Today’s Wednesday’s Women in STEM series features microbiologist and fiction author, Andrea Rothman. Read her interview to see how she combines her background in STEM research with her interest in writing. Andrea shows us that creativity is an important part of science!
When did you first become interested in STEM?
I’ve always loved finding solutions to problems and figuring out how things work, especially in nature. I think that curiosity is what drew me to science, and to pursue a career in STEM. My Ph.D. training is in microbiology, and for many years I worked in several labs trying to understand membrane transporters, those tiny gateways to a cell on which our lives and the lives of all of the creatures on Earth depend. It was fascinating work. Later, I became interested in neurobiology and the sense of smell and I changed career paths.
Where did you go to school and what did you study?
I studied biology in Caracas, Venezuela, and was a postdoctoral fellow and subsequent research associate at the Rockefeller University in New York where I studied the sense of smell. Smell is essential for the survival of many species in the animal kingdom, in particular mammals, and it is also an integral part of who we are. Many of our earliest memories, dating back to our childhood, are associated with smell. It is our most primitive sense.
In the lab where I worked at Rockefeller we made genetically engineered mice. That is, we manipulated the genes of mice in a petri dish and injected them into growing mouse embryos that were then implanted into surrogate mothers who gave birth to the mutant mice. I had never worked with mice before so in the beginning I was nervous and afraid of handling them, but then eventually I got used to it. A lot of what we know about the sense of smell comes from studies in mice. We owe them a huge thanks!
What is your current career and how do you use your interests in STEM on a day-to-day basis?
My science career has basically guided me toward the written word, and today I’m a fiction writer. My debut novel, The DNA of You and Me, takes place in a research lab and is based on my experiences as a scientist, so a lot of what I learned about the sense of smell and about science research in general went into that book. Aside from writing, I also teach and give lectures in schools across New York about the sense of smell.
What do you like most about your current job? What do you find most challenging?
It’s not easy to write or to teach and I really love doing both of these things. They are creatively challenging and engaging and also very rewarding. The questions kids in schools ask me about the sense of smell are remarkable. Simple questions I would have never thought of on my own. To explain something to another person you really need to understand it deeply, and the classroom presents a real challenge.
What advice would you give to young girls who are interested in pursuing STEM activities or careers?
- Be curious about the world. Don’t take anything for granted.
- No question is unimportant. If you thought of it, it means it’s worth asking.
- Find a question you would love to answer and go for it. You’re bound to discover something important.
- Be flexible in your way of thinking about a problem, any problem. The greatest results are those that end up surprising.
- Read about the field(s) that interests you most, be it science, technology, engineering or math. Find a magazine or journal that is accessible and easy to understand and try to read it regularly and to keep up with the latest news.
- Keep a working diary.
Anything else our girls or their parents would be interested in knowing about you?
I’m fortunate to have been able to combine my love of science and literature in one book. That journey can be found here: www.andrearothman.com
I’m a mentor for the mentor project: www.mentorproject.com. If you’d like to learn about the sense of smell or other STEM fields such as robotics, chemistry, physics, aerospace, and more, let me know.
