Fascination of Science, page 41
Sallie Chisholm | Marine Biology
Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge Crafoord Prize 2019
United States
Professor Chisholm, when you first started at MIT, you were the only woman in your department. How did that feel?
Growing up, I'd always been in an environment dominated by men. All my parents’ friends had boys. So, I was used to being surrounded by boys early on and then by men in my career. I just did the best I could and didn't notice the barriers until a little later.
What made you notice the barriers?
When I came up for tenure, I became cognizant of the different ways men and women approach their careers and aware of some of the micro-inequities. I began to understand that the way I was experiencing my environment was fundamentally different from that of some of my male colleagues.
How so?
It's like in football—there's a playbook and the players all know the game. I always felt like the men had the playbook for how to succeed in academia, whereas I was always struggling to figure out the rules of the game. There were some things that just came so naturally to them, like going to a department head and asking for all kinds of stuff. I rarely asked for help, thinking it would be a sign of weakness.
Did the university treat you differently?
I think it's fair to say that in those days, and sometimes today too, women were not taken as seriously on average as were the male faculty. I mean, I was hired in 1976, right after universities were mandated to hire more women in order to get federal funding. So, throughout my career, though it's never been articulated, I know certain things have happened because I'm a woman.
Like what?
Getting hired, for one. There was pressure for universities to have women faculty members. In my generation, so few of us women were considered for prizes or things like that. So, while I'm sure I benefited from affirmative action, I know that the micro-inequalities along the way have balanced that.
Did you get the same access to equipment or office and lab space as your male colleagues got?
As a junior faculty member, I was supported by my department. Well, not always. On average, women did not have the same amount of space and or equal salaries. On several occasions over the course of my career, for instance, I realized that my salary was not as high as some of my male colleagues, and that was corrected.
“I never expected to succeed to this level.”
How did your male colleagues treat you?
In a way I was lucky. Not only was I the only woman but I was the only biologist. So, if I felt slighted in any way, I could never tell whether it was because I was a woman or because I was a biologist. I felt isolated, but I wasn't constantly attributing this to being a woman. I was used to marching to my own drum because I was the only biologist there.
Did you ever experience humiliation along the way?
Humiliation is a strong word. I remember someone once saying that if you're a scientist in an engineering department, then you must be a mediocre scientist who's just hiding. That made me so mad that I basically just said, “I'll show you.” I think that motivated me for the rest of my career.
Did you feel that people expected less of you because you're a woman?
I think a woman is motivated to be better than men just to stay at the same level as them. The feeling is that the students sort of assume you're not up to par until you prove it. With male faculty members at MIT—highly accomplished people—it's just assumed that they're really smart. Women, on the other hand, have to prove themselves a little bit more.
Well, you've certainly done that. And then some, correct?
Yeah, the good thing is you reach a point where you realize it doesn't matter. People are going to think what they're going to think. So, you begin to do things for yourself. Otherwise, the imposter syndrome will kill you. A lot of us women suffer from that.
Were there specific moments when you felt like an imposter?
I mean, it's this tension, right? You know you're good, because you get frustrated if somebody who's not as good is reaching great heights and you're not. On the other hand, it's not like it was easy in the beginning. I came to MIT on a lark, and I was an oddball in this department at the beginning. It took a lot of luck along the way and the help of some good people. I keep thinking how lucky I've been. Especially now that there's this organism, Prochlorococcus, that is the love of my life.
How does your husband Don feel about that? You once joked that he had to compete with Prochlorococcus for your affection
I think it's a healthy balance, yeah. He does compete for my attention often, but he's very tolerant about it, which is good. He's not a scientist, and I've found that works well for me to be with someone who is supportive and interested in my career, but who can help me not take it all too seriously, so I lead a more diverse life.
Do you have kids?
No.
Was it a conscious decision not to have children?
Not an active decision, no. Life just unfolds in different ways. Very few of the women at MIT had children when I got here. It was really hard in those days for women in academia to have families. And I married late. I was in my forties. I probably could have had a child, but it seemed too late, so we didn't. It saddens me that we don't have any children. Well, it saddens me when I'm with friends who have children and they are happy; it doesn't sadden me when I'm with friends who have to worry about their children all the time.
There was a long period at the beginning, several years or so, before you had any success. What made you persist?
Yeah, we studied Prochlorococcus for five years without any funding. It was just so interesting, and I had people in the lab who were just as keen as I was. In science, you have to be curious and able to tolerate failure. You can't have high expectations day to day. You have to enjoy the quest more than finding the answer. We used some money that had been allocated for something else and we found enough means to keep us going.
Could you explain in a few words what Prochlorococcus is?
Prochlorococcus is genus of very small microorganisms that are extremely abundant in the oceans. And they are photosynthetic. They are the smallest and most abundant photosynthetic cells on the planet, basically. There's an estimated several billions of them in the global oceans. So, the organism is extremely abundant and important for the metabolism of the oceans and is the base of the food web there.
Why is this organism so important?
Prochlorococcus microbes remove CO2 from the atmosphere and keep it concentrated in the oceans. If all the phytoplankton were to die, and if all the CO2 in the oceans were suddenly released into the atmosphere, there would be two or three times as much CO2 in the atmosphere. That demonstrates how important that living film of photosynthesis in the oceans is for keeping the system in equilibrium.
Is your research now more important than ever owing to climate change?
Well, in order to understand climate change, one needs to understand the role of the oceans in the climate system and the global carbon cycle to do that, and that's where understanding the role of phytoplankton is key.
What drives you about this research?
About once a month, we discover something new about these little organisms. They've got secrets. They are so beautiful and simple, and yet are so incredibly complex in terms of its global distribution. The more we learn about these microbes, the more their story comes out. It's like opening a present every day. What we learn about Prochlorococcus obviously has applications to other forms of life, and so this makes me think about the world in a different way. It allows me to develop a new lens for looking at life on the planet.
Can you give me an example?
Typically, when you study a microbe, you extract a single cell, grow it, and study it. But what we found when we tried to isolate Prochlorococcus is that the microbe has other bacteria that it brings along with it and it grows better with them. So, what we're doing now is trying to figure out what it is about this companionship that makes them, let's say, happier.
It makes you realize that most of what we know about biology has been studied in isolation. And if you're studying a living creature in isolation, you're getting a distorted view. So, I'm trying to develop what I call cross-scale biology, in which we try to really understand organisms across all these levels.
How did you feel when President Obama awarded you the Medal of Science?
That was exciting. I was astonished. There I was, working away at what I would call a rather esoteric topic, and so receiving the award meant that somebody out there had actually been reading my papers and understanding the bigger picture of my work. I don't think a Medal of Science has ever been awarded in the field of biological oceanography, so it was thrilling for Prochlorococcus to be recognized in that way.
So, it was a sublime feeling?
Oh no, it was terrifying. I'm shy. Being on stage like that is thrilling, but it's a little nerve-wracking. I'm not entirely comfortable being the center of attention like that. I wish my team could have been up there with me. I always feel so indebted to the talented people in my lab. I feel like I'm the conductor and they're the musicians. Without them, I'd be nothing.
“I really, really love doing that: just being there for myself, being in my head. It feels like I'm going into my own brain.”
Do you think that's a typically female thing to say?
I don't know if that's female. It is my style because those people really are an integral part of what I do. Since I bring together people from different fields, I have to be comfortable not knowing just what I'm talking about half the time. That's often misinterpreted as humility, but I'm not being humble—I'm being honest. I've put together teams of experts, and I can take credit for keeping my eye on the big picture, but it's hard to take credit for all their hard work.
You've reached this wonderful position of Institute Professor, and yet there still seems to be some insecurity on your part. How can this be?
I never expected to succeed to this level. I thought I'd jump through the hoops and get tenure, but I never expected this level of recognition. The other day, I got an email from someone congratulating me on some honor, and he said he remembered reading my papers as an undergraduate; I was thinking, I had no idea undergraduates even had a reason to read my papers. It's hard to have a sense of how the world sees you, I guess.
Where do you think that comes from?
I grew up in a patriarchal family. As a kid, I realized a lot of the light shone on my older brother and there were no expectations for me—and so I didn't expect anything of myself. But all along, I had this drive to be noticed, so I tried to do things right. And I just kept getting things right again and again, and eventually . . . somebody noticed.
What got you hooked on science?
My father was a businessman, and my mother was a frustrated homemaker. She was smart, but back in those days a career was pretty much out of the question for a woman. Me, I took a biology class in college, and I remember realizing that if you did experiments, you could publish a paper and people would believe what you said. And I thought, Well, this is amazing. As a young woman, it was a way to find a voice and prove that I knew something. That's what got me hooked on science.
What advice would you give a young person interested in science?
I would just say, if you enjoy it, follow it. It's a field that is constantly renewing itself and the more answers you find, the more questions you'll have. It's a way of understanding the world—of understanding life. What could be more exciting than that?
Do you have any plans to retire?
I don't want to retire because I don't want to miss anything. We're on to some pretty exciting things right now. And I really want to make sure that Prochlorococcus is distributed throughout the scientific world before I retire, because we have strains from all over the world and there aren't that many labs studying it. It could easily be lost to obscurity after all this work. I want Prochlorococcus to have a future.
When you're working, how do you get into the zone?
I work at home a lot because I can get a lot done there. To shut out the world, I put on noise-canceling headphones—the kind machinists use when they're working with loud machines. I tell my husband, “Okay, I'm going into lockdown now,” and that's how I get some of my real deep work done. I really, really love doing that: just being there for myself, being in my head. It feels like I'm going into my own brain.
You grew up quite far from any ocean and didn't even see an ocean until you were 14 years old. Why did you choose oceanography, of all fields? What's your relationship with water?
Well, I grew up on Lake Superior, which is like a freshwater ocean. And when I was in college, my own research project was also on a lake. Then when I went to graduate school, I studied freshwater phytoplankton, though I quickly realized that much of the action and funding was in oceanography because the U.S. Navy was funding a lot of it at the time. So, as a postdoc I went into oceanography, and that's when I got into saltwater phytoplankton.
So, water has been your passion all along?
It wasn't like that. I don't have a particular connection to water, nor was I ever especially passionate about the ocean—or any specific path, for that matter. This is something I try to tell many of my students who wonder, What is my passion? or can't decide what they're really interested in. I tell them, “You don't have to know that now. Just put one foot in front of the other and it will find you.” That's really what happened to me. I didn't look for it.
What's your message to the world?
I guess it would be that we need to appreciate what nature gives us every day. We need to think about the natural world and all the other species besides humans that we depend upon. Prochlorococcus is one of them. We take the living earth for granted and assume it's always going to be there and support us humans. We can't just keep doing this because it's not going to be there if we keep going the way we're going.
“Remember your ultimate goal of why you do what you do.”
Tolullah Oni | Medicine
Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Cambridge
Former Co-Chair of the Young Global Academy
Great Britain
You were born in Lagos, Nigeria. How did you manage to make it big in the West?
Well, I would argue that I'm still making it big. Fundamentally, I think my parents instilled a sense of drive and ambition in my siblings and me from the word go. As a result, we've been blessed with a sense of purpose and a feeling of unlimited potential—the belief that we can achieve whatever we set out to do.
Your parents were clearly a positive influence on you. What were their jobs?
My father's background was in food science and technology, and he worked for a multinational corporation. My mother was a French lecturer at the university. She shielded me from society's sense of female inferiority and instead made me feel that there wasn't any glass ceiling. I guess I was lucky in that respect, given the gender inequality a lot of women face today. With hindsight I can see that this was a deliberate action, and my upbringing was unusual, but at the time I thought anybody could do anything they wanted, regardless of whether they were a girl or a boy. I used to wait at the university for Mum to finish her lectures, and it never struck me as anything unusual—it was just what she did. And if she did it well—well, why shouldn't I?
Were you one of the brightest and best at your school?
I've always been ambitious, and I strived to be one of the best. I tried hard and didn't just rely on natural talent. I'm naturally competitive, so my siblings and I would compete to see who would be top of the class by the end of term. I was a mixture of just sheer stubborn ambition and drive, which made me a fighter.
You say that you were ambitious. Can you remember your earliest ambition?
Yes, even as I child I knew that I wanted to be a doctor, as I wanted to do something that would positively impact other people's lives. When I was about 7 years old, I watched a documentary about open-heart surgery performed on a child, and I was fascinated by the heart—it just looked so alien. I decided then and there that I wanted to be a pediatric cardiologist, as I was really struck by this sick child who should be running around playing or at school. I realized, I could do something to help children, just like me. That's what I want to do!
So, how long did you live in Lagos when you were growing up?
I stayed in Lagos until my mid-teens. My parents wanted me to be schooled in a globally competitive education system, so they sent me to a boarding school in Surrey, on the outskirts of London, to finish my schooling.
