Mikella Robinson
BIO
Postdoctoral researcher switching fields to chemoresistance in ovarian cancer with a one-year old son.
Instagram: @MikellaRobinson
Twitter: @MikellaRobinson
Mikella Robinson
“I have learned to seek out mentors and maintain them.”
I wouldn’t say my story is inspiring, but it is tenacious and persistent. I’ve always loved studying science, so I knew early on that I wanted to be involved with science somehow with my career. After undergrad, I worked as a technician in a pediatric oncology lab and enjoyed research, but I fell in love with physiology and decided to pursue a PhD in cardiac physiology.
My PhD was chaotic. My first lab moved across the country, but I had only recently joined and had met my now-husband, so I decided to stay and find a new lab. My second lab ran out of funding and closed, so I had to look again. My third lab was my research home and will always be remembered as the bright spot of my PhD, but unfortunately funding was tight and the lab moved to industry during my last year of the PhD.
Since I was almost done, I was taken on by an unrelated lab to finish, but my project remained unfinished and unpublished. Publishing is the language of research, so it was really challenging to find a postdoc following my PhD. I thought I was really lucky when I got a position in industry, but it turned out to be the wrong position for me at the time.
During my training, there were constantly negative comments against my plans of having a family and a work-life balance. I was told stories about women hiding their kids from the advisors and their labs.
I was even once advised that women in research shouldn’t talk about their hobbies or families because it meant we looked distracted and undedicated, but men could and should talk about both hobbies and families because then they looked committed. After all the challenges during my PhD and Postdoc, I genuinely lost hope that I could work in research and have a family.
I can’t point to one event that kept me going, but rather several conversations, which really speaks to the importance of the mentorship work that you do here. I have an amazingly supportive partner, and without him I would have left research already. He encouraged me to volunteer with Two Scientists in a Bar, which let me share my joy for science with other people and helped me find my spark again.
I met two wonderful mother scientists doing my favourite hobby (rowing), who have gone out of their way to mentor and support me. They connected me with a third mother scientist, who has become an amazing mentor and advisor. I’m currently a research associate in her lab, and she has not only supported me as a new mother, but is supporting my transition from physiology to oncology and helping me apply for postdoc fellowships.