Building Science Community through Social Media: Dr. Ubadah Sabbagh & Dr. Daniel Gonzales

In this episode, I interviewed Dr. Ubadah Sabbagh & Dr. Daniel Gonzales. Ubadah is a Syrian neuroscientist and NIH K00 Fellow at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, and Daniel just started a faculty position at Vanderbilt University in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. They met over social media, are freakin’ HILARIOUS, and I am so glad I got to put them together in a Zoom room!

Transcription

Transcribed by Liza Chartampila (she/her)

JF: …hopefully, you know, that’ll give Daniel some time to think about his introduction.

DG: It’s actually good, because I haven’t done my introduction before from my new position. So yeah, give me a sec. Thanks.

US: I will introduce you if you want.

JF: Let’s do that. Let’s do that. So, let’s have Ubada. You can introduce yourself, and you can do your best take on introducing Daniel, and we’ll see how much overlap there is.

US: Alright. Okay, so I’m Obada. Well, I guess. Okay, I’m Obada Sabbagh. I am a Syrian neuroscientist. Currently, a postdoc at MIT’s Mcgovern Institute. What do we do? What do we want? What do we want? What about myself?

JF: Let’s go like you know, you’re upbringing. I know you’re from Syria. Now you’re a postdoc at MIT. I know you were at Virginia Tech. I did my homework.

US: Well, I’m flattered. I emigrated to the US, in 2009, when I was 16, went to Community college for 3 years. I worked full time, while I was in school and then I went to a University, University of Missouri in Kansas City, which was good for me. It’s not like the best science that goes on there, but I still hadn’t figured out that I wanted to be a scientist and graduated with an undergrad in biology. And then I worked for a year in a medical lab, because I didn’t get into any grad programs. And then I got into a PhD program at Virginia Tech, which is a mouthful translational biology, medicine, and health. But I did. Molecular neuroscience research there for 5 years, worked on vision and then came to MIT. And now I’m in my postdoc.

JF: Awesome. Alright. Do you wanna try Daniels, or do you want to?

DG: I want to hear it? I wanna hear him go. It’s funny that you’re doing this, because before over the weekend we were talking about, I would like to introduce Ubada, or I would like to add things to my story that would overlap with Ubada’s, that like I also came from Syria. And anyway. So I’d like to hear him go for it

US: Daniel L. Gonzalez. And I even know what the L. is, but I don’t know if that’s public, so I’ll just keep it to myself. \

DG: You can say it. What is it?

US: Is it, Louise?

DG: Yeah.

US: So Doctor Daniel Gonzalez was born in a city in Texas, which is like a second America and he, after being born, did a bunch of things. And then he went to grad school at Rice. At some point, and then he worked on worms, and he was mainly an engineer in training and a physicist, and then he did a postdoc at Purdue. Where he got married in grad school. That’s important.

DG: In undergrad You messed that up bad. But that’s okay. Keep on going.

US: Well, we’ll edit it out. Daniel got married in high school.

DG: Also wrong, but it’s okay.

US: Okay. Daniel got married in college, whichever one is the right one edit that. Because I don’t want to upset jess. And anyway, so yeah, Purdue postdoc, started cosplaying a neuroscientist and somehow convinced the world that he is a neuroscientist, and now he has a faculty appointment at Vanderbilt University, which is both as an engineer and a neuroscientist at the Vanderbilt Brain Institute, it’s called, and at the department of I’m gonna I guess, call it bioengineering, or some shit like that.

JF: That’s amazing.

DG: That’s pretty good.

JF: That’s all you need, to be honest.

US: He has two boys, one girl that’s half named after me and is my goddaughter. He had…

DG: And my kids’ names. What are the other kids’ names. What are my boys’ names?

US: Okay. I know the names. What we’re gonna do is we’re gonna list a bunch of names right now and then the correct ones you edit in. No, no, there’s… wait! I thought you don’t publicly share their names.

DG: I don’t care

US: On Twitter. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you say their names.

DG: I mean, just because I don’t like to type it.

US: Oh, okay, it’s fine. Alright. Well, the oldest is Noah and then the second one is Nehemiah. Yes.

DG: Perfect.

US: And then the third one is Scarlet.

DG: Wow, you nailed it.

US: Of course man, I know your kid… What do you mean?

DG: I mean it took you… It did take you a few years to remember. US: How many nights did I spent reading them bed time stories.

DG: That’s a lie. So, I’ll fill in a few gaps. I was born in Texas. That’s right. I was born in San Angelo, Texas, a small rural town in West Texas. I went to school there in my hometown, or a university there at Angelo State University, I majored in physics, and people are always like, why’d you, major in physics? And I just I don’t have a good answer. I just did. I like science. But it was a small college, and so there was only chemistry, biology, and physics. And I thought biology at the time was gross, which is funny, considering what I do now and then, I still to this day do not like chemistry, and so I didn’t want to do chemistry such as physics. I was there for a few years. I didn’t. I’ve never had a plan. It wasn’t until like late, towards the end of my, you know, probably into my junior year or something. I started thinking about grad school. I didn’t know that you could go to grad school, and get it paid for. Get a stipend, all those things. As soon as I learned that I was like, yeah, I’m definitely gonna go do grad school. That sounds awesome. And I’ve just always kinda liked to learn, like, you know, going to school. And so I applied to grad school. I wanted to stay close to home. So, I went to Rice University in Houston. I was there for 6 years. Ubada was right, I worked with worms, and with c. elegans, again working, putting them in little devices and doing engineering and a tiny, tiny bit of warm neuroscience. And then, after that i went to Purdue for my postdoc, and I would agree with Ubada, you know, mostly an engineer, but have over time, and tried to like brand myself as also a neuroscientist, and it is slowly catching on, I feel, and that makes me very happy, even though, like on the inside, I’m still very much like faking it, you know. And yeah, so now I’m at Vanderbilt university for a faculty position, in biomedical engineering at the Vanderbilt Brain Institute.

JF: Awesome. Yeah.

US: Can I say something? Some of my favorite, like people in biology, whether it’s neurobiology or elsewhere, are people who were physicists and then change over like I feel like there’s a lot of this like it’s rare to see like somebody do like neuroscience or whatever. And then, like become a physicist. But I see a ton of people who do physics, and then switch over.

DG: It’s because it’s instilled from us from day one that if you do physics. You can do anything else. Like literally. I think my first day or second day of class. They tell you this was a good choice to major in, because from here you can do anything you want to do. You can jump to anything. Nobody can jump from biology to physics, but physicists can jump anywhere is what they tell you.

JF: Well, the same could be said about computer science people, too. I feel like being a computational person. Everyone is a CS person that like found their way into biology. So maybe it’s the physics, math, CS people that like find their way and try and figure out what to apply their discipline to.

US: Maybe. Yeah, it’s also because, like, very naively, or maybe arrogantly, we think that physics is really hard. So we can go to biology and solve a lot of biologists’ problems.

DG: I would say arrogantly. However, I will say that mathematics and physics like you get a lot of foundational knowledge and way, like ways of reasoning that are applicable across the board, you know. But you’ll have to do your homework.

JF: Yeah, cool. Well, thank you for agreeing to come on so. Can you all tell me how you met? Cause this chemistry is ridiculous right like, was it a you know, peeing in the urinal adjacent to each other moment. Was it a very like? Oh, he came up to my poster. And now we’re Bfs. How? How’d that go down? This is embarrassing. So all we met on a dating app.

97 00:16:18.130 –> 00:16:36.890 Daniel Gonzales: and we messed around on Twitter like, you know, we seen our threads. I was like in 2019. I don’t know when it started. I couldn’t tell you at this point when it started.

98 00:16:36.990 –> 00:16:44.770 Daniel Gonzales: but in 2020, when everything shut down, I just started messaging people that I liked on Twitter. So I was like bored. And I would

99 00:16:44.840 –> 00:16:48.990 Daniel Gonzales: people that I thought were cool. I was like, I just wanna talk to you and and

100 00:16:49.040 –> 00:16:59.320 Daniel Gonzales: maybe be like actual friends instead of just Twitter friends, and who bought it was one of those people, and I talked to a lot of people, and then never really talked to them again, and who bought? It was one of those that whenever

101 00:16:59.570 –> 00:17:04.899 Daniel Gonzales: we I like I logged off. I was like, I like about it a lot. I’d like to be his friend, and

102 00:17:05.660 –> 00:17:09.719 Daniel Gonzales: if you have a like a good date, and you run and tell your friends about it.

103 00:17:09.920 –> 00:17:14.399 Ubadah Sabbagh: II so we have. We’re kind of a trio, Daniel and I, even though you’re interviewing

104 00:17:14.770 –> 00:17:19.469 Ubadah Sabbagh: 2 of us. But Kayla Singleton is like is like our

105 00:17:19.530 –> 00:17:39.880 Ubadah Sabbagh: or third musketeer, and talk to 3 men at one time.

106 00:17:40.960 –> 00:17:55.739 Ubadah Sabbagh: Which fair, however, anyway, so but yeah, so I think I remember I messaged. I mean there are receipts. I can go, but like I think, that I told Kayla as cause Caitlin I were friends. Sign

107 00:17:55.870 –> 00:18:08.749 Ubadah Sabbagh: and I was like, I’m at that, Daniel Guy. Finally, like we just finished zooming. He’s actually a cool dude, and you should, you should, you should chat with him. I think. Like you separately. Talked to her, too.

108 00:18:08.840 –> 00:18:13.870 Ubadah Sabbagh: Yeah. And then we all hit it off. And then there was a group chat born, and then that

109 00:18:14.000 –> 00:18:17.190 Ubadah Sabbagh: stayed for a while, and since then, like we.

110 00:18:17.390 –> 00:18:23.790 Ubadah Sabbagh: we have like visited each other. We have Thanksgiving at Daniel’s house last year.

111 00:18:24.050 –> 00:18:33.169 Daniel Gonzales: or like a like after Thanksgiving, like a friend. I was just in Boston not too long ago, too. We have so sfn now one just once, I think. Sfn since then.

112 00:18:33.360 –> 00:18:43.009 Ubadah Sabbagh: But I’ll be like in Tennessee, like in a few months also. So like, we visit each other when we can. But like we’re we’re very

113 00:18:43.580 –> 00:18:47.809 Ubadah Sabbagh: And yeah, we we built an offline relationship, too.

114 00:18:48.320 –> 00:19:05.239 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah, something that I really love about. You know, that relationship is y’all, I feel like are combined by a passion for mentoring and Dei and helping others. You know it’s very apparent. And the pieces you all rights. You know your your lab websites. So can you talk to me about your passions in that like

115 00:19:05.490 –> 00:19:11.109 JP Flores (he/him): what’s sparked your interest in being a good mentor and and being really involved in Dei.

116 00:19:13.140 –> 00:19:14.710 JP Flores (he/him): you want me to call Daniel first.

117 00:19:15.020 –> 00:19:20.969 Daniel Gonzales: Daniel. Okay, okay, II would. I would say that it’s it’s both a mix of

118 00:19:21.300 –> 00:19:23.040 Daniel Gonzales: always having

119 00:19:23.250 –> 00:19:35.949 Daniel Gonzales: that drive of not just wanting to be a good scientist, but also just being a good person, and like lifting up the generation behind us and all those things. But also, since we’ve been friends, is definitely

120 00:19:35.950 –> 00:20:01.989 Daniel Gonzales: sort of built, you know, like I feed off of, and I maybe vice versa. I don’t know. We’ve never really talked about it. But you know, like, yeah, like, like you bought her writes pieces and and puts them out there. And actually, publicism. And you know really nice journals, or or magazines, or newspapers. I’ve never done that. But seeing him put resources out there, encourages me to put more resources out there. And also just the response you get from people is always so positive. And there’s there’s just not enough of that

121 00:20:02.030 –> 00:20:21.099 Daniel Gonzales: and then, you know, II feel like actually the first time we ever talked that first Zoom Meeting where it was in 2020. We talked a lot about Di, and how frustrated we were with our institutions and all the things that were going on about. How do you address certain issues? Because things were just? You know, th the whole world was wasn’t chaos at that moment.

122 00:20:21.150 –> 00:20:36.499 Daniel Gonzales: and so feel like we bonded over that immediately over just thinking about. You know, these people that are in leadership that we’re supposed to that have supposedly earned their way up the ranks. We see so much incompetence there, and just thinking.

123 00:20:36.740 –> 00:20:43.940 Daniel Gonzales: I feel like we could do this a little bit better if we if we were there, you know. And so it’s sort of having somebody else to bounce those ideas off of and say.

124 00:20:43.980 –> 00:20:46.289 Daniel Gonzales: You know, hey, this, this just seems like

125 00:20:46.360 –> 00:20:57.969 Daniel Gonzales: it. It it just seems like there’s there’s a way to go about doing things that is more competent and sort of having somebody else to to to talk about that with was really helpful for me to sort of help me

126 00:20:58.560 –> 00:21:08.759 Daniel Gonzales: walk into my full self of just wanting to be better than just a regular scientist, you know, or like, raise the standards over just a typical academic.

127 00:21:08.850 –> 00:21:13.260 Ubadah Sabbagh: Yeah, definitely, yeah, I it was before before I met

128 00:21:13.320 –> 00:21:30.969 Ubadah Sabbagh: is just a comment on him asking, I think it’s vice versa. Before I met Daniel. I remember, like when I just like we follow each other on Twitter. But I remember I saw when he got the Hannah Gray fellowship from Hhmi which we call in the group chat the Hani granny

129 00:21:31.000 –> 00:21:59.629 Ubadah Sabbagh: but he got the Hannah great fellowship. The press release from Purdue, or something like I had a quote from him and the subtitle of the article, and it was like in the end, I hope my legacy is kindness or something like that. You remember that, Daniel? Yeah, I remember that I stared at that. We’re supposed to submit one sentence stage. Hmi, and I stared at mine for a long time, thinking, is this what I want to submit, because everybody else does something pretty standard right? Right?

130 00:21:59.630 –> 00:22:12.769 Ubadah Sabbagh: But when I see I pay attention when I see people like that, I pay attention to that, because I’m like this at the end of the day. Yes, like, we’re all like dancing the stance of like, okay, we wanna be successful scientists blah blah blah. But like I never viewed the

131 00:22:13.150 –> 00:22:19.669 Ubadah Sabbagh: the that as a job, I viewed it as a role in society, and so like

132 00:22:19.740 –> 00:22:33.709 Ubadah Sabbagh: and like any other role, I try to make it a tool for me to do the things I care about in society. And so I have my own immigrant’s background. My, my own story. Daniel, has his own story. He’s a first-time students as well.

133 00:22:34.000 –> 00:22:36.159 Ubadah Sabbagh: and so like

134 00:22:36.390 –> 00:23:04.509 Ubadah Sabbagh: you know, we we know that the value of like, he said I didn’t know what a Phd. Was, and that you can get a stipend whatever. I didn’t either. I also applied to 20 programs and got only one offer in 2 years. And so like, because I didn’t know how to apply. And I wasn’t even planning to be a Phd student, right? And so like the value of making things accessible, the value of empowering people so that they can realize their own potential things like that I think through our own lived experiences, we know how like

135 00:23:04.610 –> 00:23:09.479 Ubadah Sabbagh: add that impact it can have on someone’s life. And then the people around them. And so

136 00:23:09.770 –> 00:23:21.089 Ubadah Sabbagh: we bring values to the work that we do and when I saw, like Daniel said, like in the end, I hope my like I was like, this is a values driven, Guy. I’d like to get to know him.

137 00:23:22.000 –> 00:23:35.280 Ubadah Sabbagh: And the same way I feel like I try to make sure all my actions professionally, and else what a and elsewhere are guided by my values. So yeah, I think that’s where the

138 00:23:35.650 –> 00:23:42.559 Ubadah Sabbagh: di like investment comes from. But definitely, Di became like much more

139 00:23:42.710 –> 00:23:49.310 Ubadah Sabbagh: prominence as a you know thing and acronym in 2020, for obvious reasons.

140 00:23:49.420 –> 00:23:53.070 Ubadah Sabbagh: and now it’s having a different kind of moment.

141 00:23:53.520 –> 00:24:09.890 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah, yeah, referencing. You know things going on at at Harvard, but you know that’s a conversation for another day, I guess. But you all have young quickly, you know, gain some power, and I’m curious about how you’re using that power to empower others. Right? So, Daniel, you being

142 00:24:09.940 –> 00:24:36.399 JP Flores (he/him): about to be a faculty member at Vanderbilt. You’re about. You are a, you know, mit post, Doc. Have you all thought about what you can do in those positions, and how you can incite, change, and inspire others like more actionable things. Right? We can have discussions and conversations. But what type of policies or initiatives have you all been thinking about? And maybe would want to implement? Let’s go Ubada first, because I’m sure you know you’ve written about stuff right? Referencing the

143 00:24:36.400 –> 00:24:43.159 JP Flores (he/him): raising salary for post docs. I think that’s a huge one. And then we’ll just again. We’ll just give like

144 00:24:43.430 –> 00:25:01.259 Ubadah Sabbagh: 30¬†s for Daniel to think about his answer. Okay, I think of power as less about the position or rank, and more about what tools you have available to you what levers you have to pull on the what skill sets you have right?

145 00:25:01.280 –> 00:25:08.589 Ubadah Sabbagh: and and it’s all like a balance of like, how much risk can you take on compared to how much benefits or impact you can have?

146 00:25:08.650 –> 00:25:09.779 Ubadah Sabbagh: And so like.

147 00:25:09.900 –> 00:25:20.689 Ubadah Sabbagh: even if I’m a grad student at Virginia Tech, or I’m a postdoc at Mit. I don’t think of power as an equation of what? How much power does a postdoc have? How much power does a grad student have but more like.

148 00:25:20.810 –> 00:25:29.759 Ubadah Sabbagh: what do I have at my disposal? Disposal as aggressive and regime? Second, what do I have in mind? So here like, I am lucky that I have.

149 00:25:30.020 –> 00:25:44.279 Ubadah Sabbagh: sometimes when I wanna talk about something, people will listen. And I have, you know, cultivated whatever some kind of seriousness. People pay attention when I have things to say about some things, and so I use that where I can’t.

150 00:25:44.320 –> 00:25:51.719 Ubadah Sabbagh: And I use that when I got asked to serve on the Nih Advisory Committee to the director on postdoc issues.

151 00:25:51.800 –> 00:26:09.970 Ubadah Sabbagh: We worked for a year. We met every 2 weeks, and that was a lot of stuff. The main thing was increase the salary. But there was. It was, of course, more to to our, to our advocacy, to our report. But that goes in every direction. So if I have my skill sets include writing or speaking.

152 00:26:09.970 –> 00:26:26.449 Ubadah Sabbagh: or even navigating red tape of academia and bureaucracy and the inertia of our universities, then I can help people that way. And if there were students who don’t know how to write grants or don’t have somebody to review their grants. I I’ll I’ll do that for them. You know. I get cool emails about that kind of thing

153 00:26:26.500 –> 00:26:34.560 Ubadah Sabbagh: all the time. Workshops. whatever you know, I view the Twitter stuff to be the kind of

154 00:26:34.850 –> 00:26:38.939 Ubadah Sabbagh: the lowest hanging fruit in my, in my mind of like things that

155 00:26:39.210 –> 00:26:40.720 Ubadah Sabbagh: we can meaningfully do.

156 00:26:40.840 –> 00:26:53.239 Ubadah Sabbagh: because it has a short half-life that the impact that that thing has. But other things can be done at your institutional level. Or if you have the opportunity, at the national level, through professional societies or through

157 00:26:53.470 –> 00:27:11.120 JP Flores (he/him): yeah, whatever whatever. Again, tool, it comes back to tools. What levers do you have to pull on. Yeah, definitely, and I know Daniel has to leave soon, but feel free to leave whenever you need. Oh, sorry. Sorry. It’s only 1130, my time 30¬†min.

158 00:27:11.300 –> 00:27:12.610 JP Flores (he/him): It’s cool.

159 00:27:14.580 –> 00:27:27.940 Daniel Gonzales: Yeah, I have 0. No, no, I think it’s actually a tough question for me to answer at this moment being in a new position, because almost feel like as a

160 00:27:28.800 –> 00:27:30.180 Daniel Gonzales: trainee.

161 00:27:30.260 –> 00:27:51.339 Daniel Gonzales: And II know people that do this. And also I do this. You sort of idealize. What could what can be done once your faculty, or once your department chair, or once your dean, you sort of ha! Have these fantasies of all the changes that you could make once you’re there, and I’ve in more recent years come around to just being a little bit more

162 00:27:51.340 –> 00:28:02.690 Daniel Gonzales: mature about it, and say, like, there are real obstacles sometimes about just how institutions are built and how much time you have to think about certain issues. And so I’m trying to be bo both

163 00:28:03.130 –> 00:28:06.810 Daniel Gonzales: both not not lose my ideals, but also keep

164 00:28:07.070 –> 00:28:25.339 Daniel Gonzales: a very practical mindset, right? And so I’m starting what I like to think of this as starting small, basically, right? So I almost have, like a test ground. Now with the lab and with my courses and with the position that I have to see. Okay, like, what thing like, what’s the status quo about running a lab? And what about that is just

165 00:28:25.780 –> 00:28:48.770 Daniel Gonzales: there’s no rules. It’s just what people do versus? What can I change? And what can I do differently? That, I think, is a lot better? And does that bring a meaningful change to the divert, the diversity lab, or the inclusion of lab, or something along those lines. And so, for example, you know, a really S really simple, practical one was. I’ve never been in a lab that really lays out there

166 00:28:48.870 –> 00:29:14.119 Daniel Gonzales: ideals in their philosophies and expectations right? So before somebody even joins Lab. Do they even know what the expectations are of the pi? Or do they know what the expectations are for group meeting, or for you know your calls? Do they even know those things? Do they even know the mentorship style of of the of the Pi. And I feel like putting that information out there. Bring students to you that

167 00:29:14.680 –> 00:29:16.719 Daniel Gonzales: are are maybe a little bit more

168 00:29:16.870 –> 00:29:40.769 Daniel Gonzales: lost or a little bit more. Not as knowledgeable as somebody who is much more prepared for grants, for it helps. Somebody helps somebody walk through the process and say, Okay, here’s here’s what Daniel thinks. And here’s what this lab does. And now they can kind of compare that to their own values and whatever pis do. And so that’s why I wrote a lap handbook before I even started my position. I spent a long time

169 00:29:41.120 –> 00:29:45.029 Daniel Gonzales: coming back to it every few weeks and sort of tailoring it.

170 00:29:45.370 –> 00:30:00.690 Daniel Gonzales: Now, everybody that wants to join my lab have them read it, everybody that’s interested in my lab. I have them read it, and then also wrote up a little thing from a website, putting it out there about saying this is what I’m doing, and maybe I’m naive, and maybe maybe in like a few years I’ll look back and be like man that was.

171 00:30:00.690 –> 00:30:07.550 Daniel Gonzales: you know, there’s a lot of other ways going about this. But at the moment I think it’s a great idea right? And so what I wanna, that’s just to give an example of.

172 00:30:07.550 –> 00:30:32.329 Daniel Gonzales: I’m trying to look around it and look at the status quo. Look what I can do differently with my own ideas and creativity, and try that out, and then sort of put that out there into the world on my website or some other venue, and say, this is what I’m doing differently. Another really practical one is, whenever I recruit people, I only reach out to people that are underrepresented in in one way or another, if they if somebody reaches out to me or like our application stuff. Obviously, I’m going to

173 00:30:32.660 –> 00:30:58.869 Daniel Gonzales: talk to anybody that wants to talk, and anybody’s interested in my lab. But whenever I’m like initiating that I’m like via somebody on Twitter that I like, or somebody somebody published a paper that I think is really strong or something like that. I typically only reach out to people that are underrepresented in in science or engineering in some way. So, you know, just trying to come up with small things that I can sort of test out and implement, and then put those ideas out there for others to look into

174 00:30:59.520 –> 00:31:07.540 JP Flores (he/him): definitely. So why do you choose, Vandy? Was it the environment? Was it, you know? Did you find the Vandi version of Ubada there like, what is that?

175 00:31:07.540 –> 00:31:32.499 Ubadah Sabbagh: You don’t really get that much of a choice right? I mean, if you’re lucky if you’re like a superstar on the market and you get multiple offers. And sure, yeah.

176 00:31:32.500 –> 00:31:34.159 the choice

177 00:31:34.260 –> 00:32:01.130 Daniel Gonzales: for me. From the first time I visited, which was years ago at this point, 2 years ago, I knew I could tell that the Department or the institution had a good balance of excellent science, but also excellent culture. That was pretty obvious from the very start and pretty across the board, a consistent message from the other faculty that I talked to, and that was like my number one priority, where I didn’t want to sacrifice

178 00:32:01.360 –> 00:32:07.959 Daniel Gonzales: the quality of science I could do, but could also go to a place that I felt like I was going to be supported and

179 00:32:07.980 –> 00:32:32.070 Daniel Gonzales: be able to explore my own ideas like these ideas. I’m talking to you now, and also my idea scientifically without and just be and just then be se supportive along the along the road, instead of trying to like narrow me into this box of neuroscience or an engineer. You know, I feel I feel freedom here to explore the things that I’m most interested in doing yet over there. Oh, yeah, Aj. Is probably a huge reason of why. So

180 00:32:32.080 –> 00:32:50.530 Daniel Gonzales: the reason I got this job because I got invited for a talk. There’s an opening in exactly what I do which let me talk to the committee which led me to apply and get the job. Aj. Was the one that invited me for that talk initially. So I have a huge yes, I actually have a have a big debt to to pay for him, I should take him out for drinks some point. Huh?

181 00:32:50.540 –> 00:32:56.709 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah. Well, he’s he’s gonna be on the show on Wednesday. I think so. II it’s great a little good, low connection to have

182 00:32:56.780 –> 00:33:09.969 JP Flores (he/him): cool, very cool. So about it. What’s your what are your long term goals? Are you trying to be a professor as well cause it? It sounds like you have. You know, your hands everywhere. My advocacy, policy teaching. I know you like doing. What’s your what’s your? What’s the master plan?

183 00:33:11.430 –> 00:33:21.310 Daniel Gonzales: Yeah, man, what’s the plan? I want to know this, too? Because

184 00:33:21.670 –> 00:33:30.500 Ubadah Sabbagh: I will say, first of all, my at investments and disenchantments with academia will

185 00:33:30.700 –> 00:33:38.020 Ubadah Sabbagh: oscillate on a daily basis, you know. And I think that’s part of normal experience.

186 00:33:38.270 –> 00:33:40.600 Ubadah Sabbagh: and so. But

187 00:33:41.390 –> 00:33:52.029 Ubadah Sabbagh: so I am on. You know I am on track for you know, eventually competing after my postdoc for faculty positions, and so on. And

188 00:33:52.040 –> 00:33:53.940 Ubadah Sabbagh: I think you know there’s

189 00:33:55.270 –> 00:33:59.759 Ubadah Sabbagh: there’s a chance of that happening. That’s still on my list.

190 00:33:59.990 –> 00:34:12.639 Ubadah Sabbagh: but it’s not the only way. I see myself being useful in society. So I’m also simultaneously exploring other opportunities. If there are other other opportunities, I

191 00:34:12.670 –> 00:34:18.949 Ubadah Sabbagh: imagine they would be in something like policy, or or or like

192 00:34:19.159 –> 00:34:29.359 Ubadah Sabbagh: nonprofit kind of space. One thing I am very clear about is that I I’m not interested in just having a job like I’m not interested in just

193 00:34:29.409 –> 00:34:31.649 Ubadah Sabbagh: making a living

194 00:34:31.760 –> 00:34:34.039 Ubadah Sabbagh: And so like, I have to think about

195 00:34:34.300 –> 00:34:48.039 Ubadah Sabbagh: the position like being a pi is a way for me to have an impact that I wanna have a certain kind that I wanna have being at a think tank is a way for me to have an impact of certain kind I wanna have. And so on, being in the Federal Government, whatever it is.

196 00:34:48.110 –> 00:34:51.610 Ubadah Sabbagh: So I am still

197 00:34:51.840 –> 00:34:57.060 Ubadah Sabbagh: open minded, I would say, and I haven’t committed to only being

198 00:34:57.070 –> 00:34:59.240 Ubadah Sabbagh: Api

199 00:34:59.640 –> 00:35:08.529 Ubadah Sabbagh: I feel like I’m lucky that in in my academic community there seems to be some appetite, you know. At the end of the day, you know, if the projects work out.

200 00:35:08.680 –> 00:35:21.680 Ubadah Sabbagh: you get the papers. you know, or the preprints whatever. Then you know good luck on the market, and then you get what you get. But for me it’s not the only way that I see myself being successful. I can see other pathways for myself, too.

201 00:35:21.710 –> 00:35:23.609 Ubadah Sabbagh: Yeah, there is no master plan

202 00:35:23.730 –> 00:35:37.130 JP Flores (he/him): at the moment. Maybe you talk to me. In a few months, maybe they’ll change. Well, have you thought about combining all those things? Because that’s something I routinely talk about with Francis, or like other people is, do I have to silo myself into one career

203 00:35:37.130 –> 00:36:00.910 Ubadah Sabbagh: like, yes, maybe I can be a you know, pi at an academic institution. But what if I wanted to do ad hoc, science policy advising and collaborate people in industry. Have you thought about that? Do you know anyone? Of course, I always yeah. That’s a good question. I always think about it, and in a way I have been doing it since. Grad school having, you know, like dipping my hands in different pots.

204 00:36:01.290 –> 00:36:11.980 Ubadah Sabbagh: while staying an academic scientist and and doing reasonably. Okay. I do think, though, there comes there, there are some bottleneck stages. So, for example.

205 00:36:12.290 –> 00:36:14.879 Ubadah Sabbagh: like, you can be a pi

206 00:36:14.890 –> 00:36:30.909 Ubadah Sabbagh: and be an advising like on a some advisory committee or working group or task force. Or you know these kinds of things, you you can do that. You can go do capital Hill days as a pi. In fact, a lot of pis do

207 00:36:31.070 –> 00:36:42.320 Ubadah Sabbagh: but often your level of investment, of of your energy, and the kinds of things you can do will vary and and also the bottlenecks that I’m talking about are

208 00:36:42.380 –> 00:36:45.280 Ubadah Sabbagh: when you start a new lab. Daniel

209 00:36:45.390 –> 00:36:48.580 Ubadah Sabbagh: can tell you more about this. There’s very like

210 00:36:48.660 –> 00:37:01.240 Ubadah Sabbagh: there’s pro immediate priorities right? And your attention. And your percent effort has to be focused on building up your lab, building your team, training your team writing grants, writing grants, writing grants. And there’s there’s a lot of

211 00:37:01.840 –> 00:37:09.639 Ubadah Sabbagh: yeah, there’s a lot of you. You triage in different ways at different stages, I think, as a post Doc and as a graduate student. You have more bandwidth

212 00:37:09.940 –> 00:37:10.830 Ubadah Sabbagh: to

213 00:37:11.550 –> 00:37:23.659 Ubadah Sabbagh: play a role in in in the advocacy policy work or science communication work. But there are times where you have to put your head down and really focus on your one thing.

214 00:37:23.950 –> 00:37:27.869 Ubadah Sabbagh: So. But you do, Cpis, that are

215 00:37:27.910 –> 00:37:40.730 Ubadah Sabbagh: heavily engaged. They write OP. Eds. They serve on advisory committees. They do whatever like kinds of things. However, oftentimes not always, but oftentimes they’re they’re already past tenure.

216 00:37:40.930 –> 00:37:43.890 Ubadah Sabbagh: and and that’s when they come up for air, and they

217 00:37:44.030 –> 00:37:51.900 Ubadah Sabbagh: they’re able to to commit more time. You can do things on the way to 10 year. But again it’s just bandwidth bandwidth shifts depending. On what

218 00:37:51.910 –> 00:37:54.099 Ubadah Sabbagh: side of the bottleneck you’re you’re on.

219 00:37:54.290 –> 00:37:57.120 Ubadah Sabbagh: So. Yes, I think they’re combinable, but

220 00:37:57.720 –> 00:38:00.789 Ubadah Sabbagh: is just like, how much can you invest in what kind of

221 00:38:01.250 –> 00:38:06.830 Ubadah Sabbagh: what? What kind of impact do you wanna have if you’re a pi and you’re

222 00:38:06.910 –> 00:38:10.119 Ubadah Sabbagh: every year going to the hill for 2 days or

223 00:38:10.640 –> 00:38:29.529 Ubadah Sabbagh: serving on this committee that you meet quarterly with, or something like, what is impact to expect from that versus if you’re a full-time policy director or something somewhere. Yeah. And I know Daniel has a family, too. Right? So, Dan, check that for us, like, I’m sure the transition has been really hard. But

224 00:38:29.740 –> 00:38:35.279 JP Flores (he/him): How much of that is true, and what are other things that you just didn’t foresee happening when you first transitioned?

225 00:38:35.880 –> 00:39:01.790 Daniel Gonzales: The II would say. I mean, I knew everybody knows there’s there’s a lot to do right. Nobody has doubts that you’re going to be busy, and all of a sudden, you have way, more responsibilities. You’re no longer just responsible for yourself, responsible for Phd students and technicians. You’re actually an employer in a lot of ways. You’re you’re a boss. You’re an Admin. It’s like a everybody knows that. I think. I hope if you’re getting going into acting position. The thing that I think

226 00:39:02.530 –> 00:39:03.580 Daniel Gonzales: is

227 00:39:03.790 –> 00:39:08.839 Daniel Gonzales: con surprising to me, and I don’t say this to

228 00:39:09.320 –> 00:39:25.870 Daniel Gonzales: to sort of trash my my specific institution, because this is pretty across the board, for I’ve talked to a lot of people in the last few weeks is how little support there is in that transition. Right? So you go from a post, Doc. Your job is to do your project. Maybe write a grant may you know.

229 00:39:25.870 –> 00:39:45.270 Daniel Gonzales: or or a grant, or to, you know, publish your papers, and then you go into this other job. And there’s all these rules and all these Hr things and all this administrative things. And there’s not really like a handbook that tells you like, here’s who you like a simple things. Here’s who email, if you have a question about this specific type of finance, there’s nothing like that. It’s just

230 00:39:45.270 –> 00:39:57.299 Daniel Gonzales: you just have to figure it out. And so, you know, on top of all of the jobs that you now have, you don’t really know how to do any one of those jobs particularly well. And so that’s the the thing that’s

231 00:39:57.320 –> 00:40:10.219 Daniel Gonzales: I am struggling with the most, for sure is just even knowing how to conduct my job. And also so it’s a funny thing. So I feel like, you know, I feel like we. We talk about a lot of academia. We need to prepare people for

232 00:40:10.290 –> 00:40:36.010 Daniel Gonzales: industry positions. You know. There’s there’s too much emphasis on going at into Academia. We need prepare Phd. Students for industry positions. But we’re not really preparing people to be faculty either, like the job I was doing before. Is that the job I’m doing now at all. And so other than thinking about science. And so I’ve been reflecting on those things a lot. I think I had any balance family and all those things. So my wife and I had to sit down and be like, Okay, here’s the schedule. Here’s what a week is. Gonna look like.

233 00:40:36.010 –> 00:40:45.330 Daniel Gonzales: you know, we’re gonna like, actually, you know, put in the calendar, you know, extra work time that I feel like I’m going to need. We’re gonna put in the calendar, you know, like

234 00:40:45.330 –> 00:41:02.779 Daniel Gonzales: time that we’re gonna go home in the evenings, focus on family. And so I just try to do it very structured, right? Trying to think about how much time do I have having a week the type of balance that I want to have between work and life, and you know, going from there. And you know, working it out on on a week to week basis.

235 00:41:03.290 –> 00:41:24.049 Ubadah Sabbagh: Well, sounds like someone should write you know, commentary, or some type of handbook on how to be a new pi. Right? I feel like that’s been a thing, though. There there are. There’s always a surprising kind. People who do that kind of thing. However, I structured like formalized like the post Doc

236 00:41:24.080 –> 00:41:33.780 Ubadah Sabbagh: position as such a vague, nebulous thing. And it’s very much like a choose your own adventure thing. What do you mean by that? Well, because, like Daniel saying

237 00:41:33.880 –> 00:41:42.190 Ubadah Sabbagh: the job, the post Doc initially was a stepping stone, a kind of

238 00:41:42.360 –> 00:41:43.870 Ubadah Sabbagh: an apprenticeship

239 00:41:43.880 –> 00:42:06.790 Ubadah Sabbagh: that is a prelude to a faculty position, and then eventually became like a purgatory that you like because of market forces are like stuck in for a while until you distinguish yourself enough so that you can compete for a faculty position, or you give up and go somewhere else, or you realize that you never wanted the faculty position. You go somewhere else. But the post Doc. Position doesn’t prepare you for any of those outcomes.

240 00:42:07.070 –> 00:42:10.600 Ubadah Sabbagh: So it’s just like, what’s your responsibilities as a postdoc

241 00:42:11.220 –> 00:42:18.280 Ubadah Sabbagh: publish like it’s do work and then publish. Even Grant. Writing isn’t a responsibility, just varies, depending on

242 00:42:18.330 –> 00:42:24.350 Ubadah Sabbagh: the live environment and the choose your own adventure part. So like. if we had structured training.

243 00:42:24.450 –> 00:42:36.230 Ubadah Sabbagh: if we defined what is the point of a post. Doc is a post-doc to prepare people for academic market. Great. Let’s structure it exactly for that, and prepare people for how to be a pi, so that what Daniel’s talking about doesn’t happen.

244 00:42:36.300 –> 00:42:42.899 Ubadah Sabbagh: But, like commentaries can only can only do so much. They exist like you’re saying. But like they, they only

245 00:42:43.490 –> 00:42:49.109 Ubadah Sabbagh: it’s not. It’s not training. It’s like Fyi, you know.

246 00:42:49.320 –> 00:42:57.740 Ubadah Sabbagh: so I think the postdoc, like evolved over time into this nebulous thing that

247 00:42:57.920 –> 00:43:09.390 Ubadah Sabbagh: it to such an extent that we don’t have accounts and accurate counts of post docs anywhere like an institution can’t really accurately tell you how many post docs they have, unless they have a single way of appointing them

248 00:43:09.500 –> 00:43:20.539 Ubadah Sabbagh: right? Because it has, because it’s so vague, and they can have different responsibilities and roles, and be hired in different ways and and so on. Anyway, I think I’m I’m overall a fan of

249 00:43:20.590 –> 00:43:22.050 Daniel Gonzales: formalizing

250 00:43:22.270 –> 00:43:47.169 Daniel Gonzales: what a role is kinda like what you bought us said, like formalizing what a postdoc is sometimes like creates bureaucracy like it’s something for somebody to read through, and the lab has to adhere to, which also is sort of the trade-off and kind of sucks, but at least it’s formalized, and everybody’s on the same page. And the thing that you would just mentioned. Jp. About. Why don’t? Why isn’t there not like a handbook for faculty? There’s sure, like guide guides out there. But every institution is also incredibly different.

251 00:43:47.270 –> 00:44:01.769 Daniel Gonzales: like simple questions like, How much do you budget for a grad student? How much do you budget for a postdoc? All these things are gonna vary from institution to institution, even like department to department within institution. Right? And so it’s those type of questions that are really hard can’t be answered at a

252 00:44:02.010 –> 00:44:18.009 Daniel Gonzales: at at a really broad level, like Nih type level, but more so at like a department level. And so II would. I would really like to see more departments, sort of formalizing an onboarding process, giving hard info and facts about

253 00:44:18.040 –> 00:44:42.099 Daniel Gonzales: budgets, and who to go to for certain questions. And here’s your mentors. Maybe these are your go-to people within the department for questions. You can ask them easy questions. You can ask them questions that you think are really dumb. And they’re not gonna judge you. None of this is gonna affect like how the department sees you. You know, those are the type of things that II would find really helpful in this moment. And I’m doing all this. I was. I’m timing, seek all those things out myself rather than sort of that being facilitated.

254 00:44:42.750 –> 00:44:47.429 Ubadah Sabbagh: Just to add a layer of context also to this. The.

255 00:44:47.450 –> 00:44:49.499 Ubadah Sabbagh: It’s 2 things. The first thing is

256 00:44:49.750 –> 00:44:55.410 Ubadah Sabbagh: that when you standardize things and you make them more. You like uniform. Yes, it creates bureaucracy.

257 00:44:55.430 –> 00:45:04.519 Ubadah Sabbagh: but it also like, if we’re talking about making like what we call what did we call it this? It’s like a but

258 00:45:05.890 –> 00:45:13.140 Ubadah Sabbagh: hidden curriculum, hidden curriculum shit like like this kind of stuff. Do you mystify all these buzz words so like these things.

259 00:45:13.190 –> 00:45:17.199 Ubadah Sabbagh: you you make things more accessible sometimes when they’re more standardized.

260 00:45:17.210 –> 00:45:37.879 Ubadah Sabbagh: like, even imagine, how do people get postdoc positions? Lot of people don’t know that you can just write a pi, and you you can see if you can get a position in their lab. Even if there’s no job posting, you don’t have to look at science careers and nature careers, jobs, pages to, you know, but like so then there might be a lot of people who don’t come from privileged backgrounds where they had the resources to know this.

261 00:45:37.880 –> 00:45:49.039 Ubadah Sabbagh: and they end up in labs only that they see job postings for and not the top labs which never really advertise positions or they career. They do right? So like, that’s a way that if you standardize, how a postdoc is hired

262 00:45:49.200 –> 00:45:52.499 Ubadah Sabbagh: that helps. If you standardized, what is a faculty position

263 00:45:52.790 –> 00:45:58.199 Ubadah Sabbagh: across institutions? You also like help, right? But the flip side of this is like

264 00:45:58.560 –> 00:46:01.219 Ubadah Sabbagh: a lot of institutions feel like

265 00:46:01.410 –> 00:46:10.409 Ubadah Sabbagh: when you create these kinds of structure, you’re creating constraints. Constraints get in the way of creativity and flexibility and blah blah blah.

266 00:46:10.690 –> 00:46:17.970 Ubadah Sabbagh: which isn’t always true. Actually, constraints can also be an engine for innovation. But

267 00:46:18.300 –> 00:46:22.659 Ubadah Sabbagh: that’s that’s the inertia that pushes back against it. Usually is that

268 00:46:22.840 –> 00:46:26.259 Ubadah Sabbagh: and then some people also have a vested interest in the

269 00:46:26.470 –> 00:46:29.100 Ubadah Sabbagh: hidden curriculum being still like hidden.

270 00:46:29.320 –> 00:46:34.370 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah. Yeah. So, reflecting on both of your scientific journeys, right? Like. Let’s say

271 00:46:34.730 –> 00:46:47.650 JP Flores (he/him): we are at a point of time where both of you are just starting science, and you found your love for science. And you know you want to stay in it. Let’s say that this is like a movie where you can control what obstacles and barriers were in your way.

272 00:46:47.900 –> 00:46:49.179 JP Flores (he/him): what would you have

273 00:46:49.410 –> 00:46:55.969 JP Flores (he/him): taken out of the way throughout your your scientific journey. And what would you have, you know, been low-key telling yourself

274 00:46:57.670 –> 00:47:00.909 JP Flores (he/him): so? That’s a big question I’ll give. I’ll give you like 30¬†s or something

275 00:47:01.030 –> 00:47:05.679 Ubadah Sabbagh: interesting question. It’s a great question. Actually.

276 00:47:09.170 –> 00:47:15.750 JP Flores (he/him): yeah. Don’t feel pressured to like have to say something. One. You could talk out of your ass to you could calculate this this answer.

277 00:47:18.090 –> 00:47:22.359 Daniel Gonzales: I’ll I’ll just say ahead of time that I’m gonna have a hard time giving

278 00:47:24.500 –> 00:47:29.919 Daniel Gonzales: G giving an answer when it comes to like structural things that I felt were in my way.

279 00:47:30.300 –> 00:47:53.560 Daniel Gonzales: Of course, being first Jen, and and so so here. So here’s why. Here’s why. And I’ll I’ll try to put this into some type of you know, a way that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, it’ll probably be more of a word about it. But so the things that I’ve had to overcome have also shaped me in a lot of ways. And so let’s say I went back, and I took away

280 00:47:55.360 –> 00:48:03.060 Daniel Gonzales: like ease. The financial barrier during grad school would have helped a lot right, but also

281 00:48:03.350 –> 00:48:15.940 Daniel Gonzales: in the ways that it strengthened my marriage in the way that it helped us to work as a team in the way that helps me to appreciate the salary that I have now is also something that I

282 00:48:16.300 –> 00:48:17.790 Daniel Gonzales: that I

283 00:48:18.890 –> 00:48:43.610 Daniel Gonzales: appreciate a lot right should we show? Should we raising salaries and stipends for Phd students? Absolutely if I had to go back, would I have loved a lot more money? Yeah, but also like on the flip side of it. Looking back now, it helped me. II was like, we’re just completely different people. Let’s go back to being first Gen. And sort of like not knowing my way around academia. Also help me to sort of take a step back and and always just think about, why do we do things this certain way?

284 00:48:43.660 –> 00:49:03.250 Daniel Gonzales: Because I didn’t know how to how anything went right. So which helped me to always have my own creative ideas about either policies or how we do science, how we think about science, because I didn’t know all of like what everybody else knew right? And so that also shaped me into the scientists that I am, and I sort of take that

285 00:49:03.590 –> 00:49:24.659 Daniel Gonzales: and I sort of have even, you know, e stepped into that even more. Now, taking what I think may be a naive idea, or a naive project, or any naive policy. Now, thinking, maybe it’s actually a great idea. And just people have the way of doing things and so they stick with that specific way. So it it’s really hard for me

286 00:49:24.980 –> 00:49:27.579 Daniel Gonzales: to give you a solid answer about that.

287 00:49:27.750 –> 00:49:31.940 JP Flores (he/him): I think that is a solid answer most people would have like

288 00:49:32.590 –> 00:49:48.519 JP Flores (he/him): they. They can think of initiatives right away that they wish they were a part of. But I think that self awareness, and knowing like no, everything does put in my way, has built me into me. II think that is a very solid answer, and I think about it, probably say something similar. Maybe. Yeah, that’s the thing. That’s why I hesitate because I was like.

289 00:49:48.850 –> 00:49:53.380 Ubadah Sabbagh: But you know, I was thinking, maybe all these graduate student unions that are

290 00:49:53.670 –> 00:50:11.679 Ubadah Sabbagh: coming together. Those are all like marriage killers, actually. And that’s why we should be against them. They’re terrible for love lives. It’s only good for stipends. That’s why we never started a podcast

291 00:50:12.340 –> 00:50:24.680 Ubadah Sabbagh: no. Actually, I was thinking, like, okay. So there, there’s 2 ways of answering this question. One is like my personal experience, my personal. What would I have wanted to remove from my experience versus? What would I want to remove for other

292 00:50:24.750 –> 00:50:26.760 Ubadah Sabbagh: people or like generally

293 00:50:26.800 –> 00:50:42.199 Ubadah Sabbagh: because, like Daniel. whether it’s academia or outside academia, like everything that all these challenges that we face in life. they did shape who I am, and the resilience I have that I bring to science is resilience I got from life, not from

294 00:50:42.300 –> 00:50:45.560 Ubadah Sabbagh: experiments failing and like

295 00:50:45.980 –> 00:50:48.450 Ubadah Sabbagh: So I think that there’s there’s

296 00:50:49.020 –> 00:50:51.519 Ubadah Sabbagh: there is like lessons learned from

297 00:50:51.640 –> 00:50:58.479 Ubadah Sabbagh: a lot of these barriers and obstacles, but it’s not a virtue of them. I would say there’s not. It’s not a.

298 00:50:58.670 –> 00:51:00.040 Ubadah Sabbagh: It’s not

299 00:51:00.530 –> 00:51:03.450 Ubadah Sabbagh: a way to like defend them

300 00:51:03.560 –> 00:51:09.419 Ubadah Sabbagh: or their existence, but it is a reality that usually people who overcome things

301 00:51:09.620 –> 00:51:11.710 Ubadah Sabbagh: are better for it.

302 00:51:12.080 –> 00:51:16.829 Ubadah Sabbagh: however. if the question is, if I’m playing, what is that video game? You said.

303 00:51:16.860 –> 00:51:21.700 Ubadah Sabbagh: if I’m creating the game for other people to play.

304 00:51:21.710 –> 00:51:32.109 Ubadah Sabbagh: Then. Yeah, there’s a lot of, but that’s the things that we all talk about. And then we all do right. So like all these institutional barriers that we talk about. But I think, like, okay in my did, I? Was I better off

305 00:51:32.720 –> 00:51:43.430 Ubadah Sabbagh: having to overcome the cost of applying to grad school. No, but you know I wasn’t in a partnership at the time. So maybe that’s why. But like other things, I think

306 00:51:43.630 –> 00:51:50.130 Ubadah Sabbagh: you know, if I knew things like contact. Pis at the program that you’re applying to

307 00:51:50.150 –> 00:51:57.519 Ubadah Sabbagh: that would be that would be very useful for you and very normal and not in a and inappropriate to do

308 00:51:57.820 –> 00:52:04.080 Ubadah Sabbagh: that would have been really helpful, and probably saved me a lot of time and money. But

309 00:52:04.600 –> 00:52:10.080 Ubadah Sabbagh: I learned that on my own and part of me learning that on my own was me learning that I can ask people for help.

310 00:52:10.840 –> 00:52:22.550 Ubadah Sabbagh: and that’s also like a skill and a value that is really important in any any life experience, not just academia. So yeah, I mean, the answer from the personal perspective is like Daniels. I don’t think I think

311 00:52:23.230 –> 00:52:26.770 Ubadah Sabbagh: I’m I wouldn’t change anything but

312 00:52:26.920 –> 00:52:28.169 Ubadah Sabbagh: for everybody else

313 00:52:28.870 –> 00:52:37.050 Ubadah Sabbagh: you shouldn’t have to be that resilient, and you shouldn’t have to like. But so the question is, how do we design better system for everyone? Obviously, people who make it through it?

314 00:52:37.790 –> 00:52:39.520 Ubadah Sabbagh: We’ll be okay, more or less.

315 00:52:39.630 –> 00:52:42.289 Ubadah Sabbagh: you know, cause we made it through it. But

316 00:52:42.620 –> 00:52:43.330 Ubadah Sabbagh: yeah.

317 00:52:43.590 –> 00:52:49.159 Daniel Gonzales: I think that’s really a good way of putting it like looking at your personal experience. I probably would have changed anything. But looking at what

318 00:52:49.160 –> 00:53:13.800 Daniel Gonzales: everybody else. So I’m I’m definitely not the kind of person that’s like. Back at my day. We just, you know, we we paid for our grad school apps. And we took the gre definitely not right like, tear all those things down because they’re they’re they’re pointless, and they’re just they’re outdated, and they are barriers for sure. So it’s tear all that stuff down. But for me, personally, I wouldn’t change much if anything about my experience right. I think a lot of my personal things go back to

319 00:53:14.020 –> 00:53:32.560 Daniel Gonzales: first shit and underrepresented people that just don’t know like how to navigate things, and we’ve kind of come back to this over and over again. That’s why I think both we bought it. And I have wrote wrote things on our websites or other resources about how to apply for postdoc positions. That’s why I just put up a post recently about like, what am I looking for in Phd applicants to my lab.

320 00:53:32.560 –> 00:53:53.320 Daniel Gonzales: right? So there’s no more like, let’s just make this transparent about the things that I find whereas red flags, the things that I find in really strong candidates here. Here’s what I think, just to put those things out there. So it’s not a guessing game anymore, right? And you can prepare and determine whether you are prepared to grad school for grad school and ready to take on a Phd program. Alright, let’s make all those things more transparent.

321 00:53:53.400 –> 00:53:54.160 Ubadah Sabbagh: Yeah.

322 00:53:54.410 –> 00:54:13.230 JP Flores (he/him): yeah. Touching on the ideas of resiliency and transparency. You know II am in. I’m a third year. Phd, candidate and experiments aren’t working. My advisor is awesome, and this morning, you know, he like calm me down and was like, Don’t worry like if we need a pivot we’ll pivot. But this is what we’re gonna do for the next couple of steps.

323 00:54:13.380 –> 00:54:30.310 JP Flores (he/him): and I’m not gonna lie. Yesterday I was hitting a breaking point where I was like man like, II think I’m just gonna drop out because there’s no way. This is gonna work type stuff. What do you all do or tell yourselves to, to, to push right you. You will both have very unique stories. And

324 00:54:30.320 –> 00:54:37.179 JP Flores (he/him): you talk about how you push through through certain struggles. What are the what are things you’d you’d pass on to younger scientists.

325 00:54:37.940 –> 00:54:46.260 Daniel Gonzales: I would say. I can write to relate to that exact scenario a lot. My third year it could have been my fourth. I’m pretty sure it’s my third was the hardest where

326 00:54:46.820 –> 00:54:56.660 Daniel Gonzales: you’re no longer new. You’re supposed to know things you’re supposed to know how to do experiments. And does it like, yeah, you you have like your training. First years, you

327 00:54:56.730 –> 00:55:16.480 Daniel Gonzales: your stuff should be working. Your project should be like more mature at this point, right? No longer trying to get a project off the ground, but your project is either close to an end, or like is headed to something right, and everybody knows where it’s heading. And I just had a year of nothing work a full year like a full year of nothing working.

328 00:55:16.580 –> 00:55:24.130 Daniel Gonzales: And then this was experimental. But I mean, I can imagine how how hard it is if it’s computational also. And

329 00:55:25.170 –> 00:55:47.850 Daniel Gonzales: I, you know my advisor was really supportive, and I never felt like I was disappointing him, which was a huge thing. Right? Let’s say, if I offset the added stress of. He thought it was falling behind, and maybe he did, but he just never like told me. You know, he wasn’t like he was able to keep that part to himself. And I left every meeting feeling like, okay, we have another direction to pivot or to, you know, more ideas to to fix this problem.

330 00:55:47.850 –> 00:55:55.879 Daniel Gonzales: If I’d say the number. One thing is just showing up right? You show up every single day.

331 00:55:56.190 –> 00:56:10.770 Daniel Gonzales: Some days are hard, some days are gonna be better. But you have to show up and you have to take those baby steps and you have to push through it. II don’t know another way to go about doing that other than obviously taking time for yourself and knowing that

332 00:56:11.110 –> 00:56:25.650 Daniel Gonzales: you know you have. Yeah friends, you have family. You have this other support system that’s there for you, and taking time to balance both the work and your life. But the number one thing is just to show up every day. You’re never gonna get. Get over that hump if you don’t show up. So that’s to me the number one.

333 00:56:27.090 –> 00:56:32.240 Ubadah Sabbagh: Yeah, I think I think I

334 00:56:32.490 –> 00:56:39.449 Ubadah Sabbagh: usually think about how I also my third year was like that, too. It wasn’t things not working. It was more like

335 00:56:39.590 –> 00:56:43.290 Ubadah Sabbagh: was more like, what is gonna be really my dissertation. And

336 00:56:43.320 –> 00:56:52.519 Ubadah Sabbagh: which of the things do I need to commit to kind of like, which of the projects going on. and how I’m gonna make a story out of things.

337 00:56:52.650 –> 00:56:53.560 Ubadah Sabbagh: but

338 00:56:54.230 –> 00:57:05.629 Ubadah Sabbagh: I also almost got deported in my third year. So I had other things going on. But that was gonna be something I was gonna say, which is in my life.

339 00:57:06.060 –> 00:57:20.150 Ubadah Sabbagh: Science, like experiments, have never been the biggest stressor like science grad school. Whatever has never been the biggest stressor. And I, actually, that does help me like that does for me as a personal reminder, it’s like, Okay.

340 00:57:20.680 –> 00:57:24.029 Ubadah Sabbagh: this is like a really nice kind of life I have.

341 00:57:24.080 –> 00:57:38.300 Ubadah Sabbagh: you know, like, cause we’re just kind of fucking around in the back. Are you allowed to swear on this? Yeah, you just like, you know, around and and and you’re getting paid pennies. But you’re getting paid to to do that. And we love it.

342 00:57:38.410 –> 00:57:39.650 Ubadah Sabbagh: And so like.

343 00:57:39.750 –> 00:57:43.490 Ubadah Sabbagh: Alright, it didn’t work. We’ll try something else. Kind of kind of like

344 00:57:43.810 –> 00:57:54.979 Ubadah Sabbagh: feeling like I. Of course I have really tough days and all this stuff, too, but like it does help myself to remind myself like, actually like this isn’t one of the bigger woes in your life.

345 00:57:55.120 –> 00:58:00.220 Ubadah Sabbagh: but separate from that cause that’s just related to me personally, but separate from that, I think.

346 00:58:00.310 –> 00:58:12.870 Ubadah Sabbagh: It’s all worth also remembering and reminding your friends and your colleagues that, like usually things that are new, like novel or haven’t done, been done before or discovered before, are hard

347 00:58:13.010 –> 00:58:28.719 Ubadah Sabbagh: like it’s it just takes a a while to get to that point and and and there’s a there’s like there’s some crawling through mud to get there. But when you’re on the other side of it. It feels good, and once you’ve experienced that at least once you have that

348 00:58:29.040 –> 00:58:35.349 Ubadah Sabbagh: feeling in your memory, and and it also is can be a motivator. But sometimes, maybe if you’re in grad school, it’s like, still.

349 00:58:35.360 –> 00:58:44.389 Ubadah Sabbagh: it’s your first mud crawl, and and maybe you haven’t had the chance yet to to know the feeling. But it it’s worth reassuring yourself that

350 00:58:44.510 –> 00:59:04.960 Ubadah Sabbagh: things that are worth doing or things that are new. And you’re gonna be the first like when you’re doing it, finished your Phd. You’re the first to have said whatever shit you wrote in your dissertation, and you’re probably the first human in history to have seen, and the most expert person on it, right? And so like, that’s meaningful. And so it takes really hard work to get to that point.

351 00:59:05.280 –> 00:59:07.509 Ubadah Sabbagh: and so back to what Daniel said. I think

352 00:59:07.760 –> 00:59:13.349 Ubadah Sabbagh: showing up is its own important first step and then

353 00:59:13.500 –> 00:59:17.130 Ubadah Sabbagh: don’t hesitate to ask.

354 00:59:17.400 –> 00:59:24.349 Ubadah Sabbagh: because sometimes people feel shame when they fail. Right? And it’s not shameful. It’s actually a normal part of the process.

355 00:59:24.490 –> 00:59:40.160 Ubadah Sabbagh: And so, like once you feel like it’s not shameful. Then you feel more ready to ask for help and guidance and brainstorm with your friends or brainstorm with your pi. If you have a kind of relationship. Hopefully, you do with your pi or lab mates, whatever, but like

356 00:59:40.780 –> 00:59:42.719 Ubadah Sabbagh: it helps a lot. In my postdoc.

357 00:59:42.840 –> 00:59:48.680 Ubadah Sabbagh: I lean way more on like, particularly like 2 post docs in the lab that I consider my

358 00:59:48.690 –> 01:00:03.240 Ubadah Sabbagh: my peer like thought partners and my science, then my pi cause just the nature of the relationship. My Pia is very busy. They are more invested in the intellectual aspects of my project. And so if I’m feeling like I’m hitting a wall, or some things are failing, or whatever

359 01:00:03.340 –> 01:00:08.269 Ubadah Sabbagh: they’re my sounding board. Daniel, is that, too, sometimes? And so like

360 01:00:08.380 –> 01:00:12.320 Ubadah Sabbagh: I think that kind of having that that kind of willingness to

361 01:00:12.360 –> 01:00:16.709 Ubadah Sabbagh: ask people for help is good, but you don’t get anywhere without showing up for sure.

362 01:00:17.100 –> 01:00:21.500 Daniel Gonzales: I think. Kind of what? Going back to the bottom set about is asking people, everybody has these

363 01:00:21.550 –> 01:00:37.800 Daniel Gonzales: stories right? We you you brought up to us, and both of us said in our third year and our fourth year we had the exact same story. Everybody at the end of the Phd. Has that question of I just spent another 5 years, 6 years in school, and I still don’t know what I’m gonna do with my life. Everybody has that. You have to figure it out. Every postdoc has that moment of

364 01:00:37.800 –> 01:00:56.319 Daniel Gonzales: I dedicated more and more time for postdoc about not making money, and I’m not sure I’m gonna make into the faculty position. I’m not sure if I wanna go into industry, I don’t know what I’m gonna do. Everybody has those moments right? And so just ask people that you trust and PE people whose opinion do you value is really important find whose people’s opinion to actually value?

365 01:00:56.320 –> 01:01:06.590 Daniel Gonzales: There’s a lot of bad opinions and bad perspectives out there, too. But just ask people and find people you trust and go. Yeah. And that’s a huge support system.

366 01:01:06.690 –> 01:01:08.280 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah, beautifully said.

367 01:01:08.380 –> 01:01:38.039 JP Flores (he/him): So I respect and trust your opinions a lot, both of yours. Yeah. A little stretch, break. What is the best way to build a a portfolio such that once career can take off right like I know, Obada, you’ve you’ve done stuff for the Washington Post nature. I don’t know what else you’ve you’ve done stuff for Daniel. You’re now a a faculty member. Right? What is the best way to build a portfolio? II think kindness and just being a better person is the priority. But are there actual things that a young scientist can do

368 01:01:38.100 –> 01:01:48.190 JP Flores (he/him): to make it easier for themselves to get to the next level? Other outside of outside of publishing papers outside of of the currency of Academia publishing papers. What should assign young scientists be doing

369 01:01:51.340 –> 01:02:03.629 Ubadah Sabbagh: portfolio of what? Like? Yeah? Like, like for example, I’ve always wanted to publish di commentaries. I’ve always wanted to do more outreach. I want to start a company. That’s a bit.

370 01:02:03.960 –> 01:02:12.829 JP Flores (he/him): you know. That’s a bigger thing than what I’m talking about. But what are the what are the things that you know matter when you’re applying jobs? And you’re applying to postdocs applying for faculty positions.

371 01:02:12.860 –> 01:02:14.349 JP Flores (he/him): What stands out

372 01:02:15.380 –> 01:02:21.930 Daniel Gonzales: looks like Daniel has has a thought loaded. Go ahead.

373 01:02:21.930 –> 01:02:48.790 Daniel Gonzales: My heart just jumped at an email.

374 01:02:49.350 –> 01:02:51.259 Ubadah Sabbagh: II think.

375 01:02:51.700 –> 01:02:57.250 Ubadah Sabbagh: okay, something I I’ve I’ve learned and noticed. And is that people

376 01:02:57.590 –> 01:03:05.170 Ubadah Sabbagh: once you meet or encounter like somebody who is dependable and knows how to get shit done, whatever the shit is.

377 01:03:06.180 –> 01:03:08.119 Ubadah Sabbagh: People who care. Notice that.

378 01:03:08.150 –> 01:03:12.650 Ubadah Sabbagh: and so like be that person is the first thing I would say is like just

379 01:03:13.440 –> 01:03:14.700 Ubadah Sabbagh: exude

380 01:03:15.030 –> 01:03:24.680 Ubadah Sabbagh: sense of like that person can get shit done. Yeah. And I like, I’m whatever I put my mind to. I’m serious about it like that. That’s that’s like the

381 01:03:24.900 –> 01:03:42.549 Ubadah Sabbagh: high level thing. And then, like, Okay, if we get to nitty gritty because portfolios are different, depending on what’s your goal? So like, if somebody wanted to build a a career or portfolio in writing, you know. Good good at writing is the first thing and then also be. I think

382 01:03:42.570 –> 01:03:56.249 Ubadah Sabbagh: vulnerability is very important, like you have to be willing to write something and have somebody look at it. And this was hard for me in the beginning, and and it because it’s not. It’s not a scientific article like, for example, I was writing OP. Ads.

383 01:03:56.280 –> 01:04:01.750 Ubadah Sabbagh: They’re not. They’re not manuscripts. They’re not papers right? And then, if I hand it to somebody who is a colleague

384 01:04:01.760 –> 01:04:06.770 Ubadah Sabbagh: and I’m like, tell me what you think about this. It’s there’s there’s an act of vulnerability there.

385 01:04:06.780 –> 01:04:15.389 Ubadah Sabbagh: And and then, you know but you you’re better off doing that, because be by the time an editor looks at your manuscript

386 01:04:15.530 –> 01:04:28.420 Ubadah Sabbagh: or your essay, or whatever it is, it better be way better than when you first like started writing it down right? And so how are you gonna polish it up. It’s not all gonna come naturally from your head. So I think a lot of

387 01:04:28.740 –> 01:04:35.170 Ubadah Sabbagh: a lot of it is like has to do with ego and vulnerability and things like that. But then eventually, if you want to write commentaries

388 01:04:35.530 –> 01:04:38.889 Ubadah Sabbagh: right? The editor, like some journals, for example, some journals

389 01:04:39.390 –> 01:04:51.050 Ubadah Sabbagh: will have on their about page of the journal like different article types, and they might say some of these are they they accept unsolicited, and and sometimes they’ll say we don’t accept unsolicited commentary.

390 01:04:51.680 –> 01:04:53.509 Ubadah Sabbagh: If they don’t accept unsolicited.

391 01:04:54.010 –> 01:05:01.949 Ubadah Sabbagh: don’t solicit, let you don’t don’t email them. But if they don’t say that write the editor and be like, Hey, I am thinking of writing about this topic.

392 01:05:02.380 –> 01:05:21.450 Ubadah Sabbagh: but don’t just say that you have to like there’s some more information. So you bullet points, for example, here are the things that would discuss. And if it’s like 700 words, 7, 800 words like, you need to know the readership and what they expect from that outlet. Then you you have to think, okay, how many points can I really fit in those in those words. And you say, here’s my take home message.

393 01:05:21.870 –> 01:05:29.509 Ubadah Sabbagh: I have found that most of the time editors only don’t really usually like to accept things on spec, which means like without seeing a draft.

394 01:05:29.880 –> 01:05:33.939 Ubadah Sabbagh: So I’ve usually tried to write a draft when I pitch.

395 01:05:33.950 –> 01:05:56.470 Ubadah Sabbagh: and whether it’s at the Washington Post, or whether it’s at nature, or whatever it is like. So I like to have a draft, because I also like to organize my thoughts, to make sure that I have something meaningful to say rather than a rent, or like a ramble, or something that could be a twitter thread. You know what I mean. You literally just email editor. And you do a page. Yeah. But here’s the second part of this.

396 01:05:56.500 –> 01:05:59.329 Ubadah Sabbagh: You have to be okay most of the time. Getting no reply.

397 01:05:59.650 –> 01:06:25.799 Ubadah Sabbagh: You have to be okay. I have a a folder on my laptop. That’s a cemetery of articles and essays. I never saw the light of day, and that’s fine like, you have to be okay, failing. And that’s where the resilience pays off, too. So if you know, you just have to be okay, getting rejected, you have to be okay. Failing you might get no’s. You might get no response at all, because these editors, especially at the big outlets like they’re they’re getting like hundreds and hundreds of pitches a day.

398 01:06:25.830 –> 01:06:29.409 Ubadah Sabbagh: So like, why, you you know

399 01:06:29.540 –> 01:06:44.899 Ubadah Sabbagh: but you have to read a lot and practice writing a lot, and then you’ll you’ll eventually pick up on. Okay, how do people write? And I say, How do people structure? And then you want to make it easier, for the editor like your first draft should look to them like this isn’t gonna take that much work for me to turn into a Washington post OP-ed.

400 01:06:45.020 –> 01:06:50.219 Ubadah Sabbagh: But for you to make it easier for them. You need to have some kind of intuition for how they work.

401 01:06:50.430 –> 01:06:58.140 Ubadah Sabbagh: Gotcha. That longass answer is just about writing so like, if somebody wants to build a portfolio of something. it depends on what’s

402 01:06:58.610 –> 01:07:06.599 Ubadah Sabbagh: the portfolio should match whatever your professional identity that you’re sculpting is. And so once you once you know what that is.

403 01:07:06.770 –> 01:07:23.220 Ubadah Sabbagh: then we can talk about details of how you can improve different things. But I think competence exuding a sense of like, I’m serious about my work, whatever it is, and I can get shit done is a big, big, big thing that people notice, and if you don’t ha! If you don’t

404 01:07:23.300 –> 01:07:27.089 Ubadah Sabbagh: have that, it’s just harder to get the attention of people right.

405 01:07:27.940 –> 01:07:35.140 Daniel Gonzales: I would say so to to bring it a little bit more back to research, but not necessarily in context of, you know, not

406 01:07:35.240 –> 01:07:51.019 Daniel Gonzales: currency and academia like publications. But research is still really important. Right? So I can maybe comment broadly on research in the absence of publications. And and this is applicable to me because my actually, my postdoc papers aren’t out yet right? So I got this job without my major postdoc papers being out.

407 01:07:51.160 –> 01:08:00.490 Daniel Gonzales: But I think something that I did have is something I was intentional about when it comes like building a portfolio per portfolio was building a

408 01:08:00.650 –> 01:08:29.420 Daniel Gonzales: research portfolio that was very unique, so that people could see that this guy can do a set of experiments that very few people in the world can do like combine multiple fields in a way that not very many people can do so, I would say, there’s probably 2. There’s obviously there’s a ton of ways to go about things. And this is again really specific Academia. I’m sorry if you’re like more just industry, I can’t comment anything on. I never even thought about it, so I don’t know like what the rules are there. But

409 01:08:29.660 –> 01:08:31.180 Daniel Gonzales: you know, for academia.

410 01:08:31.540 –> 01:08:50.199 Daniel Gonzales: I would say, you know, for your Phd. In your post, Doc, you can choose to be really good at one thing and be like the world leader at that thing that is really important. Wha wha whatever that could be, the bottom makes tools like molecular tools for the brain? That’s one thing you’d be really good at, or you could do a diverse set of things

411 01:08:50.279 –> 01:09:06.130 Daniel Gonzales: kind of what I did to do 2 very different things for your postdoc with some similar threads of like neuroscience, neuro engineering in there. And now you pop out at the end for your faculty position. You can say, look, I combine these 2 things. I can combine this for me as engineering.

412 01:09:06.130 –> 01:09:26.209 Daniel Gonzales: nanoscale tools, micro scale tools. I combine all that experience that I have in that, with now going really into depth and neuroscience in a way that very few people in the world could do. So. I feel like that’s kind of the 2 extremes that that you can do things in academia in terms of getting a faculty position. And that’s how you can build a portfolio portfolio, not just

413 01:09:26.470 –> 01:09:39.869 Daniel Gonzales: publications, but research, experience or knowledge or expertise. That people can see. This person’s on a trajectory for success because they can do a lot of really cool things.

414 01:09:40.630 –> 01:09:44.179 JP Flores (he/him): Alright. I got 2 more questions for you. So the first one being

415 01:09:45.020 –> 01:09:50.040 JP Flores (he/him): what is the biggest thing in the way right now to make science more equitable.

416 01:09:50.399 –> 01:09:55.740 Ubadah Sabbagh: You can’t say no. You can say money. I feel like money is a big one. Get rid of that billionaire guy

417 01:09:55.800 –> 01:10:06.600 Ubadah Sabbagh: I was I was gonna I was, gonna say, stop, stop play drizzle. That’s funny.

418 01:10:07.010 –> 01:10:18.740 JP Flores (he/him): It’s it’s a broader question. But I feel like, you know, salary for grad students is one that pops up on my mind. But that’s because I’m a grad student, right? II think the same could be said first salaries for postdocs as well. So

419 01:10:18.880 –> 01:10:27.590 JP Flores (he/him): the question is the biggest thing you can do. What is one thing that you really want to work on next to make science more equitable.

420 01:10:29.050 –> 01:10:29.730 Ubadah Sabbagh: Hmm.

421 01:10:30.820 –> 01:10:34.239 Daniel Gonzales: cause y’all y’all handbooks and stuff like that. So.

422 01:10:34.390 –> 01:10:47.280 Daniel Gonzales: but money is a big one, I mean. So so whenever we bought it was on that the committee, the Nih committee for you know. How do we rethink the postdoc program? And he was

423 01:10:47.320 –> 01:10:50.640 Daniel Gonzales: talking to us about it and talking to us about the meetings and

424 01:10:50.680 –> 01:11:16.429 Daniel Gonzales: and they were soliciting information from the public right? So this link that anybody could fill out about what do you think the postdocs experience to go? No, no, I’m not. I’m not gonna say anything. What he told me was top secret here. No, you know, I feel like you were really careful about what you talked about. But I remember being freshman

425 01:11:16.430 –> 01:11:30.910 Daniel Gonzales: frustrated like, I understand. That’s how the Nih works, and that’s how they lead to policy changes. But they’re being frustrated because the obvious answer was going to be increase. This increase. The salaries that was go from the beginning was going to be the obvious answer.

426 01:11:30.920 –> 01:11:43.870 Daniel Gonzales: and so mo. Money is a big one, right? Same thing for Phd students. It’s II now being on the Pi side of it. I can see why it can’t be challenging, but you know, a few $1,000 out of my budget

427 01:11:44.010 –> 01:11:52.969 Daniel Gonzales: is relatively small compared to the few $1,000 that can improve like your living situation right on a yearly basis. So money is a

428 01:11:53.400 –> 01:11:58.340 Daniel Gonzales: be, if not, if not number one, I’d be hard pressed to find a different one. Maybe we bought. I can

429 01:11:58.460 –> 01:12:00.799 Daniel Gonzales: maybe something more, more

430 01:12:01.140 –> 01:12:19.459 Ubadah Sabbagh: less more abstract, like the mindsets of people to change, or you know, the resistance to change could be one. III think money is the most immediate thing, and on that committee we thought so, too, and that was always going to be the top line. Item. But it obviously it isn’t the only thing I think it is the most immediate

431 01:12:19.540 –> 01:12:31.239 Ubadah Sabbagh: thing. and usually the money thing is always a Band-aid solution, like people don’t take seriously the root causes. Why did the money think, why did the situation end up the way it is now

432 01:12:31.350 –> 01:12:33.630 Ubadah Sabbagh: it? The situation is exploitative.

433 01:12:33.950 –> 01:12:44.300 Ubadah Sabbagh: so increasing the salary. And then, you know, coasting for the next few years isn’t solving the problem of the root problem of why is it an exploitative system?

434 01:12:44.440 –> 01:12:53.669 Ubadah Sabbagh: So like money is a band aid solution. But it’s the most urgent needs right now. And then we can talk about money.

435 01:12:53.680 –> 01:13:00.660 Ubadah Sabbagh: because money coming from Nih to graduate students and postdocs is different than how much money does the Nih have to distribute

436 01:13:00.880 –> 01:13:02.799 Ubadah Sabbagh: right? And that’s the nih budget.

437 01:13:02.880 –> 01:13:09.799 Ubadah Sabbagh: And then there I do have like goals for what I want to do in in the coming years. For the Nih budget. But

438 01:13:09.840 –> 01:13:13.289 Ubadah Sabbagh: and I could talk about if you want. But I’m instead. I’m going to also say

439 01:13:13.630 –> 01:13:18.089 Ubadah Sabbagh: at the institutional levels.

440 01:13:18.160 –> 01:13:20.550 Ubadah Sabbagh: I think accountability is a second thing

441 01:13:20.680 –> 01:13:22.639 Ubadah Sabbagh: after money. I think

442 01:13:22.750 –> 01:13:28.990 Ubadah Sabbagh: toxic behavior or bad mindsets, or whatever

443 01:13:29.330 –> 01:13:45.829 Ubadah Sabbagh: we should stop trying to convert or do a training sort of like there are. There are people who have demonstrated track records of of toxic behavior and behavior that drives people out. And if we’re serious about increasing

444 01:13:46.450 –> 01:13:55.809 Ubadah Sabbagh: people, sense of belonging and empowerment and academia and all the other buzz words underneath the di umbrella, serious about that. And then there should be accountability

445 01:13:55.850 –> 01:14:01.070 Ubadah Sabbagh: for people who are operating opposite to that. But you run into problems of

446 01:14:01.110 –> 01:14:15.319 Ubadah Sabbagh: Wiki, you know, clubs and academia people protecting each other or tenure and ha! And then mechanics of of accountability become very murky and difficult. But that’s if somebody serious about

447 01:14:16.440 –> 01:14:30.830 Ubadah Sabbagh: here are values here, what we wanna, we wanna advance in our institutions. Then you need to be serious about accountability when people are operating against it. Otherwise you’re only

448 01:14:31.440 –> 01:14:35.340 Ubadah Sabbagh: like aspirational. But you’re not operational. And and and so like.

449 01:14:35.460 –> 01:14:45.229 Ubadah Sabbagh: that’s something that I think people in positions of power, whether it’s they make the policies at the institutions, or whether they

450 01:14:45.410 –> 01:14:54.140 Ubadah Sabbagh: have the leverage to advocate for policy change institutions really need to get serious about. And we’ve we’ve seen that in some places like I’ve seen faculty

451 01:14:54.340 –> 01:15:02.830 Ubadah Sabbagh: push for removing authority from somebody who is problematic. Maybe they can’t push for revoking tenure, but they can push for them, not being a position of authority over

452 01:15:02.870 –> 01:15:11.880 Ubadah Sabbagh: students anymore. And stuff like that. And Ih has mechanisms also for reporting specific kinds of behavior and not just misconduct.

453 01:15:12.560 –> 01:15:16.459 Ubadah Sabbagh: But yeah. And then I have ideas for the Nh budget thing. But maybe that’s a different chat.

454 01:15:16.720 –> 01:15:33.470 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah, maybe another. I know we’re almost done. But I really have to go piece. I’m gonna go pee real quick, and I’ll be back. Okay, yeah, yeah. One more. And and then we’ll then we’ll stop it. This has been really fun.

455 01:15:34.350 –> 01:15:53.949 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah, I really love my my community outside of Unc as well. But like I just. they’re not on social media like I can’t just like II can text them. We have a group chat, but just seeing the rapport that you and Daniel and other people have. It’s it’s really cool to see as an early career scientist humanizes everything.

456 01:15:54.090 –> 01:16:01.089 JP Flores (he/him): It’s like I walk out of live after a failed experiment, and it’s just like I can laugh at a thread that you 2 are like giving.

457 01:16:01.250 –> 01:16:18.650 Ubadah Sabbagh: It’s it’s it’s also like fun for us. II think I used to be way more active. We used to have more like talking on twitter between us. In previous years, but now we should talk in the group chat more but we still have some back and forth.

458 01:16:19.020 –> 01:16:23.800 Ubadah Sabbagh: on the Internet, which I think there was a there was a I don’t know if you were around for like sweet Teagate.

459 01:16:24.010 –> 01:16:30.980 Ubadah Sabbagh: Oh, yeah, yeah, you’re on for that. So like, when that was going on, I started it because there was a

460 01:16:31.210 –> 01:16:43.490 Ubadah Sabbagh: What’s her name? First of all, Twitter, at that point came up with this feature of like you can prevent, replies. And I was like, what’s the thing I can use this for? Let me say something inflammatory, and let people not reply, and then like

461 01:16:43.610 –> 01:16:47.770 Ubadah Sabbagh: but the reason I did is because right before that, for the last week

462 01:16:48.200 –> 01:16:52.870 Ubadah Sabbagh: the Hole Twitter was all talking about. what’s her name?

463 01:16:53.380 –> 01:17:09.359 Ubadah Sabbagh: She was at Vanderbilt actually she founded me to stem Bethan something. That was a shit show like she pretended she pretended to be. I don’t know if you know. The story ended up in the New York Times and stuff, but she pretended to be a faculty member who’s like indigenous and

464 01:17:09.700 –> 01:17:15.630 Ubadah Sabbagh: gave her a fake death, and it was a is a mess. And the website was such a like, A is just so

465 01:17:15.940 –> 01:17:32.730 Ubadah Sabbagh: depressing. And because.

466 01:17:32.880 –> 01:17:41.170 Ubadah Sabbagh: yeah, like, you know, the the the fake neuroscientist or something. I don’t know. They like making these like kind of short documentaries.

467 01:17:41.270 –> 01:17:44.680 Ubadah Sabbagh: But anyway, so then I started this like sweetie thing.

468 01:17:45.060 –> 01:17:47.320 I mean, I didn’t even say the sweetie thing I said.

469 01:17:47.510 –> 01:18:01.730 Ubadah Sabbagh: I said. Stuff about sweet tea, Coleslaw ranch stuff like that, and sweet tea was the thing that people picked up on, and then and then and then it became this innocuous drama that anyway, he’s back so I won’t. I won’t talk.

470 01:18:02.090 –> 01:18:31.529 JP Flores (he/him): Let’s edit all that out. Oh, can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you. I can hear you. I’m just glad I got through this interview without having to bring up barbecue and and too much of Twitter. Yeah, unless you want to talk about. I mean, they’re hard, which is good. And I would. I would imagine you know these answers are going to be really helpful for the next generation. Scientists, you know, that are that are following in your footsteps. So

471 01:18:31.740 –> 01:18:38.340 JP Flores (he/him): yeah. So the last question that I want to end on is, if do either of you play an instrument? No, no instruments.

472 01:18:38.530 –> 01:18:57.729 JP Flores (he/him): I used to play the guitar, and I still can to a certain extent. But well, this might be the hardest question. Okay, yeah. So if you 2 were to come together and start a band. What would you call it? We already have a name. Do you remember it?

473 01:18:58.400 –> 01:19:02.719 Daniel Gonzales: No, she’s gonna she’s gonna hate me, but I know. But I mean I don’t remember anything.

474 01:19:02.930 –> 01:19:04.860 Daniel Gonzales: I don’t remember things like this.

475 01:19:05.810 –> 01:19:10.179 Ubadah Sabbagh: Oh, you can’t even remember it either. No, no, I got it. I got it, hang on.

476 01:19:11.090 –> 01:19:20.499 Ubadah Sabbagh: is, it was gonna be an Indie Rock band and who was gonna be, or a Punk rock band. and it’s gonna be called Program cell death.

477 01:19:44.300 –> 01:19:52.810 Ubadah Sabbagh: That is, that is my go to biological knowledge also, and if it fires together, wires together.

478 01:19:52.820 –> 01:19:54.980 Daniel Gonzales: I have a T-shirt that says that

479 01:19:55.260 –> 01:20:11.450 JP Flores (he/him): cool. Well, that’s the that’s the end of the episode. I really wanna thank you all for for coming on. That was really fun. If y’all if y’all ever need like a grad student’s opinion on anything. I know that you’ll ever need one. But just let me know. Was there anything in the episode? Y’all said that you want me to actually take out or no.

480 01:20:13.260 –> 01:20:27.500 Daniel Gonzales: I prefer you not say that I have to go, pee, you know, other than that. It’s fine. I don’t care that much I find with you, keeping him peeing there, too. I should have brought my microphone in there just to

481 01:20:27.960 –> 01:20:32.570 Ubadah Sabbagh: no, I’m I’m good. I’m good with everything, even before we officially started

482 01:20:32.680 –> 01:20:43.859 Ubadah Sabbagh: recording. This is a great yeah. Thanks for inviting us. Well, it’s it’s again. I’ve been a fan of both of you all for a while. Now, you know, seeing each other on Twitter. So you know. Thank you for giving me the time, and hopefully.

483 01:20:43.880 –> 01:20:57.140 Ubadah Sabbagh: I can get you all on in in a couple of months or so and catch up

484 01:20:57.150 –> 01:21:07.490 Ubadah Sabbagh: exactly. I know exactly my question, I know. So yeah, so do you edit yourself. And also, are you downloading individual audio tracks? Or are you just using the regular?

485 01:21:07.600 –> 01:21:21.929 JP Flores (he/him): Everything is recorded. So all of you are on different audio files. And then I just export the transcripts. So this we I want to spotify Ward in 2,021. And they gave me software. It’s called soundtrap to edit.

486 01:21:22.060 –> 01:21:24.349 JP Flores (he/him): But a lot of people use adobe

487 01:21:24.620 –> 01:21:36.780 JP Flores (he/him): or audacity or something like that, or audacity. Yeah, I partner with undergrads. Now. So it’s a little harder because I have to give them mics. They also give me Mics. I try to like. How much time do you spend editing an hour.

488 01:21:37.240 –> 01:21:39.490 JP Flores (he/him): Well, because of the vibe of the podcast

489 01:21:39.700 –> 01:21:47.750 JP Flores (he/him): I want to say it’s 2¬†h, an hour, an episode. Because honestly, I try to publish as much as of of the raw footage as I can.

490 01:21:48.160 –> 01:21:50.480 Ubadah Sabbagh: This was one of our biggest

491 01:21:50.630 –> 01:22:00.159 Ubadah Sabbagh: like hurdles to actually starting. Podcast we knew that it was going to require. If it was just us, it was going to require a lot of editing, because we would

492 01:22:00.500 –> 01:22:17.300 JP Flores (he/him): devolve into chaos quickly and say say things that shouldn’t be said. And you know it’s things that they would need some editing for sure that that’s why I asked you the question of like. Is there anything you want me to take out? Because then it’ll I’ll spend more time to edit. But most of the time it’s just

493 01:22:17.450 –> 01:22:24.670 Ubadah Sabbagh: Rob, because that’s what I want people to hear is like, yeah. well, I mean, in our case, I think because we come talking to you, we have already

494 01:22:24.740 –> 01:22:47.659 Ubadah Sabbagh: the foundation of what we have to appear kind of civilized and and like human beings, and so well, not that we’re filtering ourselves, but that if we were given mics and just set amongst ourselves, it would. It would devolve into something. Rabbit. I think your podcast if you guys started one, just like, you know, right now, I think entertaining, so I think you should do it.

495 01:22:47.710 –> 01:23:01.429 Daniel Gonzales: Get one of your undergrads written Daniel, to do the editing for us. Yeah, honestly, that was my main hiccup was. If we could find somebody to actually edit it, I’d be, if I just had to show up and like talk and kind of prepare a little bit in advance. I would totally do

496 01:23:01.510 –> 01:23:15.720 JP Flores (he/him): with undergrads. Now, I have, like undergrads that have their own podcast episode, and we just struck a deal where it’s like, if we are collaborating together, you can edit some of mine. I’ll edit some of yours and it it’s really saved me time and stuff. So

497 01:23:16.040 –> 01:23:19.420 JP Flores (he/him): yeah, just gotta be smart about it. It’s like, it’s like a lab and running right like.

498 01:23:19.560 –> 01:23:21.179 JP Flores (he/him): not as hard but

499 01:23:21.220 –> 01:23:23.370 Ubadah Sabbagh: similar similar thing cool.

500 01:23:23.830 –> 01:23:28.600 Daniel Gonzales: There’s going to be lunch at the faculty meetings. I’m totally gonna go

501 01:23:30.620 –> 01:23:38.159 JP Flores (he/him): alright. Well, I’ll let you all go. Thanks a lot.

502 01:23:38.370 –> 01:23:39.580 JP Flores (he/him): Yelsey.

WEBVTT

1 00:00:20.720 –> 00:00:21.930 JP Flores (he/him): Hello! Hello!

2 00:00:24.820 –> 00:00:35.030 Daniel Gonzales: Hey! How’s it going? Oh, well, this, your, your new office, or yeah kind. It’s it’s a temporary office. It’s actually really ugly and sad.

3 00:00:35.190 –> 00:00:41.389 Daniel Gonzales: It was more like a prison cell. But I look forward to going into my urban office soon. Hey, man!

4 00:00:41.580 –> 00:00:51.500 JP Flores (he/him): Hey! We can hear you. Can you hear us? Both of you all have nice little audio setups? Well, II was kind of forced to. Now I can hear you cause. It was

5 00:00:51.610 –> 00:01:02.010 Daniel Gonzales: projecting the sound to the mica. Daniel messaged me right before this is like, get your good microphone. We toured at the idea of the podcast for a while. And

6 00:01:02.860 –> 00:01:20.139 JP Flores (he/him): I think y’all would have a great podcast because I I’m just, I don’t know. I’ve been listening to a bodice stuff like the Sfn interview, like the much, a bunch of different episodes. And I’m like, Yeah, that makes sense. If you know, Daniel Nevada had one.

7 00:01:20.270 –> 00:01:28.020 JP Flores (he/him): It’s it’s called looking at your website and seeing the pronunciation. And and yeah, it’s helpful. It’s helpful.

8 00:01:28.240 –> 00:01:33.749 Ubadah Sabbagh: This is sorry, Daniel. Daniel, is this the office?

9 00:01:33.800 –> 00:01:49.750 Daniel Gonzales: April?

10 00:01:49.790 –> 00:01:55.020 Ubadah Sabbagh: II thought you were. Gonna say, I’ll be out of here in 5 years.

11 00:01:55.050 –> 00:02:11.620 JP Flores (he/him): Yes, sorry. Sorry. I’m flustered. Y’all. So like I just I’m starting a internship at Nih this Friday, and II had interviewed the historian of the Nih a couple of months ago, and and we were catching up before this, and we got into a conversation about eugenics and like scientific racism.

12 00:02:11.640 –> 00:02:12.849 JP Flores (he/him): So I was just like.

13 00:02:13.340 –> 00:02:22.929 Ubadah Sabbagh: right right before this, you did right before this. Yeah. So shipped into like, okay.

14 00:02:23.800 –> 00:02:40.270 JP Flores (he/him): J. Starting like, for example, after this, I’m chatting with the founder of Moderna. I’m very excited. Oh, really cool. Yeah. So he’s he’s later today.

15 00:02:40.300 –> 00:02:52.830 JP Flores (he/him): a lot of the a lot of my week is interviews. But I’m I’m computational, and I am like nocturnal. So I do a lot of my analyses, you know, at night experiments when I can during the week, so

16 00:02:53.280 –> 00:02:55.290 JP Flores (he/him): I should probably start by saying,

17 00:02:55.360 –> 00:03:15.590 JP Flores (he/him): Hi, I’m I’m Jp, I he! I use Tm, pronouns. I’m a Phd. Candidate. Unc. I don’t know how much I should share. I’m a first Gen. Student. Philippino, went to Occidental College in La I’m very passionate about Dei, and that’s why I started this podcast it was like a

18 00:03:15.670 –> 00:03:17.770 JP Flores (he/him): pandemic passion projects.

19 00:03:17.840 –> 00:03:27.289 JP Flores (he/him): And I think I started it at the right time, because right, when it started, I was emailing like Jane Good, all Francis Collins, all these different people, and

20 00:03:27.510 –> 00:03:28.510 JP Flores (he/him): that just

21 00:03:28.990 –> 00:03:34.640 JP Flores (he/him): yeah, it blew up. And then I stopped in 2023. And now I’m starting it back up in 2024.

22 00:03:34.980 –> 00:03:46.609 Daniel Gonzales: II have have a question and don’t. Don’t take this personally. How do you get them to say yes. like Francis Collins, or like the Nsf. Director, or you know some of these other people. I’ll tell you this right now. I think it’s

23 00:03:46.730 –> 00:03:51.639 JP Flores (he/him): I think it’s luck to be quite because the the email to Francis.

24 00:03:51.670 –> 00:04:05.139 JP Flores (he/him): I sent it over winter break, and in 2 weeks time, he replied. His assistant replied. We had a meeting, and now it turned into like monthly meetings with him right where he’s he’s writing me letter of reps and all that. And then for that Nsf. Director.

25 00:04:05.170 –> 00:04:10.269 JP Flores (he/him): same thing. I just emailed him. And 2 weeks later the assistant replied and said, Let’s do it.

26 00:04:10.800 –> 00:04:21.529 Ubadah Sabbagh: Can I say something? Yeah, it’s not just luck. I have some experience with this. I mean the question was it to me? But like people don’t think to do what you’re doing

27 00:04:21.890 –> 00:04:48.709 Ubadah Sabbagh: like people the the Academia beats into us like there’s these ranks, and you kind of you don’t interact with these other ranks until you reach a certain rank yourself. Blah blah blah. But like the end of the day, people like talking about their work. They like talking about what they’re passionate about. And if you what you’re you started it when you were what year first year senior in college. Now, I’m a third year in grad school. Yeah, if somebody is like motivated enough and you’re professional, and you seem like you

28 00:04:48.970 –> 00:04:53.849 Ubadah Sabbagh: got you should together. Then. Yeah, why wouldn’t they want to talk to you, you know. So there’s some luck. Yes.

29 00:04:53.910 –> 00:04:58.840 Ubadah Sabbagh: but it’s not like there’s 50 people like you emailing them, asking for the same thing.

30 00:04:59.080 –> 00:05:06.190 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah, II also think it’s not a lot of professionalism, because III have the.

31 00:05:06.650 –> 00:05:09.619 JP Flores (he/him): I go back and forth between professionalism and being

32 00:05:09.770 –> 00:05:24.459 JP Flores (he/him): naive and casual about things. II think that’s a big thing, right? Like my emails will include emojis. Because yeah, that’s who I am. I’m like, I’m a human. And I do that when I text right like the tone I met

33 00:05:25.640 –> 00:05:30.319 Ubadah Sabbagh: competence like, like, if I agree to talk to this guy.

34 00:05:30.490 –> 00:05:56.879 JP Flores (he/him): I’m not gonna waste my time or be embarrassed. That kind of vibe. If you’re casual, that’s that’s actually even better. This is more authenticity. Vibe. I’m picking up from you. I do this a lot with undergrads now. Cause I bring them into Co. Host with me, and they are so formal. And I’m like, just loosen up like, just just these are people they’re human. They’re not gonna like, you know, shit on you for being you like.

35 00:05:57.020 –> 00:06:02.279 JP Flores (he/him): There are no stupid questions. It’s literally like your approach to science when you when you talk to people.

36 00:06:03.890 –> 00:06:04.830 JP Flores (he/him): Oh.

37 00:06:06.240 –> 00:06:15.209 Daniel Gonzales: he’s not cool enough to have like it. More like his own office. He’s gonna be like, interrupted a little bit, is that his assistant bothering him, or, what

38 00:06:15.850 –> 00:06:17.550 JP Flores (he/him): yeah.

39 00:06:17.880 –> 00:06:22.880 JP Flores (he/him): so are you wanna Daniel, you wanna hard pause or hard stop at any time, probably

40 00:06:22.990 –> 00:06:28.579 Daniel Gonzales: 1215, 1230 would probably be my heart. Stop.

41 00:06:28.950 –> 00:06:33.439 Daniel Gonzales: Okay, mostly because I got some other meet. Yeah, I’m like. all of a sudden.

42 00:06:33.630 –> 00:06:48.379 Daniel Gonzales: you know, I went from a post doc in my in like I would have meetings every once in a while, and then all of a sudden was just like Whoa! What happened to my calendar? And and now every day is just full of something as a faculty. So yeah, I’m like, in the midst of that transition, still trying to figure it out. Very strange.

43 00:06:48.390 –> 00:07:07.759 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah. Okay, cool. Well, ready to just like, have a conversation and and answer some questions. Well, I thought, we’re going already. Sorry I didn’t know when we started. If we didn’t. Yeah, I just assumed we record. I just assumed we recorded that might happen again. I have this room booked. This is the Board Room. People who interrupt me are like the director or

44 00:07:07.840 –> 00:07:35.310 Ubadah Sabbagh: no. Bob Desimone is the director here. We got these cabinets, and they’ll come get like a drink or a fucking like. I don’t know a plate. Yeah, no, no worries at all. Yeah. II record from the beginning, because you know, II try to edit as much as I can. And I could send the the

45 00:07:35.810 –> 00:07:40.839 JP Flores (he/him): edited version if you want before I publish it to

46 00:07:40.990 –> 00:08:07.300 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah. So let’s start with Duvada. Sorry to put you on the spot, and and hopefully, you know, that’ll give Daniel some time to to think about his introduction. But from my introduction before my new position. So yeah, give me sec. Thanks. Let’s do that. Let’s do so let’s have Ubada. You can. You can introduce yourself, and you do your best. Take on introducing Daniel, and and we’ll see if we’ll see how much overlap there is.

47 00:08:07.330 –> 00:08:10.529 Ubadah Sabbagh: Okay, so I’m Obada.

48 00:08:10.580 –> 00:08:20.270 Ubadah Sabbagh: Well, I guess. Okay, I’mubata. Sabag. I am a Syrian neuroscientist. Currently, a postdoc at Mit’s Mcgovern Institute.

49 00:08:20.650 –> 00:08:25.050 Ubadah Sabbagh: What do we do? What do we want? We want? What about myself.

50 00:08:25.130 –> 00:08:47.070 Ubadah Sabbagh: Let’s let’s go like you know, you’re upbringing like II know you’re from Syria. Now you’re posting mit. I know you at Virginia Tech. I did my homework didn’t homework? Well, I’m flattered. So I mean, II yeah, I mean, II emigrated to the Us. When I was in 2,009. When I was 16, went to Community college. For 3 years worked full time. While I was in school

51 00:08:47.490 –> 00:09:00.730 Ubadah Sabbagh: I went to a University University of Missouri in Kansas City, which was good for me. It’s not like the best science that goes on there, but I still haven’t figured out that I want to be a scientist and graduated with an undergrad in biology.

52 00:09:00.970 –> 00:09:03.879 Ubadah Sabbagh: and then I went to.

53 00:09:05.350 –> 00:09:08.280 Ubadah Sabbagh: I worked for a year as in a medical lab.

54 00:09:08.560 –> 00:09:13.199 Ubadah Sabbagh: Because I didn’t get into any grad programs. And then I got into P, ph, program at Virginia Tech.

55 00:09:13.250 –> 00:09:17.130 Ubadah Sabbagh: which is a mouthful translational, biology, medicine, and health.

56 00:09:17.160 –> 00:09:24.280 Ubadah Sabbagh: But I did. Molecular neuroscience research there for 5 years, worked on vision and then came to Mit. And now I’m in my postdoc.

57 00:09:24.960 –> 00:09:28.890 JP Flores (he/him): Awesome. Alright. Do you wanna try Daniels, or do you want to?

58 00:09:29.270 –> 00:09:36.240 Daniel Gonzales: Do you want to hear it? I wanna hear him go. We were just so. It’s funny that you’re doing this, because before over the weekend we were talking about.

59 00:09:36.710 –> 00:09:53.180 Daniel Gonzales: I would like to introduce you, Bada, or I would like to. I was gonna like, add things to my story that would overlap with you. Bought. Is that like, oh, I came from? I also came from Syria. And anyway. So I’d I’d like to hear him go for it

60 00:09:53.320 –> 00:09:54.410 Ubadah Sabbagh: Daniel

61 00:09:54.950 –> 00:09:57.660 Ubadah Sabbagh: L. Gonzalez.

62 00:09:58.140 –> 00:10:08.839 Ubadah Sabbagh: and I even know what the L. Is, but I don’t know if that’s public, so I’ll just keep it to myself. You can say it. What is it? Is that, Louise? Yeah. So Doctor Daniel Gonzalez

63 00:10:08.880 –> 00:10:13.219 Ubadah Sabbagh: was born in a city in Texas which is like a second America.

64 00:10:13.280 –> 00:10:16.719 Ubadah Sabbagh: And

65 00:10:17.020 –> 00:10:40.029 Ubadah Sabbagh: and he, he, after being born, did a bunch of things. And then he went to grad school at rice at some point, and then he worked on worms, and he was mainly an engineer and training and physicist, and then he did a postdoc at Purdue. Where he

66 00:10:40.600 –> 00:10:54.230 Ubadah Sabbagh: well, he okay, he got married and his grad school. That’s important. Well, we’ll edit it up. Daniel got married

67 00:10:54.480 –> 00:10:57.909 Ubadah Sabbagh: in high school.

68 00:10:58.700 –> 00:11:07.390 Ubadah Sabbagh: also wrong, but it’s okay. Daniel got married and called, whichever one is the right one edit that. And I don’t want to upset jess

69 00:11:07.550 –> 00:11:19.370 Ubadah Sabbagh: and anyway, so yeah, Purdue post, doc started cost playing neuroscientist and somehow convinced the world

70 00:11:19.420 –> 00:11:30.739 Ubadah Sabbagh: that he is a neuroscientist, and now he has a faculty appointment at Vanderbilt University, which is both as an engineer and a neuroscientist at the

71 00:11:30.990 –> 00:11:39.830 Ubadah Sabbagh: Vanderbilt Brain Institute. It’s called. And at the department of I’m gonna I guess, called bioengineering, or some shit like that.

72 00:11:39.900 –> 00:11:51.539 JP Flores (he/him): He has had.

73 00:11:51.650 –> 00:11:56.559 Ubadah Sabbagh: And my kids names. What are the other kids? 11 chickens? What are my boys names? Alright.

74 00:11:57.640 –> 00:11:58.460 Ubadah Sabbagh: Okay.

75 00:11:59.120 –> 00:12:08.759 Ubadah Sabbagh: I know the names. What we’re gonna do is we’re gonna list a bunch of names right now and then the correct ones you edit in. No, no, there’s

76 00:12:08.770 –> 00:12:11.119 Ubadah Sabbagh: wait! I thought you don’t publicly share their names.

77 00:12:11.810 –> 00:12:21.440 Ubadah Sabbagh: I don’t care on Twitter. I don’t think I’ve ever seen. You say their name, I mean, just because I don’t like to type it. Oh, okay, it’s fine, alright. Well, the oldest is, know what?

78 00:12:21.940 –> 00:12:25.339 Ubadah Sabbagh: And then the second one is Nehemiah. Yes.

79 00:12:25.730 –> 00:12:34.690 Ubadah Sabbagh: perfect. And then the third one is scarlet, which is, of course, man, I know your kid. What do you mean?

80 00:12:34.720 –> 00:12:51.980 Daniel Gonzales: I mean it took you it to take you for years to. Sorry. I’ll fill in a few gaps. I was born in Texas. That’s right. I was born in San Angelo, Texas, a small rural town in West Texas.

81 00:12:52.040 –> 00:13:02.830 Daniel Gonzales: I went to school there in my hometown, or like university there at Angelo State University, I majored in physics, and people are always like, why’d you, major in physics? And I just

82 00:13:03.000 –> 00:13:21.979 Daniel Gonzales: I don’t have a good answer. I just did. Ii like science. But it was a small college, and so there was only chemistry, biology, and physics. And I thought biology at the time was gross, which is funny, considering what I do now and then, I still to this day do not like chemistry, and so I didn’t want to do chemistry such as physics.

83 00:13:22.480 –> 00:13:24.919 Daniel Gonzales: I was there for a few years.

84 00:13:25.180 –> 00:13:29.070 Daniel Gonzales: didn’t. I’ve never had a plan. It wasn’t until like late

85 00:13:29.280 –> 00:13:54.170 Daniel Gonzales: towards the end of my, you know, probably into my junior year or something. I started thinking about grad school. I didn’t know. Like you go to grad school, get it paid for. Get a stipend all those things. As soon as I learn that I was like, yeah, I’m definitely gonna go grad school. That sounds awesome. And I’ve just always kinda like to learn, like, you know, going to school. And so how I applied to grad school wanted to stay close to home. So I went to Rice University in Houston. I was there for 6 years.

86 00:13:54.170 –> 00:14:05.810 Daniel Gonzales: but it was right. I worked with worms micro and with cl again working, putting them in little devices and doing engineering and a tiny, tiny bit of warm neuroscience.

87 00:14:05.890 –> 00:14:32.819 Daniel Gonzales: And then, if there would have went to Purdue for my postdoc, and I would agree with the bottom, you know, mostly an engineer, but have over time, and tried to like brand myself as also a neuroscientist, and it is slowly catching on, I feel, and that makes me very happy, even though, like on the inside, I’m still very much like faking it, you know. And and yeah, so now I’m at a Vanderbilt university for my faculty position. In biomedical engineering. And the Vanderbilt Brain Institute.

88 00:14:33.230 –> 00:14:36.039 JP Flores (he/him): Awesome. Yeah.

89 00:14:36.150 –> 00:14:39.709 Ubadah Sabbagh: Can I say something? I, some of my favorite, like

90 00:14:39.870 –> 00:14:54.800 Ubadah Sabbagh: people in biology, whether it’s neurobiology or elsewhere, are people who were physicists and then change over like I feel like there’s a lot of this like it’s rare to see like somebody do like neuroscience or whatever. And then, like become a physicist. But

91 00:14:54.840 –> 00:15:02.700 Daniel Gonzales: I see a ton of people who do physics, and they switch over. It’s because it’s instilled from us from day one that if you do physics. You can do anything else

92 00:15:02.730 –> 00:15:27.619 JP Flores (he/him): like literally. I think my first day or 2 in of class. They tell you this was a good choice to major in, because from here you can do anything you want to do. You can jump anything. Nobody can jump from biology to physics, but physicists can jump anywhere is what they tell you. Well, the same could be said about computer science people, too. I feel like being a computation. Everyone is a Cs person that like found their way into biology. So maybe it’s the physics math Cs people that like

93 00:15:27.660 –> 00:15:37.010 Daniel Gonzales: find their way and try and figure out what to apply their discipline to. Maybe. Yeah, it’s also because, like, very naively, or maybe arrogantly, we think that

94 00:15:37.200 –> 00:15:55.160 Ubadah Sabbagh: physics is really hard. So we can go to biology and solve a lot of biology. And I would say, however, I will say that mathematics and physics like you get a lot of foundational knowledge and way, like ways of reasoning that are applicable

95 00:15:55.180 –> 00:15:57.820 Ubadah Sabbagh: across the board, you know. But you’ll have to do your homework.

96 00:15:58.160 –> 00:16:18.069 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah, cool. Well, thank you for agreeing to come on so. Can you all tell me how you met? Cause this chemistry is ridiculous right like, was it a you know, peeing in the urinal adjacent to each other moment. Was it a very like? Oh, he came up to my poster. And now we’re Bfs. How? How’d that go down? This is embarrassing. So all we met on a dating app.

97 00:16:18.130 –> 00:16:36.890 Daniel Gonzales: and we messed around on Twitter like, you know, we seen our threads. I was like in 2019. I don’t know when it started. I couldn’t tell you at this point when it started.

98 00:16:36.990 –> 00:16:44.770 Daniel Gonzales: but in 2020, when everything shut down, I just started messaging people that I liked on Twitter. So I was like bored. And I would

99 00:16:44.840 –> 00:16:48.990 Daniel Gonzales: people that I thought were cool. I was like, I just wanna talk to you and and

100 00:16:49.040 –> 00:16:59.320 Daniel Gonzales: maybe be like actual friends instead of just Twitter friends, and who bought it was one of those people, and I talked to a lot of people, and then never really talked to them again, and who bought? It was one of those that whenever

101 00:16:59.570 –> 00:17:04.899 Daniel Gonzales: we I like I logged off. I was like, I like about it a lot. I’d like to be his friend, and

102 00:17:05.660 –> 00:17:09.719 Daniel Gonzales: if you have a like a good date, and you run and tell your friends about it.

103 00:17:09.920 –> 00:17:14.399 Ubadah Sabbagh: II so we have. We’re kind of a trio, Daniel and I, even though you’re interviewing

104 00:17:14.770 –> 00:17:19.469 Ubadah Sabbagh: 2 of us. But Kayla Singleton is like is like our

105 00:17:19.530 –> 00:17:39.880 Ubadah Sabbagh: or third musketeer, and talk to 3 men at one time.

106 00:17:40.960 –> 00:17:55.739 Ubadah Sabbagh: Which fair, however, anyway, so but yeah, so I think I remember I messaged. I mean there are receipts. I can go, but like I think, that I told Kayla as cause Caitlin I were friends. Sign

107 00:17:55.870 –> 00:18:08.749 Ubadah Sabbagh: and I was like, I’m at that, Daniel Guy. Finally, like we just finished zooming. He’s actually a cool dude, and you should, you should, you should chat with him. I think. Like you separately. Talked to her, too.

108 00:18:08.840 –> 00:18:13.870 Ubadah Sabbagh: Yeah. And then we all hit it off. And then there was a group chat born, and then that

109 00:18:14.000 –> 00:18:17.190 Ubadah Sabbagh: stayed for a while, and since then, like we.

110 00:18:17.390 –> 00:18:23.790 Ubadah Sabbagh: we have like visited each other. We have Thanksgiving at Daniel’s house last year.

111 00:18:24.050 –> 00:18:33.169 Daniel Gonzales: or like a like after Thanksgiving, like a friend. I was just in Boston not too long ago, too. We have so sfn now one just once, I think. Sfn since then.

112 00:18:33.360 –> 00:18:43.009 Ubadah Sabbagh: But I’ll be like in Tennessee, like in a few months also. So like, we visit each other when we can. But like we’re we’re very

113 00:18:43.580 –> 00:18:47.809 Ubadah Sabbagh: And yeah, we we built an offline relationship, too.

114 00:18:48.320 –> 00:19:05.239 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah, something that I really love about. You know, that relationship is y’all, I feel like are combined by a passion for mentoring and Dei and helping others. You know it’s very apparent. And the pieces you all rights. You know your your lab websites. So can you talk to me about your passions in that like

115 00:19:05.490 –> 00:19:11.109 JP Flores (he/him): what’s sparked your interest in being a good mentor and and being really involved in Dei.

116 00:19:13.140 –> 00:19:14.710 JP Flores (he/him): you want me to call Daniel first.

117 00:19:15.020 –> 00:19:20.969 Daniel Gonzales: Daniel. Okay, okay, II would. I would say that it’s it’s both a mix of

118 00:19:21.300 –> 00:19:23.040 Daniel Gonzales: always having

119 00:19:23.250 –> 00:19:35.949 Daniel Gonzales: that drive of not just wanting to be a good scientist, but also just being a good person, and like lifting up the generation behind us and all those things. But also, since we’ve been friends, is definitely

120 00:19:35.950 –> 00:20:01.989 Daniel Gonzales: sort of built, you know, like I feed off of, and I maybe vice versa. I don’t know. We’ve never really talked about it. But you know, like, yeah, like, like you bought her writes pieces and and puts them out there. And actually, publicism. And you know really nice journals, or or magazines, or newspapers. I’ve never done that. But seeing him put resources out there, encourages me to put more resources out there. And also just the response you get from people is always so positive. And there’s there’s just not enough of that

121 00:20:02.030 –> 00:20:21.099 Daniel Gonzales: and then, you know, II feel like actually the first time we ever talked that first Zoom Meeting where it was in 2020. We talked a lot about Di, and how frustrated we were with our institutions and all the things that were going on about. How do you address certain issues? Because things were just? You know, th the whole world was wasn’t chaos at that moment.

122 00:20:21.150 –> 00:20:36.499 Daniel Gonzales: and so feel like we bonded over that immediately over just thinking about. You know, these people that are in leadership that we’re supposed to that have supposedly earned their way up the ranks. We see so much incompetence there, and just thinking.

123 00:20:36.740 –> 00:20:43.940 Daniel Gonzales: I feel like we could do this a little bit better if we if we were there, you know. And so it’s sort of having somebody else to bounce those ideas off of and say.

124 00:20:43.980 –> 00:20:46.289 Daniel Gonzales: You know, hey, this, this just seems like

125 00:20:46.360 –> 00:20:57.969 Daniel Gonzales: it. It it just seems like there’s there’s a way to go about doing things that is more competent and sort of having somebody else to to to talk about that with was really helpful for me to sort of help me

126 00:20:58.560 –> 00:21:08.759 Daniel Gonzales: walk into my full self of just wanting to be better than just a regular scientist, you know, or like, raise the standards over just a typical academic.

127 00:21:08.850 –> 00:21:13.260 Ubadah Sabbagh: Yeah, definitely, yeah, I it was before before I met

128 00:21:13.320 –> 00:21:30.969 Ubadah Sabbagh: is just a comment on him asking, I think it’s vice versa. Before I met Daniel. I remember, like when I just like we follow each other on Twitter. But I remember I saw when he got the Hannah Gray fellowship from Hhmi which we call in the group chat the Hani granny

129 00:21:31.000 –> 00:21:59.629 Ubadah Sabbagh: but he got the Hannah great fellowship. The press release from Purdue, or something like I had a quote from him and the subtitle of the article, and it was like in the end, I hope my legacy is kindness or something like that. You remember that, Daniel? Yeah, I remember that I stared at that. We’re supposed to submit one sentence stage. Hmi, and I stared at mine for a long time, thinking, is this what I want to submit, because everybody else does something pretty standard right? Right?

130 00:21:59.630 –> 00:22:12.769 Ubadah Sabbagh: But when I see I pay attention when I see people like that, I pay attention to that, because I’m like this at the end of the day. Yes, like, we’re all like dancing the stance of like, okay, we wanna be successful scientists blah blah blah. But like I never viewed the

131 00:22:13.150 –> 00:22:19.669 Ubadah Sabbagh: the that as a job, I viewed it as a role in society, and so like

132 00:22:19.740 –> 00:22:33.709 Ubadah Sabbagh: and like any other role, I try to make it a tool for me to do the things I care about in society. And so I have my own immigrant’s background. My, my own story. Daniel, has his own story. He’s a first-time students as well.

133 00:22:34.000 –> 00:22:36.159 Ubadah Sabbagh: and so like

134 00:22:36.390 –> 00:23:04.509 Ubadah Sabbagh: you know, we we know that the value of like, he said I didn’t know what a Phd. Was, and that you can get a stipend whatever. I didn’t either. I also applied to 20 programs and got only one offer in 2 years. And so like, because I didn’t know how to apply. And I wasn’t even planning to be a Phd student, right? And so like the value of making things accessible, the value of empowering people so that they can realize their own potential things like that I think through our own lived experiences, we know how like

135 00:23:04.610 –> 00:23:09.479 Ubadah Sabbagh: add that impact it can have on someone’s life. And then the people around them. And so

136 00:23:09.770 –> 00:23:21.089 Ubadah Sabbagh: we bring values to the work that we do and when I saw, like Daniel said, like in the end, I hope my like I was like, this is a values driven, Guy. I’d like to get to know him.

137 00:23:22.000 –> 00:23:35.280 Ubadah Sabbagh: And the same way I feel like I try to make sure all my actions professionally, and else what a and elsewhere are guided by my values. So yeah, I think that’s where the

138 00:23:35.650 –> 00:23:42.559 Ubadah Sabbagh: di like investment comes from. But definitely, Di became like much more

139 00:23:42.710 –> 00:23:49.310 Ubadah Sabbagh: prominence as a you know thing and acronym in 2020, for obvious reasons.

140 00:23:49.420 –> 00:23:53.070 Ubadah Sabbagh: and now it’s having a different kind of moment.

141 00:23:53.520 –> 00:24:09.890 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah, yeah, referencing. You know things going on at at Harvard, but you know that’s a conversation for another day, I guess. But you all have young quickly, you know, gain some power, and I’m curious about how you’re using that power to empower others. Right? So, Daniel, you being

142 00:24:09.940 –> 00:24:36.399 JP Flores (he/him): about to be a faculty member at Vanderbilt. You’re about. You are a, you know, mit post, Doc. Have you all thought about what you can do in those positions, and how you can incite, change, and inspire others like more actionable things. Right? We can have discussions and conversations. But what type of policies or initiatives have you all been thinking about? And maybe would want to implement? Let’s go Ubada first, because I’m sure you know you’ve written about stuff right? Referencing the

143 00:24:36.400 –> 00:24:43.159 JP Flores (he/him): raising salary for post docs. I think that’s a huge one. And then we’ll just again. We’ll just give like

144 00:24:43.430 –> 00:25:01.259 Ubadah Sabbagh: 30¬†s for Daniel to think about his answer. Okay, I think of power as less about the position or rank, and more about what tools you have available to you what levers you have to pull on the what skill sets you have right?

145 00:25:01.280 –> 00:25:08.589 Ubadah Sabbagh: and and it’s all like a balance of like, how much risk can you take on compared to how much benefits or impact you can have?

146 00:25:08.650 –> 00:25:09.779 Ubadah Sabbagh: And so like.

147 00:25:09.900 –> 00:25:20.689 Ubadah Sabbagh: even if I’m a grad student at Virginia Tech, or I’m a postdoc at Mit. I don’t think of power as an equation of what? How much power does a postdoc have? How much power does a grad student have but more like.

148 00:25:20.810 –> 00:25:29.759 Ubadah Sabbagh: what do I have at my disposal? Disposal as aggressive and regime? Second, what do I have in mind? So here like, I am lucky that I have.

149 00:25:30.020 –> 00:25:44.279 Ubadah Sabbagh: sometimes when I wanna talk about something, people will listen. And I have, you know, cultivated whatever some kind of seriousness. People pay attention when I have things to say about some things, and so I use that where I can’t.

150 00:25:44.320 –> 00:25:51.719 Ubadah Sabbagh: And I use that when I got asked to serve on the Nih Advisory Committee to the director on postdoc issues.

151 00:25:51.800 –> 00:26:09.970 Ubadah Sabbagh: We worked for a year. We met every 2 weeks, and that was a lot of stuff. The main thing was increase the salary. But there was. It was, of course, more to to our, to our advocacy, to our report. But that goes in every direction. So if I have my skill sets include writing or speaking.

152 00:26:09.970 –> 00:26:26.449 Ubadah Sabbagh: or even navigating red tape of academia and bureaucracy and the inertia of our universities, then I can help people that way. And if there were students who don’t know how to write grants or don’t have somebody to review their grants. I I’ll I’ll do that for them. You know. I get cool emails about that kind of thing

153 00:26:26.500 –> 00:26:34.560 Ubadah Sabbagh: all the time. Workshops. whatever you know, I view the Twitter stuff to be the kind of

154 00:26:34.850 –> 00:26:38.939 Ubadah Sabbagh: the lowest hanging fruit in my, in my mind of like things that

155 00:26:39.210 –> 00:26:40.720 Ubadah Sabbagh: we can meaningfully do.

156 00:26:40.840 –> 00:26:53.239 Ubadah Sabbagh: because it has a short half-life that the impact that that thing has. But other things can be done at your institutional level. Or if you have the opportunity, at the national level, through professional societies or through

157 00:26:53.470 –> 00:27:11.120 JP Flores (he/him): yeah, whatever whatever. Again, tool, it comes back to tools. What levers do you have to pull on. Yeah, definitely, and I know Daniel has to leave soon, but feel free to leave whenever you need. Oh, sorry. Sorry. It’s only 1130, my time 30¬†min.

158 00:27:11.300 –> 00:27:12.610 JP Flores (he/him): It’s cool.

159 00:27:14.580 –> 00:27:27.940 Daniel Gonzales: Yeah, I have 0. No, no, I think it’s actually a tough question for me to answer at this moment being in a new position, because almost feel like as a

160 00:27:28.800 –> 00:27:30.180 Daniel Gonzales: trainee.

161 00:27:30.260 –> 00:27:51.339 Daniel Gonzales: And II know people that do this. And also I do this. You sort of idealize. What could what can be done once your faculty, or once your department chair, or once your dean, you sort of ha! Have these fantasies of all the changes that you could make once you’re there, and I’ve in more recent years come around to just being a little bit more

162 00:27:51.340 –> 00:28:02.690 Daniel Gonzales: mature about it, and say, like, there are real obstacles sometimes about just how institutions are built and how much time you have to think about certain issues. And so I’m trying to be bo both

163 00:28:03.130 –> 00:28:06.810 Daniel Gonzales: both not not lose my ideals, but also keep

164 00:28:07.070 –> 00:28:25.339 Daniel Gonzales: a very practical mindset, right? And so I’m starting what I like to think of this as starting small, basically, right? So I almost have, like a test ground. Now with the lab and with my courses and with the position that I have to see. Okay, like, what thing like, what’s the status quo about running a lab? And what about that is just

165 00:28:25.780 –> 00:28:48.770 Daniel Gonzales: there’s no rules. It’s just what people do versus? What can I change? And what can I do differently? That, I think, is a lot better? And does that bring a meaningful change to the divert, the diversity lab, or the inclusion of lab, or something along those lines. And so, for example, you know, a really S really simple, practical one was. I’ve never been in a lab that really lays out there

166 00:28:48.870 –> 00:29:14.119 Daniel Gonzales: ideals in their philosophies and expectations right? So before somebody even joins Lab. Do they even know what the expectations are of the pi? Or do they know what the expectations are for group meeting, or for you know your calls? Do they even know those things? Do they even know the mentorship style of of the of the Pi. And I feel like putting that information out there. Bring students to you that

167 00:29:14.680 –> 00:29:16.719 Daniel Gonzales: are are maybe a little bit more

168 00:29:16.870 –> 00:29:40.769 Daniel Gonzales: lost or a little bit more. Not as knowledgeable as somebody who is much more prepared for grants, for it helps. Somebody helps somebody walk through the process and say, Okay, here’s here’s what Daniel thinks. And here’s what this lab does. And now they can kind of compare that to their own values and whatever pis do. And so that’s why I wrote a lap handbook before I even started my position. I spent a long time

169 00:29:41.120 –> 00:29:45.029 Daniel Gonzales: coming back to it every few weeks and sort of tailoring it.

170 00:29:45.370 –> 00:30:00.690 Daniel Gonzales: Now, everybody that wants to join my lab have them read it, everybody that’s interested in my lab. I have them read it, and then also wrote up a little thing from a website, putting it out there about saying this is what I’m doing, and maybe I’m naive, and maybe maybe in like a few years I’ll look back and be like man that was.

171 00:30:00.690 –> 00:30:07.550 Daniel Gonzales: you know, there’s a lot of other ways going about this. But at the moment I think it’s a great idea right? And so what I wanna, that’s just to give an example of.

172 00:30:07.550 –> 00:30:32.329 Daniel Gonzales: I’m trying to look around it and look at the status quo. Look what I can do differently with my own ideas and creativity, and try that out, and then sort of put that out there into the world on my website or some other venue, and say, this is what I’m doing differently. Another really practical one is, whenever I recruit people, I only reach out to people that are underrepresented in in one way or another, if they if somebody reaches out to me or like our application stuff. Obviously, I’m going to

173 00:30:32.660 –> 00:30:58.869 Daniel Gonzales: talk to anybody that wants to talk, and anybody’s interested in my lab. But whenever I’m like initiating that I’m like via somebody on Twitter that I like, or somebody somebody published a paper that I think is really strong or something like that. I typically only reach out to people that are underrepresented in in science or engineering in some way. So, you know, just trying to come up with small things that I can sort of test out and implement, and then put those ideas out there for others to look into

174 00:30:59.520 –> 00:31:07.540 JP Flores (he/him): definitely. So why do you choose, Vandy? Was it the environment? Was it, you know? Did you find the Vandi version of Ubada there like, what is that?

175 00:31:07.540 –> 00:31:32.499 Ubadah Sabbagh: You don’t really get that much of a choice right? I mean, if you’re lucky if you’re like a superstar on the market and you get multiple offers. And sure, yeah.

176 00:31:32.500 –> 00:31:34.159 the choice

177 00:31:34.260 –> 00:32:01.130 Daniel Gonzales: for me. From the first time I visited, which was years ago at this point, 2 years ago, I knew I could tell that the Department or the institution had a good balance of excellent science, but also excellent culture. That was pretty obvious from the very start and pretty across the board, a consistent message from the other faculty that I talked to, and that was like my number one priority, where I didn’t want to sacrifice

178 00:32:01.360 –> 00:32:07.959 Daniel Gonzales: the quality of science I could do, but could also go to a place that I felt like I was going to be supported and

179 00:32:07.980 –> 00:32:32.070 Daniel Gonzales: be able to explore my own ideas like these ideas. I’m talking to you now, and also my idea scientifically without and just be and just then be se supportive along the along the road, instead of trying to like narrow me into this box of neuroscience or an engineer. You know, I feel I feel freedom here to explore the things that I’m most interested in doing yet over there. Oh, yeah, Aj. Is probably a huge reason of why. So

180 00:32:32.080 –> 00:32:50.530 Daniel Gonzales: the reason I got this job because I got invited for a talk. There’s an opening in exactly what I do which let me talk to the committee which led me to apply and get the job. Aj. Was the one that invited me for that talk initially. So I have a huge yes, I actually have a have a big debt to to pay for him, I should take him out for drinks some point. Huh?

181 00:32:50.540 –> 00:32:56.709 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah. Well, he’s he’s gonna be on the show on Wednesday. I think so. II it’s great a little good, low connection to have

182 00:32:56.780 –> 00:33:09.969 JP Flores (he/him): cool, very cool. So about it. What’s your what are your long term goals? Are you trying to be a professor as well cause it? It sounds like you have. You know, your hands everywhere. My advocacy, policy teaching. I know you like doing. What’s your what’s your? What’s the master plan?

183 00:33:11.430 –> 00:33:21.310 Daniel Gonzales: Yeah, man, what’s the plan? I want to know this, too? Because

184 00:33:21.670 –> 00:33:30.500 Ubadah Sabbagh: I will say, first of all, my at investments and disenchantments with academia will

185 00:33:30.700 –> 00:33:38.020 Ubadah Sabbagh: oscillate on a daily basis, you know. And I think that’s part of normal experience.

186 00:33:38.270 –> 00:33:40.600 Ubadah Sabbagh: and so. But

187 00:33:41.390 –> 00:33:52.029 Ubadah Sabbagh: so I am on. You know I am on track for you know, eventually competing after my postdoc for faculty positions, and so on. And

188 00:33:52.040 –> 00:33:53.940 Ubadah Sabbagh: I think you know there’s

189 00:33:55.270 –> 00:33:59.759 Ubadah Sabbagh: there’s a chance of that happening. That’s still on my list.

190 00:33:59.990 –> 00:34:12.639 Ubadah Sabbagh: but it’s not the only way. I see myself being useful in society. So I’m also simultaneously exploring other opportunities. If there are other other opportunities, I

191 00:34:12.670 –> 00:34:18.949 Ubadah Sabbagh: imagine they would be in something like policy, or or or like

192 00:34:19.159 –> 00:34:29.359 Ubadah Sabbagh: nonprofit kind of space. One thing I am very clear about is that I I’m not interested in just having a job like I’m not interested in just

193 00:34:29.409 –> 00:34:31.649 Ubadah Sabbagh: making a living

194 00:34:31.760 –> 00:34:34.039 Ubadah Sabbagh: And so like, I have to think about

195 00:34:34.300 –> 00:34:48.039 Ubadah Sabbagh: the position like being a pi is a way for me to have an impact that I wanna have a certain kind that I wanna have being at a think tank is a way for me to have an impact of certain kind I wanna have. And so on, being in the Federal Government, whatever it is.

196 00:34:48.110 –> 00:34:51.610 Ubadah Sabbagh: So I am still

197 00:34:51.840 –> 00:34:57.060 Ubadah Sabbagh: open minded, I would say, and I haven’t committed to only being

198 00:34:57.070 –> 00:34:59.240 Ubadah Sabbagh: Api

199 00:34:59.640 –> 00:35:08.529 Ubadah Sabbagh: I feel like I’m lucky that in in my academic community there seems to be some appetite, you know. At the end of the day, you know, if the projects work out.

200 00:35:08.680 –> 00:35:21.680 Ubadah Sabbagh: you get the papers. you know, or the preprints whatever. Then you know good luck on the market, and then you get what you get. But for me it’s not the only way that I see myself being successful. I can see other pathways for myself, too.

201 00:35:21.710 –> 00:35:23.609 Ubadah Sabbagh: Yeah, there is no master plan

202 00:35:23.730 –> 00:35:37.130 JP Flores (he/him): at the moment. Maybe you talk to me. In a few months, maybe they’ll change. Well, have you thought about combining all those things? Because that’s something I routinely talk about with Francis, or like other people is, do I have to silo myself into one career

203 00:35:37.130 –> 00:36:00.910 Ubadah Sabbagh: like, yes, maybe I can be a you know, pi at an academic institution. But what if I wanted to do ad hoc, science policy advising and collaborate people in industry. Have you thought about that? Do you know anyone? Of course, I always yeah. That’s a good question. I always think about it, and in a way I have been doing it since. Grad school having, you know, like dipping my hands in different pots.

204 00:36:01.290 –> 00:36:11.980 Ubadah Sabbagh: while staying an academic scientist and and doing reasonably. Okay. I do think, though, there comes there, there are some bottleneck stages. So, for example.

205 00:36:12.290 –> 00:36:14.879 Ubadah Sabbagh: like, you can be a pi

206 00:36:14.890 –> 00:36:30.909 Ubadah Sabbagh: and be an advising like on a some advisory committee or working group or task force. Or you know these kinds of things, you you can do that. You can go do capital Hill days as a pi. In fact, a lot of pis do

207 00:36:31.070 –> 00:36:42.320 Ubadah Sabbagh: but often your level of investment, of of your energy, and the kinds of things you can do will vary and and also the bottlenecks that I’m talking about are

208 00:36:42.380 –> 00:36:45.280 Ubadah Sabbagh: when you start a new lab. Daniel

209 00:36:45.390 –> 00:36:48.580 Ubadah Sabbagh: can tell you more about this. There’s very like

210 00:36:48.660 –> 00:37:01.240 Ubadah Sabbagh: there’s pro immediate priorities right? And your attention. And your percent effort has to be focused on building up your lab, building your team, training your team writing grants, writing grants, writing grants. And there’s there’s a lot of

211 00:37:01.840 –> 00:37:09.639 Ubadah Sabbagh: yeah, there’s a lot of you. You triage in different ways at different stages, I think, as a post Doc and as a graduate student. You have more bandwidth

212 00:37:09.940 –> 00:37:10.830 Ubadah Sabbagh: to

213 00:37:11.550 –> 00:37:23.659 Ubadah Sabbagh: play a role in in in the advocacy policy work or science communication work. But there are times where you have to put your head down and really focus on your one thing.

214 00:37:23.950 –> 00:37:27.869 Ubadah Sabbagh: So. But you do, Cpis, that are

215 00:37:27.910 –> 00:37:40.730 Ubadah Sabbagh: heavily engaged. They write OP. Eds. They serve on advisory committees. They do whatever like kinds of things. However, oftentimes not always, but oftentimes they’re they’re already past tenure.

216 00:37:40.930 –> 00:37:43.890 Ubadah Sabbagh: and and that’s when they come up for air, and they

217 00:37:44.030 –> 00:37:51.900 Ubadah Sabbagh: they’re able to to commit more time. You can do things on the way to 10 year. But again it’s just bandwidth bandwidth shifts depending. On what

218 00:37:51.910 –> 00:37:54.099 Ubadah Sabbagh: side of the bottleneck you’re you’re on.

219 00:37:54.290 –> 00:37:57.120 Ubadah Sabbagh: So. Yes, I think they’re combinable, but

220 00:37:57.720 –> 00:38:00.789 Ubadah Sabbagh: is just like, how much can you invest in what kind of

221 00:38:01.250 –> 00:38:06.830 Ubadah Sabbagh: what? What kind of impact do you wanna have if you’re a pi and you’re

222 00:38:06.910 –> 00:38:10.119 Ubadah Sabbagh: every year going to the hill for 2 days or

223 00:38:10.640 –> 00:38:29.529 Ubadah Sabbagh: serving on this committee that you meet quarterly with, or something like, what is impact to expect from that versus if you’re a full-time policy director or something somewhere. Yeah. And I know Daniel has a family, too. Right? So, Dan, check that for us, like, I’m sure the transition has been really hard. But

224 00:38:29.740 –> 00:38:35.279 JP Flores (he/him): How much of that is true, and what are other things that you just didn’t foresee happening when you first transitioned?

225 00:38:35.880 –> 00:39:01.790 Daniel Gonzales: The II would say. I mean, I knew everybody knows there’s there’s a lot to do right. Nobody has doubts that you’re going to be busy, and all of a sudden, you have way, more responsibilities. You’re no longer just responsible for yourself, responsible for Phd students and technicians. You’re actually an employer in a lot of ways. You’re you’re a boss. You’re an Admin. It’s like a everybody knows that. I think. I hope if you’re getting going into acting position. The thing that I think

226 00:39:02.530 –> 00:39:03.580 Daniel Gonzales: is

227 00:39:03.790 –> 00:39:08.839 Daniel Gonzales: con surprising to me, and I don’t say this to

228 00:39:09.320 –> 00:39:25.870 Daniel Gonzales: to sort of trash my my specific institution, because this is pretty across the board, for I’ve talked to a lot of people in the last few weeks is how little support there is in that transition. Right? So you go from a post, Doc. Your job is to do your project. Maybe write a grant may you know.

229 00:39:25.870 –> 00:39:45.270 Daniel Gonzales: or or a grant, or to, you know, publish your papers, and then you go into this other job. And there’s all these rules and all these Hr things and all this administrative things. And there’s not really like a handbook that tells you like, here’s who you like a simple things. Here’s who email, if you have a question about this specific type of finance, there’s nothing like that. It’s just

230 00:39:45.270 –> 00:39:57.299 Daniel Gonzales: you just have to figure it out. And so, you know, on top of all of the jobs that you now have, you don’t really know how to do any one of those jobs particularly well. And so that’s the the thing that’s

231 00:39:57.320 –> 00:40:10.219 Daniel Gonzales: I am struggling with the most, for sure is just even knowing how to conduct my job. And also so it’s a funny thing. So I feel like, you know, I feel like we. We talk about a lot of academia. We need to prepare people for

232 00:40:10.290 –> 00:40:36.010 Daniel Gonzales: industry positions. You know. There’s there’s too much emphasis on going at into Academia. We need prepare Phd. Students for industry positions. But we’re not really preparing people to be faculty either, like the job I was doing before. Is that the job I’m doing now at all. And so other than thinking about science. And so I’ve been reflecting on those things a lot. I think I had any balance family and all those things. So my wife and I had to sit down and be like, Okay, here’s the schedule. Here’s what a week is. Gonna look like.

233 00:40:36.010 –> 00:40:45.330 Daniel Gonzales: you know, we’re gonna like, actually, you know, put in the calendar, you know, extra work time that I feel like I’m going to need. We’re gonna put in the calendar, you know, like

234 00:40:45.330 –> 00:41:02.779 Daniel Gonzales: time that we’re gonna go home in the evenings, focus on family. And so I just try to do it very structured, right? Trying to think about how much time do I have having a week the type of balance that I want to have between work and life, and you know, going from there. And you know, working it out on on a week to week basis.

235 00:41:03.290 –> 00:41:24.049 Ubadah Sabbagh: Well, sounds like someone should write you know, commentary, or some type of handbook on how to be a new pi. Right? I feel like that’s been a thing, though. There there are. There’s always a surprising kind. People who do that kind of thing. However, I structured like formalized like the post Doc

236 00:41:24.080 –> 00:41:33.780 Ubadah Sabbagh: position as such a vague, nebulous thing. And it’s very much like a choose your own adventure thing. What do you mean by that? Well, because, like Daniel saying

237 00:41:33.880 –> 00:41:42.190 Ubadah Sabbagh: the job, the post Doc initially was a stepping stone, a kind of

238 00:41:42.360 –> 00:41:43.870 Ubadah Sabbagh: an apprenticeship

239 00:41:43.880 –> 00:42:06.790 Ubadah Sabbagh: that is a prelude to a faculty position, and then eventually became like a purgatory that you like because of market forces are like stuck in for a while until you distinguish yourself enough so that you can compete for a faculty position, or you give up and go somewhere else, or you realize that you never wanted the faculty position. You go somewhere else. But the post Doc. Position doesn’t prepare you for any of those outcomes.

240 00:42:07.070 –> 00:42:10.600 Ubadah Sabbagh: So it’s just like, what’s your responsibilities as a postdoc

241 00:42:11.220 –> 00:42:18.280 Ubadah Sabbagh: publish like it’s do work and then publish. Even Grant. Writing isn’t a responsibility, just varies, depending on

242 00:42:18.330 –> 00:42:24.350 Ubadah Sabbagh: the live environment and the choose your own adventure part. So like. if we had structured training.

243 00:42:24.450 –> 00:42:36.230 Ubadah Sabbagh: if we defined what is the point of a post. Doc is a post-doc to prepare people for academic market. Great. Let’s structure it exactly for that, and prepare people for how to be a pi, so that what Daniel’s talking about doesn’t happen.

244 00:42:36.300 –> 00:42:42.899 Ubadah Sabbagh: But, like commentaries can only can only do so much. They exist like you’re saying. But like they, they only

245 00:42:43.490 –> 00:42:49.109 Ubadah Sabbagh: it’s not. It’s not training. It’s like Fyi, you know.

246 00:42:49.320 –> 00:42:57.740 Ubadah Sabbagh: so I think the postdoc, like evolved over time into this nebulous thing that

247 00:42:57.920 –> 00:43:09.390 Ubadah Sabbagh: it to such an extent that we don’t have accounts and accurate counts of post docs anywhere like an institution can’t really accurately tell you how many post docs they have, unless they have a single way of appointing them

248 00:43:09.500 –> 00:43:20.539 Ubadah Sabbagh: right? Because it has, because it’s so vague, and they can have different responsibilities and roles, and be hired in different ways and and so on. Anyway, I think I’m I’m overall a fan of

249 00:43:20.590 –> 00:43:22.050 Daniel Gonzales: formalizing

250 00:43:22.270 –> 00:43:47.169 Daniel Gonzales: what a role is kinda like what you bought us said, like formalizing what a postdoc is sometimes like creates bureaucracy like it’s something for somebody to read through, and the lab has to adhere to, which also is sort of the trade-off and kind of sucks, but at least it’s formalized, and everybody’s on the same page. And the thing that you would just mentioned. Jp. About. Why don’t? Why isn’t there not like a handbook for faculty? There’s sure, like guide guides out there. But every institution is also incredibly different.

251 00:43:47.270 –> 00:44:01.769 Daniel Gonzales: like simple questions like, How much do you budget for a grad student? How much do you budget for a postdoc? All these things are gonna vary from institution to institution, even like department to department within institution. Right? And so it’s those type of questions that are really hard can’t be answered at a

252 00:44:02.010 –> 00:44:18.009 Daniel Gonzales: at at a really broad level, like Nih type level, but more so at like a department level. And so II would. I would really like to see more departments, sort of formalizing an onboarding process, giving hard info and facts about

253 00:44:18.040 –> 00:44:42.099 Daniel Gonzales: budgets, and who to go to for certain questions. And here’s your mentors. Maybe these are your go-to people within the department for questions. You can ask them easy questions. You can ask them questions that you think are really dumb. And they’re not gonna judge you. None of this is gonna affect like how the department sees you. You know, those are the type of things that II would find really helpful in this moment. And I’m doing all this. I was. I’m timing, seek all those things out myself rather than sort of that being facilitated.

254 00:44:42.750 –> 00:44:47.429 Ubadah Sabbagh: Just to add a layer of context also to this. The.

255 00:44:47.450 –> 00:44:49.499 Ubadah Sabbagh: It’s 2 things. The first thing is

256 00:44:49.750 –> 00:44:55.410 Ubadah Sabbagh: that when you standardize things and you make them more. You like uniform. Yes, it creates bureaucracy.

257 00:44:55.430 –> 00:45:04.519 Ubadah Sabbagh: but it also like, if we’re talking about making like what we call what did we call it this? It’s like a but

258 00:45:05.890 –> 00:45:13.140 Ubadah Sabbagh: hidden curriculum, hidden curriculum shit like like this kind of stuff. Do you mystify all these buzz words so like these things.

259 00:45:13.190 –> 00:45:17.199 Ubadah Sabbagh: you you make things more accessible sometimes when they’re more standardized.

260 00:45:17.210 –> 00:45:37.879 Ubadah Sabbagh: like, even imagine, how do people get postdoc positions? Lot of people don’t know that you can just write a pi, and you you can see if you can get a position in their lab. Even if there’s no job posting, you don’t have to look at science careers and nature careers, jobs, pages to, you know, but like so then there might be a lot of people who don’t come from privileged backgrounds where they had the resources to know this.

261 00:45:37.880 –> 00:45:49.039 Ubadah Sabbagh: and they end up in labs only that they see job postings for and not the top labs which never really advertise positions or they career. They do right? So like, that’s a way that if you standardize, how a postdoc is hired

262 00:45:49.200 –> 00:45:52.499 Ubadah Sabbagh: that helps. If you standardized, what is a faculty position

263 00:45:52.790 –> 00:45:58.199 Ubadah Sabbagh: across institutions? You also like help, right? But the flip side of this is like

264 00:45:58.560 –> 00:46:01.219 Ubadah Sabbagh: a lot of institutions feel like

265 00:46:01.410 –> 00:46:10.409 Ubadah Sabbagh: when you create these kinds of structure, you’re creating constraints. Constraints get in the way of creativity and flexibility and blah blah blah.

266 00:46:10.690 –> 00:46:17.970 Ubadah Sabbagh: which isn’t always true. Actually, constraints can also be an engine for innovation. But

267 00:46:18.300 –> 00:46:22.659 Ubadah Sabbagh: that’s that’s the inertia that pushes back against it. Usually is that

268 00:46:22.840 –> 00:46:26.259 Ubadah Sabbagh: and then some people also have a vested interest in the

269 00:46:26.470 –> 00:46:29.100 Ubadah Sabbagh: hidden curriculum being still like hidden.

270 00:46:29.320 –> 00:46:34.370 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah. Yeah. So, reflecting on both of your scientific journeys, right? Like. Let’s say

271 00:46:34.730 –> 00:46:47.650 JP Flores (he/him): we are at a point of time where both of you are just starting science, and you found your love for science. And you know you want to stay in it. Let’s say that this is like a movie where you can control what obstacles and barriers were in your way.

272 00:46:47.900 –> 00:46:49.179 JP Flores (he/him): what would you have

273 00:46:49.410 –> 00:46:55.969 JP Flores (he/him): taken out of the way throughout your your scientific journey. And what would you have, you know, been low-key telling yourself

274 00:46:57.670 –> 00:47:00.909 JP Flores (he/him): so? That’s a big question I’ll give. I’ll give you like 30¬†s or something

275 00:47:01.030 –> 00:47:05.679 Ubadah Sabbagh: interesting question. It’s a great question. Actually.

276 00:47:09.170 –> 00:47:15.750 JP Flores (he/him): yeah. Don’t feel pressured to like have to say something. One. You could talk out of your ass to you could calculate this this answer.

277 00:47:18.090 –> 00:47:22.359 Daniel Gonzales: I’ll I’ll just say ahead of time that I’m gonna have a hard time giving

278 00:47:24.500 –> 00:47:29.919 Daniel Gonzales: G giving an answer when it comes to like structural things that I felt were in my way.

279 00:47:30.300 –> 00:47:53.560 Daniel Gonzales: Of course, being first Jen, and and so so here. So here’s why. Here’s why. And I’ll I’ll try to put this into some type of you know, a way that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, it’ll probably be more of a word about it. But so the things that I’ve had to overcome have also shaped me in a lot of ways. And so let’s say I went back, and I took away

280 00:47:55.360 –> 00:48:03.060 Daniel Gonzales: like ease. The financial barrier during grad school would have helped a lot right, but also

281 00:48:03.350 –> 00:48:15.940 Daniel Gonzales: in the ways that it strengthened my marriage in the way that it helped us to work as a team in the way that helps me to appreciate the salary that I have now is also something that I

282 00:48:16.300 –> 00:48:17.790 Daniel Gonzales: that I

283 00:48:18.890 –> 00:48:43.610 Daniel Gonzales: appreciate a lot right should we show? Should we raising salaries and stipends for Phd students? Absolutely if I had to go back, would I have loved a lot more money? Yeah, but also like on the flip side of it. Looking back now, it helped me. II was like, we’re just completely different people. Let’s go back to being first Gen. And sort of like not knowing my way around academia. Also help me to sort of take a step back and and always just think about, why do we do things this certain way?

284 00:48:43.660 –> 00:49:03.250 Daniel Gonzales: Because I didn’t know how to how anything went right. So which helped me to always have my own creative ideas about either policies or how we do science, how we think about science, because I didn’t know all of like what everybody else knew right? And so that also shaped me into the scientists that I am, and I sort of take that

285 00:49:03.590 –> 00:49:24.659 Daniel Gonzales: and I sort of have even, you know, e stepped into that even more. Now, taking what I think may be a naive idea, or a naive project, or any naive policy. Now, thinking, maybe it’s actually a great idea. And just people have the way of doing things and so they stick with that specific way. So it it’s really hard for me

286 00:49:24.980 –> 00:49:27.579 Daniel Gonzales: to give you a solid answer about that.

287 00:49:27.750 –> 00:49:31.940 JP Flores (he/him): I think that is a solid answer most people would have like

288 00:49:32.590 –> 00:49:48.519 JP Flores (he/him): they. They can think of initiatives right away that they wish they were a part of. But I think that self awareness, and knowing like no, everything does put in my way, has built me into me. II think that is a very solid answer, and I think about it, probably say something similar. Maybe. Yeah, that’s the thing. That’s why I hesitate because I was like.

289 00:49:48.850 –> 00:49:53.380 Ubadah Sabbagh: But you know, I was thinking, maybe all these graduate student unions that are

290 00:49:53.670 –> 00:50:11.679 Ubadah Sabbagh: coming together. Those are all like marriage killers, actually. And that’s why we should be against them. They’re terrible for love lives. It’s only good for stipends. That’s why we never started a podcast

291 00:50:12.340 –> 00:50:24.680 Ubadah Sabbagh: no. Actually, I was thinking, like, okay. So there, there’s 2 ways of answering this question. One is like my personal experience, my personal. What would I have wanted to remove from my experience versus? What would I want to remove for other

292 00:50:24.750 –> 00:50:26.760 Ubadah Sabbagh: people or like generally

293 00:50:26.800 –> 00:50:42.199 Ubadah Sabbagh: because, like Daniel. whether it’s academia or outside academia, like everything that all these challenges that we face in life. they did shape who I am, and the resilience I have that I bring to science is resilience I got from life, not from

294 00:50:42.300 –> 00:50:45.560 Ubadah Sabbagh: experiments failing and like

295 00:50:45.980 –> 00:50:48.450 Ubadah Sabbagh: So I think that there’s there’s

296 00:50:49.020 –> 00:50:51.519 Ubadah Sabbagh: there is like lessons learned from

297 00:50:51.640 –> 00:50:58.479 Ubadah Sabbagh: a lot of these barriers and obstacles, but it’s not a virtue of them. I would say there’s not. It’s not a.

298 00:50:58.670 –> 00:51:00.040 Ubadah Sabbagh: It’s not

299 00:51:00.530 –> 00:51:03.450 Ubadah Sabbagh: a way to like defend them

300 00:51:03.560 –> 00:51:09.419 Ubadah Sabbagh: or their existence, but it is a reality that usually people who overcome things

301 00:51:09.620 –> 00:51:11.710 Ubadah Sabbagh: are better for it.

302 00:51:12.080 –> 00:51:16.829 Ubadah Sabbagh: however. if the question is, if I’m playing, what is that video game? You said.

303 00:51:16.860 –> 00:51:21.700 Ubadah Sabbagh: if I’m creating the game for other people to play.

304 00:51:21.710 –> 00:51:32.109 Ubadah Sabbagh: Then. Yeah, there’s a lot of, but that’s the things that we all talk about. And then we all do right. So like all these institutional barriers that we talk about. But I think, like, okay in my did, I? Was I better off

305 00:51:32.720 –> 00:51:43.430 Ubadah Sabbagh: having to overcome the cost of applying to grad school. No, but you know I wasn’t in a partnership at the time. So maybe that’s why. But like other things, I think

306 00:51:43.630 –> 00:51:50.130 Ubadah Sabbagh: you know, if I knew things like contact. Pis at the program that you’re applying to

307 00:51:50.150 –> 00:51:57.519 Ubadah Sabbagh: that would be that would be very useful for you and very normal and not in a and inappropriate to do

308 00:51:57.820 –> 00:52:04.080 Ubadah Sabbagh: that would have been really helpful, and probably saved me a lot of time and money. But

309 00:52:04.600 –> 00:52:10.080 Ubadah Sabbagh: I learned that on my own and part of me learning that on my own was me learning that I can ask people for help.

310 00:52:10.840 –> 00:52:22.550 Ubadah Sabbagh: and that’s also like a skill and a value that is really important in any any life experience, not just academia. So yeah, I mean, the answer from the personal perspective is like Daniels. I don’t think I think

311 00:52:23.230 –> 00:52:26.770 Ubadah Sabbagh: I’m I wouldn’t change anything but

312 00:52:26.920 –> 00:52:28.169 Ubadah Sabbagh: for everybody else

313 00:52:28.870 –> 00:52:37.050 Ubadah Sabbagh: you shouldn’t have to be that resilient, and you shouldn’t have to like. But so the question is, how do we design better system for everyone? Obviously, people who make it through it?

314 00:52:37.790 –> 00:52:39.520 Ubadah Sabbagh: We’ll be okay, more or less.

315 00:52:39.630 –> 00:52:42.289 Ubadah Sabbagh: you know, cause we made it through it. But

316 00:52:42.620 –> 00:52:43.330 Ubadah Sabbagh: yeah.

317 00:52:43.590 –> 00:52:49.159 Daniel Gonzales: I think that’s really a good way of putting it like looking at your personal experience. I probably would have changed anything. But looking at what

318 00:52:49.160 –> 00:53:13.800 Daniel Gonzales: everybody else. So I’m I’m definitely not the kind of person that’s like. Back at my day. We just, you know, we we paid for our grad school apps. And we took the gre definitely not right like, tear all those things down because they’re they’re they’re pointless, and they’re just they’re outdated, and they are barriers for sure. So it’s tear all that stuff down. But for me, personally, I wouldn’t change much if anything about my experience right. I think a lot of my personal things go back to

319 00:53:14.020 –> 00:53:32.560 Daniel Gonzales: first shit and underrepresented people that just don’t know like how to navigate things, and we’ve kind of come back to this over and over again. That’s why I think both we bought it. And I have wrote wrote things on our websites or other resources about how to apply for postdoc positions. That’s why I just put up a post recently about like, what am I looking for in Phd applicants to my lab.

320 00:53:32.560 –> 00:53:53.320 Daniel Gonzales: right? So there’s no more like, let’s just make this transparent about the things that I find whereas red flags, the things that I find in really strong candidates here. Here’s what I think, just to put those things out there. So it’s not a guessing game anymore, right? And you can prepare and determine whether you are prepared to grad school for grad school and ready to take on a Phd program. Alright, let’s make all those things more transparent.

321 00:53:53.400 –> 00:53:54.160 Ubadah Sabbagh: Yeah.

322 00:53:54.410 –> 00:54:13.230 JP Flores (he/him): yeah. Touching on the ideas of resiliency and transparency. You know II am in. I’m a third year. Phd, candidate and experiments aren’t working. My advisor is awesome, and this morning, you know, he like calm me down and was like, Don’t worry like if we need a pivot we’ll pivot. But this is what we’re gonna do for the next couple of steps.

323 00:54:13.380 –> 00:54:30.310 JP Flores (he/him): and I’m not gonna lie. Yesterday I was hitting a breaking point where I was like man like, II think I’m just gonna drop out because there’s no way. This is gonna work type stuff. What do you all do or tell yourselves to, to, to push right you. You will both have very unique stories. And

324 00:54:30.320 –> 00:54:37.179 JP Flores (he/him): you talk about how you push through through certain struggles. What are the what are things you’d you’d pass on to younger scientists.

325 00:54:37.940 –> 00:54:46.260 Daniel Gonzales: I would say. I can write to relate to that exact scenario a lot. My third year it could have been my fourth. I’m pretty sure it’s my third was the hardest where

326 00:54:46.820 –> 00:54:56.660 Daniel Gonzales: you’re no longer new. You’re supposed to know things you’re supposed to know how to do experiments. And does it like, yeah, you you have like your training. First years, you

327 00:54:56.730 –> 00:55:16.480 Daniel Gonzales: your stuff should be working. Your project should be like more mature at this point, right? No longer trying to get a project off the ground, but your project is either close to an end, or like is headed to something right, and everybody knows where it’s heading. And I just had a year of nothing work a full year like a full year of nothing working.

328 00:55:16.580 –> 00:55:24.130 Daniel Gonzales: And then this was experimental. But I mean, I can imagine how how hard it is if it’s computational also. And

329 00:55:25.170 –> 00:55:47.850 Daniel Gonzales: I, you know my advisor was really supportive, and I never felt like I was disappointing him, which was a huge thing. Right? Let’s say, if I offset the added stress of. He thought it was falling behind, and maybe he did, but he just never like told me. You know, he wasn’t like he was able to keep that part to himself. And I left every meeting feeling like, okay, we have another direction to pivot or to, you know, more ideas to to fix this problem.

330 00:55:47.850 –> 00:55:55.879 Daniel Gonzales: If I’d say the number. One thing is just showing up right? You show up every single day.

331 00:55:56.190 –> 00:56:10.770 Daniel Gonzales: Some days are hard, some days are gonna be better. But you have to show up and you have to take those baby steps and you have to push through it. II don’t know another way to go about doing that other than obviously taking time for yourself and knowing that

332 00:56:11.110 –> 00:56:25.650 Daniel Gonzales: you know you have. Yeah friends, you have family. You have this other support system that’s there for you, and taking time to balance both the work and your life. But the number one thing is just to show up every day. You’re never gonna get. Get over that hump if you don’t show up. So that’s to me the number one.

333 00:56:27.090 –> 00:56:32.240 Ubadah Sabbagh: Yeah, I think I think I

334 00:56:32.490 –> 00:56:39.449 Ubadah Sabbagh: usually think about how I also my third year was like that, too. It wasn’t things not working. It was more like

335 00:56:39.590 –> 00:56:43.290 Ubadah Sabbagh: was more like, what is gonna be really my dissertation. And

336 00:56:43.320 –> 00:56:52.519 Ubadah Sabbagh: which of the things do I need to commit to kind of like, which of the projects going on. and how I’m gonna make a story out of things.

337 00:56:52.650 –> 00:56:53.560 Ubadah Sabbagh: but

338 00:56:54.230 –> 00:57:05.629 Ubadah Sabbagh: I also almost got deported in my third year. So I had other things going on. But that was gonna be something I was gonna say, which is in my life.

339 00:57:06.060 –> 00:57:20.150 Ubadah Sabbagh: Science, like experiments, have never been the biggest stressor like science grad school. Whatever has never been the biggest stressor. And I, actually, that does help me like that does for me as a personal reminder, it’s like, Okay.

340 00:57:20.680 –> 00:57:24.029 Ubadah Sabbagh: this is like a really nice kind of life I have.

341 00:57:24.080 –> 00:57:38.300 Ubadah Sabbagh: you know, like, cause we’re just kind of fucking around in the back. Are you allowed to swear on this? Yeah, you just like, you know, around and and and you’re getting paid pennies. But you’re getting paid to to do that. And we love it.

342 00:57:38.410 –> 00:57:39.650 Ubadah Sabbagh: And so like.

343 00:57:39.750 –> 00:57:43.490 Ubadah Sabbagh: Alright, it didn’t work. We’ll try something else. Kind of kind of like

344 00:57:43.810 –> 00:57:54.979 Ubadah Sabbagh: feeling like I. Of course I have really tough days and all this stuff, too, but like it does help myself to remind myself like, actually like this isn’t one of the bigger woes in your life.

345 00:57:55.120 –> 00:58:00.220 Ubadah Sabbagh: but separate from that cause that’s just related to me personally, but separate from that, I think.

346 00:58:00.310 –> 00:58:12.870 Ubadah Sabbagh: It’s all worth also remembering and reminding your friends and your colleagues that, like usually things that are new, like novel or haven’t done, been done before or discovered before, are hard

347 00:58:13.010 –> 00:58:28.719 Ubadah Sabbagh: like it’s it just takes a a while to get to that point and and and there’s a there’s like there’s some crawling through mud to get there. But when you’re on the other side of it. It feels good, and once you’ve experienced that at least once you have that

348 00:58:29.040 –> 00:58:35.349 Ubadah Sabbagh: feeling in your memory, and and it also is can be a motivator. But sometimes, maybe if you’re in grad school, it’s like, still.

349 00:58:35.360 –> 00:58:44.389 Ubadah Sabbagh: it’s your first mud crawl, and and maybe you haven’t had the chance yet to to know the feeling. But it it’s worth reassuring yourself that

350 00:58:44.510 –> 00:59:04.960 Ubadah Sabbagh: things that are worth doing or things that are new. And you’re gonna be the first like when you’re doing it, finished your Phd. You’re the first to have said whatever shit you wrote in your dissertation, and you’re probably the first human in history to have seen, and the most expert person on it, right? And so like, that’s meaningful. And so it takes really hard work to get to that point.

351 00:59:05.280 –> 00:59:07.509 Ubadah Sabbagh: and so back to what Daniel said. I think

352 00:59:07.760 –> 00:59:13.349 Ubadah Sabbagh: showing up is its own important first step and then

353 00:59:13.500 –> 00:59:17.130 Ubadah Sabbagh: don’t hesitate to ask.

354 00:59:17.400 –> 00:59:24.349 Ubadah Sabbagh: because sometimes people feel shame when they fail. Right? And it’s not shameful. It’s actually a normal part of the process.

355 00:59:24.490 –> 00:59:40.160 Ubadah Sabbagh: And so, like once you feel like it’s not shameful. Then you feel more ready to ask for help and guidance and brainstorm with your friends or brainstorm with your pi. If you have a kind of relationship. Hopefully, you do with your pi or lab mates, whatever, but like

356 00:59:40.780 –> 00:59:42.719 Ubadah Sabbagh: it helps a lot. In my postdoc.

357 00:59:42.840 –> 00:59:48.680 Ubadah Sabbagh: I lean way more on like, particularly like 2 post docs in the lab that I consider my

358 00:59:48.690 –> 01:00:03.240 Ubadah Sabbagh: my peer like thought partners and my science, then my pi cause just the nature of the relationship. My Pia is very busy. They are more invested in the intellectual aspects of my project. And so if I’m feeling like I’m hitting a wall, or some things are failing, or whatever

359 01:00:03.340 –> 01:00:08.269 Ubadah Sabbagh: they’re my sounding board. Daniel, is that, too, sometimes? And so like

360 01:00:08.380 –> 01:00:12.320 Ubadah Sabbagh: I think that kind of having that that kind of willingness to

361 01:00:12.360 –> 01:00:16.709 Ubadah Sabbagh: ask people for help is good, but you don’t get anywhere without showing up for sure.

362 01:00:17.100 –> 01:00:21.500 Daniel Gonzales: I think. Kind of what? Going back to the bottom set about is asking people, everybody has these

363 01:00:21.550 –> 01:00:37.800 Daniel Gonzales: stories right? We you you brought up to us, and both of us said in our third year and our fourth year we had the exact same story. Everybody at the end of the Phd. Has that question of I just spent another 5 years, 6 years in school, and I still don’t know what I’m gonna do with my life. Everybody has that. You have to figure it out. Every postdoc has that moment of

364 01:00:37.800 –> 01:00:56.319 Daniel Gonzales: I dedicated more and more time for postdoc about not making money, and I’m not sure I’m gonna make into the faculty position. I’m not sure if I wanna go into industry, I don’t know what I’m gonna do. Everybody has those moments right? And so just ask people that you trust and PE people whose opinion do you value is really important find whose people’s opinion to actually value?

365 01:00:56.320 –> 01:01:06.590 Daniel Gonzales: There’s a lot of bad opinions and bad perspectives out there, too. But just ask people and find people you trust and go. Yeah. And that’s a huge support system.

366 01:01:06.690 –> 01:01:08.280 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah, beautifully said.

367 01:01:08.380 –> 01:01:38.039 JP Flores (he/him): So I respect and trust your opinions a lot, both of yours. Yeah. A little stretch, break. What is the best way to build a a portfolio such that once career can take off right like I know, Obada, you’ve you’ve done stuff for the Washington Post nature. I don’t know what else you’ve you’ve done stuff for Daniel. You’re now a a faculty member. Right? What is the best way to build a portfolio? II think kindness and just being a better person is the priority. But are there actual things that a young scientist can do

368 01:01:38.100 –> 01:01:48.190 JP Flores (he/him): to make it easier for themselves to get to the next level? Other outside of outside of publishing papers outside of of the currency of Academia publishing papers. What should assign young scientists be doing

369 01:01:51.340 –> 01:02:03.629 Ubadah Sabbagh: portfolio of what? Like? Yeah? Like, like for example, I’ve always wanted to publish di commentaries. I’ve always wanted to do more outreach. I want to start a company. That’s a bit.

370 01:02:03.960 –> 01:02:12.829 JP Flores (he/him): you know. That’s a bigger thing than what I’m talking about. But what are the what are the things that you know matter when you’re applying jobs? And you’re applying to postdocs applying for faculty positions.

371 01:02:12.860 –> 01:02:14.349 JP Flores (he/him): What stands out

372 01:02:15.380 –> 01:02:21.930 Daniel Gonzales: looks like Daniel has has a thought loaded. Go ahead.

373 01:02:21.930 –> 01:02:48.790 Daniel Gonzales: My heart just jumped at an email.

374 01:02:49.350 –> 01:02:51.259 Ubadah Sabbagh: II think.

375 01:02:51.700 –> 01:02:57.250 Ubadah Sabbagh: okay, something I I’ve I’ve learned and noticed. And is that people

376 01:02:57.590 –> 01:03:05.170 Ubadah Sabbagh: once you meet or encounter like somebody who is dependable and knows how to get shit done, whatever the shit is.

377 01:03:06.180 –> 01:03:08.119 Ubadah Sabbagh: People who care. Notice that.

378 01:03:08.150 –> 01:03:12.650 Ubadah Sabbagh: and so like be that person is the first thing I would say is like just

379 01:03:13.440 –> 01:03:14.700 Ubadah Sabbagh: exude

380 01:03:15.030 –> 01:03:24.680 Ubadah Sabbagh: sense of like that person can get shit done. Yeah. And I like, I’m whatever I put my mind to. I’m serious about it like that. That’s that’s like the

381 01:03:24.900 –> 01:03:42.549 Ubadah Sabbagh: high level thing. And then, like, Okay, if we get to nitty gritty because portfolios are different, depending on what’s your goal? So like, if somebody wanted to build a a career or portfolio in writing, you know. Good good at writing is the first thing and then also be. I think

382 01:03:42.570 –> 01:03:56.249 Ubadah Sabbagh: vulnerability is very important, like you have to be willing to write something and have somebody look at it. And this was hard for me in the beginning, and and it because it’s not. It’s not a scientific article like, for example, I was writing OP. Ads.

383 01:03:56.280 –> 01:04:01.750 Ubadah Sabbagh: They’re not. They’re not manuscripts. They’re not papers right? And then, if I hand it to somebody who is a colleague

384 01:04:01.760 –> 01:04:06.770 Ubadah Sabbagh: and I’m like, tell me what you think about this. It’s there’s there’s an act of vulnerability there.

385 01:04:06.780 –> 01:04:15.389 Ubadah Sabbagh: And and then, you know but you you’re better off doing that, because be by the time an editor looks at your manuscript

386 01:04:15.530 –> 01:04:28.420 Ubadah Sabbagh: or your essay, or whatever it is, it better be way better than when you first like started writing it down right? And so how are you gonna polish it up. It’s not all gonna come naturally from your head. So I think a lot of

387 01:04:28.740 –> 01:04:35.170 Ubadah Sabbagh: a lot of it is like has to do with ego and vulnerability and things like that. But then eventually, if you want to write commentaries

388 01:04:35.530 –> 01:04:38.889 Ubadah Sabbagh: right? The editor, like some journals, for example, some journals

389 01:04:39.390 –> 01:04:51.050 Ubadah Sabbagh: will have on their about page of the journal like different article types, and they might say some of these are they they accept unsolicited, and and sometimes they’ll say we don’t accept unsolicited commentary.

390 01:04:51.680 –> 01:04:53.509 Ubadah Sabbagh: If they don’t accept unsolicited.

391 01:04:54.010 –> 01:05:01.949 Ubadah Sabbagh: don’t solicit, let you don’t don’t email them. But if they don’t say that write the editor and be like, Hey, I am thinking of writing about this topic.

392 01:05:02.380 –> 01:05:21.450 Ubadah Sabbagh: but don’t just say that you have to like there’s some more information. So you bullet points, for example, here are the things that would discuss. And if it’s like 700 words, 7, 800 words like, you need to know the readership and what they expect from that outlet. Then you you have to think, okay, how many points can I really fit in those in those words. And you say, here’s my take home message.

393 01:05:21.870 –> 01:05:29.509 Ubadah Sabbagh: I have found that most of the time editors only don’t really usually like to accept things on spec, which means like without seeing a draft.

394 01:05:29.880 –> 01:05:33.939 Ubadah Sabbagh: So I’ve usually tried to write a draft when I pitch.

395 01:05:33.950 –> 01:05:56.470 Ubadah Sabbagh: and whether it’s at the Washington Post, or whether it’s at nature, or whatever it is like. So I like to have a draft, because I also like to organize my thoughts, to make sure that I have something meaningful to say rather than a rent, or like a ramble, or something that could be a twitter thread. You know what I mean. You literally just email editor. And you do a page. Yeah. But here’s the second part of this.

396 01:05:56.500 –> 01:05:59.329 Ubadah Sabbagh: You have to be okay most of the time. Getting no reply.

397 01:05:59.650 –> 01:06:25.799 Ubadah Sabbagh: You have to be okay. I have a a folder on my laptop. That’s a cemetery of articles and essays. I never saw the light of day, and that’s fine like, you have to be okay, failing. And that’s where the resilience pays off, too. So if you know, you just have to be okay, getting rejected, you have to be okay. Failing you might get no’s. You might get no response at all, because these editors, especially at the big outlets like they’re they’re getting like hundreds and hundreds of pitches a day.

398 01:06:25.830 –> 01:06:29.409 Ubadah Sabbagh: So like, why, you you know

399 01:06:29.540 –> 01:06:44.899 Ubadah Sabbagh: but you have to read a lot and practice writing a lot, and then you’ll you’ll eventually pick up on. Okay, how do people write? And I say, How do people structure? And then you want to make it easier, for the editor like your first draft should look to them like this isn’t gonna take that much work for me to turn into a Washington post OP-ed.

400 01:06:45.020 –> 01:06:50.219 Ubadah Sabbagh: But for you to make it easier for them. You need to have some kind of intuition for how they work.

401 01:06:50.430 –> 01:06:58.140 Ubadah Sabbagh: Gotcha. That longass answer is just about writing so like, if somebody wants to build a portfolio of something. it depends on what’s

402 01:06:58.610 –> 01:07:06.599 Ubadah Sabbagh: the portfolio should match whatever your professional identity that you’re sculpting is. And so once you once you know what that is.

403 01:07:06.770 –> 01:07:23.220 Ubadah Sabbagh: then we can talk about details of how you can improve different things. But I think competence exuding a sense of like, I’m serious about my work, whatever it is, and I can get shit done is a big, big, big thing that people notice, and if you don’t ha! If you don’t

404 01:07:23.300 –> 01:07:27.089 Ubadah Sabbagh: have that, it’s just harder to get the attention of people right.

405 01:07:27.940 –> 01:07:35.140 Daniel Gonzales: I would say so to to bring it a little bit more back to research, but not necessarily in context of, you know, not

406 01:07:35.240 –> 01:07:51.019 Daniel Gonzales: currency and academia like publications. But research is still really important. Right? So I can maybe comment broadly on research in the absence of publications. And and this is applicable to me because my actually, my postdoc papers aren’t out yet right? So I got this job without my major postdoc papers being out.

407 01:07:51.160 –> 01:08:00.490 Daniel Gonzales: But I think something that I did have is something I was intentional about when it comes like building a portfolio per portfolio was building a

408 01:08:00.650 –> 01:08:29.420 Daniel Gonzales: research portfolio that was very unique, so that people could see that this guy can do a set of experiments that very few people in the world can do like combine multiple fields in a way that not very many people can do so, I would say, there’s probably 2. There’s obviously there’s a ton of ways to go about things. And this is again really specific Academia. I’m sorry if you’re like more just industry, I can’t comment anything on. I never even thought about it, so I don’t know like what the rules are there. But

409 01:08:29.660 –> 01:08:31.180 Daniel Gonzales: you know, for academia.

410 01:08:31.540 –> 01:08:50.199 Daniel Gonzales: I would say, you know, for your Phd. In your post, Doc, you can choose to be really good at one thing and be like the world leader at that thing that is really important. Wha wha whatever that could be, the bottom makes tools like molecular tools for the brain? That’s one thing you’d be really good at, or you could do a diverse set of things

411 01:08:50.279 –> 01:09:06.130 Daniel Gonzales: kind of what I did to do 2 very different things for your postdoc with some similar threads of like neuroscience, neuro engineering in there. And now you pop out at the end for your faculty position. You can say, look, I combine these 2 things. I can combine this for me as engineering.

412 01:09:06.130 –> 01:09:26.209 Daniel Gonzales: nanoscale tools, micro scale tools. I combine all that experience that I have in that, with now going really into depth and neuroscience in a way that very few people in the world could do. So. I feel like that’s kind of the 2 extremes that that you can do things in academia in terms of getting a faculty position. And that’s how you can build a portfolio portfolio, not just

413 01:09:26.470 –> 01:09:39.869 Daniel Gonzales: publications, but research, experience or knowledge or expertise. That people can see. This person’s on a trajectory for success because they can do a lot of really cool things.

414 01:09:40.630 –> 01:09:44.179 JP Flores (he/him): Alright. I got 2 more questions for you. So the first one being

415 01:09:45.020 –> 01:09:50.040 JP Flores (he/him): what is the biggest thing in the way right now to make science more equitable.

416 01:09:50.399 –> 01:09:55.740 Ubadah Sabbagh: You can’t say no. You can say money. I feel like money is a big one. Get rid of that billionaire guy

417 01:09:55.800 –> 01:10:06.600 Ubadah Sabbagh: I was I was gonna I was, gonna say, stop, stop play drizzle. That’s funny.

418 01:10:07.010 –> 01:10:18.740 JP Flores (he/him): It’s it’s a broader question. But I feel like, you know, salary for grad students is one that pops up on my mind. But that’s because I’m a grad student, right? II think the same could be said first salaries for postdocs as well. So

419 01:10:18.880 –> 01:10:27.590 JP Flores (he/him): the question is the biggest thing you can do. What is one thing that you really want to work on next to make science more equitable.

420 01:10:29.050 –> 01:10:29.730 Ubadah Sabbagh: Hmm.

421 01:10:30.820 –> 01:10:34.239 Daniel Gonzales: cause y’all y’all handbooks and stuff like that. So.

422 01:10:34.390 –> 01:10:47.280 Daniel Gonzales: but money is a big one, I mean. So so whenever we bought it was on that the committee, the Nih committee for you know. How do we rethink the postdoc program? And he was

423 01:10:47.320 –> 01:10:50.640 Daniel Gonzales: talking to us about it and talking to us about the meetings and

424 01:10:50.680 –> 01:11:16.429 Daniel Gonzales: and they were soliciting information from the public right? So this link that anybody could fill out about what do you think the postdocs experience to go? No, no, I’m not. I’m not gonna say anything. What he told me was top secret here. No, you know, I feel like you were really careful about what you talked about. But I remember being freshman

425 01:11:16.430 –> 01:11:30.910 Daniel Gonzales: frustrated like, I understand. That’s how the Nih works, and that’s how they lead to policy changes. But they’re being frustrated because the obvious answer was going to be increase. This increase. The salaries that was go from the beginning was going to be the obvious answer.

426 01:11:30.920 –> 01:11:43.870 Daniel Gonzales: and so mo. Money is a big one, right? Same thing for Phd students. It’s II now being on the Pi side of it. I can see why it can’t be challenging, but you know, a few $1,000 out of my budget

427 01:11:44.010 –> 01:11:52.969 Daniel Gonzales: is relatively small compared to the few $1,000 that can improve like your living situation right on a yearly basis. So money is a

428 01:11:53.400 –> 01:11:58.340 Daniel Gonzales: be, if not, if not number one, I’d be hard pressed to find a different one. Maybe we bought. I can

429 01:11:58.460 –> 01:12:00.799 Daniel Gonzales: maybe something more, more

430 01:12:01.140 –> 01:12:19.459 Ubadah Sabbagh: less more abstract, like the mindsets of people to change, or you know, the resistance to change could be one. III think money is the most immediate thing, and on that committee we thought so, too, and that was always going to be the top line. Item. But it obviously it isn’t the only thing I think it is the most immediate

431 01:12:19.540 –> 01:12:31.239 Ubadah Sabbagh: thing. and usually the money thing is always a Band-aid solution, like people don’t take seriously the root causes. Why did the money think, why did the situation end up the way it is now

432 01:12:31.350 –> 01:12:33.630 Ubadah Sabbagh: it? The situation is exploitative.

433 01:12:33.950 –> 01:12:44.300 Ubadah Sabbagh: so increasing the salary. And then, you know, coasting for the next few years isn’t solving the problem of the root problem of why is it an exploitative system?

434 01:12:44.440 –> 01:12:53.669 Ubadah Sabbagh: So like money is a band aid solution. But it’s the most urgent needs right now. And then we can talk about money.

435 01:12:53.680 –> 01:13:00.660 Ubadah Sabbagh: because money coming from Nih to graduate students and postdocs is different than how much money does the Nih have to distribute

436 01:13:00.880 –> 01:13:02.799 Ubadah Sabbagh: right? And that’s the nih budget.

437 01:13:02.880 –> 01:13:09.799 Ubadah Sabbagh: And then there I do have like goals for what I want to do in in the coming years. For the Nih budget. But

438 01:13:09.840 –> 01:13:13.289 Ubadah Sabbagh: and I could talk about if you want. But I’m instead. I’m going to also say

439 01:13:13.630 –> 01:13:18.089 Ubadah Sabbagh: at the institutional levels.

440 01:13:18.160 –> 01:13:20.550 Ubadah Sabbagh: I think accountability is a second thing

441 01:13:20.680 –> 01:13:22.639 Ubadah Sabbagh: after money. I think

442 01:13:22.750 –> 01:13:28.990 Ubadah Sabbagh: toxic behavior or bad mindsets, or whatever

443 01:13:29.330 –> 01:13:45.829 Ubadah Sabbagh: we should stop trying to convert or do a training sort of like there are. There are people who have demonstrated track records of of toxic behavior and behavior that drives people out. And if we’re serious about increasing

444 01:13:46.450 –> 01:13:55.809 Ubadah Sabbagh: people, sense of belonging and empowerment and academia and all the other buzz words underneath the di umbrella, serious about that. And then there should be accountability

445 01:13:55.850 –> 01:14:01.070 Ubadah Sabbagh: for people who are operating opposite to that. But you run into problems of

446 01:14:01.110 –> 01:14:15.319 Ubadah Sabbagh: Wiki, you know, clubs and academia people protecting each other or tenure and ha! And then mechanics of of accountability become very murky and difficult. But that’s if somebody serious about

447 01:14:16.440 –> 01:14:30.830 Ubadah Sabbagh: here are values here, what we wanna, we wanna advance in our institutions. Then you need to be serious about accountability when people are operating against it. Otherwise you’re only

448 01:14:31.440 –> 01:14:35.340 Ubadah Sabbagh: like aspirational. But you’re not operational. And and and so like.

449 01:14:35.460 –> 01:14:45.229 Ubadah Sabbagh: that’s something that I think people in positions of power, whether it’s they make the policies at the institutions, or whether they

450 01:14:45.410 –> 01:14:54.140 Ubadah Sabbagh: have the leverage to advocate for policy change institutions really need to get serious about. And we’ve we’ve seen that in some places like I’ve seen faculty

451 01:14:54.340 –> 01:15:02.830 Ubadah Sabbagh: push for removing authority from somebody who is problematic. Maybe they can’t push for revoking tenure, but they can push for them, not being a position of authority over

452 01:15:02.870 –> 01:15:11.880 Ubadah Sabbagh: students anymore. And stuff like that. And Ih has mechanisms also for reporting specific kinds of behavior and not just misconduct.

453 01:15:12.560 –> 01:15:16.459 Ubadah Sabbagh: But yeah. And then I have ideas for the Nh budget thing. But maybe that’s a different chat.

454 01:15:16.720 –> 01:15:33.470 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah, maybe another. I know we’re almost done. But I really have to go piece. I’m gonna go pee real quick, and I’ll be back. Okay, yeah, yeah. One more. And and then we’ll then we’ll stop it. This has been really fun.

455 01:15:34.350 –> 01:15:53.949 JP Flores (he/him): Yeah, I really love my my community outside of Unc as well. But like I just. they’re not on social media like I can’t just like II can text them. We have a group chat, but just seeing the rapport that you and Daniel and other people have. It’s it’s really cool to see as an early career scientist humanizes everything.

456 01:15:54.090 –> 01:16:01.089 JP Flores (he/him): It’s like I walk out of live after a failed experiment, and it’s just like I can laugh at a thread that you 2 are like giving.

457 01:16:01.250 –> 01:16:18.650 Ubadah Sabbagh: It’s it’s it’s also like fun for us. II think I used to be way more active. We used to have more like talking on twitter between us. In previous years, but now we should talk in the group chat more but we still have some back and forth.

458 01:16:19.020 –> 01:16:23.800 Ubadah Sabbagh: on the Internet, which I think there was a there was a I don’t know if you were around for like sweet Teagate.

459 01:16:24.010 –> 01:16:30.980 Ubadah Sabbagh: Oh, yeah, yeah, you’re on for that. So like, when that was going on, I started it because there was a

460 01:16:31.210 –> 01:16:43.490 Ubadah Sabbagh: What’s her name? First of all, Twitter, at that point came up with this feature of like you can prevent, replies. And I was like, what’s the thing I can use this for? Let me say something inflammatory, and let people not reply, and then like

461 01:16:43.610 –> 01:16:47.770 Ubadah Sabbagh: but the reason I did is because right before that, for the last week

462 01:16:48.200 –> 01:16:52.870 Ubadah Sabbagh: the Hole Twitter was all talking about. what’s her name?

463 01:16:53.380 –> 01:17:09.359 Ubadah Sabbagh: She was at Vanderbilt actually she founded me to stem Bethan something. That was a shit show like she pretended she pretended to be. I don’t know if you know. The story ended up in the New York Times and stuff, but she pretended to be a faculty member who’s like indigenous and

464 01:17:09.700 –> 01:17:15.630 Ubadah Sabbagh: gave her a fake death, and it was a is a mess. And the website was such a like, A is just so

465 01:17:15.940 –> 01:17:32.730 Ubadah Sabbagh: depressing. And because.

466 01:17:32.880 –> 01:17:41.170 Ubadah Sabbagh: yeah, like, you know, the the the fake neuroscientist or something. I don’t know. They like making these like kind of short documentaries.

467 01:17:41.270 –> 01:17:44.680 Ubadah Sabbagh: But anyway, so then I started this like sweetie thing.

468 01:17:45.060 –> 01:17:47.320 I mean, I didn’t even say the sweetie thing I said.

469 01:17:47.510 –> 01:18:01.730 Ubadah Sabbagh: I said. Stuff about sweet tea, Coleslaw ranch stuff like that, and sweet tea was the thing that people picked up on, and then and then and then it became this innocuous drama that anyway, he’s back so I won’t. I won’t talk.

470 01:18:02.090 –> 01:18:31.529 JP Flores (he/him): Let’s edit all that out. Oh, can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you. I can hear you. I’m just glad I got through this interview without having to bring up barbecue and and too much of Twitter. Yeah, unless you want to talk about. I mean, they’re hard, which is good. And I would. I would imagine you know these answers are going to be really helpful for the next generation. Scientists, you know, that are that are following in your footsteps. So

471 01:18:31.740 –> 01:18:38.340 JP Flores (he/him): yeah. So the last question that I want to end on is, if do either of you play an instrument? No, no instruments.

472 01:18:38.530 –> 01:18:57.729 JP Flores (he/him): I used to play the guitar, and I still can to a certain extent. But well, this might be the hardest question. Okay, yeah. So if you 2 were to come together and start a band. What would you call it? We already have a name. Do you remember it?

473 01:18:58.400 –> 01:19:02.719 Daniel Gonzales: No, she’s gonna she’s gonna hate me, but I know. But I mean I don’t remember anything.

474 01:19:02.930 –> 01:19:04.860 Daniel Gonzales: I don’t remember things like this.

475 01:19:05.810 –> 01:19:10.179 Ubadah Sabbagh: Oh, you can’t even remember it either. No, no, I got it. I got it, hang on.

476 01:19:11.090 –> 01:19:20.499 Ubadah Sabbagh: is, it was gonna be an Indie Rock band and who was gonna be, or a Punk rock band. and it’s gonna be called Program cell death.

477 01:19:44.300 –> 01:19:52.810 Ubadah Sabbagh: That is, that is my go to biological knowledge also, and if it fires together, wires together.

478 01:19:52.820 –> 01:19:54.980 Daniel Gonzales: I have a T-shirt that says that

479 01:19:55.260 –> 01:20:11.450 JP Flores (he/him): cool. Well, that’s the that’s the end of the episode. I really wanna thank you all for for coming on. That was really fun. If y’all if y’all ever need like a grad student’s opinion on anything. I know that you’ll ever need one. But just let me know. Was there anything in the episode? Y’all said that you want me to actually take out or no.

480 01:20:13.260 –> 01:20:27.500 Daniel Gonzales: I prefer you not say that I have to go, pee, you know, other than that. It’s fine. I don’t care that much I find with you, keeping him peeing there, too. I should have brought my microphone in there just to

481 01:20:27.960 –> 01:20:32.570 Ubadah Sabbagh: no, I’m I’m good. I’m good with everything, even before we officially started

482 01:20:32.680 –> 01:20:43.859 Ubadah Sabbagh: recording. This is a great yeah. Thanks for inviting us. Well, it’s it’s again. I’ve been a fan of both of you all for a while. Now, you know, seeing each other on Twitter. So you know. Thank you for giving me the time, and hopefully.

483 01:20:43.880 –> 01:20:57.140 Ubadah Sabbagh: I can get you all on in in a couple of months or so and catch up

484 01:20:57.150 –> 01:21:07.490 Ubadah Sabbagh: exactly. I know exactly my question, I know. So yeah, so do you edit yourself. And also, are you downloading individual audio tracks? Or are you just using the regular?

485 01:21:07.600 –> 01:21:21.929 JP Flores (he/him): Everything is recorded. So all of you are on different audio files. And then I just export the transcripts. So this we I want to spotify Ward in 2,021. And they gave me software. It’s called soundtrap to edit.

486 01:21:22.060 –> 01:21:24.349 JP Flores (he/him): But a lot of people use adobe

487 01:21:24.620 –> 01:21:36.780 JP Flores (he/him): or audacity or something like that, or audacity. Yeah, I partner with undergrads. Now. So it’s a little harder because I have to give them mics. They also give me Mics. I try to like. How much time do you spend editing an hour.

488 01:21:37.240 –> 01:21:39.490 JP Flores (he/him): Well, because of the vibe of the podcast

489 01:21:39.700 –> 01:21:47.750 JP Flores (he/him): I want to say it’s 2¬†h, an hour, an episode. Because honestly, I try to publish as much as of of the raw footage as I can.

490 01:21:48.160 –> 01:21:50.480 Ubadah Sabbagh: This was one of our biggest

491 01:21:50.630 –> 01:22:00.159 Ubadah Sabbagh: like hurdles to actually starting. Podcast we knew that it was going to require. If it was just us, it was going to require a lot of editing, because we would

492 01:22:00.500 –> 01:22:17.300 JP Flores (he/him): devolve into chaos quickly and say say things that shouldn’t be said. And you know it’s things that they would need some editing for sure that that’s why I asked you the question of like. Is there anything you want me to take out? Because then it’ll I’ll spend more time to edit. But most of the time it’s just

493 01:22:17.450 –> 01:22:24.670 Ubadah Sabbagh: Rob, because that’s what I want people to hear is like, yeah. well, I mean, in our case, I think because we come talking to you, we have already

494 01:22:24.740 –> 01:22:47.659 Ubadah Sabbagh: the foundation of what we have to appear kind of civilized and and like human beings, and so well, not that we’re filtering ourselves, but that if we were given mics and just set amongst ourselves, it would. It would devolve into something. Rabbit. I think your podcast if you guys started one, just like, you know, right now, I think entertaining, so I think you should do it.

495 01:22:47.710 –> 01:23:01.429 Daniel Gonzales: Get one of your undergrads written Daniel, to do the editing for us. Yeah, honestly, that was my main hiccup was. If we could find somebody to actually edit it, I’d be, if I just had to show up and like talk and kind of prepare a little bit in advance. I would totally do

496 01:23:01.510 –> 01:23:15.720 JP Flores (he/him): with undergrads. Now, I have, like undergrads that have their own podcast episode, and we just struck a deal where it’s like, if we are collaborating together, you can edit some of mine. I’ll edit some of yours and it it’s really saved me time and stuff. So

497 01:23:16.040 –> 01:23:19.420 JP Flores (he/him): yeah, just gotta be smart about it. It’s like, it’s like a lab and running right like.

498 01:23:19.560 –> 01:23:21.179 JP Flores (he/him): not as hard but

499 01:23:21.220 –> 01:23:23.370 Ubadah Sabbagh: similar similar thing cool.

500 01:23:23.830 –> 01:23:28.600 Daniel Gonzales: There’s going to be lunch at the faculty meetings. I’m totally gonna go

501 01:23:30.620 –> 01:23:38.159 JP Flores (he/him): alright. Well, I’ll let you all go. Thanks a lot.

502 01:23:38.370 –> 01:23:39.580 JP Flores (he/him): Yelsey.