Interview by Heidi Molga, CLB Undergraduate 
(under the supervision of Professor Amy Ralston)
December 2, 2013

Heidi: Would you mind starting us off with a personal introduction?

Yi: I am an associate professor here at UCSC in MCD biology. I got my undergraduate degree from Tsinghua University in China in 1998,and then came to Northwestern University to study neuroscience, where I received my Ph.D. there in 2002. I did two post-docs: one was at N.Y.U. for about a year, and the other, for three years, at UT Austin, both in neuroscience. I set up my lab here in January 2007. My lab is mostly focused on brain plasticity.

Heidi: At what stage in your career did you start having children, and did you feel as though that was the best time?

Yi: I realized I was pregnant when I was interviewing for jobs. My son was 3 months old when we moved to Santa Cruz to start my lab. I think it is too hard to plan the best time for kids. There are just too many things in the life that are unpredictable.

Heidi: How has it been raising your child with your husband so far away?

Yi: My husband is working in China on and off for the past 7 years. It is not an ideal situation. But it is a great career opportunity for him, and he loves the project. I would love to get him back to States A.S.A.P. But as scientists, we all understand how important it is to have a good project.  I guess both of us are kind of idealistic, so it is hard for me to ask him to give up something he loves.  I admit it is a lot of work with a kid by myself, but it is fun too.  In science, we are so used to experiments that don’t work.  But any effort we put onto our kids, we see results soon.  So in some way it is more rewarding, and that make things easier.

Heidi: How do you feel being a parent has changed your approach to work?

Yi: I love it. I was brought up to work hard and focus on a career only.  My husband used to joke with me that beside food and travel, I don’t have any hobby. Since dining in the fancy restaurants and traveling to exotic places are expensive. I can’t do it all the time.  So I am ‘hobbyless’ most of the time.  Therefore, it is easy for me to focus on the project I am working on.  Since I think, or maybe worry, too much about my on-going project, I used to become very frustrated when it did not work.. We all know that failure in experiments happens a lot in science, so I used to get frustrated a lot. After having a kid, things changed. Now I think family is the most important thing for me. I still love science, and in some way, it is my daily hobby now.  And it is much less stressful this way.  

Heidi: What kind of support do you feel would be most helpful to professor parents?

Yi: For me, if there was an easier way to get a babysitter, it will be a great help. I do not really use babysitters, mostly because I didn’t grow up in this country, I don’t know what to expect from them and also don’t know how to judge if they are good or bad. So I tried to talk to my son’s friends’ parents, and we sometimes share babysitters. But if school has some kind of service, it will be of great help. 

Heidi: What is the best way to increase the number of women in STEM tenure positions without compromising excellence?

Yi: I think the effort should start much earlier.  It is very important to tell young girls that science is fun and they can do it. My son is in first grade now, and in his elementary school, I already see the segregation between boys and girls. They play different games, read different books... Looking out of school, such segregation happens everywhere, from TV commercials to toy stores. This is quite different from where I grew up.  I think the society here in certain way promotes such segregation and pushes woman from science.  I admit that men and women have different ways of thinking and approaching question, but there is no way that boys are better in math and science at early age.

Heidi: An interesting statistic is that the number of women receiving Ph.D.s in many of the STEM fields is over 50%, but the amount of faculty positions for women is half that. That’s why we are here. We are wondering how we can remedy this disparity, because these incredible minds are disappearing. What are the most important goals of graduate school, post-doc, and as a professor?

Yi: I think I will answer these two questions together.  I would say the most important thing throughout your scientific career is to find the project you like, the people you like to work with and to hang around with people like science and do good science.  For me, I really have to have passion for the things I am doing, otherwise I do a very bad job.  On the hand, if you are doing things you like, it is never work.  Many people complain that academia job is tough, and in some way, this idea push a lot of smart woman scientists away from academia jobs, because we want to be good wives and mothers, we don’t want to work all the time.  But think about it: what job is not tough, particular when you want to be good in it?  Nowadays, in graduate school, the students were encourage to think about alternative careers because science is too tough, it is hard work.  But I think we should tell them that academia job is fun and it is good job for woman. Then things may start changing.  Indeed, there is no other job you can satisfy so much curiosity, and have the flexible of time.

Heidi: What is something most people do not know about life as a professor?

Yi: The flexibility of time and we are really our own boss. My son was three months old when we moved to Santa Cruz.  While setting up my lab, I was able to go back home every two hours to feed him until he was fourteen months old. I think I will be fired if I have any other job.  

Heidi: What is the hardest thing about being a scientist?

Yi: To not give up. My post-doc advisor told me “it is not the smartest or most hard working people who can be a scientist, scientists are special ‘species’”. It took me many years to really understand this.  To be a good scientist, you need to have the curiosity, which most of us have; you need to have passion, which most of us have at least when we start; you also need to be persistent and be optimistic, which is actually very hard to keep, particularly if so many experiments don’t work.  At that time, please step back and think about your big picture.  Start big, and don’t let the details stop you.

Heidi: What is your next big career goal?

Yi: I just want to continue what I am doing and I would like to push to build up a good Neuroscience program in UCSC. I love neurocircuitry, and I want to know how brain works. I like teaching. I have been teaching in the Neurobiology course in MBL every summer for past 10 years.  That course changed my life. It told me what is science about and I made so many good friends there. I would love to help to build something like that here.

Heidi: What is the best advice you have ever been given?

Yi: I think I got the best advice from my mom. She told me many times since I was young, “People can take away your money, your fame, your position, your property… the only thing they cannot take away is your capability.” I saw many people going through life fighting for the things to put on the shelf to show other people, so they refuse to do anything that does not give them credit.  But those things are for others, improving ourselves is for us.

Heidi: When you are in a rut, how do you inspire yourself?

Yi: I just go to sleep. I am general a happy person, but I get obsessed with things and situations.  If so, I tried my best to go to sleep, because when I wake up the next day, I usually forget why I was so worried.

Heidi: If you could change anything, what would it be?

Yi: I would love to spend more time with my husband.  We lost so many great years together since he took the job in China. I feel we missed out on so much, we could have travel more and even have more kids.