ‘two’ means.” The last thing they learn is why the numbers are in order, which is known as the ‘successor function.’ The successor function basically means that for every number n there is an n + 1, and implies that counting goes on forever. Learning the successor function requires the most language input for children, and Spaepen has found that is this aspect of counting that the homesigners never learn.

To better understand how language shapes our understanding of mathematics during childhood development, Spaepen has recently started working with Chicago preschool children from homes of varying socio-economic status (SES). Children from high SES homes generally hear a lot about numbers from their educated parents, as they are often asked to, for example, count the number of cheerios in their afternoon snack. Low SES children, conversely, get less counting input from their parents, and this can result in their being two years behind the high SES children in terms of counting by the time they are four or five years old. Spaepen’s preliminary studies suggest that the low SES children develop non-counting compensation strategies, such as using one-to-one correspondence between fingers and objects in the world, that are similar to those used by the homesigners. This demonstrates that there are common strategies used by those with less or no language input when thinking about numbers.

Spaepen’s studies highlight both the amazing resourcefulness of the human mind and the injustice of our world. It is troubling that there are people on our planet who do not have access to language, and it is hard to imagine the feelings of isolation they may experience. “I definitely don’t think it’s OK that the homesigners are stuck in this situation,” Spaepen emphasized. “Learning language is a human right.” Similarly, it seems wrong that some children in Chicago are disadvantaged to the point that they get substantially behind in learning how to count. Overall, despite how easy it might feel for many to count, after speaking with Spaepen it now seems foolish to take counting for granted. In fact, the ability to understand a concept like the number seven is a gift not given out equally to people in our world, and we should perhaps count it a blessing.

Profile and nomination by Joanna Rowell.

by Heather M King

When you visit Chi-Chi at the 5710 Building on the University of Chicago Campus, you follow a winding sidewalk, and see a variety of terra cotta pots containing plants in various stages of growth. You enter the recently renovated building, and see a peaceful space full of plush, grass-green chairs and blonde wooden tables, laid out and ready for students to use. Overall, it is a relaxing and pleasant space, perfect for Chi-Chi to thrive in the newly-created position of Director of Graduate Diversity Recruitment at the University of Chicago, a position intended to increase the population of traditionally underrepresented groups in the graduate population.

Though Chi-Chi now works in higher education administration, she earned a PhD in pathology from the University of Chicago in 2009. Though biology became her passion, it wasn’t always her focus. In high school, she had many interests and abilities, and at one point wanted to be a choreographer. It wasn’t until college, when she took a human physiology course and realized that biology could satisfy both her thirst for knowledge and her desire to help others that she committed to biochemistry as an undergraduate major at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne (UIUC). Chi-Chi described her path, “Science was like a drug to me. First you get learn about cool stuff, then you get to play with cool equipment, and then you’re addicted!”

Through research opportunities as an undergraduate, Chi-Chi realized that lab work provided the intellectual freedom she craved, and through work in several human-disease centered labs, such as Christian Raetz’s lab at Duke University and Paul Worley’s lab at Johns Hopkins, she also realized her vision of attaining a career that would help make peoples’ lives better.

This desire to help heal people led Chi-Chi to a graduate career in Stephen Kron’s lab at University of Chicago, where she studied cell cycle checkpoints and DNA damage signaling cascades within the context of epigenetic regulation in baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This research had applications to cancer biology. As time went on, however, she felt a disconnect between the research she was doing and a sense of helping people within the greater community. During her time at University of Chicago, she explored career options that would allow her to impact the community on a larger scale. “Sometimes people think that when you leave the bench, it’s because you don’t like science – that’s not true. It’s about finding the right path for you,” she said.

After earning her PhD in 2009, Chi-Chi tried her hand at consulting, but soon found herself back at the University of Chicago. Through a conversation with the Deputy Provost of Research and Minority Issues, Bill McDade, she learned of a newly created position: the Director of Graduate Diversity Recruitment.

“As an African-American woman in science, I am acutely aware of how few of me there are,” Chi-Chi says, and she hopes to change the landscape of graduate education at the University of Chicago to make this imbalance disappear. “My job is to work myself out of a job,” she jokes, meaning that when she accomplishes her vision of establishing a sustainable recruitment strategy and consistent infrastructure for identifying and recruiting talented minority students, her goal will be achieved. “I want to get more stellar minority students into our applicant pools and help them identify the University of Chicago as a great fit.”

We wish Chi-Chi luck in her new position, and look forward to watching the changing landscape of higher education in science.

by Eun Ji Chung, Ph.D.

Tracy Gluckman has been a Clinical Veterinarian and Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology at Northwestern University since 2008. In high school, Tracy knew she was interested in science and took seminar-based courses in science for 2-3 years in which the goal was to develop scientific thinking and present scientific posters at local or state level competitions. Although she found studying science interesting, she had always gravitated more towards animals. She frequently visited the zoo, loved watching nature specials, and often read National Geographic articles on animals; however, Tracy had never considered pursuing this passion as a profession, nor that her interests in science and animals could merge as a veterinarian.

When considering colleges, Tracy decided to pursue a major in marine biology, and chose to attend Occidental College, a liberal arts college in Southern California with a strong departmental program. She took courses such as oceanography and ichthyology (study of fish), and conducted field work throughout college. In particular, she recalls her time on the college-owned marine research vessel, the R/V Vantuna, to be particularly fulfilling. The courses taken on this vessel were designed to utilize the  live research laboratory was onboard. Students were able to participate in a “hands-on” study of marine biology and oceanology through water sampling and marine biota collections. Tracy was actively involved as a student in the marine biology courses but was also employed as a student instructor for visiting grade school, high school, and undergraduate students.

Although Tracy loved teaching others about marine biology, by her junior year she realized that a career in marine biology may not be the path for her. By examing what had drawn her to study marine biology, Tracy realized that her passion was for working with animals. Since Occidental did not have a pre-veterinary track, she completed all the pre-med courses as a biology major and started actively volunteering in veterinary clinics and at the Los Angeles Zoo with the veterinary staff. In order to gain more animal experience, after college, Tracy worked as a laboratory technician in an independent research group in Pasadena, CA and studied cardiac ischemia in a rabbit model. This was Tracy’s first interaction with mammals and she considers this experience as influential in her career path as she was able to work closely with the veterinary consultant. This consulting veterinarian was also the attending veterinarian at The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and made Tracy aware of the role of veterinarians in providing care for research animals. Tracy decided to explore this path by taking courses in animal handling and care offered at Caltech. She soon realized this was an amazing opportunity to merge her passion for animals and her interest in science, while also serving as an advocate for animal welfare and an educator to researchers who had little experience with animals. Tracy recalls how valuable the mentorship of this veterinarian was to her.

Tracy received a Master’s degree in Veterinary Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before starting veterinary school at the UW-Madison, School of Veterinary Medicine. She finished her internship in Small Animal Medicine and Surgery at Kansas State University, College of Veterinarian Medicine before heading to The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine for a residency program in Laboratory Animal Medicine. After completing the board certification examination in Laboratory Animal Medicine, Tracy relocated to Chicago to accept her first position as a clinical veterinarian at Northwestern University

“Every day is different and there are a lot of opportunities to teach, learn, and provide the highest quality of care for our animals,”  Tracy says when explaining why her career fits her so perfectly. She also emphasizes that utilizing her knowledge in comparative anatomy and physiology in order to help researchers work efficiently and effectively to answer their scientific questions, while minimizing animal use and promoting strong animal welfare is extremely rewarding and are the reasons why she gravitated towards laboratory animal medicine over private practice. In addition to preparing researchers to work with animal models of human disease or disabilities, Tracy also provides the most recent advances in anesthesia, analgesia, surgical techniques, and medical care for those animals. Another important aspect of Tracy’s position is the review of study protocols that are required for investigators  proposing to work with animals. “Most people don’t realize the intense scrutiny study protocols go under when researchers propose to work with animals.” All protocols are carefully reviewed by a committee composed of veterinarians, scientists, and even members of the Chicago community to ensure that procedures are performed properly, animal health is being closely monitored, and federal regulations of animal care are being followed. As a veterinarian, Tracy works closely with researchers to help write the study protocols to ensure the the researchers maintain the health and welfare of the animals  and properly work with the animals under their care.

Tracy feels that there are occasionally challenges working with animals in a research environment, but understands that valuable knowledge has been and continues to be gained from such work.   She believes that researchers that work with animals, herself included, should always be aware of the privilege they are afforded by conducting such work.. Tracy realizes that her passion to provide the optimal care and oversight for animals in the research environment and being able to provide a bridge between scientific research and animal health and welfare makes her job meaningful and constantly fulfilling.

Despite her dedication to her career as a veterinarian, Tracy also appreciates and strives for a good work-life balance. She admits that while pursuing her education, she didn’t recognize what her hobbies actually were because her time was mostly spent either in classes or studying in the library. Now out of school, she has a dog, strong personal relationships, and has finally discovered some hobbies, such as rock climbing, wheel throwing, yoga, and knitting. She emphasizes the importance of making time for herself and separating her work from her personal life. Tracy is looking forward to having a family, now that her formal educational training is completed.

From her experience, Tracy sees no gender-specific limitations in the veterinarian field, and has seen a rise in women veterinarians in the current generations. She continues to see herself in clinical care for animals while educating scientists, and hopes to be involved in creating a veterinarian residency program in Laboratory Animal Medicine at Northwestern University, training the next generation of laboratory animal veterinarians.

I’ve known Tracy since 2008 and have continued to work with her for various research projects. Tracy always expected excellence, preparation, thoughtfulness, and integrity when working with animals, and my research, as well as I, have benefited from it. She was also opened to mentoring and working with an undergraduate student I TA’ed who also wanted to find out more about clinical veterinary science. I have witnessed firsthand her passions to advocate for animal welfare and to educate scientists, the fruits of a dedicated clinical veterinarian.

Article and nomination by Eunji Chung-Yoo

Know a scientist you think should be featured in an upcoming “Scientist of the Month” article?  Send nominations to communications@awis-chicago.org. Your nominee does not need to be an AWIS member or a woman, but should promote the advancement of women in science, technology, mathematics and engineering.