Lauren Poppi

NEUROSCIENTIST

Dr Lauren Poppi is a neuroscientist currently working at the Child Health Institute of New Jersey in the United States, studying Tourette Syndrome. Along with an incredible work ethic and a resume chockers full of academic achievements, she is super humble and honest about her journey into the science world. She candidly shares a snapshot of a typical work day, what and who inspires her work and what it's like to be killing it in a male-dominated field.

So Lauren, what do you do?

I’m a neuroscientist. I got here via the pretty traditional route – I went to uni for a million years, got a PhD in neuroscience, and now I’m doing my postdoc training.

Where do you work?

I work at the Child Health Institute of New Jersey which is part of Rutgers University. All of the labs here study things that affect kids.
I study Tourette Disorder which is considered a childhood disorder as it’s neurodevelopmental in origin, even though adults have it as well.

Incredible. What’s a typical day like?

I wake up as early as I can manage and get to the lab. I walk or take my bike - I live 800m away! Typically, I walk into the lab, put everything down, then assess what I’ve got to do for the day - usually an unachievable list of experiments. I try to organise my day so I can get through as much as I can in as little time as possible. I might have a 20 minute incubation period on something, so in that time I’ll go and talk to a student, or I’ll fire up the microscope.

You’re running around a lot which is what I love about it. It’s really hands on – I’m always doing lots of different things, like dissections, calculations, driving microscopes and motors, drilling stuff, soldering wires. It’s very practical. I usually get home far too late, try and eat some kind of dinner, then get ready to do it all again the next day.

How much science did you do at school?

I had no interest in pursuing science as a career. I loved chemistry in high school and I thought that if I wanted a good ATAR I should do physics, but I dropped it straight away because I didn’t enjoy it. I took French Continuers, did four units of English and I wanted to study visual arts. I started a Bachelor of Arts at Sydney University, majoring in French, but then I took one elective in human biology and was like, ‘I’m going to change my entire degree to human biology’.

So you just switched like that?

To be honest, I didn’t really like the environment at Sydney Uni. The human biology class had 1400 people in it and they ran the same lecture twice a day, so there’d be 700 people in each lecture. You’d sit down and make a friend and then you would never see that person again. It was just so huge and so anonymous.

My friend from high school told me she was going to Newcastle Uni to do biomedical science. I was like, that sounds good! When you’re 19 or 20, you think ‘I’ll just do that’. I signed up too and within six weeks of that new degree, where it was all human biology focused, I thought ‘yep, 100% this is where I’m meant to be’.

What were the biggest differences between your two university experiences?

I basically started fresh in Newcastle with a Bachelor of Biomedical Science. People were from all kinds of places and there were only about 100 people in the entire program. It was really normal to be on a first-name basis with the lecturers – you could go up and chat to them after class. It was a very different vibe and I instantly felt more relaxed. It was a three year degree and it was all about the human body – structure and function. It’s basically a tasting menu of all the different disciplines within biomedical science; so you do a bit of anatomy, neuroscience, immunology, biochemistry… I was obsessed after the first semester.

How amazing! What was your favourite part?

It felt really natural to be at the lab bench. In third year, you can either fill the last semester with random electives, like guitar 101, or you can do a research project in a lab of your choice. By that point, I had already volunteered in a lab over summer and worked as a tech in the same lab during second year. I think that was really a turning point for me. I got to work in a lab with scientists everyday and see young people doing research full-time.

It’s this kind of self-indulgent pursuit of curiosity, you have to be driven, and it’s highly creative.

I watched people working, focused on solving problems, and I thought ‘that’s so cool. I want to be like them’.

Sometimes uni can seem a bit arbitrary when you’re just trying to memorise content and pass exams. But when you’re working in the lab you think ‘Okay, I’m learning about sequencing, for example, because it relates to this aspect of research, and it’s a tool that I need to understand because I might wanna use it someday’.

So working in a lab on the side – even if I was only cleaning beakers and doing really menial tasks – it made me do a lot better in my classes because I could see the relevance. I wanted to be a good scientist and I wanted to understand all of it.

What did you do right out of uni?

I graduated and then the following year I did my honours training in that same lab. It was full-time, intense research. It was probably the worst year, because you don’t have any kind of financial support and it’s full-time, so it is hard to balance everything… late nights. You write a mini thesis. Afterwards, you can decide if you want to go into academia or industry. A lot of people do law or take their biomed training elsewhere. But I was pretty obsessed – I wanted to just keep answering the questions; my honours just opened up more questions for me. I asked if I could do a PhD in their lab and ended up staying for five more years!

Tell us about your PhD experience –

I did my PhD in a lab that studies synapses in the inner ear. Rebecca Lim, one of the principal investigators, was actually my lecturer in first year, in a class about synaptic transmission. Basically, it’s how one neuron communicates to another neuron. The first neuron releases chemicals, which then bind to receptors on the second neuron at a synapse. We learned about the different chemicals and receptors and the mechanisms of how that all works. I was instantly obsessed – the chemicals, the synapses… that’s me.

The inner ear is responsible for our hearing and balance. The balance part detects the position and acceleration of our head, if we’re moving forwards, backwards, spinning... all of those things. The synapses in the inner ear are super funky and different to anything else in the nervous system. They have special mechanisms; there’s so much that hasn’t been discovered yet. It’s kind of like being in outer space, there is weird stuff happening in this part of the body, that you really can’t find anywhere else. The inner ear is particularly cool if you love intricate structures and mechanics or biophysics. I got my PhD after five years.

Basically, if you are serious about research and you want to be successful later on, you try and get a postdoctoral position somewhere. It doesn’t have to be out of the country, but a lot of people like to leave the country for a different life experience.

You touched on the full-time, all-in nature of studying science. Late nights, not much pay. What are your thoughts on this?

I knew from the very beginning of my PhD that I was extremely privileged to be even in that position. It’s a luxury to spend five years thinking about a problem. Because, if you need to provide for people, or if you’re unable to provide for yourself in that situation, you just can’t do what I did. That was also another huge reason why moving from Sydney to Newcastle was so great, I could live back with my parents and all I needed was petrol money. I was on Austudy for my honours’ year living out of home, again the EXTREME privilege of being an Australian and having a government allowance for being a uni student.

It was the best year ever, but honestly looking back I do not know how I did it. Lots of rice and broccoli.

And then the beautiful PhD stipend came along. There are scholarship opportunities, which means you get paid a salary while researching. I got one and was earning about 24k a year. I waitressed, made coffees, bartended weddings...

I manned a waterslide at one stage. I did anything I could. It’s a real privilege to be in academia.

All that study! Do you have any tips?

It’s a steep learning curve. I did really well in high school, then all of a sudden was struggling to pass exams. I had to adapt my study methods a lot. I’d make up ridiculous acronyms for memorising amino acids and their names and codes.

You have to start assignments the second you get them. Talk to your peers about the work you’re doing. Find a way to be interested in what you’re learning and understand the concepts rather than trying to commit it to memory. Being around other people that are ambitious also helped me massively.

You’re currently working in America, does the science world differ abroad?

Science in Australia is amazing for a lot of reasons. Firstly, it’s a little more balanced. Young scientists are paid a bit better and it’s generally accepted that you have some semblance of work–life balance… I’m saying that relative to America. Scientists in Australia, relative to people in other highly paid professions, work incredibly long hours. They work SO hard, constantly. But America is a different ball game: Non-stop. Saturday. Sunday. Nights. Holidays.

The funding system is also different. In Australia a lot of the research is done by PhD students, whereas in America a lot more of the work leans towards postdocs. It’s normal to work in a lab with several other postdocs, so the research output is different to a lab that has PhD students instead. In America there is a lot more money invested into research programs. It’s not that unusual for a lab to get a few million dollars. Whereas in Australia, a few million is really big and pretty rare.

I wanted to come to America, where it’s extremely competitive, fast paced and well resourced. I’m currently using a microscope that’s worth US$1.6 million. I don’t think I’d have access to it back home. It’s also a place where people from all different countries converge to train or to start their own labs. Everyone is competing for survival here because there is funding, resources and people with crazy work ethic. It’s really cutthroat, yet exciting at the same time.

Being young, it would seem now is the time if you’re going to be working 20 hour days…

Exactly. I can, I can afford to. It comes back to privilege. Although, I often found that mums juggling three kids for example, were better at the degree than a lot of us. They really wanted it and were there for a reason, not to muck around.

What are your thoughts on being a young successful woman in the science world?

Being a woman in the science world – we could do a whole interview about just that. There’s a lot to unpack.

Academia and research is built on a centuries-old model of white men being at the top. So for women, BIPOC and LGBTQI scientists, it’s still a struggle to succeed at the same level. I have been very fortunate and have been supported unreservedly by many, many excellent men and women to get to this point. I had a really supportive male mentor and strong female role models very early on, and am so grateful for the ongoing support and training I have received from my scientific mentors Alan Brichta, Max Tischfield and Rebecca Lim. Rebecca was the essence of a cool science girl from the beginning. She had kids, she had her career, she was obsessed with synapses, but she was still a normal person and a mum outside of that. When it came to her research, she was ambitious and tenacious. We can be all of these things.

Even with all the support and opportunities for young women in the sciences, there are still some awkward moments. I remember one particular occasion, when I was giving a short talk at a conference. I spent weeks preparing the data slides and practicing. Before I went up to the lectern I wasn’t stressed, because I looked around and couldn’t see any of my ‘science crushes’ in the room. The speaker before me concluded, applause started and then the back doors opened. Three or four people who I really admired walked in and sat down. I think my heart rate skyrocketed at that point! I got through the talk, and I felt like I’d done the best version of it – which never happens. Afterwards, I got an email which said something along the lines of ‘Great talk. The guys were laughing and saying “why are the Australian scientists always attractive?”’.

It just felt… ugh. I had put so much work and effort in. It was intended as a compliment, but this kind of thing happened several times over several years... and it never feels worthwhile to correct a comment like that in the moment. Sometimes it's a bit of a boys’ club.

Male scientists will go and have beers together and build killer collaborations, women are rarely invited.

Ahhh! A male scientist would never get an email saying ‘Great talk! You looked so handsome up there!’

Exactly! But, I still think it’s great to be a female scientist. It’s amazing. I am mentoring three undergraduates who are so incredibly talented. It is really opening up for us. Two women just shared the Nobel Prize!

There is no guaranteed paid maternity (or paternity) leave in your field. What are your thoughts on this?

Most postdocs are between 28 and 35, which is also when people tend to have babies. If I had a baby now in America, there would be about six–eight weeks where I couldn’t get fired, for recovery, but then I would have to be back to work. A lot of postdocs wouldn’t be guaranteed paid maternity leave in Australia either, but there is far better government assistance. Similarly, you don’t really get decent paid leave if your partner has a baby either.

I wouldn’t say it’s a super family-supportive field. It obviously affects women far more. It’s somewhat up to your employer to decide how accommodating they’re going to be, it’s a grey area. It shouldn’t matter. Having a baby is a normal and great part of life. It should be separate to what we do for work.

It still impacts you later on in your career, though they are trying to combat this. Your productivity as a scientist is measured in terms of metrics. So, if you are applying for research funding and there is a time period where you have started a family for instance, you can explain to the granting body why you didn’t publish as many papers that particular year. They take that into consideration.

Surely it’s beneficial to keep people working? Rather than ending their careers in research if they decide to start a family...

Exactly. They call it the ‘leaky pipeline’. They are graduating more women than men from PhDs, but at the end of the postdoc they’re wondering why there’s a huge loss of women specifically.

It’s also an investment issue. It costs something like 200k in government money to train a PhD student!

Do you have any science idols?

I’m not really good at this. I have a friend who is a great ‘science celeb spotter’.

A neuroscience celeb worth mentioning is Karl Deisseroth – he will win the Nobel Prize. He repurposed an ion channel. They isolated the gene from light-sensitive algae and put it into neurons, so now we can activate neurons with light. It’s allowed us to understand circuits in the nervous system better than ever before. And now basically every neuroscience lab in the world uses these channels. They have been made freely accessible and are constantly being tweaked and improved.

Is that common?

Scientists are always wanting to get the patent, the high-impact paper with their name on it and be the winners... for sure. But in general, they are pretty altruistic and really just want to further our knowledge. We want to revolutionise the way that we do things.
If you’re a researcher out for money, you’re in the wrong job.

Where do you hope to be in ten years?

It’s really hard to say, it’s really going to be serendipitous. As soon as you start your postdoc, the clock starts ticking. You can get scooped – like a journalist. If you are working on the same project as another lab, and they publish it before you, you’re dead!

So basically, I need to publish something original in the next couple of years – and it has to be high-impact. If I get a couple of those,
I might get a job offer in five–seven years to start my own lab. Then I’d have to try to attract funding by designing a great project.
If you get the funding (and that’s a big ‘if’), and you can prove to a university that you’re worth keeping around, then you might get tenure and then you’re more safe. You’re probably around 45 years old and you’ve just got your first secure job.

And then you retire?

Yeah! Well I think it’s really interesting to look at the story of Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, who just won the Nobel. Because they did a lot of that work not that long ago. Their whole careers would have led them to this moment where they met, apparently in a cafe in Puerto Rico, and then collaborated on this question. SO cool!

And it comes down to gene editing, right. Like now we can go in and edit genes in tissues. They didn’t go into it necessarily with that goal in mind – they had a fundamental biology question and found this little mechanism. But kind of like the algae going towards the light, it ended up being something huge.

It happens to a few scientists out of hundreds of thousands, but it’s such a cool thing to be a part of – even if you are a tiny cog in the wheel.

My career seems very logical and linear from where I am now... but it was all very random and I still don’t know where I’m going with all this.

It’s all fun. I’m loving it.

Interview Haylee Poppi
Edit Grace MacKenzie