Embracing the community ::: Dr. Hadley Wickham

Happy #TidyTuesday! Excited to share an awesome conversation with Hadley Wickham (@hadleywickham), Chief Scientist @rstudio! We tried to stay away from #ggplot2 and the #tidyverse and wanted to focus on his journey and life. Enjoy! #RStats

Transcription

Transcribed by Nicole Kramer (she/her)

JP: What’s up, y’all? It’s your host JP Flores and welcome to From where does it STEM?

Hadley: Hi, I’m Hadley Wickham. I’m the chief scientist at RStudio. Basically what me and my team do is develop tools to make data science, like, more fun, easier, and faster. So we have a pretty broad [inaudible]. We work with mostly in R, and then as well as tools for doing data science since we develop a lot of R packages to do data science work. We also develop packages to make it easier to develop packages to do data science. So we have a sideline of kind of helping people become better software engineers in R as well.

JP: Cool. Would you mind painting a picture of who you are outside of science? You know, where were you raised? How were you raised? Parents? How many siblings? [inaudible] I guess.

Hadley: So I’m from New Zealand originally. So I grew up in Hamilton, which is a pretty, it’s like a, I guess it’s…there’s a couple hundred thousand people there. So reasonable sized town in Hamilton with my two parents and I have a younger sister as well. I guess, yeah, like as a kid I was super nerdy, I would say…extremely nerdy. So I, like one of my first jobs when I was in high school was I’d gotten really into like, Microsoft Office and Microsoft Access, and I had a job in high school documenting databases with someone. And I liked about databases like my dad’s work and I had some part-time jobs doing that. So that was kind of like one of the things like I was programming from a pretty young age. Dad had like computers in the house. Like we had super, super old school laptops, like, where they’re so heavy that you couldn’t actually put them on your lap and stuff. So exposed to like computers and math from a pretty young age.

JP: What are dinners like during holidays? Is it all shop? Is it programming languages? Stats? Or how is that?

Hadley: Yeah, a little bit. Yeah so my dad…so one of the reasons… me and my sister both did our PhDs in the states and one of the reasons for that is my dad did his PhD at Cornell. So I think like just growing up that just seemed like oh you know you just do what your dad did so doing a PhD seems pretty normal. I think the the rude awakening was that Dad did his PhD in two years so we kind of thought, “Oh like two years. That’s not too long, that’s not too long to do a PhD,” but the reality is a little different for most people.

JP: Yeah, does he ever give you crap for that? Is he ever like, “You gotta do it in two. You didn’t do it in two.”

Hadley: (Laughs) no, but I recently…I was at home recently and I discovered like he still has his, like, the calculator that he bought to do his like, some of his PhD work, which is like it cost like $350 back in the day. And it like, plugs into the wall, like it’s not battery-powered, it’s mains-powered. And the cool thing about it, it’s one of these HP calculators which uses Reverse Polish notation, which is where you type like the numbers in first and then put in the operator. It’s pretty cool.

JP: That’s awesome. Yeah, so where are you now? I know, like, I know you’re in Houston. You taught at Rice for a little bit. But of our curiosity, do you have any pets? Like what’s the status of your current life right now?

Hadley: Yeah I think you can actually see one. Lola, right there. 12 year old Shar Pei. She’s pretty quiet these days but she knows every night at 8:00 p.m. that that’s when we take her for a walk. And she is like insistent on that every night. So I’m here with Lola and my husband, Jeff. We just got married last year.

JP: Congrats.

Hadley: Thanks. We’d been together for like 13 years before that, so it was a long engagement but pretty nice. Yeah, I think we like, I don’t know…kind of we both like Houston. Obviously like the politics in Texas is like batshit crazy, but I think we both like the weather here now and Houston is like a super like liberal, democratic city. So it’s a pretty nice place to live overall.

JP: Yeah, when you go on these walks, do you ever get it like, like, people to ask to take a selfie with you? How does that work? I’m sure it’s not a [inaudible].

Hadley: No, there’s been like uh, I definitely get like recognized at conferences but it’s very rare that I get like recognized in real life. It’s happened to me like twice in Houston, like once when I was at the liquor store and once when I was at a restaurant where people were like, “oh, hey, Hadley Wickham.”

JP: Does your husband know what you do at all? Like how does that..

Hadley: Yeah, I mean it’s a [inaudible]. He’s like come to a lot of like, you know, conferences with me and been to meetups and stuff so he’s got like a pretty good sense. He can kind of like, you know, talk…talk in a way that sounds reasonably knowledgeable about what I do.

JP: All right, so let’s talk about like your community, right. So a lot of people talk about finding their communities, whether it be in academia, whether it be the amazing community you have at RStudio. What were your support systems like, you know, growing up? How supportive, you know, is your husband of you being an R celebrity that you are and how intense it has been for you.

Hadley: Yeah, [inaudible]. I think I’ve like always been someone who has like a relatively like small number of good friends. Like I don’t have, I’m not just, I’m basically not very social in general and fairly introverted. But I’ve always had like I think like pretty, pretty good friends and who’ve been supportive and my family’s always been like super supportive, even as, like, my kind of career’s changed and you know, various things have changed in my life. They’ve always been pretty amazing. And now it kind of feels like…you know I have like a couple of friends in Houston kind of locally but now, it just feels like I have friends all over the world that I keep in touch with via Twitter and Google Chat and iMessage and whatever, which, I don’t know, that kind of works well for me because I like being, like, alone most of the time. But like you know, it’s good to know that there are like people to talk to, and like I particularly kind of appreciate like Jeff because if I didn’t have him I would just be like by myself, like all of the time and I know like I’d get… like at some point that’d start to make me feel pretty lonely and bored and stuff. It’s great to have someone else to kind of like pull me out of my comfort zone and like do different things together.

JP: Is he in science?

Hadley: He’s basically, you know, in the same space and there’s now like, a lot of kind of nursing, and nursing informatics is kind of a big thing. But equally, like, he’s not like…he likes dealing with people, which is like great for his job and like totally opposite of me.

JP: That sounds like your balance yourselves out almost, right?

Hadley: Yeah, it’s pretty awesome.

JP: So let’s talk about, I guess, career….so both career and life role models. Do you have any? I’m guessing JJ Allaire, maybe a Joe Cheng type. People that [inaudible]. Amazing.

Hadley: Yeah, I don’t really know like who I think of as kind of like role models, but I mean the people who have kind of like, really steered my career have been like Dianne Cooke, who was my PhD advisor, like super into visualization and you know, really supportive of me doing like all this kind of programming stuff, which is like, pretty weird in the statistics department. And I think Di has always been like great at kind of charting her own path, like doing things that are a bit different to what everyone else is doing. And that’s you know, I think that’s such a great model role model because you kind of have to do that if you want to make an impact at some level. You’ve got to like do things that other people aren’t doing and that’s, like, hard and scary and feels risky. And I think, yeah, just like JJ has been kind of amazing. Like, like kind of as a…not really as a boss because I don’t feel like he manages me directly about, like, in terms of like, creating this company, which has been an amazing place for me to work. And also just like, you know, helping me become a better programmer. You know, for a long time, like, you know, throughout academia, I was kind of always, you know, the best programmer in the room, not, you know, not that I was particularly good at it necessarily but just that no one else had kind of cared about that much or spent that much time and then just like, you know, working with JJ was like such a revelation of the early days of like like this is how you actually kind of get shit done, like JJ’s just like so incredibly effective and it was interesting to see… like I think one of the, one of my, I think, kind of weaknesses as a programmer is like wanting to get everything, like, correct and to like understand everything and to make sure it’s like 100% totally correct. Whereas what I got, what I really learned from JJ’s is a much more kind of pragmatic approach, like, you know, do stuff that makes a concrete impact on people’s lives. Like sometimes that means, like, going in and like absolutely hammering out the details and getting them correct. Sometimes that just may mean, like, piling up the sort of like slightly wobbly pile of stuff that like, eventually all kind of balances out and, you know, might like fall over at some point in the future, but the right thing for right now is to get that thing built up so you can do stuff. And I think that’s really, really helped.

JP: Yeah so if you were to say… if you were to talk about like similarities between, you know, JJ and your advisor Di Cook, what do you think are the most honorable traits or characteristics that stand out most? Like, for example, if a PhD student was looking for a mentor, what would you advise them on in terms of like…what qualities you’re looking for in a mentor?

Hadley: Yeah, I think like so much of I think that comes down to kind of like personality match, like are you kind of aligned on like the sort of big picture goals of life in some sense because that like, particularly when you’re doing a PhD, that relationship with your supervisor like makes it or breaks it, like, it can be a fantastic experience because of that or it can be a terrible experience becaause of that. I think like one thing that kind of both Di and JJ have in common, and this thing we talk about a little bit in my team and larger groups over the past few years, like everyone takes out the trash, like there’s no one, like, you don’t like, you know, you don’t leave shit lying around the table for like some, you know, low status cleaning person later on to clean up. Like everyone is responsible for like picking up after themselves and I think like both like, yeah, both JJ and Di like, like kind of you know like status and like social hierarchy is relatively unimportant to them, like you know they treat everyone the same regardless of whether they are more important or less important or richer or poorer or whatever. I think that that’s really important.

JP: Yeah. So do you think that trickled down into the R community? I mean, I guess it’s a rhetorical question, right? Everybody is so inclusive, but like how do you foster inclusivity in your own team?

Hadley: Yeah. I don’t know, like, it’s hard. It’s sort of so weird for me because when I got into R like 20 years ago, it was not like a friendly community. It was definitely like this culture of like, you ask a stupid question and someone will like, you know, tell you you’re an idiot in exhaustive detail. And like, it’s, it’s hard for me to, like, understand, like what have been the things that have, like, changed it from that to this very inclusive community that there’s today. You know, I think some of it is just that they’ve been in some sort of technology shift, like, we’re the shift from kind of the mailing list to Stack Overflow was an opportunity to kind of like start over and like, you know, reassess like what’s important to us and then the kind of the winner Twitter community came along, but it does feel like…like individual people can have like a pretty strong impact, like particularly when these communities are getting started and, you know, setting up norms. Kind of related, like one of the things that continues to surprise me is like, at RStudio conf, like, when I talk about like the Pac-Man rule at the very start of the conference-

JP: That was awesome.

Hadley: Like people actually like listen to it and they do it, and it makes a difference, and it just feels so weird to me that just taking those, like, that’s like a two-minute intervention. And that, I genuinely believe that has like a meaningful impact on the conference and how people perceive it, particularly, you know, folks who are coming for the first time or don’t know a bunch of people there. So it seems like there are these, like relatively small interventions that can have a, have a really big impact.

JP: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. This was my first RStudio conf. I went alone as the lone representative of my lab, and I made so many friends at that conference because of the Pac-Man rule. So much so that my birthday was a couple days ago and people I met at the conference were invited and they showed up and we had a great time catching up.

Hadley: That’s awesome. Yeah, that’s like, that’s that’s like the type of story we wanna hear from conf.

JP: So let’s think a little bigger, right? What are your thoughts on how we can make, you know, STEM, science, stats, I guess computer science, more diverse and more inclusive, right? So right now, we’ve been in the realm of RStudio. Do you have any ideas on how we can implement whether it be, you know, full inclusion initiatives, or things like that? Like, how can we better support and empower students from underrepresented backgrounds in these bigger spaces?

Hadley: I think part of it is just kind of a…I don’t know quite how to put it, but like, I think there’s something about like those kind of traditional like, like very kind of serious academic framing that is like off-putting to a lot of people where they just feel like they don’t belong. And so I like I think like there’s something about like bringing in humor and bringing in, like, art and bringing in like things that will, you know, like, bringing in hobbies that people don’t think are like that. They’re not like scientific, they’re not high prestige, but like making sure that like, everyone in the community is kind of like illustrating their whole self. Like this is the weird stuff I do in my spare time, that like I really enjoy and, you know, I know it’s like weird and not many people like it, but it’s like, it’s cool like we share that, like you, you can, you can feel welcome. And some of that I think is like, explicitly stuff that I think like kind of feels like girly in some way or like it’s dismissed as being girly. I like I just like…I think like it helps, you know, that I’m into all of these things too, like traditionally, like girly things, you know, like I like baking and I like, you know, doing like crochet and embroidering, and this is stuff that I feel like I’m happy to kind of share and it feels like by sharing that other people have like, shared these really cool things that they’ve done. Like one of the things that at conf…I don’t know if you came this year…but two years ago someone, I forget her name, came with, like, nails that were painted, like little hex stickers on each individual nail, which I just think it’s like, it’s so cool and like so fun and that’s just not what, you know, you see in a lot of kind of traditional, like, venues. So there’s something about that. Like, it’s not just about, like, this kind of traditional, boring [inaudible]. Like, this is like, scientific and important, it’s just all of this other kind of, like, fun stuff as well. I think that like, the thing that’s really important to me is like, you know, programming is like fun and can be joyful and like just like sharing that with everyone is great.

JP: Yeah, do you have any weird things about yourself you want to share?

Hadley: I don’t know, not really. Not anything like super, super weird. I will have to say I am like so weirdly, like I love, like the thing I love the most is like closing issues. Like when you come to a, like, a repo that’s got, like, no one’s really looked at for a while, there’s like 150 issues or something open…I think about this, because I’ve been working on the purrr package lately…I just love that sense of like, oh, well, now that I’ve read them all these through, all these five things are actually the same so I can close these…well, that’s kind of a cool idea, but not that important, let’s close that…this is a really little easy thing to fix…And I just get like so, I find it like actively addicting, like, in a way, like, I remember like, you know, when I was younger, like getting like so, it’s like, so into a computer game like, where you just, you just play it and you’re gonna look up and it’s like 10 hours later and you’ve got a splitting headache. You didn’t go to the bathroom and you’re starving because you’ve just been like so immersed in that and I feel like I now get that same, like, level of excitement and immersion in like fixing issues and writing code… in like possibly like an unhealthy way because it’s much harder for me to like put that off and go on vacation, but I don’t know, that’s just something like I just I just love doing that and I know that most people do not, but I love it and that’s fine with me.

JP: You sound like my friends… you sound like my friends that are addicted TikTok essentially.

Hadley: Yeah.

JP: Are you on TikTok at all?

Hadley: I, like, watch TikTok, I do not create TikTok videos. I do consume. I actually I love TikTok, like yes it’s like totally addictive, but you can also like kind of create, like I just love, like if you stay away from the videos that get like hundreds of thousands or millions of likes, there’s like so much like weird, interesting content that you get fed. Like for some reason I got this, like, onto this whole thing about like how linen is made, which is like totally random and like, but I ended up getting, you know, getting like videos from like multiple different people like explaining it all. Like this is how you grow and extract the fibers and just like, I just think that’s like really interesting. Like I like learning like kind of weird stuff about this different profession. So yeah, I like that.

JP: What side of TikTok are you on? Like do you think corn has the juice? Did that fly over your head? You know that TikTok at all? Like what side of TikTok-

Hadley: I am not on that side of TikTok.

JP: Okay. Good to know.

Hadley: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah I think I’ve like tried to like, I try to like actively some, you know, some time, you’ve gotta to like kind of fight the algorithm. You’ve gotta fight it trying to send you the meme-y things, to get to like the deep cuts TikTok which is, like, weird. It’s like, yeah, there’s no… like I follow this guy who like thatches houses in England. It’s just like something like random and weird.

JP: Cool. So how does it feel to be at the at this point in your career? Like can you reflect on that a little bit? You are in a position of power. You are making people feel included in this community that you’ve helped to build up. If you were to give like a, thank you speech, what would it be? No pressure. I know that’s a lot to put [inaudible].

Hadley: Yeah, I don’t… Yeah, it feels, it feels weird. And I think the thing that, like, I think I’m now kind of adjusted to, but it took some…like one of the things that’s interesting as you go along in your career, like you go from being that kind of like lone voice that no one is particularly listening to, and so to some extent, you’ve gotta like shout a little bit just to get heard and then as you kind of get more and more popular like you know, just a whisper has the same effect as that, that shout. And it’s interesting like to… I think Twitter kind of amplifies this to some extent…like I’ve had to learn over time. Like, I can’t just do like a throwaway, fun tweet anymore because like, people like, even if it’s like, buried deeply in some thread, depending on, like, how, what Twitter is like, optimizing the algorithm for the moment it might get, like, exposed to a bunch of people wno are like, highly offended by it. So there’s like a little bit like, you know, sort of one of the the cost of kind of becoming more famous is also like, kind of there is some fault, like some pressure to create that kind of public persona and, like, stick to it and be like, you know, a little less like edgy or like, not that I’m like, really edgy, but like you know like I have to be, like cutting like dry cutting humor is kind of my style, and like making sure, like and it’s not always easy to get that like if you don’t know me or what’s in the tweet or whatever. But it does, it does feel like there’s a little bit of pressure to like to be safer and, you know, kind of stick to the middle more…

JP: Well, during the conf you were replying to tweets and your replies were hilarious. Like I was dying.

Hadley: That depends a lot on what my mood is…I might just be drinking…Yeah, like when it’s obvious like this is totally like a friendly, convo, like yeah, I really like to get into, like, pretend flame wars on Twitter…[inaudible]

JP: So what was the best piece of advice you received in your career? Could have been in elementary school, high school, college, [inaudible]…What would you pass on to the next generation of people doing science?

Hadley: I’ll tell you, I think I don’t remember the best piece; I’ll tell you one piece of advice like, which I did not follow and that was never-don’t study in a state beginning with a vowel. Which I think is pretty like, it’s not crazy, but I went to Iowa so I did not follow that piece of advice.

JP: That’s a good one. I’m in North Carolina, so I guess I’m following that pretty well so far.

Hadley: I think now maybe it’s like changed a little bit..based on political climate, and what you associate with. Um. “Best advice.” It’s not a career advice, but one thing I found, anything like particularly helpful was kind of reading about cognitive behavioral therapy, and this idea that they’re kind of like voiced in your, like techniques for like responding to that like voice in your head. And I think like one of the things, like, I feel like when I was young, like, when something went wrong, like when you get into that, that spiral of like, like the things that I have always worried about, are more like the social things like, you have a, have an awkward social interaction with someone, and I feel like my like past self would kind of get into this like spiral, I’m like, “oh wow, I like totally screwed that up like terrible at this shit. Like, why do I bother talking to people?” Like I said, just not like, “just not try doing that that’s impossible.” And you just get kind of caught in that negative spiral, like having like techniques for like kind of knock yourself out of that. Like argue with your mental voice and be like, oh, you know, I had a bad, I had an awkward social interaction, like that’s it. Like there’s no deeper meaning there like it’s just like something was awkward like and that’s fine. Like not everything in life is going to be perfect and wonderful and I’m not going to like land every single joke I make and I’m not going to make sure like, I’m not going to leave everyone interacts with me like having the most amazing experience ever and that, like, that’s okay. It doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. It’s just, you know, something that happens. I think that was one of the things I just and like, as yeah, that just really made me kind of like a happier person and more efffective person in general.

JP: That’s funny that you bring that up because my therapist and I talk about it all the time, CBT. That’s, that’s awesome.So is that how you manage your stress? I’m sure as a chief data scientist you are, you have lots of pressure on you, right? So what goes on in your routinie that helps you manage your stress? Is that how you approach your, you know, big complex tasks? How do you think that

Hadley: Yeah. Like just kind of like personality-wise, like I’m not someone who by and large like worries about stuff that much, to almost…I mean, probably is, my problem is, I should worry about things more than I do, but for whatever reason I don’t, so like I don’t feel like, particularly stressed as a whole. I think, you know, part of that is, I just seem to have built up these reasonably good kind of like, mental coping strategies. I mean, the other thing that is really important, that’s clearly really important to my kind of mental health is like a, you know, regular, regular exercise. And that you know that used to be yoga for me and that’s now weightlifting and that just feels like that is so important and I think like, you know, I was like, I was a pretty, like unfit kids and I think, like, I, I guess, like, for a long time, I kind of, like, thought of like, physical activities, like, PE classes in school, which I like absolutely hated, you know, like I was always like this [inaudible] and whenever we did a school run I just hated it. It was always unpleasant. And it took me kind of a long time to figure out there’s stuff I do really enjoy doing like a lot of it’s not and that just makes me like, it definitely like makes me mentally more, you know, makes me feel better physically, but it also makes me better feel better mentally and it’s agood way of like, working out stress and stuff.

JP: Do you work out with Jeff or just you?

Hadley: It’s just me. Like Jeff and I – a) Jeff does not really work out much and b) he has a totally different workout. Like he loves, the thing that he loves is Peloton. And was like super like cheery like I did, I did like his favorite instructor on Peloton once, and it basically made me realize like I hate working out to music and I hate like I hate people giving me, like constant positive feedback when they can’t even see me. I’m like, like you don’t know what I’m doing. Like it’s just annoying me.Like, I’m know I’m doing poorly and you don’t know it or I’m doing well, like I don’t need you to tell me that like, I know I’m…so I, yeah, we like we have very different workout approaches..

JP: Do you do like, is it like private lessons, Orange Theory? Or you know, like what do you workout, what do you do?

Hadley: Yeah, I’m in this starting strength program so it’s basically like, you have about 8 people at a time, so you have like a time where you’re like, you know, I have like a thing in my calendar which is when I go work out, and it’s like, normally 8, it’s up to 8, it’s normally like 6 to 8 people and it’s along with a coach, but I guess the thing that really surprised me is I kind of like in my head think of like weightlifting as all these, like, sort of super bro-y dudes who are like drinking their pre-workout, like super muscular…

JP: Grunting and stuff in the chest

Hadley: Yeah, exactly. But when it turns out, like, I really like this, like, starting strength training- it’s people of like, they’re people who are like vastly stronger than me and people who are way weaker than me and everyone is getting better and that is whwat I like that is what the impetus is always on, like you and getting better like, you know, no one in these classes, is going to be like an Olympic-class weightlifter, or hardly anyone is. But it’s not, your goal is not to be the best in the world. The goal is to be like the best you can be which I think is really, really neat, and everyone is like supportive of that regardless of whether you’re like lifting, you know, 300 pounds, or you’re lifting 30 pounds. It’s very nice.

JP: Yeah. So, Hadlley, how do you have time to like learn things, right? Because you have your job, but do you ever take time to learn other things? How do you just increase your knowledge? How do you get better at what you do? I’ve always thought this as like a PhD student. They’re just so many things that I need to do. So how do you manage that?

Hadley: Yeah, I think I don’t know, it feels like less, I don’t know, I do that less now than I used to. Feels like yeah, like, you know, when I was a PhD studdent, you know, I just read like a lot of books and I felt like I read them and like oh, this is a great idea. Now, I read books, I’m like, oh well, I already knew that for all that, like, good idea but I know if you take this two steps down, the road is not actually gonna work. So I still like, I still read a lot, like, I think a lot of it now is just kind of like, like experimenting with code, like trying stuff out in new areas. It is tough though because like I think it easy to kind of get trapped in your own success. Like there’s, you know, things that I am like really good at and I can do really quickly. And that is like of course, like more satisfying and more fun. But if all you do is the things you already good at like you’re missing out all these things that you could be getting good at, and part of it, I think is just like kind of acknowledging like when you learn something new, like you’re going to be slower and it’s going to be frustrating and it’s annoying and that doesn’t mean you should stop. That’s just you’re…I mean I kind of think of it as like when you’re doing your physical exercise, your brain is off and like I’m too tired like this stop this and it’s exactly the same feeling like when you’re doing something mental it’s not like a sign that you’re like weak or a sign that you’re stupid, it’s just a sign that your body is like okay I’m like sick of this and you know doesn’t mean you should stop.

JP: Yeah that’s a great way…that’s a great analogy there. So, yeah, I really appreciate that.So before I move on to my fun questions, is there anything else that you just want to plug or like talk about before we move on? It could be about anything.

Hadley: So I guess the other, the one thing I found like kind of particularly useful in my career is like writing. That was something like I kind of, I had like a bad, bad experience, I guess, as a PhD student, where I had to write like a chapter of my thesis in like a month and that was like a month of hell and I was like, I’m never like putting myself through this again. So like getting that kind of regular, and now I have a pretty regular discipline of writing every day. And I think finding that, saying like it might not be like, you know, writing for you, and clearly like I’ve given this advice to a lot of people and no one can follow it, so it’s clearly not doesn’t, it doesn’t apply to most people, but like finding that like one little thing that you can spend…like if you spend 30 minutes or an hour on something every day like you get better at it and like, finding the things, they collect kind of compound over time is just like so, so, so valuable. So yeah, I think that’s like …and now like you know that’s lead me to write like all of these books and the books have lead to all sorts of opportunities and now when II forget things I can look them up in a book.

JP: Alright, so thank you for that. Now, for the fun questions. So most, if not all of these, are from one of my lab mates, her name’s Nicole Kramer. She’s about to graduate; you should hire her. She actually just gave a talk at RStudio::global, so back in 2021. She did her talk on genomic, a genomic data visualization package. So yeah. And she helped me think of these. So what does your name mean and why do you think you’re named Hadley?

Hadley: It’s like some Scottish thing that means like “from the heather fields”, or something and it was my, my granddad’s middle name. So that’ where it came from. But unfortunately, fun fact about Hadley is that is getting popular as a girl’s name in the US, which I am very unhappy about.

JP: I think that’s funny, that’s awesome. What baked good are you most proud of successfully making?

Hadley: I think the like one thing, I just made one recently, that like it took me a long time to kind of nail it, is like angel food cake. Like I really like, I don’t know, I just had a lot of like failures where they came out like little thick pancakes that were so disgusting. But now I can like reliably seem to like bang one out and they’re really tasty.

JP: What about cocktails?

Hadley: Um, my favorite, I don’t know my favorite cocktail…it’s been my favorite cocktail for a long time. It’s called a negroni, and I just love it and like making variations. The other thing I do like to do though is to try and like come up with my own cocktails. And one thing that I have that I enjoy doing is like, I’ve got like a book that has kind of like, you know, good flavor pairings and so I love kind of like using that to like brainstorm what are some ways to kind of combine these things together and make something good, and sometimes it succeeds.

JP: Do you want to share one of the secrets? What is one that you’ve made? What is a good pairing?

Hadley: The one that I did recently, which was like, I don’t know, weirdly good. A lot of these things I come up with because we have like a bottle of something that we don’t particularly like, like, and so it’s like trying like so many different things to try and like, drink it up. And this was like a bottle of gin that was like super cucumber heavy, and like, as usual, I always figure these things out when the bottle’s almost gone, but it was like cucumber gin, lemon juice, simple syrup, and coconut milk…coconut cream. And there’s just something about the combination of the cream, the coconut cream, and the lemon and the gin just like tasted better than the individual components.

JP: Wow, I’m intrigued now.

Hadley: Very tasty.

JP: On the topic of things you’ve consumed, what is the weirdest thing you’ve eaten?

Hadley: What is the weird… I think the name of it, there’s this thing in Sweden that’s like fermented herring. And like the can, like when you get the can like it’s actually bulging open, like bulging out because of like all of the gases building up inside of it and it smells like indescribably horrible but it’s reasonably tasty. I think that’s it. And then I think the other…like I also love marmite, which is like a New Zealand, or it’s like a New Zealand/Australia/England spread that’s made from like yeast extract, which I really like, but is definitely an acquired taste.

JP: When I go abroad, I’ll try these.

Hadley: Yeah.

JP: I have three questions for you, last three. So, pumpkin spice lattes are back. We call them PSLs in our lab. Are you a fan or not a fan?

Hadley: I am not a fan. I am not a fan of like pumpkin spice in general. I’m like no, no.

JP: Oh no, Nicole’s gonna be so sad by that.

Hadley: I don’t get it. Yeah.

JP: Okay. If you had a warning label, what would it say?

Hadley: That is a good question. I don’t know, I feel like just like warning “R nerd”, or something like that.

JP: Okay. And the very last one, if you could rid the world of one thing, what would it be?

Hadley: I’m tempted to say pumpkin spice latte.

JP: No! It’s so good!

Hadley: Or, a pumpkin spice latte candle, oh god…