Meet the Psychologists

What attracted you to science as a young person?

When I was in high school I took an optional module on psychology. The possibility that different people would perceive the same reality differently blew my mind. Then I learnt that language had the potential to change the way we think and the way we perceive the world.

Further down the line, I thought that looking into how people born deaf use language in the visual modality—and how their brain is modified as a result—would be a fascinating career path. It has taken me on an incredible journey.

What do you do on a typical work day? Which aspects of your work get you out of bed in the morning?

I get the children ready for nursery/school, happily hop in the train and go through my emails/plan for the day while in the train. At the office I prepare for teaching, meet students, work on previous research projects—at the moment I am writing a manuscript on an experiment with really interesting results—and plan new research.

When I am lucky I get to go to the lab and look at someone’s brainwaves.

Did you explore any other career avenues, and if so how did they compare to your current work?

I never did.

Have you encountered any roadblocks in your career, and how did you overcome them?

I was the first in my extended family to go to University, I was one of the few people in my uni that went for a postdoctoral position abroad, I was one of the even fewer that decided not to go back to known land (Spain in this case).

Not understanding well enough the culture, costumes and values in each of the new places has been a struggle. Trying to find a role model has been the major struggle for me, particularly if I count in the hope of finding a balance between academia and family life. Over the years I have found two good mentors to whom I am really grateful.

Was anything in your career path easier than you had expected?

To be fair a lot of it has been more difficult than I initially anticipated (or than I would have liked). For my two postdocs and my fellowship, I got the job I really wanted and I only had to apply once, I learnt later that it was a lot more difficult for other colleagues.

What advice would you give people who aspire to work in science?

Be resilient, keep the goal in mind, be passionate, enjoy the little triumphs. Knowledge, discovery and the ability to reason and think critically are needed more than ever in today’s world.

What one thing would you change to make science more accessible to people who don’t currently pursue it?

I’d work towards making science and scientific thinking more accessible to everyone at different levels of society.

I wish I had the chance to have more contact with scientists when I was young, not only to talk about the content but also to see that science is done by a group of very diverse people with a lot of different personal circumstances.

What attracted you to science as a young person?

I didn't realise I was interested in "science" until I had already started a university degree in psychology. I have always been interested in understanding "why", and although I enjoyed science classes in primary school, to me history and culture were more compelling topics. I loved trying to understand how people thought and behaved similarly or differently across time and history; how the personal environment could shape individual thoughts and feelings and vice versa.

Imagine my surprise to learn all about a topic called "social psychology" which answers exactly those questions, and even better that it had a scientific method for testing these big ideas!

What do you do on a typical work day? Which aspects of your work get you out of bed in the morning?

My typical work day is different depending on time of term. Some days are just about preparing a lecture or tackling a pile of marking, others finding the perfect measure, or analysing data and writing up results. One of the great things about being an academic is that the job is more flexible day-to-day compared to other jobs.

Regardless of what kind of work day it is going to be, what gets me out of bed in the morning is knowing that I have the kind job that let's me focus on the exact questions and issues I'm passionate about. The studies might not always work, but at least I had the freedom to try and understand a question I found interesting.

Did you explore any other career avenues, and if so how did they compare to your current work?

I've had many jobs over the years, with a couple that had the potential of becoming careers.

For a couple of years, I worked as a sales and marketing assistant during my undergraduate studies. This used some of the skills I'd learned in my undergraduate studies on psychology and business, but ultimately I realised it wasn't for me.

My next two jobs focused on research. First, I worked as a research analyst for the Government of Canada in a learning policy group. We were responsible to trying to figure out what the barriers to university-level education were in Canada, and what policies were having an impact. I also worked as a research advisor for a public opinion and market research firm. In this role, other companies and government organisations would ask us to design a study that could test an important question they had.

In both my research analyst and research advisor jobs I got to explore lots of interesting questions that had real important consequences for people's day-to-day lives (e.g., would more grants make university easier to access? Why aren't people in our city recycling? Why are our employees so unhappy?). But I was always answering someone else's questions, never my own.

I realised that as much as I enjoyed working in research, what I truly wanted was to be able to dedicate myself to understanding a specific topic and asking my own questions.

Have you encountered any roadblocks in your career, and how did you overcome them?

When I was still an undergraduate student, I almost failed a module on statistics. I had avoided getting help until it was almost too late, and even with a tutor it wasn't possible to salvage my final mark although I did manage to pass.

What made this particularly stressful is that this module brought down my overall degree mark, and almost forced me to drop part of my degree specialisation as a result. After that term, I changed my study habits, made a point of seeking help as soon as I was confused about something, and managed to get a high first in the next-level statistics module I took the following year! I learned a lot about my strengths and weaknesses that year, as well as what really mattered to me for my future.

Really though, the biggest roadblock I've encountered in my career is an overwhelming sense of self-doubt. Before I started my PhD, I saw myself as someone who is largely competent (statistics aside). PhDs can be very long (especially in North America) and very stressful. Lots of people develop a sense of imposter syndrome, which is an overwhelming concern that you are about to be uncovered as a fraud who doesn't belong or deserve the successes you've experienced.

I am lucky to have a very strong social support network and PhD mentors who have supported my successes and failures over the years. Even after successfully defending my PhD and getting a job, some days I still feel like an imposter in the presence of so many smart and successful colleagues. But I took on the advice to celebrate every "win" to help cushion the days filled with paper rejections or failed studies. I've also try to get more involved in new hobbies so I have lots of fun things to distract me when I need them.

Was anything in your career path easier than you had expected?

Some people talk about how competitive academia can be. I thought I would really struggle in that kind of environment and worried I wouldn't want to become an academic if it meant always competing to be seen as the "best and brightest".

In reality, most people are so supportive and excited to work with others. I think that's what makes for the best kind of science: when everyone is collaborating to answer a question, combining all of their expertise and unique insights together. Some people definitely have a competitive streak, but it's much easier to avoid those kinds of working relationship than I had initially worried.

What advice would you give people who aspire to work in science?

Being a good scientist means being good at lots of different things: being able to ask big and important questions; figuring out the best study designs for testing these questions; running simple and complex statistical models; writing up and communicating findings in a clear and engaging way; and playing well with others to build successful collaborations.

It can be really intimidating to think that you have to be perfect at all of these different skills. But the important thing to remember is that everyone - even the most brilliant scientist you can think of - has strengths and weaknesses in each of these areas. The important thing to remember is to not compare your beginning to someone else's middle!

One day you will be talking to another scientist you admire only to realise that you have a specific skill that they lack. And it will feel awesome.

What one thing would you change to make science more accessible to people who don’t currently pursue it?

I would love to increase representation in science. I think that sometimes people tend to think that a scientist looks or thinks a certain way, and that if you don't fit that mould then it isn't the right place for you.

The path from A-B often seems like a straight one when you're on the outside looking in. But most scientists you know have taken a longer, winding path to get where they are today. I think if more people could see how we all got to where we are, they'd realise there is a path there for them as well.

What attracted you to science as a young person?

I wasn’t the sort of kid who knew I would be a scientist from an early age – in another life, I probably would have studied English! But when I was around 15/16 (the time when you have to start narrowing down your options in the English school system) I made the decision that focusing on STEM subjects would give me more choices later on.

What do you do on a typical work day? Which aspects of your work get you out of bed in the morning?

My days can be very varied and can include any combination of teaching, programming, doing some tricky statistical analysis, meetings, reading and writing.

One of my favourite things about my job is that I’m able to learn new things every day.

Did you explore any other career avenues, and if so how did they compare to your current work?

I’ve mostly just worked in universities, though in a variety of roles, from teaching-focused to research-focused to a year working in outreach and engagement! My current job nicely combines all those aspects.

Have you encountered any roadblocks in your career, and how did you overcome them?

Not really roadblocks – but it hasn’t necessarily been a completely linear path e.g. it took me a couple of application rounds to get PhD funding.

Having a range of fairly short-term jobs has also involved moving around quite a bit – I know I am lucky that this hasn’t been too logistically challenging for me, though even then it can mean you never really feel settled. You just have to keep working at trying to get to know people everywhere you go – and at least in the end you have a great network of friends all over the world :)

Was anything in your career path easier than you had expected?

My work has always been quite varied and interdisciplinary and so far it hasn’t been as challenging as I thought it would be to make a career out of that – but we’ll see how I get on!

What advice would you give people who aspire to work in science?

Take a few more maths/programming courses if you can – they’re never going to be a bad investment, even if you don’t want to work in those areas (both biology and psychology research can contain quite a lot of coding and maths...)

What one thing would you change to make science more accessible to people who don’t currently pursue it?

If you didn’t focus on maths/science at school/university, it’s hard to switch later on, even if you later realise it’s something that might interest you.

So I would like to see more lifelong educational opportunities, making science more accessible by giving people the power to learn new skills at any age.

What attracted you to science as a young person?

I wasn’t actually particularly interested in science until I started my psychology degree as an undergrad.

To build my CV to be more competitive for a PhD, I signed up for my department’s versions of RES and UROP, and from there I fell in love with scientific research. I loved that I could explore interesting, often philosophical questions but get actual, tangible answers to them.

What do you do on a typical work day? Which aspects of your work get you out of bed in the morning?

My days have ranged from scuba diving with dolphins before teaching back-to-back lectures in Israel to programming experiments and writing papers at home in my pyjamas.

This variety is what really gets me out of bed – I get to play with ideas, work with incredibly smart and kind colleagues and students from all over the world, think of new and interesting ways to communicate research and statistics to students and lay people, and all the while get paid for it. It’s the best job in the world.

Did you explore any other career avenues, and if so how did they compare to your current work?

I started psychology as an undergrad at first because I wanted to go into clinical/counselling psychology to be a therapist – I even worked as a counsellor at a clinic for kids with eating disorders one summer during my undergrad years. But eventually I decided that the academic life was for me.

I often joke that I loved university so much that I never wanted to leave, and luckily I never had to!

Have you encountered any roadblocks in your career, and how did you overcome them?

Unfortunately my PhD supervisor passed away unexpectedly during my last year, which was incredibly hard on me. I have also suffered from lifelong anxiety that sometimes makes my work a struggle. In both instances I have relied a lot on my friends and family as well as seeking professional help.

Recently I have made an effort to regularly exercise and get involved in different hobbies (like rock climbing and playing in my ukulele group) – I think this has helped quite a lot.

Was anything in your career path easier than you had expected?

I am lucky to have a husband and family who have been supportive of my career. I have now lived in 3 different countries and travelled to many places, all for my work – this could have been a lot harder if not impossible if I did not have a partner who could be flexible and sacrifice for me, as well as a family back in the US who cheers me on and lays on the guilt only once in a while.

What advice would you give people who aspire to work in science?

There is so much advice to give, but the main thing I would say is to try to decouple your sense of identity and self-worth from the results of your work, be it the actual findings, the publications, how the work is received, whether you get that grant or job, etc. It is very difficult to do, but you will be all the healthier for it, and the science will be better too.

What one thing would you change to make science more accessible to people who don’t currently pursue them?

It is imperative that we welcome people from all different backgrounds to science. There is a dearth of scientists who are women/trans (and who have children), ethnic minorities, from non-Western countries, who live with various disabilities, among many other demographics.

The main way to change that is to ask these people (rather than guessing) what would make science more accessible to them, and then actually listen and act on their advice (rather than pay lip-service).

I think the hardest part is the latter but I am certain we will see big strides here if we put in the work to do it.