by Emma Vander Ende

If you pause and consider your surroundings, you will find that a type of molecule, called a polymer, surrounds you. Polymers are large molecules that are made up of smaller molecules, called monomers. Monomers link together to form a polymer much in the same way that a necklace is made up of beads (discrete, repeating units).

While polymers occur in nature, ranging from natural rubber and silk, to even our DNA, chemists have also synthesized a multitude of synthetic polymers. These include plastics, which pervade our modern world. Polymers are a fascinating class of molecule in part because they offer the potential for a high degree of variety to form functional materials. Chemists can tailor the monomer chemistry to create polymers that have exciting futuristic functions, from conductive molecular wires to “self-healing” polymers that make durable materials.

One such chemist studying polymer chemistry is the most recent hire in the Chemistry Department at Northwestern University: Assistant Professor Julia Kalow. Her research focuses on studying how information about polymer reactivity can be used to tailor the properties of polymers and other soft materials. Research areas that currently interest her include new ways to make conjugated polymers. These polymers contain extended electron networks, and Kalow is interested in how they interact with light inside a magnetic field. She also makes polymers for biomaterials applications – namely, artificial mimics of the extracellular matrix and sophisticated 3D cell culture materials. These materials, she hopes, will help to address complex cell biology problems by advancing biologists’ capabilities to study cells.

Her interest in pursuing an academic career began between her junior and senior years of college at Columbia University, where she started undergraduate research in the Leighton Group after her freshman year. She took a medicinal chemistry internship with Merck Research Laboratories, where her supervisor placed her on a project resembling those in academia. She decided to pursue a PhD in chemistry and the intellectual freedom that academia affords so that she could lead her own projects and follow her own ideas.

As a new assistant professor, she is in the process of establishing her lab and recruiting PhD students to advise and mentor in research. Mentoring students ranks high in Kalow’s list of priorities. She herself earned her PhD (as an NSF GRFP fellow studying asymmetric catalysis) from an assistant professor, Professor Abigail Doyle at Princeton University, and treasures that experience. She and Doyle had a close mentoring relationship, and would frequently talk through her data and results, but Kalow also felt that she had ownership over her research. Towards the end of her PhD, her adviser encouraged her to independently pursue a mechanistic study. “When everything came together on that project, it was very rewarding,” Kalow said of the experience.

Following her PhD, she became a Ruth L. Kirschstein Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT, researching different kinds of polymers with Professor Timothy Swager. She chose the Swager Group in part because of Swager’s success with startup companies. Her experiences researching and collaborating in the challenging intellectual environment of MIT further inspired her to become a professor herself.

Looking to the future, Kalow hopes first to establish her new students in their research and develop reactions and new materials that might change the way that the synthetic polymer community thinks about chemical reactivity. She hopes to form collaborations with other professors at Northwestern, a highly interdisciplinary research institution, to identify particularly useful applications for which her new polymers could fill a need. She is also interested in the possibility of starting a company someday, noting that Northwestern is a great place for innovations and forming startups.

by Brittany M. Wilson

“Perseverance is something that pays back,” Dr. Anna Spagnoli told me a little after noon on a Monday in Chicago. Dr. Spagnoli currently holds the positions of Professor of Pediatrics and Women’s Board Chair of Pediatrics at Rush Children’s Hospital at Rush University Medical Center. Dr. Spagnoli seemed particularly busy as she was preparing for a visiting professorship in China later in the week.

Dr. Spagnoli graduated Cum Laude from the University of Rome Tor Vergata School of Medicine in Italy. After completing residency training in Pediatrics in Rome, she was granted a Fulbright Scholarship to work in the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology at Stanford University in California. She began participating in pediatric research during her residency training in Italy and after her experience at Stanford, moved to the US to practice medicine and continue her research efforts.

In order to transition her medical practice to the US, Dr. Spagnoli needed to complete an additional residency training program here. After completing her second residency training she secured an assistant professorship in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Endocrinology, at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. While she was still completing her second residency training program, Dr. Spagnoli began to serve as a mentor.

Dr. Spagnoli truly believes in the importance of mentoring as she acknowledges several of her mentors as having a hand in many of her successes. She said, “Mentoring is probably the most important thing for me in my career.” She has mentored nearly 30 students or residents to date, many of whom have been women and many of whom now hold faculty positions both nationally and internationally. Dr. Spagnoli continued, “[Mentoring] is a combination of being inspired and being understood. I think the great mentors are the ones that can work to understand you for who you are and how different you are from them. This is very important.”

When asked about the most frustrating part of her work, Dr. Spagnoli replied, “that there are only 24 hours in the day.” Dr. Spagnoli currently oversees over 100 physicians, staff recruitment and education, and research operations for Rush University Children’s Hospital, in addition to several other roles. When you speak with her it becomes clear that she deeply values the service she can provide to her patients and also her mentees. She has a long track record of aiding in her mentees success as her current doctoral student recently earned a highly competitive Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award through the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Dr. Spagnoli also contributes through service on many NIH and foundation grant review study sections and she served as permanent member of the NIH Skeletal Biology Development and Disease Study Section from 2012 to 2016. She maintains a thriving research laboratory with two currently active R01 grants from the NIH. Her laboratory facilitates interdisciplinary collaboration between PhD scientists and medical doctors in order to advance the field of tissue regeneration. In fact, Dr. Spagnoli and her colleagues have published over 60 peer-reviewed manuscripts in journals such as Developmental Cell, Endocrinology, and the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research. In addition, Dr. Spagnoli delivers many teaching and research seminars to her trainees at Rush University and at academic institutions across the country and throughout the world. She also participates on committees for professional societies including the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research, among others.

“Seeing something that is beyond daily life,” it is these kinds of visions, Dr. Spagnoli says, help keep her on track. She knows that science and medicine are much larger than herself. She continued, “If this is only for me this is never going to work because the difficulties you are going to find they are so many that you lose yourself if you only focus on yourself. So I always think, whenever I need to do something big, I think about who we are serving.”

Dr. Spagnoli was thrilled to offer advice to women who are pursuing or who are interested in pursuing science or medicine. She believes it is important to acknowledge unconscious biases and the fact that our brains are wired to look for similarities. Dr. Spagnoli encourages us not to justify these biases but rather to go beyond them. “Some people do not understand and this can lead to anxiety. Try not to get upset, see the challenge and help them understand. Be patient and make it clear how you can contribute to a particular situation.”

Dr. Anna Spagnoli’s overarching goal to understand people and to serve them in any way possible has without doubt driven her success in science and medicine. She concluded with this, “Service is inspiration. I wake up and say, ‘okay, who are you going to make a difference for today’.” Dr. Spagnoli is proof that perseverance most definitely pays back, especially when your work includes service for others.

by Hannah Brechka

Dr. Victoria Prince’s résumé is stacked with her prestigious accomplishments. Dean and Director of the Office of Graduate Affairs, Professor in the Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago, post-doctoral fellowships at Princeton University and Guy’s Hospital in London. The list goes on! Dr. Prince stands out on the page as one of the most influential and powerful women in the University of Chicago’s Biology community, but to her students and colleagues, she’s Vicky.

In the spring of 2014, I was lucky enough to take Vicky’s Vertebrate Development course, co-taught by her long-time colleague and friend Cliff Ragsdale. I had at that point only known her as Dean Prince, but she insisted that everyone refer to her by her endearing nickname, immediately putting everyone at ease around her. Vicky makes you feel like her equal; that you are colleagues, and not a subordinate. Her teaching style is casual, but she expects nothing but the best from her students.

My relationship with Vicky has developed and grown since that course. She agreed to be on my thesis committee, and has offered me opportunities to be an advocate for the Biological Sciences Division (BSD) that I am immensely grateful for. It was a pleasure to sit down with her for this article, as I got to learn about her hopes and dreams and how she found her path to where she is now when she usually spends her time aiding graduate students with their dreams. I learned that she has always loved science and that she has followed her intuitive nose and her colleagues’ encouragements to her current position. Luckily for all BSD graduate students, her friend Cliff Ragsdale suggested that she apply for a position at the University of Chicago. Even though all she knew about the city was what she saw on E.R., Vicky has flourished here moving up the ranks from Assistant Professor to Committee Chair to Dean of Graduate Affairs with grace.

Vicky divvies up her time between leading a productive developmental biology lab, teaching courses and running the University of Chicago’s BSD graduate program. While she finds juggling her three distinct roles difficult at times, she commits her immense intellect and seemingly endless capacity for empathy to each. These three roles keep her busy but she reveals that, “the gratifying part is being able to interact with really smart young people, and seeing them grow and do well”. This sentiment embodies Vicky as a mentor, educator and leader. For her, students take priority.

Her laboratory is full of bustling students and bubbling fish. Vicky’s early post-doctoral work on chicken embryos kindled her passion for embryology, but her career was launched with the risky move of using zebra fish as a model organism for understanding basic developmental processes. While now considered one of the best tools for easy access to early stage embryos, prized for their optical clarity and speed of genetic manipulations, at the time there were few researchers and even fewer tools for working on Danio rerio. Vicky’s contributions to the scientific field have allowed the humble zebra fish to become one of the major players in the world of model organisms. “I’m not lying awake at night thinking about my Nobel Prize,” Vicky states bluntly, “and honestly I think some people are. They’re worried about their legacy; they want to get that external recognition…I’m fueled by local people in my field saying ‘that was a good experiment.’ I strive for that”.

As Dean, Vicky has brought many changes to the science graduate students in the BSD, but one in particular has had huge benefits for her students: the myCHOICE program. MyCHOICE (CHicago Options In Career Empowerment) was developed to broaden the experiences and training science graduate students and postdocs receive at UChicago. MyCHOICE is funded through an NIH Broadening Experiences in Science Training grant that has three principal investigators in addition to Vicky and a dedicated steering committee of faculty, staff and trainees. “I just got the nicest email from a student who is about to graduate. He’s got a job offer that wouldn’t have been possible if he hadn’t had this internship through myCHOICE,” she recalled, voice gushing with enthusiasm, “Yay!” It isn’t just these big programs where Vicky’s impact will be felt, but through the small interactions and support she gives to each student under her care.

Vicky may never get a Nobel Prize for her scientific endeavors, but it wouldn’t surprise those who know her if she did. Her unrelenting curiosity and high expectations for herself and her students means no prize could adequately capture the immense impact that Vicky has had. Her legacy is the young scientists from the University of Chicago who will go on to become leaders tomorrow because she made us her first priority. And we are all very grateful to her.

By Katarina Kotnik Halavaty, PhD

For more than a decade Kelly Fahrbach successfully paved her biomedical research career in academic settings – all went well, but something was missing. At the time, Kelly was a young research assistant professor and admitted that she needed more variety, more dynamic in her everyday schedule, which pushed her to switch her professional path. She now enjoys working as a medical writer at Stem Scientific that is part of Ashfield Healthcare Communications.

“My whole life I was interested in biology,” she says. In her first year of undergraduate school she didn’t know which direction in biology she wanted to go. Kelly was on her search to find the right professional path, and she therefore applied for a summer internship at Loyola University in Maywood, Illinois. As a laboratory technician she, for the first time, was exposed to virology research. “I really liked virology but I also became interested in cancer research.” She wanted to learn more about cancer virology, and so she decided to go to graduate school. She joined Professor Kathleen Rundell’s laboratory at Northwestern University where she had an opportunity to mesh cancer research with virology. Kelly was enjoying science, but at the same time she was also thinking about her future plans. “At first I thought I wanted to become a teacher for undergraduate students, and I therefore looked into gaining some teaching experience.” During her last year of graduate training she began part-time lecturing at National-Louis University in Chicago. In 2004 Kelly graduated and obtained her Ph.D. At the time she wasn’t certain whether to proceed with teaching or not. “I felt I was still more interested in hands-on science than in teaching, and I therefore decided to do a short postdoctoral training.” After having several interviews for a postdoctoral position, she chose to join Professor Thomas Hope’s laboratory at Northwestern University to learn about HIV. “This was the only lab that didn’t do any cancer biology among all I applied for; however it offered a clinically relevant research which I found more interesting than a basic science lab.” During her postdoctoral training in the Hope lab Kelly continued to teach as a part time adjunct biology instructor. After three years of lecturing she realized that she wasn’t ready to go into teaching full time. She liked science, but she did not want to become a principal investigator. Kelly, again, was on her search what to do next. Around that time her mentor, Professor Thomas Hope approached her and suggested that she become a junior faculty member. “This was a chance that I did not want to miss! It opened up new opportunities for me to apply for several grants and take on a leadership role.”

Kelly was promoted to a research assistant professor. “It gave me some time to enjoy research and being comfortable with having a family. Tom was very supportive and I was able to succeed as a working mom in an encouraging environment with a highest quality of research being performed”, she explains. Kelly applied for several grants, gained a lot of new research experiences and became an expert in microscopy. In her new role she also took on additional responsibilities such as mentoring graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, co-implementing the lab website, and promoting methods to improve safety, internal communication, and data reporting in the laboratory. She joined the Young Investigator Editorial Review Board of AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses Journal to peer review manuscripts in the HIV/AIDS research field. Professionally Kelly was in full bloom! She published three first-author articles and co-authored a publication in peer reviewed journals. Despite her fruitful career in an academic environment four years later Kelly was reconsidering what she wanted to do in her future. She felt that she was working hard but she didn’t have as much to show as she would like to have. “I wanted to see more results at the end of my day; the outcome of my daily experimental work did not satisfy me any longer,” she says.

Kelly began planning to leave the bench: “I started exploring alternative Ph.D. careers.” Listening to her inner voice she knew that she loved working in a team and managing projects. While networking with people from different backgrounds she came across the medical communications field. “This was a breakthrough!” she says. “I always enjoyed analyzing data, writing grants, articles, abstracts, safety protocols… but not planning or carrying out the same experiments day after day” she further explains. Kelly applied for numerous positions including writing, safety and project management, and communication jobs. In the end, she landed an associate medical writer position at Ashfield Healthcare Communications. “I am very happy that I made this change!” In her new role Kelly writes manuscripts and reviews for peer review. She develops abstracts, posters, and slide presentations for international congresses along with developing strategic documents for pharmaceutical companies. “I love the variety! I no longer need to repeat same things again and again as I had to do at the bench. Now, the pace is faster than before, and I am learning new things every day! This gives a lot of dynamic to my everyday work.”

Tailoring her professional path according to her needs and wishes was a long term process. Kelly admits that transitioning from academia to industry was not easy: “Getting my foot in the door was the hardest.” Working with clients, learning new terminology associated with the field, and becoming familiar with new protocols could sometimes be a bit challenging. “The Hope lab prepared me well for my next step – even for my new professional adventure,” she says. “Tom gave me several opportunities to play different roles inside the lab and gain a wealth of knowledge.” Kelly presented at conference calls, communicated with IRB safety and ethics approval committees and mentored graduate students, postdoctoral candidates, and technicians. Looking back, she is proud of all her accomplishments and academic achievements!

As a successful career woman, Kelly established a great balance between her work and her family life. She has two daughters who keep her busy, but also motivated. Kelly strives to spend time with her family and loves going camping and fishing with her daughters and her husband, enjoys baking, running, and has recently taken up painting and trying to learn the violin. It gives her new energy to work hard in her profession. Kelly notes, “I am incredibly fortunate! Having a supportive network at home and all of my past experiences, many of those in the Hope lab, were a major help in getting me where I am today. Now at my new job, the team I work with is fantastic! My co-workers are also very supportive.” With all her positive experience Kelly would like to share her encouraging thoughts with others: “If you are not happy with what you are doing, don’t ever think it is too late to make changes in your life in order to be successful and happy!”

Psychologist helps NASA build teams for mission to Mars

By Kristin Claes Mathews

Sometimes, coworkers just seem to click. They get along, are productive and help each other out of tight spots. That might seem like serendipity, but DePaul University’s Suzanne Bell knows there is a science to building a team that thrives. An industrial organizational psychologist, Suzanne’s research will help NASA build the right team of astronauts to send to Mars.

Suzanne is an associate professor in DePaul’s College of Science and Health and specializes in team composition. Since January 2016, she and her collaborators have been have been collecting data on teams in the Human Exploration Research Analog environment at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. She analyzes how factors like team members’ personality, demographics, values and background can predict the success of a team. Their research on crews in this simulation environment will help NASA predict how a team might function in isolation for long durations in space.

“I develop the science behind identifying the right mix of people for a situation,” said Suzanne. “Future space travel is a really exciting application of this science.”

Applying research for deep-space travel

Psychology first stood out to Suzanne when she was an undergraduate. “I liked the idea of using the scientific method to translate the way people think and behave, turning it into data and analyzing it.” Business and finance were also early education interests, and she said they layered together naturally into her chosen field, which examines how people think and behave in the workplace.

“Industrial organizational psychologists are applied scientists. We balance science and practice, so everything I do needs to have a practical application to it.”

Her work with NASA will help them “get the right people in the right place.” She explained that her specialty, team composition, is an important consideration for optimal performance in almost any team context. Its importance is certainly heightened for deep-space travel.

“On Mars you will have the crew, mission control on a communication delay, and whatever technology support that’s been created. The crew will need to live and work well together. They’ll need to adapt to whatever challenges come their way” she explained.

In her previous research, Suzanne has studied how teams interact in extreme conditions like those deployed to Afghanistan, as well as in more traditional office environments.

Strong mentors

Suzanne earned her master’s and Ph.D. in Industrial & Organizational Psychology from Texas A&M University and her bachelor’s degrees in history and psychology from Olivet Nazarene University.

An advisor in graduate school, Dr. Winfred Arthur, Jr., was a strong mentor to Suzanne. “One of the things I really appreciated was that he not only mentored me to build my expertise in areas he researched, but he also supported me when I wanted to explore areas that were a little bit different from what he studied, or when I wanted to bring in new types of statistical analyses.”

She draws on that experience when mentoring students. “I am always mindful when students are coming from different backgrounds and making sure that I get them in touch with the resources they need.”

Involving girls and young women in the sciences is important to Suzanne. “The NASA project is really great because it’s something tangible and very specific that little girls can hook onto and dream about. It’s really a pleasure to do research like that, inspiring little girls to be astronauts or the scientists who study astronauts.”

Looking forward, Suzanne plans to take a “deeper dive” into team composition and to leave a legacy with her research.

“When I look back on my career, I want to think that I’ve changed the way people think about a topic,” she said. “I want to create theory and research that really helps shift people to think in more team-based ways when they organize work.”

Focus in the lab and on the playground

Outside of the classroom and her lab, Suzanne enjoys being with her two young sons, playing outdoors and exploring the city. “I enjoy gardening and working in the yard. I sit at my desk for way too many hours, so I like to be physical when I’m outside of work.”

Finding work-life balance is all about focus for Suzanne, and she shared a bit of what she has learned:

“Particularly as a woman, there’s so much on our minds all the time: all the things that need to be done to run the lab, or all the things required for kids, if you have them. So my advice would be to focus on whatever you are doing, and do it fully. Don’t worry about the other things until it’s time to worry about them.”

When she is at work, Suzanne becomes fully engrossed in teaching and research, but as soon as she arrives at home, she switches her attention completely to “the home life.” “It’s not always possible to compartmentalize with that, but whenever I can, I do. It helps me feel, at the end of the day, that I am able to do both well.”

To learn more about Suzanne’s research, visit http://depaulne.ws/BellMars.

By Carol Hughes, MLSt

Neuroscientist Dorothy Kozlowski has been interested in brains since her high school days on the South Side of Chicago. For a science fair project, she used a “primitive EEG machine” to record and analyze readings from friends as they listened to music. The project showed that music her friends preferred resulted in more relaxed EEG patterns than music they didn’t like. The project made it to the Illinois State Science Fair, but more importantly, sparked Dorothy’s interest in neuroscience.

But it was as an undergraduate at Knox College that Dorothy caught the research bug. Initially, a biology major with plans to go into medicine, she had an opportunity to do undergraduate research examining neural development with Professor Heather Hoffman, now Chair of Psychology at Knox. That experience inspired Dorothy to enter the field of psychology and ultimately attend graduate school instead of medical school.

Curiosity about brain plasticity

A turning point in her studies came in grad school when she and others began to explore if the adult brain could change and be plastic, and if so, how. That curiosity and a genuine desire to make her research clinically relevant, directed Dorothy’s research focus to traumatic brain injuries (TBI).

She specifically looked at rats and whether an overuse of their front paw, which was dysfunctional due to an injury to the brain, could make the brain injury worse. Her early findings showed such overuse could indeed adversely impact the brain injury. This influenced the idea that perhaps early rehabilitation after a brain injury or stroke would not be the best approach in patients; instead it could actually result in a worse outcome.

“I always wanted to influence the clinical field, and this research shook up the rehab field and caught the eye of neurologists and physical therapists,” she said.

Research with students at DePaul University

In her lab at DePaul University, where Dorothy is a Vincent de Paul Professor of Biological Sciences, she expanded her TBI research in 2009 with funding from the Department of Defense. Her focus was on examining plasticity and rehabilitation following TBI. At the time, protocols used for TBI rehabilitation were the same as stroke and degenerative diseases, and assumed that the brain following TBI could reorganize just the same as following other insults. Her study examined the plasticity following TBI and attempted to define optimal rehab strategies by testing the efficacy of three commonly used rehabilitation techniques — reaching, exercise and constraints — in rats with controlled, induced TBI.

Testing was complex and time-consuming, including 10 treatment groups, each following different rehabilitation protocols. Eight students — six undergrads and two grads — worked on the project. The results of her research, published recently, showed that a brain with a traumatic injury was different; that the plasticity of brains suffering traumatic injury is decreased compared to what is seen following stroke. Her work also suggested that individuals with TBI might require more intense and varied rehab strategies than individuals with stroke. This has been well received by the clinical rehabilitation community.

Inspiring young researchers

“The way I look at research now has changed,” said Dorothy. “I am viewing research as a teaching tool; to inspire other students to get the research bug.”

Rather than focus on a research finding or to find “drug x,” Dorothy is looking at how her research inspires students to be inquisitive, to ask questions.

When asked for advice for young women entering STEM fields, Dorothy offers three points. ”Work hard, be creative with your ideas, and be good communicators,” she said. “A lot of times when I see people struggle, it is because of gaps in communication, either written or oral.”

As an undergrad, Dorothy didn’t know at the time that there would be bias against women in science. And, as a grad student, her entire lab was women. She hasn’t personally felt the sexism that others report in science, but her counsel for young women entering the field is “to remain confident and be a strong advocate for yourself. Over time you become the expert in your field. Don’t be afraid to own that expertise.”

For the record

Dorothy, a first-generation college student, has a B.A. in psychology from Knox, and an M.A. and Ph.D in psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. She also has completed postdoctoral fellowships in neurosurgery at UCLA and neurobiology at Northwestern University.

She is president of the Chicago Society for Neuroscience. Dorothy also works with the Concussion Legacy Foundation and with her students, provides concussion education programs to middle and high school students in the Chicago area.

Dorothy lives in Willow Springs with her husband and 14-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter. She enjoys spending time with family and friends, cooking and entertaining when her busy schedule permits.

In 2013, Dorothy wrote an op-ed published in the Chicago Tribune titled “Should I let my son play football?” To find out the answer and information about concussions in contact sports, you’ll have to read the op-ed at http://bit.ly/Kozlowski_sonplayingfootball.

By Marina Damiano, PhD

What’s the secret to achieving happiness and success as a woman in STEM?

“Find and do what makes you sing inside and out,” says 3-D printing CEO, entrepreneur, mentor, and scientist, Dima Elissa.

Dima believes that we must use our personal passion, not others’ expectations, as a guidepost to lay the foundation for self-determined success. As the daughter of a cardiovascular surgeon, Dima fully expected to follow in his footsteps, but instead chose another path with a different kind of “heart.” She studied Chemistry at Hanover College, then used her science background and an interest in international business to land her first job at NutraSweet…during a hiring freeze.

Convincing a company that was not hiring to bring her on was Dima’s first deliberate foray in entrepreneurialism, sales, and networking. Armed with nothing but a borrowed car and sheer excitement, she drove to NutraSweet’s suburban Chicago location and, in a time before LinkedIn, hobnobbed with the receptionist to find out who ran the international division and how she could get in touch.

A type-written letter sent directly to the President landed her an interview and the rest is history, according to Dima. She was part of the company’s new venture arm, one of the first corporate technology incubators/accelerators of its time, where she identified, evaluated, and commercialized viable new product and business ideas.

Fast forward to the present — with a brief stop to earn an MBA at Texas A&M — Dima still uses those same skills she first cultivated at NutraSweet. She is now the CEO of VisMed-3D, a company that designs and prints 3D body parts. As CEO, she develops VisMed-3D’s strategy, raises funds for its growth, and advocates for the value of 3D technology within the medical community. She credits her science education for giving her a unique platform for critical thinking, non-traditional problem-solving, and innovation. Her advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is to “make sure you have the internal fortitude, as well as the emotional and financial resilience to walk a rocky road filled and fraught with ups and downs, sometimes in rapid fire succession like a roller coaster.”

Dima also devotes a significant amount of time to mentoring and advising female STEM entrepreneurs and fledgling companies within the technology sector. She is Vice Chairwoman for Women in Bio, an executive council member for Ms. Tech, and a Chicago Innovation Exchange Mentor. Dima is particularly passionate about leveling the playing field for girls and women in STEM. She believes that making changes to K-12 STEM education is key to achieving that goal.

“At an early age, teachers, parents, and peers shape our viewpoints and values. They also shape our self-doubts and limitations. This is especially true in the case of girls who think that STEM is not for them,” says Dima. It is possible to redirect these thought patterns, she says, by introducing teaching practices and tools that enable girls to see and seek their own abilities in a STEM field. Pursuant to this belief, Dima became a member of the STEM Steering Committee for the Apareció Foundation, a group that focuses on empowering and educating young women in underserved communities. She is also an advisor to Galvanize Labs, a Chicago company that has built a game-based platform to teach technology fundamentals to K-12 students.

With the many hats she wears, it’s hard to imagine how Dima finds time for it all. She credits daily exercise with giving her the energy to seize each day, but admits that balance is tricky because she finds it difficult to refuse invitations that involve mentoring.

“When and where possible, I want to serve my community and provide access to knowledge that has come through many years, many experiences, and many connections throughout the world,” she says. That desire to serve has inspired Dima to write LifeCrafting, a book in which she shares her life story and offers practical advice on how to “dance within the rules of life” to craft one’s own path.

By Natasha Wadlington, PhD.

Dr. Virginie Buggia-Prévot is a research scientist at the Institute for Applied Cancer Science at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She serves as head of neuroscience target discovery and validation at the Neurodegeneration Consortium, a collaboration of MD Anderson, Baylor College of Medicine and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her role is to act as a liaison between consortium members at MD Anderson and top scientists in the field at MIT and Baylor College of Medicine to find new targets for therapies to stop, slow or reverse Alzheimer’s disease. Her work involves interacting with many of the researchers and postdocs as well as keep up with the changing trends in literature. Virginie finds the experience both enriching and fun.

To arrive at her current position in Houston, Texas, Virginie faced many trials and tribulations. Through perseverance and a great support network, she gained many experiences, accumulated great wisdom and succeeded at finding a career about which she is passionate.

Virginie was born in Grenoble, France. In France, she discovered her love for the sciences and as an undergraduate, working in a lab that focused on Parkinson’s disease. Continuing her focus on neurodegenerative diseases, she completed her Ph.D. at Le Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France. There she studied amyloid-beta and found a novel pathway in which it associated with neuroinflammation in Alzheimer’s disease. It was at this point Virginie decided to take a chance, leave France and pursue Alzheimer’s disease as a postdoc at the University of Chicago. While transitioning from France to the United States was a challenge, she found that the transition from postdoc to her current position more demanding.

At this point of her life, Virginie knew she had a crucial decision to make.

“At the same time you have to try to find opportunities,” she says.

As a postdoc, Virginie published eight articles in peer-reviewed journals, including work on the transport of the Alzheimer’s disease-associated protein BACE1, obtained $180,000 in grant funding for her research and provided the critical data to help fund a project with collaborators at Northwestern University for $400,000. However, obtaining data and becoming published were not the only keys to her success. She had to learn how to effectively network.

Virginie has learned that postdocs are not always aware of how to network efficiently, with many experiencing “failures and bad experiences.” To combat this issue, Virginie openly sought out sources to network and communicate. She became the co-chair for the seminar and social media committees at the University of Chicago’s Biological Science Division Postdoctoral Association. There were plenty of opportunities to interact with people within the university. She also enjoyed communicating outside the university through social media channels such as Twitter. Aside from gaining access to a community of academics and biotech groups outside of the University of Chicago, she also received followers from peer-reviewed journals and foundations.

“It’s always nice to be able to do something and also to promote the foundations,” says Virginie.

Meeting some of those followers in person was a great way to connect with others personally and professionally. So many postdocs do great work but their exposure may be limited, she says.

“It’s essential to have a good LinkedIn page and to promote your work. Everybody Googles you now,” says Virginie.

She fully used these tools and, as a result of the contacts she gained, successfully transitioned from postdoc to her position at MD Anderson.

Life is not meant to be all work and no play. MD Anderson encourages its employees to maintain a work-life balance. For Virginie, that notion can be a little difficult at times.

“I have a very hard time turning off my brain at night,” she says. “I’m the type of person who will wake up in the middle of the night and draw schematics and write down experiments.”

She has a true passion for science and recognizes that when you love what you do, it can be hard to walk away. Luckily for Virginie, she has found that balance with her husband, a non-scientist. They both value the arts and enjoy visiting museums and traveling in their spare time. She attributes her love for all things culinary to her French roots and takes joy in cooking at home. Virginie has found that great balance between working in an environment that she loves and living her life to the fullest extent.

For people trying to find their way through STEM careers, she offers some wise advice.

“If you are passionate about something, it will be transparent and people will definitely give you opportunities,” says Virginie. “Find people who inspire you and surround yourself with people who believe in you. Share your passions with the world and your friends because you never know where you are going to find your next opportunity. By verbalizing the things you like, the more it would be clear in your head what you are looking for.”

Virginie’s perseverance through adversity and challenges is inspiring to women in STEM everywhere.