Interview with Jessica Feldman (abridged version)
Interview with Jessica Feldman, UCSF Tetrad Graduate '08, Assistant Professor at Stanford University (full version)
How did you approach career exploration during grad school at UCSF?
I didn’t explore many career options—I really wanted to be in the lab and stay in academia. I figured either this works out or I’ll figure out what else to do then! That said, I did do a lot of outreach as a grad student. I participated in SEP (Science Education Partnership program), and when I was a postdoc, I was part of a similar program at Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
How have you worked on your professional development?
I think the most important thing I did throughout my career, inspired by Wallace, was to go to lots of scientific meetings. Wallace used to send us to three or four meetings a year, which is a lot. As a postdoc I went to more meetings than most people as well, at least two meetings a year. The most important thing is to be a part of the community from early on so people know who you are and you’re not just a nameless figure.
What tips do you have about attending scientific meetings—when to go and what to present, for example?
I recommend people begin going to meetings early on in their training. If funding is an issue, there are so many travel awards you can apply for, like the travel award to the annual ASCB meeting.
As far as what to present, sometimes people like to wait to present their work until it’s a full story, but I don’t think that’s necessary. There are certainly times when the work is too new, or when one has to think carefully about what to show. But if somebody learns that you working on something and you get scooped, at least you presented your work to the community before that happened. I am a fan of being very open and sharing work as much as possible.
Any tips on how to meet new people at a meeting?
Being a member of the scientific community also means knowing the literature. When you go to meetings and know what people are working on, you can talk to them about it. People love to talk about what they work on! I see it as part of being a scientist—you are doing research but should also be invested in the field, which means you know the work and are willing to discuss it. Regarding deliberately networking at meetings, my approach was simply to work on something I love, to be excited about my work, and to talk to people about it. Most people are in academia because they are excited about the science too. If you follow your passion, I think you’ll be successful.
You mentioned that it’s important to keep up to date with the literature. How exactly are you doing it?
We have a journal club in my lab where we discuss papers. In Wallace’s lab, we used to have a system where everybody was assigned a journal, and at journal club, we would all report on the papers from our journals. We would talk about the highlights and then vote for a paper to discuss in detail next time.
I also have PubMed alerts based on keywords, and I’ll scan those abstracts. And maybe once every two weeks I’ll go and look at my favorite journals to see what’s out there right now. In most papers I’m looking at the figures to see what the main point is, but I just don’t have the time to read a lot of papers in more detail. It is important to stay current on what is published in the big journals, but you also need to stay current in your field, and a lot of interesting papers are published in smaller, specialized journals. Going to meetings and talking with your colleagues is another way to be current on the research out there.
Have you had experience organizing scientific events during early stages of your career?
I used to be part of a team at UCSF that organized an annual symposium. We would invite speakers from all over and had some really great ones attend. Speakers are always very happy to accept invitations from students—it’s flattering for them. I also took part in organizing the Research In Progress seminar series at UCSF for a few years, and as a postdoc, I did help organize some local meetings.
How would you define your own mentorship style now that you have a lab?
Mostly, I try to give people what they need. I was pretty independent as a trainee, but I remember that very early in my career I wanted to have more input. I try to provide people independence, especially to my postdoc, giving her help when she wants it. But you also want to know what everybody is doing, because your success does depend on the work of the people in your lab. I am erring on the side of being more involved with my technician and my undergrads, and it seems like they’re happy to get the feedback. That said, you also have to prioritize time for yourself when you can be productive too.
Ideally, I want to tailor my management style to each person. This is pretty hard, because people don’t really tell you what they want and may not even know what that is. There are also instances when people need something they don’t want. These are things that are hard to navigate.
Have you attended a career development workshop that you found particularly useful?
At the end of my postdoc, I did a new faculty boot camp. One of the useful things we did was the Myers-Briggs personality test. Everybody fell in one of these different groups, and we did exercises that reflect how someone with a different personality type might approach problems or express their views. I think people should do more of this kind of training, it’s really helpful as you think about being a mentor. Whether you’re mentoring a graduate student as a postdoc or mentoring an undergrad, it is important to understand how to help people in a way that they need, as opposed to what you would need.
Have you had any teaching experience before becoming a professor?
I didn’t have much teaching experience, and that wasn’t an issue when I was applying for faculty positions. Of course, if you are applying to primarily undergraduate institutions, you are evaluated on your teaching and not just your research. When I started teaching at Stanford, it did surprise me how much work it was!
How have you developed your teaching skills?
When I started at Stanford, I taught first-year students. Making lectures took a lot of time, so that was an adjustment. In addition, there’s a lot of emphasis now on active learning, and I’ve never been taught in this way or seen what it looks like. I’ve been trying to go to workshops on these techniques and started developing active learning activities for my class. For example, I did one on Stentor. It was based on the observation that the mouth of Stentor always forms in the same place. We developed two models of how this might work with my students and discussed how this could be tested. I set up the problem during the lecture, then the students get into small groups and talk for five minutes, and finally we discuss it at the board. The students did a great job. It’s challenging to come up with these more creative ideas, on top of developing lectures from scratch, but I think it’s important to invest time and energy into teaching. I think to myself: “You’re probably the first person these students are going to be hearing from who is really inspired about science.” I want my students to be excited and learn things, and going to some of the learning-strategy workshops has been very useful.
Have you attended any other teaching-related workshops, in addition to the active learning workshops?
I did a workshop at Stanford recently to explore how people from different backgrounds (socioeconomic, ethnic, etc.) approach situations. These things can affect how they are thinking and feeling in class and in life, and it’s important to think about how to include people in activities more effectively. For example, some students might not feel as confident expressing their ideas, while others who grew up in a more supportive background might be more comfortable saying whatever they want.
What classes do you teach?
I am currently teaching a Cell and Developmental Biology class. It’s really fun, and I love the class but it does need work. Right now, I’m figuring out what I want to talk about and then design the lectures. Next year, I can fine-tune the lectures and develop the in-class activities. Some of my senior colleagues have taught the same class for a really long time, but I can see myself teaching a new class every six or seven years.
At Stanford, you can literally design and teach any class you want. It’s great--the problem there is to decide what to teach!
How do you manage to handle all of your responsibilities?
Originally I tried to do both bench work and teaching, but then I learned that it wasn’t a good idea. This year I’m focused on teaching during spring quarter, and then I’ll focus on the experiments in the fall.
You are still working at the bench?
When I started, my goal was to have the first paper from my lab quickly. I had a rotation student who helped a lot, but I did much of the work on that paper myself. I like doing bench work, and I will continue to try and do as much of it as I can. In the future, I realize that might not be sustainable all the time. Wallace still does his own research. And my postdoc advisor was at the bench 100% of the time. He was a Howard Hughes professor, and he was there every day, all day, doing experiments.
What advantages do you think there are in doing bench work yourself?
It allows me to know what’s working in the lab. Since mine is still a young lab, many people might be learning new techniques at once and there are always places where things can go wrong. I know these techniques, so I can troubleshoot new experiments quickly if needed. Plus, I think people like when I am in the lab. However, I think there are benefits to giving the lab its own space, so that people can have fun and their own conversations when the boss is not around. Once you become a professor, you aren’t exactly part of the lab gang anymore, or, at least, you are in a different way now.
Did you change your behavior when you became a professor?
No, I’m just the same. Some people might think, “Now you are a professor, you should dress better,” and things like that. I think Wallace told me that he got better student reviews when he started wearing a suit to teach in the medical school! Mostly, I’m trying to learn how to be an effective mentor, especially to undergrads. They’re so cute and excited, and they call me “Professor” all the time, but I don’t feel any different than I did as a postdoc!
How are you developing your relationships with other professors at Stanford?
First, I try to be true to myself, same with the job interview. You want to be at a place where you are appreciated for who you are, and where you don’t feel pressure to be any different. As for my colleagues, I was surprised that there are so many fantastic people at Stanford, both senior and junior faculty alike. There are people doing psychology, physics, math, and computer science, so I have these colleagues and friends in all these different areas. I enjoy that diversity of interests and find it exciting. I have a friend who works on the Large Hadron Collider, and I think that’s so cool.
I also enjoy being at a university that has undergrads. I love them so much, because they are so excited. Some just care about their grade, and that’s cool. But others are so excited to learn new things for the first time, same as in lab. They really appreciate the time you take to help them become scientists. Loving my undergrads was something I was not expecting when I applied for the position.
Are you happy in your current position?
Yes, I feel extremely lucky. I don’t know who I owe all these things to, but I feel very fortunate.
How did you think about which biological questions to work on early in your career?
My undergrad background is very diverse. I worked on social behavior of monkeys in Kenya, on whales at Madagascar, on neuroscience, on philogenetics in macaques, and on all different kinds of things. Then I decided to work as a technician for two years before graduate school, because I knew I wanted to do research but wasn’t sure about which field. I thought I wanted to do neuroscience in primates, but after I visited a primate facility, I realized that wasn’t for me.
Next, I found this lab at NYU that worked on zebrafish heart development. I joined that lab as a technician, and it was just amazing. It was the first time I learned about genetics in a model organism. This was the lab of Deborah Yelon, and it was a young lab--I was the first member. Deborah was around a lot, and she would send me to meetings to give a talk as a technician. That was so exciting! Then we published a paper, and then another. Deborah was from UCSF, and she recommended I apply. I didn’t know anything about UCSF, being from the East coast. When I visited UCSF, it was so amazing. I loved the city, and I decided to move to San Francisco.
During one of my classes we read Wallace’s paper on centriole formation, and I heard that Wallace was coming to UCSF to establish his lab. I was so excited about centrioles that I wrote my proposal for the Cell Biology oral exam on an experiment that I still want to do, which would test the mechanism of centriole assembly. Wallace then suggested that I rotate in his lab and while that original experiment didn’t work, Wallace told me that I should go to the ASCB meeting and present a poster. The experience was great, and I became fascinated by the idea that you can think about how a cell develops the same way you think about how an organism develops.
When I was choosing a postdoc, I wanted to keep working on the same questions, but I wanted to think about that in a context of an organism. I wanted to work with a system where I could do live cell imaging and follow interesting properties that would help address the question of how you build tissues within an organism. My postdoc advisor, James Priess, is the world expert on C. elegans embryology, and I learned so much from him. I knew that if I work hard enough at something, if he can do it, I can do it too. Now we work on microtubule organization in my lab, but eventually I would like to come back to how whole organisms develop.
How did you approach writing your research statement when you applied for your current position?
I had experience writing fellowships as a postdoc. I was a Helen Hay Whitney fellow, and then I was writing senior fellowships. That process of thinking about my research for fellowships was very useful for solidifying the kind of research plan that I wanted to do in my own lab. Applying for fellowships forces you to sit down and think. Sometimes asking yourself: “What am I doing here? What is my long-term plan? What am I going to learn from this?” can be just as valuable as working really hard at the bench.
When I applied for my job, Stanford was looking for a professor that would study cells in development. I wasn’t necessarily going to apply for jobs in that round, but my partner is an engineer, and the Bay Area is somewhere that we could both have successful careers. So I applied to a couple of positions in the area, got one interview, and got the job. So I do feel really lucky.
Could you share some advice for people planning to apply for PI positions?
It’s hard, and if you are feeling really down and overwhelmed, just know that’s what everybody is feeling. And the same applies to grant writing. I just got the New Innovator Award, but when I was writing it, I thought I would never get it. I thought I was proposing experiments that were far too simple, while other people were thinking about these amazing large scale high-throughput studies, but that’s not the way I operate. I was very surprised when I got the award. As a PI you apply to so many grants, and you won’t get them all, so you get used to rejection over time. It is what it is. I still have bouts of impostor syndrome sometimes, but I try to use that as motivation and work really hard to get to where I want to be.
My other tip is that everyone has a hard time in the first year after starting their lab—it’s so much work. My first day at Stanford was lots of paperwork, cardboard boxes everywhere, the construction of my lab space was still ongoing, and I am trying to set up my new confocal microscope in the middle of this craziness because I needed to produce data immediately. It was really hard.
Do you feel any additional pressure as a woman in academia?
No, I know I’m capable, and I try not to pay attention or worry about these things. There is a somewhat negative attitude in academia towards being a professor and having a baby. But when I decide to have a baby, I am just going to do it, without thinking about what my colleagues will think about it. I think the best thing we can do is to inspire women to take charge of what they want. This kind of adversity is unfortunate but try to be the most confident person you can to combat this. I’m trying to inspire other women to think: “I’m just going to do what I want to do.” If you act confidently, then forget the people who might be judgmental. Sometimes I wonder if that’s the right way to be, but it’s the only way I’ve ever been.
Which personal traits do you think are required to be successful in academia?
I wonder about this myself. Ultimately, I think that if you got a PhD, it means you were successful. You don’t need to change who you are. But it’s helpful to think about what made you successful. One thing that is important for success in academia is giving good talks. If this doesn’t come naturally to you, then that’s something you can work on. I used to be terrified of public speaking, but as you give more and more talks, that feeling goes away. Of course, I still practice my talks, especially to be within the time limits, but now I am also much faster at preparing my presentations. Academic jobs are geared towards people who speak well, whether it’s presenting research or teaching. Yes, you should do great science, but people are trying to hire someone they are going to enjoy being on faculty with for years. It’s worth thinking about how you can express what an interesting person you are.
It sounds like you became much more efficient at everything you do over the past couple of years. Could you share your perspective on personal efficiency?
I try to consciously ask myself whether what I’m doing is the most productive or whether something is worth my time. But I think the best way to become efficient is to think critically about the best experiments to do and only doing those. Prioritize ideas that are most likely to succeed, but also prioritize the experiments and research that are the most exciting. It’s a balance, but ultimately, just think carefully about what question you want to answer.
