Alexandra Filippova
BIO
Research Fellow in marine geochemistry at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre of Ocean Research (Germany). Mom of two.
Instagram: @alexandrafilippova_hathorne
Twitter: @AV_Filippova
Alexandra Filippova
“It was like I am not even a part of the working group, or at least not an important part.”
I am a Postdoctoral Researcher at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Science in Kiel, Germany. My science journey started when I got a PhD position at GEOMAR in 2012. It was both so exciting and scary at the same time. I will become a scientist! Oh man, if young me saw this, she would have never believed it. Well, neither would so many of my school teachers. Everything was new for me - new field, new country, new friends.
During the last year of my PhD I became a mother to my son Luka via emergency C-section. Birth is supposed to be something magical, empowering, elevating. But why was I then sitting on the sofa a week later completely drained physically and emotionally, feeling empty? And, although physically I recovered very quickly, my emotional and mental state still torments me sometimes. The pain, the agony, the fear… But they don't know it, so it’s just like it never happened.
And here I was, with a newborn on my hands, my husband at work and me trying to finish writing my PhD thesis, and my paper review just came back… I didn’t even remember what I was writing about… Mothers can do it all… Yeah…sure. Whatever you say.
I can't count how many times I thought I wouldn’t make it, I will not finish, I am so tired, I just want to sleep, I do not need this… But sentence after sentence, word after word I was moving forward.
Closer and closer to the finish line…. That I have now crossed. I received my PhD in 2016, while I was still on unpaid maternity leave. I then got a short 6-month Postdoc position. During this time my husband took his parental leave and took care of our son, for which I am very grateful. It all worked out great, because I also stopped breastfeeding him at that time.
I succeeded in putting a solid proposal together that got funded for two years. It was great! The only downside was that I had to wait for about 11 months to get the results, meanwhile I was unemployed and not really motivated. When I signed my contract, I was pregnant with my daughter.
First proper postdoctoral position, I am the PI of the project that I have written and I am pregnant. When I let my boss know, he got a call from administration asking him how much he will reduce my salary, now that I “can't perform my tasks”.
You see, in marine geochemistry, research is based in the lab 90% of the time. But still, it is my project, my money, I am the PI, funny isn’t it?! While I was pregnant I tried to do all the work that I was allowed to do, working on the microscope, working on the manuscripts and so on. I planned it all perfectly. I will come back, my husband will take 6 months parental leave again, and I will work very hard for six months and get right back on that horse. Although the world had other plans. The pandemic hit everyone like a hammer. All this time that I was supposed to be working my a** off in the lab to make up for lost time, we sat at home with two kids… Kindergarten on and off, lockdowns, quarantines, 6 months were gone… So was my confidence.
When I finally got back to the office, people were surprised to see that I was still here. Important presentations went past me, no one even asked if I had something to present. It was like I am not even a part of the working group, or at least not an important part.
I participated recently in a leadership course, and I was amazed how little we, women in science, tend to appreciate everything that we have accomplished. Now when I think about it more and more, it was only women who were saying: “Oh, what I do is just basic”, or “You sound so amazing, unlike me”, while all the boys were so confident and some even cocky.
After all this time, while I should be nothing but proud of what I have accomplished already, all I felt was not being good enough…
Now I am working on myself. I am taking online courses to build up my confidence (media training, public speaking, leadership class), learning new skills, taking part in interesting projects that I like with like-minded people and trying to learn how to time manage between writing papers and doing lab work, which is the major part of my research and is very challenging on a part-time contract. I became a part of the team that represents the interests of the Postdoctoral community at our University to make sure that we keep asking the important questions. Although change is a slow process, I want to be a part of it.
So to all the mothers in STEMM out there I just want to say: You all are amazing just for putting up the fight. Sometimes it is not a race, but a marathon. A long one, but you can do it, because you are not alone!