By Gail W. Pieper

Rinku Gupta, Principal Specialist, Research Software Engineer

As long as she can remember, Rinku Gupta has been fascinated by advanced computing. She earned a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from Mumbai University in India and then came to the United States where she received a master’s degree in computer information science at the Ohio State University. Her professional career got off to a fine start with a position first as a software programmer and analyst at Green Apple, Inc. and then as a product group development engineer at Dell, Inc., where she worked with the high-performance computing (HPC) team with a focus on evaluating new and emerging HPC technologies and building standard and custom large-scale supercomputing clusters.

In 2007 Rinku joined Argonne National Laboratory’s (ANL) Mathematics and Computer Science Division as a senior software developer She says working at ANL has been a transformative journey full of exciting cutting-edge scientific research focusing on the top supercomputers of the world, ranging from improving infrastructure for fault-tolerant systems, to working on supercomputing programming models, from improving sustainability in scientific projects to managing AI for Science projects. What has driven Rinku over the past 15 years is the freedom to collaborate with fellow innovators, both within the laboratory and across prestigious universities and research institutions, while still nurturing her independence to tackle projects that ignite her curiosity.

Combining research with leadership

One of Rinku’s first responsibilities at Argonne was as technical lead of the CIFTS (Coordinated Infrastructure for Fault-Tolerant Systems) project. The role meant that Rinku was the one looked to for day-to-day guidance on the progress and direction of the project. It was a kind of “baptism by fire,” and Rinku quickly proved her mettle, directing a group of eminent scientists from seven institutions nationwide. Moreover, she served as the primary software developer, designing and creating critical components creating the fault tolerance backplane that formed the core of the CIFTS software.

Advocating for science

Rinku’s work as a software engineer frequently led to cross-cutting research, whether improving techniques for power management on supercomputers or improving application performance through enhancing HPC software stacks or raising awareness of the importance of sustainable software and best practices in research. She enjoyed the work – and the accompanying promotions. But she began to feel that her title as a software engineer didn’t fully capture the breadth of her contributions. That was until she discovered the term “Research Software Engineer” (RSE), which perfectly encapsulated her work. Yes, she acknowledges, RSEs do write software code; but more than that, they support scientific research, working closely with the scientists from various domains to understand their complex, open-ended problems and design innovative solutions to address them.

Rinku has worked hard to promote recognition of RSEs. In the past five years she has presented tutorials, co-authored guides, and written articles designed to help colleagues and stakeholders alike understand this relatively new career path (the term was first used in 2010). She laughs when someone says she has become an ardent advocate and spokesperson for RSEs.

But she stops laughing to acknowledge that some scientists and managers still fail to grasp the value that RSEs bring to the table. They often overlook the fact that RSEs’ challenges and expertise are uniquely suited to the research environment and are more appropriate than traditional software developers for addressing the complex needs of scientific research. As Rinku emphatically states, “Good software is good science,” and domain scientists often “lack the expertise or software development background to create software that is accurate, accessible, and reproducible and meets the high standards of scientific research. This is where RSEs can make a critical difference.”

Rinku also serves as editor-in-chief of Better Scientific Software (BSSw), an international collaborative hub that has gained significant traction within the scientific computing community since 2017. With this effort, Rinku’s goal was to raise awareness among scientific computing professionals of the importance of adopting good software practices and to help developers of scientific software create better, sustainable software. Through BSSw, Rinku has played a vital role in promoting software sustainability, an area that has sadly not been a primary focus of scientific researchers, Rinku notes. However, she observes with optimism, this is changing, and BSSw is proud to be at the forefront of this shift.

The start of something big

Rinku finds her job as Principal Specialist, Research Software Engineer at Argonne fascinating and challenging: fascinating because she is using her technical and collaborative skills in new areas in the exascale era, and challenging because she is constantly seeking new ways to advance the increasingly important role of the RSE in the scientific software community.

As a steering committee member of the US-RSE Association since 2023, Rinku encourages individuals to explore the association’s services and the RSE career track, whether they are starting their software engineering journey or contemplating a mid-career change. Her advice is to ask questions, seek guidance from experienced professionals, or join the US-RSE community. Through her leadership and advocacy, Rinku has been driving culture change, empowering RSEs, and fostering a supportive ecosystem across national labs, the United States, and internationally, through various initiatives and leadership roles within the US-RSE. Rinku envisions a future where RSEs are recognized as essential and equal partners in the scientific research community.

by Elodie Kadjo

Dr. Carolyn Carta is a Principal scientist at CArtLab Solutions, a research and consulting company she founded in September 2023. As shown through her entrepreneurial endeavor, Carolyn takes initiative and is not afraid to create a path to fit her needs.

Growing up, Carolyn liked science and art, and decided to combine her two most obvious talents into a self-designed Bachelor’s degree in chemistry and art. This, however, was not an easy route. Talking about her academic journey, Carolyn says with a laugh, “Many people didn’t know how they would work with me because I put art and chemistry on my college applications”. Thus, she enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Within the first year, she realized that regardless of her love for art, studio art was not a good career fit. Indeed, she preferred the use of stable materials that would allow her artworks to last longer compared to her peers who were dumpster diving for supplies and thus less concerned about the conservation of their art.

Nevertheless, Carolyn did not abandon her passion and enrolled at Trinity College-Hartford Connecticut where she took a “Chemistry Science in Art” class with Dr. Henry DePhilips.  Carolyn’s interaction with Dr. DePhilips was instrumental in shaping her trajectory for the next 15 years. At Trinity College, Carolyn took the initiative to design her major to fit her aspirations and modeled her degree with the goal of getting into art conservation school. Her degree was titled “An Analysis of Art”. “It is a Combination of art history, studio art, and chemistry” Carolyn explains.  Dr. DePhilips went on to become Carolyn’s advisor and mentor during her undergraduate studies. Under his guidance, she was invited to do an independent study in Rome on art conservation. There, Carolyn leveraged her persistent attitude to gain insight into classified conservation practices at the Victor Emmanuale Monument, and was given the chance to present her research at a lecture series at the New Britain Museum of American Art in 2009.

After her undergraduate, Carolyn worked as an intern at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. In the art conservation lab, Carolyn learned the instrumentation and sample preparation necessary to analyze art objects, including how to take forensic sized or nondestructive sampling techniques and also make mock-ups to represent historically and chemically accurate art experiments. She discovered she was good at organic chemistry and enjoyed the scientific aspect of art conservation. “I realized that I was preparing for an art conservation role while an art conservation science job was more suited to my abilities. I was not sure about the route to take for the future, so I went for a Master’s degree at a terminal MS program to gain additional lab experience,” she explained.

Carolyn completed a Master’s in Chemistry at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, where she juggled both her NSF applied research into xanthene-based dye sensors for detecting heavy metals for in-situ water measurements, while using the same dye to embed into thin polymer films to study photooxidation. Following her master’s degree, Carolyn’s hunger for scientific testing knowledge pushed her to pursue a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). “Even though I loved chemistry, I felt like I would benefit from understanding all the properties of heterogeneous materials used to make art,” she explained. Given her lack of engineering background, this was an ambitious task. Nethertheless, Carolyn passed the oral qualifying exam the first time. “Only the top 10% of graduating doctoral class was able to accomplish this” she remarked with a proud smile. 

While working toward her Ph.D, Carolyn also used her network and passion for art conservation to secure a 2 year job at the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI), nearby to UCLA. At the GCI, Carolyn implemented a system for better testing and storage of art artifacts made of plastic composites. One of her major accomplishments was on a project with the Walt Disney Animation Library. “When I joined the team, samples were random, uncoordinated, and disorganized, so I worked directly with different stakeholders at Walt Disney Animation Research Library (ARL) to obtain valid sample sets, obtain enough samples to complete mechanical and chemical analysis, to create accelerated aging experiments to predict material lifetimes, and also measure environmental variations within storage of 10 vaults of animation cels.” she explains. Cels are transparent sheets of plastics on which painted drawings for traditional animation were filmed. Coordinating thermogravimetric measurements and mechanical properties of paints, Carolyn helped improve storage of more than 500,000 cels of the original Walt Disney animated characters, including her childhood favorites- the princesses.

Despite her tenure of 5 years working at the GCI and long term experience in art conservation science, the COVID pandemic began to create social and material supply chain issues that were hard for Carolyn to ignore. With her chemistry and material science knowledge, Carolyn accepted a position as a Research and Development Scientist at Younger Optics to contribute to medical device material and process development. There, she worked with an international team on translating the injection mode of eyeglasses into a 3D printing process. “Within my first few months learning about the lens industry and installing the first 3D printer for lens manufacturing in the US, I noticed a limitation in the mechanical and adhesive characterization of the new lens materials, and immediately initiated a collaborative study with a physicist colleague in Madrid to improve collaboration with industry experts at PPG industries (https://www.ppg.com/en-US), a US based paint and coatings supplier.” At the same time, driven by her desire to give back to the community, Carolyn worked as a STEM mentor for the company College Impact, part of AccepU.

Although Carolyn enjoyed the collaborative atmosphere at Younger Optics, she moved to Chicago to be closer to her family and accepted a position at a startup called LuxCreo as an Senior Applications and Integration Engineer to improve the 3D printing of photopolymers in dental and shoe sole products. Within her first 90 days at LuxCreo, Carolyn designed experiments that led to process improvement. When implemented, her designs will save clients 35% processing time for digital dentistry solutions, while also saving hundreds of dollars in hardware costs to the processing of dental implants. Further, she developed new packaging techniques thanks to her experience in plastic storage from her work at Walt Disney Animation Research Library to ensure longevity of parts. Stimulated by the entrepreneurial environment in her new position, but craving non-traditional manufacturing environments where equity was valued, Carolyn decided to open her own technical consulting company, CArtLab Solutions (https://cartlabsolutions.com/). Thanks to a Landis fellowship (https://www.mhubchicago.com/hardtech-development-fellowship), Carolyn’s company is based at the Chicago mHUB where she gets to collaborate with other scientists and learn about the business aspects of running a company.

“In my recent work starting my own company, I am proud of my focus on mission driven work to help serve my clients in an equitable way with a focus on sustainable materials and processes. It’s really important to me that I am creating a safe space and terms to do research and development for myself, but also for any women/BIPOC that I work with both now and in the future. I’m also proud to register my business as a women-owned small business for future contract opportunities with the federal government,” she adds. Currently, Carolyn is focused on sustainable technology solutions, carbon capture material development, medical device technology particularly women’s health in collaboration with companies like Iantrek, Curiva (TM), and The Immortal Water Company.

Her secret for effective work and life balance is to always keep in mind her three life pillars: profession, health, and community. “Make sure one important part of your life does not get out of control and take over your other priorities”, she advises with a laugh. “It is true that sometimes you would have to prioritize one aspect over the other ones but make sure it is just for a short time”. She practices this now by attending to her needs by doing yoga, meditation, and mindfulness. Carolyn also loves reading and recommends “A Renaissance of Our Own” by Rachel E. Cargle, an inspiring autobiography that encourages people to carve their own paths. Reflecting on her journey, Carolyn admits she should have been kinder to herself when things along her journey blossomed differently than originally sketched in her plans.

by Christina Nowicki, Ph.D.

Talking to Dr. Diana Rose E. Ranoa, her passion for science and positive attitude is abundantly clear. And like a lot of scientists, she’s not afraid of tackling tough problems. Diana is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, working with the Anticancer from Pets to People (ACPP) theme leader Professor Paul J. Hergenrother, where her research focuses on a complex question – how can we harness the human immune system against cancer?

Originally from the Philippines, Diana started her career at the University of Philippines-Diliman, where she received her B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology. Almost 20 years ago, in 2006, Diana moved to Illinois in pursuit of her Ph.D. in microbiology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Here, under the guidance of Dr. Richard I. Tapping, her research focused on toll-like receptors, or TLRs, in immunity and infection. TLRs are critical mediators of inflammatory pathways and essential to the function of the immune system against infection.

However, after her Ph.D., Diana redirected her research towards both a personal and important cause, “A big driving force was my dad passed away due to lung cancer,” she explained, “So, I said that I’m going to dedicate my career towards developing new therapeutics against cancer [and] improving the current set of therapeutics against cancer.”

That’s how Diana ended up the University of Chicago as a postdoctoral scholar with Prof. Ralph Weichselbaum in the Department of Radiation and Cellular Oncology. With this new goal in mind, Diana pursued studies to understand how cancer cells react to ionizing radiation. Further, she wanted to learn more about how the immune system could be harnessed to wake up and fight against cancer, as cancers typically occur because the immune system no longer recognize them as a danger signal.

“But once they do, they’re very powerful at killing their target,” Diana asserted.

In part, this is the reason she returned to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she had developed connections to experts in immunology and small molecule development. Joining the lab in 2019, Diana built on the work of previous graduate students towards understanding the anti-tumor and immunostimulatory effects of a small molecule that was in phase one clinical trials at the time.

But a few months later, COVID changed everything.

“We needed something to get back.” Diana stated simply, “And for us to be able to get back we had to develop a rapid saliva test. To make a long story short, we developed the test, the campus was able to safely re-open, and I was able to go back to doing cancer research.” She’s being humble. They were given a month to develop a saliva-based test that is faster, cheaper, and scalable. On top of that, their newly developed test needed to go through FDA emergency use authorization.

“It was a gratifying feeling to be able to see students come back in the fall 2020 semester,” she later admitted in our interview when asked what her greatest accomplishment is. “We know that COVID is a serious matter, even though some people think it’s not serious. But for some families, it is. So having a record of no deaths on campus during that time when there were no vaccines available yet is something that I’m really proud of, and I’m probably going to tell younger generations.”

After this quick detour, Diana returned to cancer research, this time collaborating with Prof. David M. Kranz. Her most recent work tells the story of how chimeric antigen receptor T cells, or CAR-Ts, may be used to treat advanced disseminated stages of ovarian cancer in mice. CAR-Ts are T-cells that have been engineered in the lab to specifically target cancer cells. Currently, all FDA-approved CAR-T therapies are directed toward blood cancers, like leukemia, and not solid tumors, such as ovarian cancer. Ultimately, Diana and her colleagues were able to extend the lives of mice to the equivalent age of a human in their 80’s or 90’s.

“Setting up these models in mice and showing that your treatment actually works against advanced stages of cancer, it’s a gratifying thing,” explained Diana, “It’s something that encourages me every day to get up and go to work, start work early. Because, you know, you’re creating something, you’re doing something towards the improvement of treatment. There’s a lot of room for improvement, but at least we’re moving forward.”

In the future, Diana hopes to continue working on this research by improving the therapeutic index of CAR-T cell therapy. For her, the next steps are obvious, “I work with a chemist, I work with an immunologist. So, combining CAR-Ts and small molecules may be the next step to making CAR-Ts better in terms of seeing their targets or fighting cancer.”

On a personal level, Diana’s next steps might be even more exciting. “At this point, I think I’m ready to transition to a new position,” she said, “At the end of my postdoc at Chicago, I wasn’t sure yet if I want to be a faculty or something like that. But it’s mainly because I’m afraid of going beyond my comfort zone, which I think is common for a lot of women.”

In response to this, I had to end our conversation by asking Diana what advice she would give to women in STEM trying to follow in a similar path. Without pausing, she doled out some sage wisdom. “As a woman in science, and a scientist in general, we’re going to have a countless number of rejections,” advised Diana, “Just be aware of whose voices you let into your head. Because that will affect your attitude towards your work, your experiments, and your career development.”

Written by Delia Alkhatib, edited by Christina Nowicki and Lisa Volpatti

Starting in STEM

Dr. Lisa Volpatti was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh. Although she is now a distinguished scientist, she only discovered research during her junior year of college. After a semester of conducting research using biomaterials to make artificial blood vessels, she decided she wanted to pursue a career in academia.

In high school, Lisa’s AP Chemistry teacher encouraged her to study chemical engineering at Pitt. He knew (even before she did) that she would go on to pursue a Ph.D. Lisa, on the other hand, was unfamiliar with the concept of research. She jokes that when prompted to fill out a survey of “lab experience” for the Society of Women Engineers during her sophomore year, she wrote “Gen Chem I Lab.” Not knowing about research, she completed an internship after her sophomore year at a chemical process plant, where her role was to scale up the reactions from the benchtop to medium-sized reactors. While she notes that this is important work, Lisa decided that being a process engineer was not the path for her. She wanted to be more freely creative to push the boundaries of science, a freedom that she found in the biomaterials research lab her junior year.

Pursuing further education

Following her undergraduate degree, Lisa continued her education at the University of Cambridge in the UK, where she received a research-based master’s degree in chemistry on a Whitaker International Fellowship. She then moved from Cambridge, UK to Cambridge, MA to complete her Ph.D. in chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her thesis focused on improving diabetes therapies with biomaterials. Her goal was to create a drug that diabetic patients could give themselves once in the morning and not have to worry about measuring blood sugar or injecting insulin multiple times per day.  She developed an insulin delivery system that achieved this goal in diabetic mice. By self-regulating, this system would better manage blood sugar and also ease the burden placed on diabetic patients.

In 2020, Lisa moved to Chicago to begin her postdoctoral training at the University of Chicago. Currently, she is working at the intersection of immunology and engineering. In January 2024, she will begin a new position as an Assistant Professor in the Biomedical Engineering and Chemical and Biological Engineering Departments at Northwestern University, where she will continue researching in the area of immunoengineering. Lisa is motivated to stay in academia in hopes of developing new technologies and therapies with the potential to help millions of people around the world. She is also excited to mentor and inspire students to pursue their passions.

She believes that everyone should work on something they’re passionate about and she feels that passion in her own research every day in the laboratory. The scientific challenges she faces fuel her motivation to engineer new therapies for a variety of diseases. Currently, Lisa is investigating new technologies that could treat some of the leading causes of death around the globe, including heart disease and cancer. Lisa enjoys the freedom to investigate, discover, and explore in academic research.

“Balancing work and life is key for success.”

While Lisa enjoys spending time working on her research, she also likes to have some activities outside the laboratory. Lisa enjoys running, swimming, and biking as ways to reduce stress and clear her mind. Last year, she ran the Chicago marathon and found that long runs were helpful when preparing for faculty applications. She believes that mental and physical health should always be priorities and that balancing outside life with work can help in being more productive and avoiding burning out.

“Be your own advocate!”

Lisa’s advice to upcoming students is to be your own advocate, to take opportunities that exist, and to make opportunities when they don’t. It can be really hard to advocate for yourself, especially as a female scientist. Even though she struggled with confidence early on, Lisa has learned throughout her career that “you’ll never know if you don’t ask.”  As an example, when Lisa learned about the possibility of obtaining funding to go to the University of Cambridge for a master’s degree, her heart was set on it. She sent so many emails – to professors who could be potential advisors at Cambridge, to professors at Pitt who could read her application materials, to people who were awarded fellowships in the past, and to mentors who could advocate on her behalf. She did everything in her power, including asking for help from others, to accomplish her goal of going abroad. While she was rejected from many fellowships that she applied for, she successfully received the Whitaker International Fellowship, which turned out to be the best fit for her goals. She encourages others to persevere in the face of adversity, noting that it is never too late to find your passion.

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Written by Elodie Kadjo

Stephanie Jones is a Lead scientist in the enzymology team at LanzaTech. She holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Master of Philosophy from the University of Cambridge, and a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley. Stephanie has always been fascinated by science and technology. As a child, she was an avid reader of science fiction. The stories she read instilled in her optimism that technology could help make the world better. Stephanie’s love for science prompted her to study chemistry after high school.

As an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina, Stephanie had the opportunity to experience the day-to-day life of a scientist and connect with other scientists while working on self-assembled monolayers for stem cell differentiation. She enjoyed working on open-ended questions that were different from what was taught in the classroom. Encouraged by her advisors, Dr. Yousaf and Dr. Thorp, to explore many scientific fields, Stephanie moved to the University of Cambridge. At Cambridge, she worked on polymer biomaterials and obtained a master’s degree of philosophy.

Stephanie then went on to do a Ph.D. at UC Berkley in magnetite biomineralization. “Building on my undergraduate and master’s degree, I decided to study how bacteria themselves were making materials,” she explains. Graduate school was an overwhelming experience for her, but it also allowed her to learn more about herself, her weaknesses, and her strengths. “I questioned my life and what I wanted to do with it. I did not think I would be working at a bench 15 years from then,” she reflects.

After graduation, Stephanie took a Postdoctoral position in a microbial water remediation laboratory working with anaerobic microbes at UC Berkley. Around the same time, she began consulting for Industrial Microbes, Inc. These two positions required a lot of time but also helped her overcome her imposter syndrome. “I was able to use my experience working with proteins while consulting for Industrial Microbes and use transferable skills from my chemistry and material science studies in my postdoctoral position,” she explains. “Those two positions increased my confidence and made me realize that science can be a creative endeavor.”

As a result of her strengthened confidence, Stephanie enjoyed her work even more and took a full-time position with Industrial Microbes. There, she worked on one of the highlights of her career: the successful heterologous expression of methane monooxygenase in E. coli and yeast. “It’s a great opportunity to work in industry because many people are involved in a project, and you get to learn from their perspective,” she says. “You get creative on solutions because of the short timeline and monetary constraints.”

In 2019, Stephanie moved to Chicago to be closer to her spouse. After several months of unemployment, she landed a position at a carbon utilization company, LanzaTech, as a scientist in the enzymology team. “LanzaTech is a great place to work,” she says. “I got hired 7 months pregnant and they worked with me on a flexible start plan so I could bond with my child. When the pandemic started a few months later, the company emphasized the well-being of their employees.”

Stephanie credits her success to both her scientific expertise and her communication skills. One of her favorite books is “How to Have a Good Day” by Caroline Webb. “It’s a great guide to communication,” she says. “It taught me that how you say something matters as much as what you say.”

After giving birth to her second child, Stephanie hopes to inspire other women that it is possible to make good decisions for both their career and their family. When asked how to balance work and life, she shares a story based on quotes from Brian Dyson and Nora Roberts: “Work-life balance is like juggling glass and rubber balls in the air,” she says. “Each task or obligation is a ball. Rubber balls can bounce back when dropped, but glass balls break. The key to success is making sure you catch the glass balls.” Stephanie also mentions that she has had good mentors throughout her career who have helped her make good decisions for her personal and professional development.

Outside of her work, Stephanie plays video games, soccer, reads science fiction, and enjoys the development of her son as he picks up his own hobbies.

Her advice for other women that want to follow her steps is to develop their communication skills, not to neglect their personal life because of their work and vice versa, and to use unemployment as an opportunity to learn new skills.

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Written by Elodie Kadjo

Barbara I. Adaikpoh is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Illinois Chicago. Her research focuses on developing a bacterial host for natural product discovery and development.

Dr. Adaikpoh decided to study pharmacy because of her fascination with the use of plants and microorganisms to produce therapeutic compounds. She obtained her Pharm.D. from the University of Benin (Nigeria), followed by an MSc. in Pharmacognosy from the University College London (UK). Insatiable for knowledge, she went on to get a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Mississippi.

Barbara describes her journey as exciting and very rewarding. The most gratifying part of her work is experiencing the developing curiosity and excitement of her mentees during their research projects. Nonetheless, she does sometimes face difficulties. Recounting one of those difficult moments, she said: “While in graduate school, my first application for a travel grant to attend a conference was rejected. I was very disappointed and questioned my ability to be successful in my chosen career path because I had invested a lot of time and effort into preparing the application. Rather than give up, I decided to improve my writing skills by attending writing-focused workshops organized by my institution. I also attended workshops that focused on improving mental health and overcoming imposter syndrome – I wanted to better deal with future rejections. In addition to being successful in my next application for a travel grant, I developed skills that would enable me to better navigate my future career.”

Barbara often uses her experience to encourage her co-workers and mentees. She has benefitted from various mentorships and has been shaped by unique experiences while developing her career path. Now, Barbara wishes to pursue an academic career. This will provide the opportunity to give back by serving as a role model and a mentor to inspire confidence and scientific curiosity among underserved groups and help facilitate their success in their chosen careers.

Outside of work, Barbara loves to run and visit new cities.

by J. K. Wenderott

The first thing I notice about Dr. Esther Ngumbi when she joins our Zoom room for her interview are her earrings: vibrant sunflowers. “I bought them on Etsy,” she says smiling. Dr. Ngumbi, an assistant professor of Entomology and African American Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), radiates joy and excitement as we discuss her career path and passions that stem from her experiences growing up in a rural farming community along the Kenyan Coast. Describing her journey that has led her to study and research insects, ecology, food (in)security, and sustainability, Ngumbi says, “The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn. It was this treadmill that kept me going.”

Ngumbi attended Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya, for her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees of Science. She then completed her PhD in Entomology from Auburn University, becoming the first woman from her hometown to obtain a PhD degree. Describing herself as a young girl growing up in Kenya, Ngumbi says, “I could not imagine a career in science, because I did not know what science was all about.” She had role models that were teachers, doctors, and accountants, and so she originally thought she would be an accountant when she grew up. The results of her secondary school exams, though, pointed her in a different direction: “Science chose me.” Once she started to do experiments in the lab, she was hooked. “I became very, very curious… I wanted to spend more time in the lab, and I was enjoying every moment.” Ngumbi recalls some early practicals with insects in the laboratory, as well as the proximity of the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology to her University, that laid the foundation for her interests and future research in entomology. 

At UIUC, Ngumbi’s research focuses on the challenges agriculture faces to bring food to the table, brought about by stressors like climate change and insect outbreaks. How are plants defending themselves? How are plants recruiting the help they need? How can we manipulate crops to ensure they are defending themselves? These are key questions that Ngumbi is investigating. Her motivation to pursue these studies comes, in part, from formative experiences as a young girl watching farmers in her community struggle with insects and persistent drought destroying crops. These forces that led to food insecurity in her community and across the globe are ones that Ngumbi is also seeking to understand more. As an assistant professor with appointments in both Entomology and African American Studies, Ngumbi straddles the social and natural sciences. In African American Studies, she teaches classes related to food (in)security. Ngumbi feels her work in both departments influences each other, and she notes the important work of connecting her research in the lab to the impact it has on people, especially people of color in the US and across the globe.

Ngumbi stresses the critical importance of mentoring throughout her life: “I am a product of mentors who held my hand when I did not know anything about entomology and science.” These mentors range from her teachers that believed in her scientific abilities to her research supervisors that helped her see how experimental results tell a story to her current colleagues and department chair that are helping her navigate the tenure process. Having seen the impact of mentoring on her life, Ngumbi is passionate about giving back. She serves as a mentor for her graduate students and through entities like the Clinton Global University Initiative and President Barack Obama’s Young Leadership Program: “As women [in science], we are few in numbers and we cannot afford to have anyone that wants to be in science walk away because they lacked a mentor.” Ngumbi is also dedicated to being a role model that she did not have for young girls in her community and inspiring more young girls to see themselves as scientists.

When asked what advice Ngumbi would give to her younger self, she says, “Do not edit any of your aspirations and dreams… Be you and do not silence yourself.” As we wind down our interview, I cannot help but again notice the vibrant sunflower earrings as Dr. Ngumbi shares a final piece of wisdom: “Allow yourself to bloom where you are planted.” If you’d like to learn more about Ngumbi and her work, please visit https://www.estherngumbi.com/ or https://sib.illinois.edu/profile/enn.

By Evan Phillips

Meet Dr. Toyya Pujol, an Operations Researcher at the RAND Corporation, a self-described health data scientist, and an ardent supporter of the mission of AWIS. This summer, she served in the AWIS-Chicago area chapter’s Mentoring Circles program as a mentor for early-career level women. The two of us sat down to talk recently about her career path, and in the process, she wowed me with her sage career advice and animated spirit.

Dr. Pujol describes her career as a series of “things I fell into”, but one connective thread through it all has been “using numbers to tell a story”. As a high school student, she always loved math and physics. In fact, it was her AP Physics class that truly excited her about the world, because it used math to tell a story. She realized that while math came naturally to her, this wasn’t the case for everyone. She went on to work as a tutor for several years and completed a bachelor’s degree in Management Science with a focus in Operations Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Following her time at MIT, Dr. Pujol’s interest in mathematical modeling and statistics took her to the Department of Defense (DoD) where she worked as a cost estimator for several years while also completing a master’s degree in Operations Research at Northeastern University. As an Operations Research Analyst at the DoD, she was responsible for in-depth analysis and forecasting of costs for the Air Force. Speaking about her time there, Dr. Pujol described the work as mapping programmatic information (e.g. schedules, technical requirements, logistics, etc.) to a cost distribution. In meeting rooms, she was often the only woman and person of color, as well as the youngest. However, she never felt uncomfortable in these situations. By contrast, there were incidents and a culture in academia that would come to frustrate her.

With some work experience under her belt, Dr. Pujol decided she was ready for something new and had developed an interest in healthcare. She wanted to work with “really cool” real-world data that “you can touch because it represents a person or thing” and so she embarked on her PhD in Industrial Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology (GA Tech). Starting out, she thought she wanted to work on a project to optimize radiation therapy for cancer treatment but realized this type of research wasn’t the right fit. She was still looking for that interesting story to tell with numbers. In a new lab with funding from a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Bioinformatics Training grant, she moved her focus from optimization to statistics. The new project centered around applying health analytics and machine learning to improve maternal and infant health. In the area of health data and statistics, there were real-world problems where her research could potentially impact decisions in health policy. She was awarded multiple fellowships during this time, and she credits the support from her peers and mentorship from her doctoral committee. She always felt grateful for the many female professors/advisors who set examples of how to thrive in academia.

Her Ph.D. advisor at GA Tech advocated for her and encouraged her in many ways. In fact, Dr. Pujol came to her after an incident during which a senior author on a paper repeatedly interrupted her in a meeting. This person redirected questions about the statistical aspects of Dr. Pujol’s work to a different author who was not actually involved with the statistics. Her advisor helped her see that this was something that should be reported. While this incident specifically stood out, Dr. Pujol described to me other comments and challenges in academia that “expended emotional energy”, such as people challenging your right to be “in the room” based on race or sex. She mentioned that one of the things that we don’t talk about with intersectionality is the additional stress that comes with not knowing why someone is disrespectful. You can spend hours ruminating over questions such as, “Is it your race, your sex, or does this person just not like you?”.

Toward the end of her Ph.D., she became a visiting scholar at Harvard after being connected to a biostatistics lab through one of her contacts from her undergraduate days. Her advisor at Harvard not only helped Dr. Pujol expand her research into causal inference but also helped her navigate her job search. Most importantly, Dr. Pujol credits her advisor at Harvard for setting an example of how to be successful in your career without working all the time! Indeed, Dr. Pujol loves playing volleyball, salsa dancing, and watching horror movies. She emphasized to me how she heard a lot of talk about work-life balance but there is “a complacency in academia to make changes around it”.

Right after completing her Ph.D., Dr. Pujol became an Assistant Professor of Industrial Engineering at Purdue University. Here, she was ready to embark on new data science research pertaining to healthcare. Working on multiple collaborative projects on topics such as opioid trafficking networks and telehealth, she realized she “was a policy researcher who uses engineering methods versus an engineer who does policy work.” She told me she felt “disconnected from the impact of her work” and wanted to see her work be used to help guide better health policy. Hence, several months after starting, her advisor supported her in moving toward something new. This summer, Dr. Pujol started working as an Operations Researcher at RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research organization that focuses on public policy and decision-making. In her own words, RAND is all about “choose your own adventure”, and unlike academia where you have many responsibilities set by your position (research, teaching, and service), now she has more freedom to focus on growing as a researcher while also having the option to teach courses of her design. Perhaps, most importantly though, Dr. Pujol feels much more tightly connected with policymakers, and she can focus her work on developing methods as well as making an impact. In fact, in her second week at RAND, Dr. Pujol was working again on estimating the number of opioids on the illicit market. In two weeks’ time, she gained access to DEA data, did the modeling, and could go to a policymaker with results. This is the type of work she always enjoyed and could now do in this new position. Dr. Pujol is also invested in doing thoughtful research related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and health disparities. She explained that this research area must move beyond making simplistic comparisons of two groups, showing a difference, and saying the story is over. “Race is not a cause for the discrepancy in diabetes prevalence. It’s your access to healthy food, the stress from systemic racism, socioeconomic status issues… We need to start thinking about the causal mechanisms in these outcomes… I want to put together simulations to show how we can do this analysis more thoughtfully and bring that to the community.”

Wrapping up our conversation, I was curious what her advice is for students considering graduate school: “A lot of people do it [graduate school], because they don’t know what to do! Unless you are 100% certain with NO exceptions, you want to be a Professor, I strongly suggest working before graduate school.” She stressed some key considerations for those thinking about graduate work: first, you may realize you want to do something different after starting your degree, which can influence what you study in your advanced degree; second, if you can see yourself doing anything other than a Ph.D., go do that first; third, once you’re in a graduate program, think about what “launchpad” you want to set up before graduating—like network connections and transferrable skills. Dr. Pujol’s own career trajectory involved trial and error to figure out what career would be most meaningful for her. Her advice: “Constantly update your priorities.”