Science Saved Me

My journey from poverty to PhD. Side note: science also helped me find my husband.

This post is a bit different from my usual one so bear with me.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Adam Ratner about his new book, Booster Shots, and in our conversation, we talked about how scientists and clinicians often default to relying solely on data and facts. While that’s important, we sometimes forget to build human connections to that information through storytelling. That’s something I’ve been considering a lot, and I have been working on a side project related to this for awhile.

So, I am going to try to incorporate storytelling more. But don’t worry I won’t abandon facts!

So, here’s an explanation of my why—how I found science (which led me to my forever valentine - my husband) and why I do the work I do.

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My journey

One of my earliest memories that I would classify as “science” is my mom telling me that vaccines were dangerous and could make people go deaf. She had read it in a book and believed it. I don’t remember why she was telling me this as a kid, but I didn’t question it or anything else my parents told me.

I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian family*. For my family this meant I was raised to believe that my purpose in life was to get married and have babies. I was taught to doubt science and medicine. To believe the Bible and prayer would fix everything. We didn’t go to the doctor or take medicine unless it was absolutely necessary (I have a lot of stories about this part for another day but here is one prior write up). To prevent the public school system from "corrupting me," I was homeschooled for a while, then attended a private Christian school with a self-paced curriculum. * = this is my experience. I know not all christians are like this.

In the middle of all this, my dad left us. He packed up and moved in with a girlfriend. We were devastated. My mom had built her whole life around her marriage. She didn’t work outside the home and didn’t even have a driver's license. Before my dad left, I don’t remember worrying about money. But after he left, worrying about money became my biggest memory.

Because my parents remained legally married, my dad wasn’t required to pay child support. Instead, he covered our rent (sometimes) and gave us $20 a day for groceries. Yes, I mean that literally, he would bring us $20 a day. If we were lucky, he would drop off the money and drive us to the store. If we weren’t, we would have to scrape by or borrow from my grandmother. We would walk miles to the grocery store. I became very good at mentally adding up grocery prices to make sure we didn’t come up short at the register. There were nights I now know that my mom must have went to bed hungry so my brother and I wouldn’t have to.

We were very poor and struggled to purchase even basic necessities. This means the private Christian school was no longer an option, and I had to go back to homeschooling. By then, I was in 9th or 10th grade and desperate to learn. My grandmother was my biggest supporter so she did what she could by purchasing a homeschool curriculum for me. I taught myself using this curriculum. I assigned myself essays, graded my own work, and pushed forward because no one else cared. Looking back, I find this all both appalling and impressive.

I finally convinced my mom to let me return to public school for 11th and 12th grade. My first formal science class was chemistry. I fell in love with stoichiometry and the process of science. My chemistry teacher noticed my talent and encouraged me to continue. In fact, she told me I should go to college for science. She, along with other teachers, helped make that happen. They walked me through the application process, and helped me apply for STEM scholarships. Because of them I realized that science really was an option for me.

I started college as a chemistry major before switching to biochemistry. I loved every bit of it (except physics). My genetics professor saw my potential and invited me to work in his lab, where he was studying a genetic mutation causing skin graft rejection in mice. That’s where I fell in love with research. He encouraged me to apply to graduate school, a career option that never crossed my mind before.

Throughout college I lived at home and worked more than 20 hours a week. I worked in a dental office and in that undergraduate lab. I used my earnings for gas and food for my family. I spent all my spare time driving my mom and brother around while trying to do homework in the car. By my senior year, I was overwhelmed and severely depressed. I was struggling to keep up with school and barely hanging on. Somehow, I still managed to submit my grad school applications, but I came within moments of dropping out of college completely or worse. I was at my breaking point.

That’s when my professors staged an intervention. I got into a campus therapists and one of my female professors helped me move into her home. They helped me navigate grad school interviews, and when it was time for me to pack up and move to Maine for my PhD, they made sure I had a car to get there.

Right before I left, I got vaccinated for the first time ever. By then, I knew I wanted to study immunology, and I understood the science. I was confident in my decision despite how I had been raised. I then packed up that car and drove 7 hours north to Maine.

Moving to Maine for graduate school changed my life. I’d even argue it saved my life. I don’t know how much longer I could have kept going as things were. In Maine, I found my voice. I fell in love with running and hiking. I earned my PhD by studying CD4 T cells under the mentorship of incredible scientists. During this time, I met my husband and decided to stay in Maine with him after graduation.

After completing my PhD, I was fortunate to connect with another outstanding scientist at a different institution. He hired me as a postdoctoral researcher, and I secured an NIH fellowship to help fund my work for 2 of the 4 years. I got married, completed my postdoc, and eventually transitioned into a role as an assistant professor.

In the midst of this I became a mother for the first time. It was this journey that truly made me realize how much my science understanding was a privilege. By this point I knew it got me out of my life circumstances and helped me find my way. But I didn’t actually think about the knowledge inside my brain and how it enabled me to navigate things.

You see, when I was pregnant with our son (our first), doctors told us he likely had a rare genetic disease. When he was four weeks old, they reaffirmed their certainty. I cope with action. So I immediately dove into the research, got him into one of the best clinics for this disease in the country, and we began the process of enrolling him in a study. This was the hardest period of my life (and I had been through a lot of hard things). I scrolled message boards and saw how much worse it was for other families who couldn’t navigate the medical system or research.

Eventually, after a lot of time, medical testing and waiting, we learned the initial doctor was wrong. He does not have the genetic disease and is healthy. But that experience changed me. It was terrifying and hard to navigate, and I was a scientist! I could read the research papers and speak jargon with the doctors. I can only imagine how much harder it would have been without that background.

Only a few months after this experience the COVID-19 pandemic started. Between that and my son’s medical scare, I started re-evaluating my career. I realized that access to understandable science information can change lives—but only if people have that access.

So, I have now made it my mission to help others have that access.

Now, I try to help people see how science impacts their lives, why scientific research is important, and how to navigate conflicting information. My constant hope is two fold 1) That a kid like me will realize that science is fun and is an option for them. 2) That people can be equipped to navigate the complexity of decisions in life that pertain to science and health.

Why This Matters Now

I work at a small research nonprofit on the coast of Maine that is focused on studying regeneration and aging and providing biomedical science education/training. I did my postdoc here, and I was lucky to have the opportunity to return when I decided to leave my university job. In this new role I get to develop and lead science education and outreach initiatives (and research their impact). The institution I work at is funded, in part, by the NIH. If the proposed NIH funding cuts are implemented, institutions like ours will suffer. We do not have endowments or undergraduate tuition to offset cuts like these. These cuts would mean decrease biomedical research progress, decreased training and loss of jobs across the country, including here.

My job helps my husband and I provide for our kids and allows us to live in a place we love. It lets our kids grow up near their grandparents, with nature as their backyard. Without it, we’d have to move - if there are even jobs for scientists elsewhere in the USA by that point. These cuts won’t just affect me. They will ripple through the entire scientific community.

At the end of the day behind the statistics you hear on the news are real people. Most of us just want to help people and improve lives.

Science can be seen as a means of advancement for individuals and society through both job opportunities and new discoveries. It is also an economic driver for the USA economy, and a way of empowering you to make informed decisions for yourself and your family.

I wouldn’t have met my husband if it weren’t for moving to Maine for grad school. So for me, science not only helped save my life - it led me to finding my husband and having our two beautiful children. Science is also instrumental to my love story.

Happy Valentine’s day. Thanks for reading.

<3,

Liz

Photo from me from within Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania