Jen Heemstra 0:03

I'm thinking like, "Okay, well that's it. I'll find a new job maybe, you know, who knows, whatever. I'll go to a different type of institution. I'll go do something else. Who knows what I'll do?" And my group was just like, "Nope, we've earned tenure, and you're gonna get tenure somewhere, here or somewhere else, and wherever you go, we'll go with you. And as long as we get to keep doing our research," they were like, "We came here to do this research in your lab, and wherever you go, we'll go too."

0:30

This is the Your Next Success podcast, and I am your host, Dr. Caroline Sangal. you will hear stories from people who have navigated big career transitions themselves. So you can create a life, first career and become your own version of authentic success, one that is aligned, meaningful, and truly yours. Dr. Jen Heemstra is back today for part two of our conversation. If you are just joining us, you may want to go back and listen to part one first. Jen is the Charles Allen Thomas Professor and Chair of Chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis, and her lab focuses on the utilization of nucleic acid, molecular recognition, and self-assembly to generate functional architectures for biosensing and bioimaging. She's also the author of the best-selling book, Lab Work to Leadership. In today's conversation, you'll hear how she became a chemist almost by accident, the job that nearly convinced her she had peaked, and the reckoning that pushed her towards leadership. Let's listen in.

Caroline 1:35

We talked the other day. I loved it.

Jen Heemstra 1:37

Yes.

Caroline 1:38

I kinda wanna keep going because I feel like there's so much of your story that's very, very important for this next generation or current generation of people to, like, understand more because looking at your, you know, CV or looking at your resume, you've got a lot of amazing accolades there. And what's not shown and what I love talking about and what you're also more than willing to talk about is, like, wait, there's a story behind the story. How and what and why, and how did that even happen? So the other day we talked about, like, s- we talked about growing up, we talked about some high school, we talked about really influential mentors. I, I kinda wanna take it up on, like, okay, but then how did you decide you even wanted to go to college, and how did chemistry become a thing?

Jen Heemstra 2:26

Yeah. Oh, that's a good question. So going to college was, um, not something that I had a lot of good advice on, but thankfully, my parents had made a lot of sacrifices to get us into a school district where at least it was a really strong high school where there was at least an expectation that you would go to college. And so I had this in my head of like, "You should go to college." And now my dad had never gone to college, so his attitude was like, "Just go have fun. Go do something." Um, my mom had gone to college, and her advice was, "Make sure you meet a husband, because if you don't meet a husband, then you'll have to get a job, and you might not like your job." Um, and I think that was her story. And so she was like, "Don't do that. Go, like, join a sorority, meet a husband." Um, so that was kind of the sum total of the advice that I had. And, um, there wasn't a lot of money for college, but I was extremely fortunate that I grew up in California. So I was like, "Okay, well, um, I don't want to go massively into debt to go to college." Um, and trying to get my family to do a FAFSA was, like, just a whole...

Caroline 3:39

Yes.

Jen Heemstra 3:39

tears. There was, like, accusations. There, it, it was, like, really, really, um, not great. And so, um, so there's no financial aid and, um, not a lot of money, but I was like, "Okay, well, I live in California. I can go to a UC school for, like, very, very little money. Why, why would I do anything else? Like, I, you know, this seems to be the way." So I just applied to a few UCs. I got into, I think all three of them I applied to. Um, but one of them offered me free tuition, and so I went to my high school guidance counselor. I'll never forget this. It was one of the few times I talked to her. And I was like, "So I got in here and here, um, and this one is giving me free tuition. It was like a $20,000 for four years of tuition in state at UCs then. I was like, "Is there, like, a $20,000 difference between going to this school and this school?" And she was like, "No." And I was like, "Okay, I'm going to this one then." Um, I went to UC Irvine. They paid my tuition. It was so great. I came in actually as a biology major because it was, like, the Human Genome Project, and I loved genetics, and I was really pumped to do that. Um, but then unfortunately, the... I loved biology- But the pre-med culture at that time in that school was just so vicious and cutthroat that I was like, "I can't handle this." I can't spend four years with this group of people and maintain myself. I just, can't do this. And so I, what I had done to like kind of get by is I just stopped going to class. I would go on the first day. Um, I'd get the syllabus so I knew when all the quizzes and tests were, and then I would basically like not do anything. This is terrible. Um, this is not how you go to college. But I, I was so miserable so I would just like wait until the test and then I would cram, cram, cram, um, and go take the test and, you know, of course I missed assignments and things like that. And I realized, you know, I could do that and get B's. Um, which actually wasn't great 'cause I was gonna lose my scholarship that was paying my tuition. And so a year in I was like, "Okay, this isn't great. My GPA isn't where it needs to be." But more importantly, I, I can't believe I had this realization as a 19-year-old. I don't know, this, this came from somewhere beyond me. Someone must have like spoken it as wisdom into my life. But it was this idea of like, "Huh, I'm cramming for tests, going and taking the tests and I can get a B doing that but then I forget everything." And I realized, I'm like, "I could probably do another three years of that and I would graduate from this place with a degree but not knowing anything about this topic that I have a degree in, not having learned anything"

Caroline 6:16

Yeah.

Jen Heemstra 6:16

And thought, "Wow, that would really be a shame." So I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna take..." There's like this course sequence that if you got off the train, like you couldn't, didn't come around again for another year. So I was like, "Okay." I sat down, figured it out, was like, "What would it look like if I press pause for a year, take a one-year vacation from my major?" You know, could I, a year from now, if I wanted to, hop back on and still finish in four years? And I was like, I looked and looked and searched and made my grids, and I was like, "Okay. Yes, I could. It would be a little wonky, but I could make it happen." So like, okay, I'm gonna get a one-year vacation. I'm going to... I kinda like gave myself the liberal arts experience, you know? I explored. I took constitutional law. I took criminal justice. I took psych. I think I took astronomy, an environmental class. I actually took, the class that changed, almost changed, set my career, was I took bioethics, and it was like, again, human genome project and euthanasia, and all of these incredibly important topics. I loved it, and I was actually like, "Okay, I found what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna be a political science major. Um, I'm gonna graduate, and then I'm gonna go to law school, and I'm gonna go into bioethics law." Um, but the only trick there is like I didn't understand how to do that. I was like, "I know how to go..." Like, I think I can kinda see like how you go become like a practicing lawyer, but like how do you, what is even a bioethics lawyer? What does that job look like? I just didn't, I didn't have the tools or access to resources to even understand what the path was to get there, um, and what that, like how I could turn that into a job. Um, but at the same time, I, um, had to do research, and I had no idea how to join a research lab. Um, but I was kinda putting myself through college, and one of my jobs, I had a few jobs, and one was that I was an, a nighttime, uh, stockroom attendant in the o-chem teaching lab. So I would like check out the glassware kits to the students taking labs. Yeah, refill the reagents and all that. Um, and so I was, and the people who would show up to TA those labs were all the first- and second-year grad students. And so we would kinda like chit-chat before and after the labs, and I was like, "Well," being a chemist had never been on my radar, but I was like, "I need to do research. I have no idea how to join a lab." Um, but I didn't hate o-chem. I kind of, I didn't love gen chem, but I liked...

Caroline 8:42

research? Like, I, w- was Oh, of the, like, the thing? because like, yeah, like you had to do research? I mean, I did research but I didn't have to do it. I, I, There's a senior on this project. I had to do some senior honors project thing and that made me have to...

Jen Heemstra 8:57

Yeah. I was in the campus-wide honors program. We had to do research. And so I was like, "Well, I didn't hate O-chem, um, and I know all these grad students, and maybe they could help me, you know, join a lab as an undergrad." Um, and so I talked to them and, and I joke because they were like, "Oh, go look at the faculty pages," um, which at that Now it would be webpages, of course, but at that time it was literally these pieces of paper, like, on the wall i- outside the department office, like one-pagers about each faculty member's research. And I stood there, and I read, and I was like, "Ooh, that one looks cool." Um, and I went and talked to that professor. And I always say, um, uh, Professor James Noack, for reasons I will not understand, I was so clueless as an undergrad. I was like, "Well, I don't think I wanna be a chemist, but, like, I really liked O-chem, and I work up in the stockroom, and can I do research?" And, um, and he gave me a shot. And I actually, there's such an important lesson in here about, you know, like finding your purpose or your passion, that I started working in lab, and immediately I was like, "I love this." Um, it was that idea that you could, like, have an idea and then go into lab and test out your own idea and do it your way, and that independence was, like, instantly addictive. But at the same time, like, I had never thought I would be a chemist. Like, that never occurred to me. So I spent a full year telling people, like, "Oh, hey, I'm, like, working in this lab, and I'm really, really having a blast. I absolutely love it. I don't, like, wanna be a chemist, but I'm having a lot of fun at this." Um, and it was really just James and everyone in the lab who kind of started Like, once they saw, they're like, "Oh, you're, like, coming in here on, like, the evenings and the weekends, and, like, you like research that much?" They were like, "You should really go to grad school." And I was like, "No, I'd never get in, and I could never get through it. You know, maybe I'll get a job as a chemist." And they were like, "No, no, you should really think about grad school." And they just said it often enough that A- and then I think I realized it was like, oh, research is the best part of my day, right? Like, I have to work these other I was working a golf course. I was delivering newspapers, um, actually working for my dad. Um, I had dropped the evening stockroom job, but I was, like, doing all these other jobs. So I was doing that, and then there's classes, which was like, eh, I just don't, never liked classes much. But then it was like, oh, but then I get to go into lab and do research. And they were like, "Yeah, Jenn, like, this could be your full-time, all-day, everyday job in grad school, and you get paid for it." And I was like, "Oh, actually, that, like, sounds really, really amazing." And so they, they talked me into applying, gave me a ton of great advice about, like, where to apply and, um, which labs were healthy labs that I was, I, there was, like, a list of labs that I was, like, not allowed to join, um, basically because they were, like, really toxic faculty. And they highly vetted my choices. And, um, yeah, I applied, and I, um, I got into Illinois and realized that, uh, the work happening in Jeff Moore's lab was really fascinating, and realized that he was the kind of mentor I wanted to have. And so I, uh, actually the day after my last grad school visit weekend, I called him up and said, I'm coming to Illinois. I wanna join your lab. Like, when can I start?" And he was like, "When can you get here?" Um, and I was like, "Well," so I had finished, like, four and a half years, so I was, like, just hanging out, snowboarding, um, and, and taking a breather. And so I was like, "Well, my lease is up, April 20th, "so how about May 1st?" He was like, "Done. Let's do it. You're here." Um, and yeah, and so I went out and started grad school, but that's how I became a chemist. It, it was really a, a completely accidental thing of it just if I hadn't had that job in the O-Chem stockroom, um... And even that happened because I took orgo over the summer after my first year, 'cause I was like, "Oh, it's gonna be this class I hate. I need to just get it out of the way." Um, but then I actually really enjoyed it, and then at the end of summer they were advertising because they needed to hire a stockroom attendant, and my other jobs were, like, morning jobs, so I was like, "Oh, I could pick up, like, an evening job and get more hours." And so I was like, "Okay, that sounds fun. Let's do this.

Caroline 13:16

Oh, that's amazing. Okay, and in undergrad, because, like, grad school hadn't even been on your radar as something to do,

Jen Heemstra 13:23

Yeah, no.

Caroline 13:24

Somebody gave you that, um, you know, or your mom, right? "Go make sure you find a husband."

Jen Heemstra 13:30

Oh yeah.

Caroline 13:30

find a husband in undergrad?

Jen Heemstra 13:32

Oh, that's a great story. So, um, when I finally figured out what I wanted to do, right? When they, when they were like, "You should go to grad school," and I was like, "Oh, maybe I could be a chemist," and it was so much fun because I, I hadn't known. I had spent this couple of years not knowing what I was gonna do with my life, and then I was like, "Oh, I found this subject," and I, I was really enjoying actually, you know, as much as any- as... I didn't really enjoy classes, but I enjoyed those classes the most out of all my classes. Um, but I was loving doing research, so I was super excited. I was like, "I finally figured out what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna be a chemist," and I told my mom, and she was, like, really upset. Um, and I was like, "What's going on?" Like, I can get a job, like I... You know, this was before grad school, you know, was really, like, a total certainty, but I was like, "Look, I can, like, graduate. I can get a good job. It'll pay well. Like, there's all these things I can do with this degree." Um, and she just kept being like, "Ah," like she didn't s- she was really upset about something, and she wouldn't say what. I finally got it out of her, and, and finally she broke, and she was like, "Look, Jen if you become a chemist, you're going to end up working in a dark lab at the end of a dusty hallway, and you are never going to meet a man." And, um, yeah, I have a lot of things I kind of wish I would've said in that moment.

Caroline 14:56

Yeah.

Jen Heemstra 14:56

I think I just was like, "Mom, it's, it's chemistry. There's men everywhere. It's like it's, it's mostly men. Like, it's, it's gonna be fine." Um, and I don't think she liked that answer very much either. But then because I, um, actually didn't meet a husband in undergrad, I kinda like failed my assignment, um, no one objected too much when I went to grad school. It was like, "Okay, well, she's clearly just made a waste of her life, um, so whatever, let her... She's gonna be a spinster, so let, let her go off and do this PhD thing." Um, but then I actually did meet my spouse in, uh, my first year of grad school. We met and started dating in our first year. We got married in our second year.

Caroline 15:36

Wow.

Jen Heemstra 15:37

And, uh, it was... I, I always say I never second-guessed my choice of graduate school, um, well, partly because my PI was amazing as well, my, my graduate advisor. Um, but I'm like I met my, I met my spouse there, so, I will never second-guess that because that was the best thing that ever happened in my life was meeting him. And so, yeah, now we've been married for, oh my goodness, over 23 years.

Caroline 16:03

Wow.

Jen Heemstra 16:04

Yeah, so we met, got married quick, and then, he was a grad student as well, and so we, we did the whole PhD thing together, and then we've just been... We were post-docs at the same time, and then we've both made our careers in parallel too.

Caroline 16:19

But how did you make that even happen? Because that, that was the... Right? There's so many... Firstly, getting married during grad school, like wow, that's next level baller. Good job for that, and that it worked out. You know, I'm just saying, like, there's so,

Jen Heemstra 16:33

Oh yeah, and I will say it's, it's so, it's so funny because we, um, we were like, "Okay, well when are we gonna have our wedding?" And it was like, well he was still TA-ing then in his second year, and, um, and so we were both the same... Like, I had a fellowship that I didn't TA my second year, but he was still TA-ing, so I'm like, "Well, it has to either be over winter break or over the summer," and we didn't really wanna wait till summer, so we were like, "Okay, let's do it over winter break." So we got married, actually we had a pretty, um, no-frills wedding, but, um... Or it was easy to plan because, you know, we were in Champaign-Urbana, and I always tell people, like, you know, it may shock you that Champaign-Urbana is not the destination wedding location for a January wedding, right? Like winter in, um, central Illinois is, uh, you know, all the hotels were available, all the florists were available, everything was really, really easy. Um, but we literally then planned, we were like, "Okay, um, when do classes start back up again? And we'd like to get to go on a honeymoon for a week," so we just rolled it back one week, and it was like, "Okay, this is the day we're getting married." So that was, like, the planning that went into it, but it was a lot of fun. My PhD advisor came, my lab mates came. He has a huge family that all came. We had a really, really wonderful time.

Caroline 17:50

Oh, that's amazing. Okay, and then what happened? So you, now you're married, you still have to finish grad school.

Jen Heemstra 17:55

Yeah.

Caroline 17:55

Post- and you found post-docs together with like, that is a feat in itself when you have a highly educated technical spouse to try to like align your stuff so you can actually see each other is a huge, huge thing. So like, how did that, like did you follow him, he followed you, or you both got

Jen Heemstra 18:11

Oh.

Caroline 18:12

lucky together? Like, how did that work?

Jen Heemstra 18:14

Um, you know, we've kind of followed each other back and forth, I will say. Well, I'll, I'll say that kind of coming back to, um, some of the family expectations that were on me, like once I did get married, it was partly like my family, but also partly like our faith community and just like a lot of cultural forces that was like, "Okay, well now that you're married, obviously you're just gonna like, once this PhD thing is done, you're gonna like quit and stay home and have kids." And I totally believe that. And again, there's, I have huge respect, huge, huge, huge respect for anyone of any gender who chooses to do that, and I wanted kids, but I also wanted my career. And so I actually, no joke, at my, um, cam- PhD candidacy exam, excuse me, at my PhD candidacy exam, at the end of it when your thesis committee is like, "Okay, well you passed, you know, what do you wanna do after your PhD? What are you gonna do?" I was like, "Oh, um, I'm gonna, you know, stay home and have kids and, you know, maybe eventually I'll, I'll work part-time. I'll, you know, I'd love to substitute teach or something like that." And these guys like, you know, almost like, you know, spit out their coffee or whatever in shock. Um, my PhD advisor knew this and, and he was like, "Yeah, whatever, I support you. Whatever, whatever you wanna do with your life, you should do that." Um, but the rest of my committee members, I don't think they expected that. Um, and they were all super supportive. Um, but that's like the head space that I was in. And so actually what happened is that I, I graduated, um, my PhD advisor would graduate people really fast, so I finished in four years. It was like, "Oh, if you're ready to go, you know, graduate, get on with your life." Um, and so I took an industry job while I was waiting for my spouse to graduate. He had a little bit of time left. And, um, and it was like, okay, now's the time, like I get pregnant and stay home and, and have kids. And it was actually, um, what changed me is that that didn't happen. And so it was like, okay, maybe we can never get pregnant. But then we did, and then we had this pregnancy loss in this really, um, wrenching way, and then that broke me. And it was just like, what? Like, this is the life that I've been told that I have to have, whether I wanted it or not. Um, and like, I, it wasn't really what I wanted, and now I can't even have that? Like, what the heck?

Caroline 20:39

Yeah.

Jen Heemstra 20:41

Something stronger than that Um, and so it just was like, okay, that's it. I'm gonna do what I wanna do. And, um, my spouse was like, "Yeah, I didn't want that for you. Like, I want you to have what you wanna have." Um, and so we basically said, what, what do we want this to look like? And so that's when I, um, decided to do a postdoc. And so I, I got in touch with, um, David Liu, who I'd, uh, known since I was looking at grad schools. I had met him when I was looking at, at PhD programs and stayed in touch, and I emailed and said, "Hey, I decided I wanted to do a postdoc. I would love to postdoc with you. Uh, do you have a, a spot open? You know, I'm, I'm in, in this industry job for two years till my spouse graduates, but then, then we're gonna go postdoc." And he was like, "Yes, we'd love to have you." And so I was so lucky. So I looked at my spouse and I was like, "Well, if I'm gonna tell you you have to find a postdoc in a certain city for us to live together, it's Boston." Like, and so he, he looked around and his advisor was really supportive, and he had a, a couple of offers and, um, and chose one of those that he was most excited about. And so we went there and then, um... But yeah, the, the, the dual career, anyone who says, "Oh, it's a, it's a two-body opportunity," I'm like, I'm gonna punch you in the face. Like, no, it's not.

Caroline 21:58

Right.

Jen Heemstra 21:59

It is... I try to call it like the dual career situation or challenge. Um, and it was, it was bumpy, like with the first real job that we had, I will say. Like, but then once, you know, I got my tenure track job, and then... And that was a whole, like, I never thought I could... Th- this is like what I dreamed of, and I just thought it was impossible. Because actually we went to Boston, and then the week we moved there, we found out we were pregnant. So I was like,

Caroline 22:29

Wow.

Jen Heemstra 22:30

'Cause we were like, well, we can maybe never have kids, but if we try and time it, then it definitely will never happen. Like, if we wait till I'm at some point in my career, then it's, it, the, the likelihood goes to zero. So if it ever happens, it'll happen when it happens. And that was the start of our postdocs. So then we had a baby during our postdoc, which was like not really done back then in chemistry. Um, and so then I was like, "Well, there's no way I can have a faculty job now." Um, but then thankfully actually all of my advisors, all three of them were like, "You know, if, if you want this, like it, it may or may not work out, but you really owe it to yourself to go for it." Um, and I was like, "Okay. Yeah,

Caroline 23:12

That's...

Jen Heemstra 23:12

let's, let's try."

Caroline 23:14

That's so amazing. Okay, I wanna dial it back

Jen Heemstra 23:16

Yeah, yeah, sorry. That was a lot.

Caroline 23:18

No, I'm, I'm, I'm here for it. I'm down for it, and I'm also like, 'cause I was curious about this, like I had a little highlight on my paper,

Jen Heemstra 23:26

Oh.

Caroline 23:27

About the,

Jen Heemstra 23:27

Oh, wow

Caroline 23:28

So I, yeah, there, well, I'm, I'm, um... Hi, my name is Caroline I'm an overachiever. I literally have like probably 10 pages of... And whatever, it's all good. I wanted to make sure I was prepared, 'cause like this is important. Um, I do that anyway, just 'cause it's important. Every

Jen Heemstra 23:42

Same.

Caroline 23:43

Um, so this like, I went to industry briefly thing, right?

Jen Heemstra 23:47

Yeah.

Caroline 23:47

Was, at that time, was that company at the incubator at your university, or had it moved? 'Cause it looks like right around that same time

Jen Heemstra 23:56

Oh, wow, you really did your research.

Caroline 23:58

lab right around the same

Jen Heemstra 24:00

Yeah.

Caroline 24:00

And somehow... And so it's like you leave grad school, and you like taste industry for a minute, and you're like, "But wait, ugh, I don't know." So I'm really curious about that whole experience. How did you get that job? What did you actually do? What was the day in the life? What were the things that were y- making you think like, "Mm, gosh, can I have a postdoc, please?" Like, this is not talked about often.

Jen Heemstra 24:25

Yeah, and I will say my experience was very atypical. So I went to work for a company, and they were in an incubator space, which was actually really nice because then I- we used the NMR facility back up at the university. And so I would, like, get to, like, go... I'd plan my reactions so that I could, like, meet up with my spouse for lunch, and then I'd go run my NMRs and come back. So it was, like, really fun, 'cause it was like I had somewhat left. It was really, um, it, it served a lot of purposes. So it- number one, I mostly just saw it as, well, I need to do something until, um, u- until my spouse graduates and until I get pregnant and have, and stay home, right? That, that was the number one thing. Um, the number two thing is there's this story out there about, like, me having a postdoc offer taken away. I always have to say, that was not from the actual person I ended up postdocing with. That was someone totally different, and that was... I was gonna stay and postdoc, um, in town, and then that happened. So I was like, "Okay, well let's do this industry thing then." And this company was hiring. Um, they were growing, and so I, I interviewed and got the job, and thought, "Okay, well let's give this a try." And I was still in a mindset of, like, if I ever did have a career, there's no way I could be a professor. And so if I ever did have a career, it would be in industry. I don't know why I thought that. It makes it sound... I've never thought that industry was lesser than academia. I just thought I could never, like, be in this, like, leadership role as, as a faculty member, or I could never... I, I think a lot of it was, like, I could never make the commitment to a tenure track position, 'cause there was this sense of I need to know that I can bail whenever I need to to, like, raise a family. And so you can't just, like, go into a tenure track position and then three years in be like, "Nah, I'm gonna peace out for a couple of years," right? It, it just, like, felt like something that I couldn't do, but industry felt more flexible. Um, and so I went there, and I also was like, "Okay, well maybe this'll be a thing I do forever, you know, if I, whatever, if I decide I can have a career at some point." Maybe I had a glimmer of thinking I could have a career and kids at that point. Um, I do remember talking to some people, and, and someone were like, "Oh, well I just go part-time in my job, and then I have kids." And I was like, "Oh, maybe I could do that. That sounds good." Um, and so I went to work there. Um, and it was- It, I tell people it was a very atypically bad industry experience. Um, so I always tell people, like, I... my industry experience pushed me back to academia, but it isn't that one is better than the other, it's that there's, you know, every job has good and bad things, and every person's different. And so you find the job that has the good things that are really important to you and the bad things you find most palatable, I'm sure you tell people this all the time, right? And you go there, right? And so for me, academia had the good things that were really, really important to me, the independence and the autonomy and the creativity and the mentoring, and the bad things I found most palatable. Um, and so for me, that was the right fit, but industry felt like a lower barrier path, and I might have stayed in it had the situation I was in not been so bad.

Caroline 28:00

Imagine what your life would be like if your career aligned with who you are, what you do best, and actually fueled the life you want. At Next Success, we support all ages and stages through career transitions from students exploring majors or careers to professionals committed to self-awareness and leadership growth. Stay connected and explore what's possible at nextsuccesscareers.com and follow @nextsuccessmethod on LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. So was it

Jen Heemstra 28:34

and s-

Caroline 28:35

micromanaging? Was it bad like not necessarily the best team? Was it bad like ambiguous? Like was it bad like the work sucked and the lab was horrible and people threw waste in the sink? Like what? Like what was the bad-ish without disclose- like without... Yeah

Jen Heemstra 28:50

I shouldn't say too much. I will say that, like, the show, the US version of the show The Office with, like, Steve Carell and all of those people came out at that same time. Um, and I would watch that and be like, "Oh my God, this is my life." I would watch it and literally, like, exact things that would happen in that, uh, very similar things would happen in my workplace. And I'd be, like, texting my husband like, "Oh my gosh, y- ice cream sandwiches happened today. You'll never believe it." And, um, so it was just that, um, it was that kind of an environment.

Caroline 29:29

Gotcha. So just for the multitude of reasons, like e- I was, like, trying to reflect and, and st- you know, like, writing stories of different things too, like, my first time I learned about chemistry, I learned about, like, the environment has a whole lot to do with how well the reaction happens, right? And that's true in, like, actual chemical

Jen Heemstra 29:46

Yes.

Caroline 29:47

And it's also true as, like, us in a workplace, and

Jen Heemstra 29:50

Yes.

Caroline 29:51

in a n- You, like, it's the

Jen Heemstra 29:52

Yeah.

Caroline 29:52

Environment, people. You know, you can have the same job in a different environment and it, you may have a totally y-

Jen Heemstra 30:02

Totally different experience. And I will say that for part of my... It was a CRO, and for part of my time there, actually when things got really bad, I was like, "I'm gonna quit unless you put me on this project," because it was a project that was contracted to a startup from one of the faculty at the university who I really, really liked, and he was this wonderful, wonderful, wonderful human being and scientist. So I was like, "Okay, if I can work on the project with that company, I will stay here because I only wanna talk to that person and not the owner of the company here." And, um, and so they were like, "Okay, fine, fine, fine." And so I did that, and that was actually... A lot of things about that were really wonderful. Um, but yeah, I mean, it was, it was one of those things. I actually learned so- It gave me a lot of... It probably got me on the start to thinking about the importance of good leadership. Um, but the thing I really learned about myself that was surprising, and I tell people this too, I, I... You know, it was nice in a sense in that I needed a break after grad school, and so having it was very much a 9:00 to 5:00 sort of job. But then as, as the treatment of employees was so n- non-ideal, um, I kind of realized I'm like, "I can't give this place more than what they're asking of me." Like, I'm someone where I'm like totally intrinsic, like I'm gonna, I'm gonna do my best to see what I'm capable of, and I was like, "I just can't do that here. I, I need to just do, do what's required of me and no more." But that was, like, really easy. And, and so I started doing that, and it was fine for a little bit. But what I found is after, like, a year and a half of that, it completely shattered my confidence because you start to believe that's all you're capable of. So it's like, "Wow, this is all I can do." And it... Actually, credit to my postdoc advisor, I showed up there like a shard of myself and had no confidence, and I was just so used to like, okay, you go to work and your job is just to, like, There's a great one-liner in The Office where like, "What we have here is a run-out-the-clock situation." And that was like every day in my job is like, I need to just get through these eight hours and fill these eight hours in a way that meets expectations. And I showed up to... I got so ingrained in that thinking that it completely undermined my self-confidence, and it took really all of my postdoc, um, and thankfully a really wonderful mentor, to like build, build my confidence back up and, and help me think that I was actually, um, capable of, of being good at things.

Caroline 32:48

Oh, wow. I'm so glad for good mentors

Jen Heemstra 32:51

Yeah. Yay good mentors.

Caroline 32:52

moving. Yes. And

Jen Heemstra 32:54

Yes

Caroline 32:54

now you're in this post-doc experience with a wonderful mentor, now you also have a baby. How does

Jen Heemstra 33:02

Yeah.

Caroline 33:03

work?

Jen Heemstra 33:03

That was so hard.

Caroline 33:04

right? Like, like did you, did

Jen Heemstra 33:06

Yeah

Caroline 33:06

take a couple weeks off, or were you like the, I don't know, some tech CEO, like took a day. And I'm like, "What? How do you take a d-..."

Jen Heemstra 33:13

No

Caroline 33:14

stuff is healing down there, you know, like

Jen Heemstra 33:17

So yeah, I will actually, so I will say first and foremost, um, my postdoc advisor, this is what a wonderful person David is. All of my advisors, absolutely, absolutely amazing. I mean, you know, they've done so much for me, and I could tell great stories about all of them. Um, but I show up, yeah, it's my first, first conversation as I get to Boston, uh, I meet with David. I'm like, "So I've got some news. Uh, I'm pregnant, and I'm gonna have a baby in nine months." Um, and of all the things he could have said, he said the one perfect thing. He was just like, "Congratulations," and he meant it. He was like, "Congratulations, that's so amazing." Um, and then he was like, "Do whatever you need." And I was actually fortunate that he was HHMI funded, and he put me on that, so then I was actually an HHMI employee, and they had amazing benefits, which was like wh- y-

Caroline 34:08

Harvard,

Jen Heemstra 34:09

How- Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Caroline 34:11

Hughes Medical,

Jen Heemstra 34:12

Yeah, so, um, yeah, and so they fund the top innovators in, in biomedical research. Um, but they have this interesting structure where, you know, i- if you're a postdoc, you're actually then f- you know, paid by them. You're their employee, which was wonderful. It's the best thing that could have happened. Um, and so they actually, at a time when parental leave was not common, they provided parental leave. I think I had, like, six or eight weeks of paid leave, and, um, and my postdoc advisor came by, you know, as I was nearing my due date or halfway through. He was like, "Well," he's like, "How much time do they give you off? Do they give you paid?" And I was like, "Oh, this much." And he was like, "You're gonna need more than that. Like, add three weeks to that." And so I, I ended up taking, like, nine weeks off, and so I had two months of just, like... I had wonderful lab mates too. They were like... Because I would commute on the, the, um, subway every day, on the T, and so my friends in lab were like, "Okay, but if you go into labor..." I was like, "I'll just take the T to the hospital. It'll be fine." They're like, "No, you are, you are not doing that." One of my friends was a postdoc upstairs. She's like, "We drive to work every day. We have a car here. You are calling me if you go into labor at work. You're not having a baby..." Like, a woman had given birth on the T that year, and it was like, she's like, "You're not gonna, you're not gonna be that person." So I was like, "Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah." I ended up being induced anyway, so it was fine. But, um, but yeah, so he was so supportive. So I took like two months completely off, and then I came back full time. But actually to our, our previous conversation, like, there was, now there was this weight of expectation again of like, oh my gosh, I'm a terrible person if I go back to work, and if I put my kid in daycare. And the only, the only reason I didn't quit is I felt this sense of, like, loyalty of like, oh my gosh, this postdoc advisor who's so wonderful, and he has given me this amazing opportunity. He waited two years for me to you know, be able to leave Champaign and show up here, and I'm pregnant. Like, my first nine months in the lab I'm pregnant, which I worked hard, but everything's a little slower in chemistry when you're pregnant, and you have to be, like, extra, extra hyper safe. So I'm like, he got... If all he gets, like he's invested all of this in me, and if all I give him is this nine months of, like, you know, 75% effort, and then I quit, that's, that's not right. So I was like, I owe it to him to go back, which he would be like, "You don't owe me anything." but I was like, oh, I can't, I can't... I don't feel like I can ethically do that. But then, so it, it was so wrenching to put my kid in daycare. I was like, I felt horrible putting my kid in daycare, but then I went to work and realized how much I loved being at work, and how... And then I was like, and then I felt horrible that I didn't feel horrible putting him in daycare, right? It's all guilt. You get guilt about everything.

Caroline 37:00

The whole

Jen Heemstra 37:00

It's everything.

Caroline 37:01

insane. And,

Jen Heemstra 37:03

guilt, yeah

Caroline 37:03

and then your hormones are, like, completely crazy, and

Jen Heemstra 37:06

Yeah.

Caroline 37:06

have this, like, little

Jen Heemstra 37:07

Yeah. Yeah

Caroline 37:09

although, like, the nice little bit of, of ability to not have to be 24/7 with this beautiful human that you made and also love dearly, then probably allowed you to be a fresher mom to appreciate all the little things versus the constant, like, every little thing just became... Like, 'cause I had gotten laid off,

Jen Heemstra 37:32

Oh.

Caroline 37:32

My husband got laid off when I was pregnant with our first kid, so then I was like, "Okay, cool. You're way more patient. You'll be a stay-at-home dad then." And then when I was pregnant with our second kid, I got laid off, and he was still at

Jen Heemstra 37:45

Mm-hmm.

Caroline 37:45

and I was like... Which, which, yay, he was still at home, but, like, somebody had to be a grown-up and go get a job,

Jen Heemstra 37:51

Yeah

Caroline 37:52

it's just, like, it was so much. It, it was just so much that

Jen Heemstra 37:58

It's a lot

Caroline 37:58

it was just a blur. You don't even know what time it

Jen Heemstra 38:00

Yeah.

Caroline 38:00

or what day it is.

Jen Heemstra 38:02

Oh, yeah. And I had total like postpartum d- like, I had mild, but still, I mean, it's r- who doesn't? Like, who doesn't have something after that when your hormones are doing that? So yeah, so I had two months off, and then I came back, and then I, um, you know, fast-forward through, like, all of the self-doubt, and I could never have a faculty job, made a last-minute decision to apply, somehow got a job, moved to Utah. Um, but then actually on the child, you know, family creation journey, like we had another pregnancy loss, and then it was like, "Okay, I can never go through this again." Um, then had a surprise pregnancy, a very, very good surprise. Uh, but then the interesting thing is with the second one, I was, uh, three years into my faculty career, and I, I say this in a way that like, I think ev- it's everyone's choice what and how they do things. And I... It ended up that by the time I was willing to tell people I was pregnant after everything we'd gone through, I was scheduled to teach an eight-week class that started like three weeks after my due date. And I was like, "Okay, I'll really make life tough for the department if I say I'm not gonna teach this." And I actually make it tough for me 'cause then it messes up like my teaching release, and I'll have to teach a new class next year. So I was like, "Tell you what, I will still teach this class." But I like... It was a grad class. It had like 10 students. I kinda knew like if things go south, like my spouse could teach it for me. The people in my lab could guest lecture. Like, it'll be fine. I have a bunch of backup plans. Um, and so I actually, I never thought I would be this person, but I was that person who was like two weeks after giving birth, I'm like hosting a seminar speaker and teaching a class. Um, I don't necessarily recommend that, but I don't judge people who do it either, right? Like, I was working these half days, but then the amazing thing with the second one, well, I kind of joke, I'm like, look, I was like answering emails while... I don't... No one else should have to do this, but I was like, I was answering emails while I was in labor 'cause I was like, "I have an epidural." I was like, "I'm bored." My spouse is like writing his midterm exam he's giving the next day, and I'm answering emails, uh, with my grad students in my lab. Um, and I was answering emails the next day and every day after that, and I was back at work in three weeks. But then I was like half-time, and then it was summer, and then I had the fall, I had my parental leave, and so I got to be like half-time. I wasn't teaching, no committee work. I was just kind of running my lab, and so I got to be half-time when my s- second son was like, you know, six to nine months old. And so I could be like, "Oh, I'm gonna go to work for a few hours, and then I'm gonna come home, and we're gonna go to the park, and we're gonna do all this." I'd like push him in the swing in the park. And so it, it was just like it was different, right? Like, work never stopped, but it slowed down for a longer time, and it was interesting to have that different trajectory.

Caroline 40:56

Hmm. Okay, so now you're

Jen Heemstra 40:58

Sorry, we're like, we're like almost out of time and we're like barely getting to like assistant professorhood. I'm, I'm terrible. I, I need to be faster. I will be more succinct.

Caroline 41:06

It's h- But it's, but also, I appreciate every single second of it. Okay, so you do this, everything is seemingly great. You go for this tenure vote. You think it's gonna be awesome because, like, you've worked so hard, and you've already overcome all these, like,

Jen Heemstra 41:18

Yeah.

Caroline 41:19

What other people could call obstacles. You are, like, opportunities to just adapt and adjust and just, like, let's go. This tenure vote happens, and what?

Jen Heemstra 41:28

Uh, and, uh, my department chair walks into my office the day of the vote and says, "Well, the good news is half of your colleagues voted for you," which is like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna be out of a job, and my career might be over. And, my brother's wedding was the next day, so it was like I had just enough time to, you know, shut my door, call my spouse, um, go down, talk to my research group, and then I had to, like, get home, bags were packed, hopping on a plane. Um, and- M- a lot of things in that 48 hours changed me. Um, one of those is that when I went to tell my group, I'm thinking like, "Okay, well that's it. I'll find a new job maybe, you know, who knows, whatever. I'll go to a different type of institution. I'll go do something else. Who knows what I'll do?" And my group was just like, "Nope, we've earned tenure, and you're gonna get tenure somewhere, here or somewhere else, and wherever you go, we'll go with you. And as long as we get to keep doing our research," they were like, "We came here to do this research in your lab, and wherever you go, we'll go too." And they had a lot of good choice things to say too about what had happened, and that, in that moment, uh, it was one of the most humbling moments because just that level of completely undeserved loyalty, um, totally... I was like, "Okay, I, I thought I was one of them, one of the faculty," and like, yeah, again, I played by those rules, and a lot of good that did me. This is what really matters, like these... I, I'd already really shifted. I, I was already mentoring in a way that I think was different than the prevailing culture. It was already, "Hey, look, we're all colleagues. We're... We have different job duties, but we are all equals in this place. We're all colleagues. We're all here together, and we're all in this together." And, um, that day just seismically shifted that culture, um, and locked it in in a way that will never, ever, ever go back. Um, I also had a, a leader who went to bat for me, who was just like, "This shouldn't have happened, and I'm gonna fix it." And actually, that was the day, I didn't realize it, that was the day that made me want to go into leadership myself because I realized that, wow, someone with that positional power, them caring about trying to fix this and do the right thing, and then a relatively small amount of effort by them, like an afternoon's worth of effort, fundamentally changed the course of my career and my life. And had it been the person before... who'd had that leadership role a few years earlier totally wouldn't have done that, and my career would've taken a totally different turn. But because that person was in that role at that moment, it saved my career, and I'm like, "I want to be able to show up and support other people in the same way." Um, so I was like, "I want to be in leadership so that I can show up and at least..." You know, I'll make mistakes all the time. I will fail, but at least stand up for this set of values and, and act according to the... You know, and I remember with that leader, I was like, "Oh my gosh, thank you so much for doing this." And they were like "Don't thank me. It's just the right thing to do." They were like, "You earned tenure. I'm just giving you what you earned." And I've just never forgotten that. Um, and so, yeah, and just so many things about that. Like, you know, you- when you're on the faculty trajectory, you know, like this is all you think about for six years is like, "Get tenure. Get tenure. Get... How are you gonna get tenure? How... Am I gonna get tenure? Am I gonna get... I don't know. Am I gonna get tenure? How do I get tenure? What if I don't get tenure?" It's all you think about, and then you think, "I could never go through not," like a bad tenure. Like, it's just the, the kind of nightmare thing you, you know, think, "How, how would I ever get through that?" And then when you're in it, and you don't have a choice, um, but then I came out of it. Our lab thrived that year. I had a colleague who said they, they basically voted no on my case 'cause they thought I'd never get another grant for some reason. I was like, "What evidence do you..." And so we got, like, six new grants that year.

Caroline 45:40

Oh,

Jen Heemstra 45:40

We brought in so much money.

Caroline 45:42

So did you stay

Jen Heemstra 45:43

and so yeah

Caroline 45:44

like, did they fix it and, like, you ended up getting tenure?

Jen Heemstra 45:48

So I got tenure, um, but then also in that process, like, um, other universities kind of were like, "Well, are you interested in a move?" And I was like, "I'd be, I'd be open to it." 'Cause it's tough to, like, stay in a place where, like, like, the mental toll of, like,

Caroline 46:03

Yeah.

Jen Heemstra 46:04

Walking around and being like, "Half of these people don't want me here. Half of these c-..." Like, sitting at, how do you sit in a faculty meeting and be like, "Half of these people wish I wasn't here"?

Caroline 46:14

Yeah

Jen Heemstra 46:14

Or I would sit in seminars and think, "Half of these faculty sitting in these rows with me wish, are sitting here thinking, 'Gosh, I wish we had that seminar speaker as our colleague instead of Jen'"

Caroline 46:24

Oh,

Jen Heemstra 46:25

was just

Caroline 46:26

Yeah

Jen Heemstra 46:26

too much. I was just like, "I can't, I can't..." I had some people who were amazing, amazing, amazing supporters of me while I was there, and that made it tolerable, but I was like, "I can't sit here and know that this many people just are literally sitting here wishing I wasn't in the room."

Caroline 46:44

A- and so moving to another university, like,

Jen Heemstra 46:48

Yeah

Caroline 46:48

now you've gotten tenure at a university, and now you go to another university, but do

Jen Heemstra 46:53

Yeah

Caroline 46:54

bump down on the track? Or, like, they, they

Jen Heemstra 46:56

No.

Caroline 46:57

in, then they're like, "You're already a tenured

Jen Heemstra 46:59

Yeah.

Caroline 46:59

how does...

Jen Heemstra 47:00

Universities are such an interesting, interesting system. So, um, there is an expectation that you always get brought in at the same rank or higher than what you were at your same, at your previous university. So they know if you're tenured, they know they have to hire you with tenure, or if you're a full professor, they have to hire you as a full professor to make it attractive, right? That's generally what happens. But the interesting thing is you still have to go through the process again. And so I had to move and go through the process and, like, I'd been so traumatized by this process. I remember that was such a stressful year, and my chair would just be like, "Look, Jen we have to... We've hired you. We have to give you tenure. Like, we would look so bad if we didn't." But it, it still was, like, so... But I'm like, "But I've had people tell me it's gonna work out, and it doesn't, right?

Caroline 47:57

Right,

Jen Heemstra 47:57

And so I can't, nothing you say will make me believe that." Um, and then I actually went through promotion at that university, and that was a super traumatic thing too because of some actions of a really, um, problematic colleague, um, who was, like, kind of like stalking and bullying and harassing me.

Caroline 48:15

Gosh.

Jen Heemstra 48:16

Um, yeah, and had, like, tried to kind of undermine my promotion case. And so it was actually only when I moved here to WashU, even, even when they bring you in as the chair and as, like, a named, you know, professor, you still have to go through the tenure process. And it was, like, the first one ever that I was like, "I'm actually not worried about this." Like, I, I finally could get to a point of being like, "You know, if they hire you as a department chair when you're a full professor and they don't give you tenure, that would be really bad. So I think it's gonna be okay." And yeah, it, it was the first time I could actually... It was, like, very healing 'cause I'm like, "Oh, this is the first, like, non kind of like weird or non..."

Caroline 49:09

Ma- maybe

Jen Heemstra 49:09

The first, like, like, one where I could actually breathe and just trust that the process will go normally.

Caroline 49:14

Oh, that's amazing. Okay, so you, along these ways, you have experienced great mentors, environments, leaders that make you wish they had better

Jen Heemstra 49:25

Yeah

Caroline 49:26

and so you decide, know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna write the book I wish I had."

Jen Heemstra 49:32

Yes. So, the greatest gift that came out of my bad tenure vote was complete clarity around what I wanted from my career, and it was this sense of academia has a lot of issues, and a lot of that stems from bad leadership, and I want my career... Like, I love my science that we do. I think we're actually doing science that has possibility to impact humanity by curing disease, right? Or better diagnosing disease. But I was like, if there is one thing I achieve in my career, I want to, in at least a, a small, my own small way, create a healthier academic culture for the next generation of researchers. Um, and the way that we do that, one of the ways we can do that, and the way I want to do that, is through good leadership. And as I started to think about these topics, and as I got active on social media, students would reach out to me, um, 'cause they'd be like, "Oh, I'm in a really bad situation with my PI," you know, the person who runs my lab, um, essentially their boss. "What do I do?" And what- the realization was that so much of that, there are some just genuinely malicious, um, bosses out there. We've probably both had some of them. Um, but there's a lot, there's many, many more who want to do a good job and just don't know how. And there's this realization of like this job, it, we get all of our trainings and technical skills, and then you rise to a point where they're like, "Oh, you're now in this role where you have direct reports, and it's your job to manage and mentor and supervise and, you know, help this group of people succeed," and there is no training for it, really. N- we've got a little bit better, but not much. And, and a lot of the dysfunction that happens, especially in academic science, I think industry is much the same, is because we rise up to these roles never really having been prepared of how to create a positive culture and how to be a supportive mentor. And I still fail at this, like, all the time. But I had, I had started to, like, dive into the leadership literature and realize that there's this whole body of work out there, you know, people who this is their whole life, is that they study organizational leadership or psychology, um, and realize that all of this... So I was starting to do a lot applying this to the work that I was doing, um, and applying it to what we were doing in my own group, and then a post-doc in my lab was like, "You should write a book." And I was like, "No, I could never do that." And she was like, "You should write a book." I was like, "No, I can never do that." And she was like, "You should write a book." And then, um, long story, I actually tell this story in the book about how then it was my spouse who was like, "What would it look like to try?" And I was like Gosh darn it, that's the best worst question. Um, and so six years later, through COVID, through a move, um, it was... It, it really was a realization that, okay, something that I can do, I'm not a leadership scholar, but I can take everything that's out there that's in these books that's really made for people who are, like, working at Google or something, um, and I can take it, contextualize it for a science lab and what it looks like to lead a group in academia or in science in general, um, and kind of compress it and make it like a CliffsNotes version that then I can offer to the community to say, "Hey, you weren't trained for this. I wasn't trained for this. But we are in it together, and we can all learn, and if we all work together, then the early career researchers we mentor are the ones who will benefit from that." And so, um, that's how the book happened.

Caroline 53:24

It's, it's amazing, and it really is the phenomenal read. So the book is Lab Work to Leadership: A Concise Guide to Thriving in the Science Job that You Weren't Trained For. It really is, awesome. And even

Jen Heemstra 53:39

Thank you.

Caroline 53:39

Some of the chapters that, and, and the references that you put in, and like, of course, like all scientists, like bring the data, know, cite the source. You've done that. You've given people a really great launching point, starting point, and this is the book that somebody that I know had read from you and suggested that I have you on the podcast. So thank you. And I forgot to ask, how do you define authentic success for you in this moment?

Jen Heemstra 54:09

Ooh, that's a really great question I would say that inwardly it's that I'm challenging myself and learning new things each day, and outwardly it's that I am through my words, my actions, whatever I do, and I fail at this, so I fail at this definition of success, but my highest definition of success would be that through leadership, through the work that I do, it's creating more kindness and more dignity for the people around me.

Caroline 54:48

Oh, I love it. Thank you so much. Jenn, thank you for our conversation today, and it's gonna be a thing.

Jen Heemstra 54:55

Yes.

Caroline 54:56

stay connected

Jen Heemstra 54:57

I love that.

Caroline 54:58

You know, learn from you and help you

Jen Heemstra 55:00

Likewise.

Caroline 55:00

Kind of grow in our respective ways, and, we're working on trying to talk at a conference together. So I appreciate you, everything that you've done. Thank you so much for sharing the messy parts that a lot of people try to gloss over, for being extremely vulnerable, for sharing the lessons that you've learned, and you k- keep having this ability and desire to just try and just turn the page, and like what would it look like, and let me just see, and phenomenal, phenomenal story. Thank you for being on Your Next Success, and I can hardly wait to see what your next success is gonna be.

Jen Heemstra 55:35

Thanks so much for having me. This has been so much fun. I've loved this conversation, and I'm super excited for our next collaboration.

Speaker 55:43

Thanks for listening to Your Next Success with Dr. Caroline Sangal. Remember, authentic success is yours to define and includes aligning your career to support the life you want.