Dr. Emily Bates teaches biochemistry and researches migraine, cancer and birth defects. She earned a BS in biology from University of Utah and a PhD from Harvard Medical School in genetics.
I first heard of Dr. Bates when I attended the Graduate Student Society Women Faculty and Student Forum a few weeks ago. I was intrigued by her educational history, and so impressed by some of the answers she gave to difficult questions. When she agreed to do a personal interview I was overjoyed. I hope you will enjoy getting to know her as much as I did!
MHR: How did you decide on your career path, and what experiences led you to your current research?
EB: I knew I wanted to do migraine research as a professor in my senior year of high school. The first time I thought of being a scientist came from my patriarchal blessing that contained an explicit directive that my talents lay in science, mentoring, and teaching, and I was supposed to use those talents to help the world.
Between my junior and senior years, I participated in the National Science Foundation Young Scholars program, and that was my first real research experience. I went to Yellowstone and did a project about DNA damage in algae. I was camping with a bunch of kids my age from around the country. They took no more than one per state. We camped together, did research projects and presented them at the end of the project. I think that lit the fire for me in research.
My senior year of high school was pretty much overtaken by migraines. I had severe, frequent migraines. As I became more ill with my migraines, I decided that’s where I wanted to direct my efforts—I started working toward that goal. As a college freshman I started in a genetics lab. Migraines are one of the focuses of my research now.
MHR: What advice do you have for undergraduate women?
EB: Remember that less than 10% of women are financially supported for life by a man. A lot of Mormon women are under the impression that someone’s going to take care of them for life. That’s just not the case for most. You’ve got to find a dignified profession to which you can contribute, that will allow you to be happy, support yourself and maybe children. You’ll be able to do that well if you have an education. It’s a lot easier to have time with your children if you have a high-paying job than if you have a low-paying job. Most of the poverty in the United States, especially in Utah, affects women and children.
The second thing I would say is find friends and mentors who support you in your goals. I joined ACCESS, a University of Utah program for women in science. We spent two weeks doing projects in each science. We formed a support network for each other, in the sciences. It worked! Jessica Purcell in the math department at BYU was in that ACCESS program with me. We were placed in research labs during our freshman year. They tried to give us female mentors, because that’s been shown to be one of the most important factors for women scientists. I was placed in the lab of Anthea Letsou, who has been my greatest scientific mentor for the rest of my career.
Third, I know that a lack of support for women in education and career is cultural and not doctrinal. President Hinckley encouraged women to become educated. In 1975 Howard W. Hunter encouraged women to find careers (quoted in Chieko Okazaki, “Rowing Your Boat,” Ensign, November 1994.) If someone tells you, “It says in the Proclamation on the Family that the man is primarily responsible for providing, and the woman is primarily responsible for nurturing,” tell them to read the next line! The next line says “fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another equally in these responsibilities.” [Emphasis added.] The main point is that both of those roles are important and neither role can be neglected. The buck has to stop somewhere, but delegation is an option. If the wife has better earning potential than the husband, then maybe they could consider having a partnership in the providing role. If the husband is good at nurturing—I’ve seen a lot of men who are really good at nurturing!—he can take a more active role in nurturing, reading to the children, taking an active part in their lives too. That way both parents get to have good relationships with their children, both parents get to be fulfilled in contributions to the world, and the family is provided for and nurtured. That model can be different for individual families or at different times of life depending on needs and talents.
0 comments:
Post a Comment