Biologist Sarah Fankhauser’s relationship with her adviser changes when she joins her lab as a grad student.
Curious and investigative by nature, Sarah Fankhauser has always been a lover of all things science. Sarah received her B.S. in biology from Ga Tech and her PhD in microbiology and immunobiology from Harvard University. Sarah is one of the founders and the board chairman of the science journal and education non-profit, Journal of Emerging Investigators. She is also an assistant professor of biology at Oxford College of Emory University where she shares her thrill and passion for science with her students. Both in her professional and personal life Sarah advocates for effective and clear communication of science with the public.
This story originally aired on March 1, 2019 in an episode titled “Mentors.”
Story Transcript
“I can finally stop pretending to be nice to you.” That was the response of my research adviser when I told her I had officially joined her lab as a first year graduate student at Harvard University. I thought she was joking. She wasn’t.
The next day I came into the lab and I found that my spot in the lab had been moved to the bench right across from the glass doors, presumably so she can monitor me coming and going. I asked her about this. She simply said, “I've decided to reorganize the lab.” But my space was the only one that was ‘reorganized’.
I tried to convince myself this is a good thing. I’m going to get personalized attention from a Harvard professor. What more could I possibly ask for?
The change didn’t happen immediately but slowly, day by day. That personalized attention that I thought I wanted emerged as someone monitoring my every movement in and out of the lab. I went into lab late one morning arriving close to 7:30. I found my adviser with her blue nitrile gloves on going through my biohazard trash trying to decipher what I had done the day before.
“Why did you throw these plates away? What did you do wrong?” She demanded to know. “And why did you use these P10 pipette tips and not these P20s?”
I stood there stunned. I didn’t know how to answer. “I don't know. That’s what I used. They do the exact same thing. It doesn’t matter.”
As my labmates walked in, they just looked at the ground pretending not to hear my adviser yell at me.
“What was going through your head to make you think this,” she asked.
Those words clung to me. What was going through my head? I didn’t know but whatever it was it was somehow inadequate.
I walked into my adviser’s office late one afternoon and in a shaky voice I asked, “In June can I have a week off to attend a wedding? My wedding?”
“No. You're in my lab, the science comes first.”
Instantly, tears were in my eyes and I was choking back, trying to find my words to negotiate. “Please, I'll work the nights, the weekends. I won’t let the experiments fall behind. Just give me four days.”
“Whatever,” she said.
Weekly check-ins were the worst. In the privacy of her office, she could dole out whatever verbal abuse she wanted with no witnesses to provide a comforting shoulder after. I sat down her office and I explained a week’s worth of data. She leaned far back in her chair rubbing her stomach.
“You're an idiot,” she said. Just a hint of laughter so I couldn’t quite interpret her intentions. “You've done something wrong. This doesn’t make sense.”
I had just explained to her my results that didn’t support her hypothesis.
“You don’t know what you're doing. I'll follow up.”
Two days later, she showed me her data with the exact opposite results of mine. “See, you're an idiot.”
“Explain the results to me. I just want to learn, please.”
“Shut up. You're not working on this experiment anymore.”
A new academic year had started, a new round of departmental seminars, informal gatherings, journal clubs. At the first departmental seminar, the speaker just finished and asked for questions. I raised my hand interested in knowing about his methodology and why he had to use a particular technique, and he called on me.
Instantly, my face turned red. I could feel the flush of embarrassment rising from my chest upwards. “This is such a stupid question. I’m such an idiot. I don't want others to know how stupid I am.”
I tried to phrase a coherent question and, instead, I stumbled over the word ‘I’, which isn’t even a word. It’s one letter and I couldn’t say it.
I tried to convince myself that I was just nervous. Anyone would be nervous in front of all of these professors, but what I would describe as just stumbling over my words had become a consistent stutter.
In the journal club of my peers, my friends, people I started graduate school with, I would just sit in the corner, try my best not to talk.
“What has happened to me? I've lost all confidence. I can’t even speak clearly.”
I had other physical symptoms. I had shortness of breath and panic attacks and horrible skin issues. Finally, I went to the doctor.
“Nothing is wrong with you,” I was told.
More time passed. Finally, one day, I told my adviser, “I’m going to lunch.” Instead, I walked the two miles to Student Health Services for my first appointment with a therapist.
I was in the waiting room filling out the entry questionnaire and I came across this question. “How many times a week do you think about hurting yourself?”
I thought this was such a bizarre question. “Hurt myself? Why would I do that? I already feel enough pain and stress, why would I want more? If this question is on here then there are people a lot way worse off than I am.
Maybe I have made a mistake. Maybe I don't belong here.” So I contemplated leaving. My name was called.
I walked back to a small office and sat down from across the therapist.
“Why are you here,” he asked.
I didn’t know where to start so I just described my day, which is the same every day. At the end he said, “It sounds like you're in an abusive relationship.”
I had never thought about it that way. I have no bruises, no physical scars. I’m not sure I believe him but I made an appointment to see him the following week.
Every week in therapy was the same. I would describe my week, I'd complain about my adviser and he would listen. At the end, he would summarize exactly what I had said back to me. Somehow hearing my words said back to me made me realize what I had allowed to happen.
He asked me to record my thoughts and my experiences in a journal. At one point I wrote, “I want to quit. I want to leave the lab, but I don't know how.”
I had spent three years working on this project in this lab. If I leave, I'll have nothing to show for it, no publications, no papers, no degree, no letters of recommendation. I would be killing my academic future. How am I going to tell my family, my friends, my husband that I had failed? I couldn’t do it.
A friend of mine was in a lab in the same department and he spoke so highly of his adviser. I decided to go talk to him. I wasn’t sure what I wanted out of the conversation but I sat down with Michael, the research adviser, and explained my situation.
“I think I want out of the lab,” I told him, “but I don't know what to do next. Can I join another lab? Is that a thing? That would be starting my PhD over from scratch. Is it even worth it?”
He listened quietly and then he said, “When can you start?”
“Now. Right now.” In an instant, I had a future again, a way out. The sense of relief was just amazing.
I went home that afternoon and meticulously started planning my exit strategy. That Monday I went into my adviser’s office and I told her, “I’m quitting.”
“Why,” she asked.
“I’m unhappy,” I told her.
Again, she asked, “Why?”
I was stunned. She couldn’t see her own behavior. She couldn’t see what she was doing.
“It’s you,” I said. “It’s the way you treat me, it’s the way you treat us. Your words are cruel and demoralizing. And stop going through my biohazard trash.”
I could have kept going but I stopped, shook that I had even said those words out loud, terrified of what her response might be.
She was quiet for several minutes and then she apologized. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I'll change. Every time I’m mean to you, just call me out on it and I will give you chocolate. Just stay in the lab, please. I'll change.”
And I believed her. That afternoon I called Michael. I apologized for wasting his time but I said, “My adviser is changing. I owe it to her to stick it out.”
Three months passed. Three months and nothing changed. Three more months of stuttering, three more months of therapy, three more months of me asking myself why am I letting this person beat down the best parts of me. I had finally learned my lesson again.
This time I went to my adviser’s office late on a Friday afternoon. I had my boxes packed ready to be picked up downstairs. I kept it short. “I’m leaving the lab.”
The next Monday I joined Michael’s lab. I met with him that morning and I expected him to tell me what questions to ask and what experiments to perform. Instead, he simply asked me, “What are you interested in?”
I had never been asked that before. I’m not a scientist. I just do experiments as I’m told.
I was excited. For the next three years I explored my questions, I designed my own experiments and I endured my own many failures, but I always found a path forward.
On September 6, 2013, I stood up in front of my family, my peers, and professionals in my field and defended my thesis. Halfway through my talk I realized I've done it. I've succeeded. I’m about to get my PhD.
For a moment, I was caught in these thoughts and lost my place in my talk. I started to stumble over my next few words. “Oh, God. This cannot be happening again. Not now.” And it didn’t.
I paused. I reminded myself I’m the expert. I’m the scientist. No one is going to make me feel stupid today.
Thank you.