Erin Gibson
Erin Gibson
“You deserve to be in science, to have the family you desire, and to not be punished for those choices.”
I knew I wanted to be a scientist at 8 years old so no one was surprised when I completed a PhD in neuroscience. What was surprising was that after my PhD I didn’t know if academic science was in my future.
The reason for this was the lack of a female mentor who had accomplished all I wanted out of life; namely becoming a successful scientist, mother, and wife. I even had male professors tell me not to get married or have children because it would ruin my future as a scientist. I succumbed to this notion and began considering other career paths, but the pull of science was too strong.
As we sat across from each other, I knew I had found the female scientist I had been desperately looking for throughout my scientific career. She was an accomplished MD/PhD who was just beginning her own lab and a mother. During my postdoctoral fellowship, she provided an environment that fostered groundbreaking science while encouraging growth outside of the lab.
My first daughter was born during my second postdoctoral year, and my second daughter arrived two years later. My youngest daughter was diagnosed with a urinary tract deformity and a rare genetic disorder that causes life-threatening vascular anomalies. I spent the last few years of my postdoc not completely engrossed in science but consumed by mom life.
But I am one of the lucky ones. I can all but guarantee that if I had been in any other lab, I would be another scientific casualty lost to being a woman and mother. My mentor never forced me to choose between my love of science and my love of family. It seems so simple yet in academic science, this idea is often foreign.
My advice to the next generation is to keep fighting for the notion that you deserve to be in science, to have the family you desire, and to not be punished for those choices. I will forever be indebted to my mentor for her support, and I will forever honor those gifts by passing them on to the next generation of women scientists.