People of Science with Jon Choy

Synopsis:  In this episode, we chat with Sarah Vandal, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in Dartmouth’s Molecular and Cell Biology program. She shares her journey as a grad student, giving a behind-the-scenes look at her daily life, balancing experiments, lab meetings, and leadership in Dartmouth’s SACNAS chapter. Sarah reflects on the highs and lows of research, highlighting the power of resilience and community while embracing the growth that comes with the Ph.D. journey. She also offers valuable advice for aspiring researchers, encouraging them to explore opportunities early and staying open to the possibilities a Ph.D. can offer.

Shrewsberry -> Hanover: Originally from Shrewsbury (Massachusetts), Sarah moved to Maine to do her undergraduate studies at Colby College. There she engaged in Neuroscience research in the Ahmad lab. She then moved to Hanover to begin her PhD at Dartmouth in the Molecular and Cellular Biology program. Now Sarah is a fourth-year graduate student (third research year) in the Moseley lab studying the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying cell division.

Lists: Staying organized is a hallmark of most successful PhD students. For Sarah, she tries to clearly outline and carry out tasks she would like to complete for that day. On most days, these tasks might manifest as intimate hours with a microscope investigating cell size while on other days she might meet with her PI or lab to touch base on research progress. Importantly, her to-do lists help her stay organized and on track with her progress, enabling her to be involved in activities outside of research. For instance, Sarah is actively involved in the SACNAS chapter, assisting in putting on various professional development events.

Story: Perhaps another hallmark of a PhD is failure. While Sarah’s first two research years were relatively straightforward, in part due to beginning her research journey with an ongoing project, she recently experienced hurdles. She points out how “most of the time your experiments won’t work” and that “it’s important to think carefully how you may want to continue or terminate certain research avenues to build a cohesive and full story”. I appreciate this advice since I am someone who finds satisfaction when things work and can see myself easily perseverating on trying to make something work when it may be insignificant in building a scientific story and might be the thing inhibiting significant research progress.

Forever home: Maybe it goes unsaid, but a PhD is not easy. Certainly, for many graduate students, there will be failure, and this won’t be fun. No one likes to fail, but maybe more importantly is how we respond and react in the face of struggle. I appreciate Sarah’s advice to search for a lab (and PI) whose mentorship and culture are compatible with your values, warning that a supportive group that you can lean into can make all the difference during inevitable tribulations. Remember that this is a 5+ year program (4+ years in a single lab), so finding a lab that feels like home is important not only for your mental and physical welfare but also in ensuring timely research progress.

F31: While one may become accustomed to failure in their pursuit of a PhD, it is important to also celebrate one’s successes. Shortly before recording this episode, Sarah was accepted for the competitive NIH F31 training fellowship. Application to this fellowship involves grueling application components, including writing a grant. However, with her F31 award under her belt, this means that she is guaranteed funding for the rest of her PhD! This likely also means her lab no longer needs to fund her research and that she’ll get a slight increase in her annual salary, hooray!

Nature and network: Sarah points out how two pros of Dartmouth’s PhD program are its location and alumni network. Located in the small city of Hanover, New Hampshire, Dartmouth provides an opportunity to enjoy the scenic nature surrounding Vermont and the greater area of Hanover. Additionally, Sarah highlights the alumni network as a valuable resource to explore post-PhD career options and perhaps get your foot in the door into academic, business, or engineering spaces.

Try it: For those looking into getting into research as an undergraduate, she recommends just exploring! There is truly no better way to gauge if you like research than to just do it and experiment with different fields of research. For Sarah, she began exploring research, found out she enjoyed it, then pursued summer undergraduate research programs at other research institutions—she encourages others to do the same.  

Education: Coming into graduate school, Sarah was interested in a career in academia. As she’s learned more about the different career opportunities post-PhD, Sarah’s career interests have evolved and gravitated towards science education. As she looks to complete her thesis work within the next few years, she hopes to pursue a career in science communication or policy. More specifically, she envisions herself creating educational materials for the public on various science topics.

Idk—that’s ok: Sarah highlights a trap many adolescents and budding students/adults fall into, that is feeling the need to fit into general job categories (e.g. lawyer, medical doctor, engineer, etc). She remembers how this may feel restrictive and suffocating. In reflection as a fourth-year PhD student, she acknowledges that while yes there may be one straightforward career path post-PhD (academia/professorship) there are several ways to utilize your graduate education in different spaces. She encourages others to not silo their career aspirations into job categories that may seem familiar. Rather, lean into your curiosity to explore what’s out there—to see what career options may seem appealing to you!

I’ll leave with you a few words from Sarah: “You don’t have to know what you want to do. I still don’t know what I want to do. And it’s okay to adapt and change as you grow and learn”

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Jon: Hi, everyone. Thank you for joining me for another episode of the People of Science podcast. I’m your host, Jon Choy, and my goal is to highlight the experiences of people in science because I believe that the experiences of other people can inspire deep reflection and be a powerful tool for clarifying our own convictions and aspirations.

Whether you are considering if a PhD is right for you or currently a graduate student, I hope that these conversations can be a helpful resource for you.

 For transcripts and summaries of this episode, I encourage you to check out my website@peopleofscience.blog

And this episode, we chat with Sarah Vandal, a fourth year PhD student in Dartmouth’s molecular and cellular biology program. She shares her journey as a grad student, giving a behind the scenes, look at her daily life, balancing experiments, lab meetings, and leadership in Dartmouth SACNAS chapter. Sarah also reflects on the highs and lows of research, highlighting the power of resilience and community while also embracing the growth that comes with a PhD journey. She also offers valuable advice for aspiring researchers, encouraging them to explore opportunities early and staying open to the possibilities a PhD can offer.

Thank you so much for hopping on the people of science podcast with me. You mind giving us a short introduction about yourself, what’s your name and where you’re from.

[00:01:27] Sarah: Yeah, I’m Sarah Vandal. I’m originally from Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, and now I’m a grad student at Dartmouth College in the Molecular and Cell Bio Ph. D. program.

[00:01:38] Jon: Yeah, and how has the Molecular and Cell Biology program been at Dartmouth so far? What year are you, and sort of, if you were to describe your research to a layman, how would you describe it?

[00:01:49] Sarah: Yeah, so I’m currently a fourth year, just started my fourth year. I’m in the biochemistry and cell biology department, and my research focuses on understanding how cells regulate their size before dividing.

So we use a model organism called fission yeast, which are really consistent in their size, to be able to look into kind of the molecular pathways that allow them to tell the cell, okay, you’re big enough now, or you’re too small, don’t divide yet.

[00:02:18] Jon: And so what does a day in the life look like for you and your program?

And running experiments.

[00:02:25] Sarah: Yeah, so usually kind of, the day in the life for me is starting off in the morning, kind of going through a to do list of all the things I want to get done for the day. A lot of times we’ll be starting cultures of our yeast. So, making sure they’re not too overgrown for any afternoon experiments.

I’m part of the SACNAS chapter at Dartmouth, so I participate in that and kind of help to establish different professional development events. So that sometimes takes up part of my day or meetings with my PI or with my lab where we just go through what we’ve been working on for the week. And it’s a good opportunity to kind of get some information and go through any struggles that we’ve been working on for the week and then kind of wrap up the day with any experiments that I want to get done.

I do a lot of microscopy work, so that’s usually how I spend my afternoons.

[00:03:18] Jon: Amazing. And could you sort of describe I guess, three years into your research a, a major challenge that you faced throughout this time?

[00:03:27] Sarah: Yeah, definitely. I think the first two years for me surprisingly went a little smooth.

I got onto a project that had already had the ball rolling a little bit from a postdoc previously so it was easy for me to hop on and she was still in the lab to get some information and move things along. But this summer definitely was where the struggle started to hit where a lot of the experiments were not going well, weren’t working.

And this is kind of an experience you have to go through in science. Honestly, most of the time your work and experiments won’t work. And it’s a lot of troubleshooting and persevering through that. And now things are definitely moving along kind of. reframing which direction in my project I want to continue with, what I want to kind of avoid going down and that kind of way of thinking and being able to step away from something if you’ve worked on it for too long to be able to kind of finish the project and make a full story is a good way and mindset to have going into grad school.

[00:04:30] Jon: Yeah, I think what you’re alluding to is really great that, that failure is reality and You know, you have to make these decisions on whether to continue something, not continue something, but Perhaps this could feel, you know, stagnant almost and you can almost feel a sense of complacency.

How do you stay motivated during this time?

[00:04:48] Sarah: Yeah, I think one of the biggest things I would say about grad school is when you enter it is to find a good mentor and find a good lab. Because if you’re in a lab that, you know, You don’t get along with your mentor, or you don’t get along with your lab mates.

Everything you do in the lab will feel like a lot of work and will be really hard. And it’s really important to find those people that are able to uplift you in a personal way, but also are able to help you process through those troubles in lab in terms of your research. And so having those kind of networks behind you are really helpful in kind of moving things forward and not feeling like, oh my gosh, I will never finish this PhD.

[00:05:30] Jon: And we’ve talked about sort of, you know, failures and sort of struggles. And we’ve also talked about how you know you can overcome those. Perhaps you can give us a success, a major success during these past three years.

[00:05:41] Sarah: Yeah, definitely. Actually, one of the successes comes this morning. I got the official news that I was funded for an NIH F31 training fellowship.

So this fellowship basically provides me with funding for the rest of my PhD and is really competitive. So it was a great opportunity to kind of work on grant writing and gain those kind of skills, but it was a great it was awesome that it actually ended up being successful and being funded. So that was a big success.

[00:06:11] Jon: Yeah, no congratulations. And being sort of in the Dartmouth molecular and cellular biology program, perhaps you can, you know, allude to some of the strengths of the program. What are some of the unique aspects of Dartmouth’s MCB program?

[00:06:24] Sarah: Yeah. So as a lot of people know, Dartmouth is located in a small town of Hanover and kind of the middle of New Hampshire. For a lot of people, it’s a really great opportunity to kind of experience the outdoor kind of the nature of around Vermont and New Hampshire and what that has to offer. So I think that’s a great strength for Dartmouth.

In addition to Dartmouth, Dartmouth has really great kind of alumni network. And I think for all of their different graduate programs, whether that’s in business, biology, engineering, there’s a really great opportunity to connect with previous grad students and learn about what they’re doing and kind of get a foot in the door for future opportunities.

[00:07:07] Jon: That’s amazing. And for those interested in sort of getting involved with research and, you know, being a PhD student in Dartmouth’s molecular and cellular biology program. What advice would you give them?

[00:07:18] Sarah: Yeah, I would definitely say to kind of keep your eyes peeled early on, and if you’re in your undergraduate career start exploring different things.

You don’t have to stick with anything, you kind of explore. So if that’s research, trying to find a mentor at your school, and participate in research, even if it’s just for a term, to just see how you like it. And if you like it, kind of finding additional opportunities. There’s a lot of summer kind of undergraduate research opportunities available all over the US that are good to get involved with.

So that’s kind of how I got my foot in the door with research and how I definitely advise a lot of other people.

[00:07:57] Jon: And what’s next for you, Sarah, after, after graduating from PhD? Perhaps you can give us a one year, five year, and ten year plan.

[00:08:06] Sarah: That’s a good question, and I wish I had more of a definitive plan, but I think this is a common situation a lot of grad students find themselves, and I don’t think it’s anything to be worried about.

When I came into grad school, I definitely was interested in pursuing kind of academia, but more on a primarily teaching level, so at a smaller school. Since being at Dartmouth, I’ve definitely learned about a different kind of all different kinds of future opportunities that are available. And so I’ve become more interested in science education more broadly.

So that includes like science communication and writing and also policy. And so I think I find myself probably in a year from now, still working in the lab, finishing up my project hopefully finished in two, two and a half years. So then five years down the line, I think I want to pursue something related to science communication and science policy, kind of related to open science, or kind of generating better materials for the general public to understand different science topics is kind of where I see myself going.

[00:09:14] Jon: Amazing. And then, finally, Perhaps you can give advice to your younger self, young Sarah, maybe when you were a child, or maybe when you were in college, or maybe even just a couple years ago.

[00:09:25] Sarah: Yeah, I think when I was a kid, I definitely kind of fell into the general kind of job categories that I see a lot of people falling into, whether it’s be a doctor, be a lawyer, or be this other small niche thing.

And it felt really As though there weren’t a lot of different job opportunities, but even being in research and being a scientist right now, that’s one avenue, but there are so many avenues off of that that are so different from one other, one another. So I would definitely say to do some research.

Google is a great opportunity to like explore what kind of jobs are out there and just really explore what you want to do and you don’t have to know what you want to do. I still don’t know what I want to do. And it’s okay to adapt and change as you grow and learn.

[00:10:21] Jon: Well, yeah, no, that’s great. And I think what you’re alluding to also is that, you know, PhD is a unique training where you can apply it to a bunch of different things.

You’re not siloed into just research and not just into academia, but into a lot of things. So I appreciate that insight for our listeners. And thank you so much, Sarah.

[00:10:37] Sarah: Yeah. Thank you for having me.