Community: Stories about finding a place to belong

Finding community within science can be a challenge. In this week’s episode, both of our storytellers struggle with feeling out of place in science.

Part 1: After his mentor and chemistry teacher uncle is murdered, André Isaacs feels adrift.

A native of Jamaica, André Isaacs moved to the US to attend the College of the Holy Cross where he received his B.A. in Chemistry in 2005. He received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 2011 and then worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2012, Andre accepted a tenure-track position at the College of the Holy Cross. In 2018, Andre was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure. In addition to teaching courses in Organic Chemistry, Andre conducts research utilizing copper-mediated organic transformations. He is one of the members of Outfront - the college's LGBTQ faculty and staff alliance and serves as faculty advisor to a number of campus student groups.

Part 2: Engineer Joey Jefferson doesn’t feel like he belongs in science as a Black bisexual man.

Joey Jefferson is a flight systems engineer at JPL operating the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) and NEOWISE spacecrafts. Prior to his current position, he worked with NASA and foreign space agencies conceptualizing, negotiating, implementing and monitoring their antenna strategies over the Deep Space Network. An international award winning pianist, as well as singer and clarinetist, music will always be near and dear to his heart.

Episode Transcript

Part 1

My story begins 23 years ago not in chilly Boston but in sunny Kingston, Jamaica. I was leaving my chemistry class in high school and I was feeling pretty chilly inside because I just did really poorly on a chemistry exam.

Now, you might wonder why would a high school kid care this much about doing really well on a chemistry exam? Well, you see, growing up in Jamaica, we were all told that education was our ticket out of poverty. It was our way to elevate ourselves and our families to get beyond the cycle that was, for many, unbreakable.

And here I was, sitting outside my classroom, unable to calculate how many moles there were in 10 grams of aluminum.

I went home. I told my mom. I said, “I'm sorry but I don't think I'm gonna be able to do well in chemistry or make this family proud.”

André Isaacs performs his story at Turtle Swamp Brewing in Boston, MA in November, 2022. Photo by: Kate Flock.

And she said, “Hush. Hush, child. I am going to call your uncle. He will save you.”

My uncle was my father's brother. My father really wasn't present in my life. He wrote a check every few months to my mother to support my sister and I.

And my uncle, his brother, was well loved by my father's side of the family. See, he had dropped out of medical school because he wanted to be an educator and he started this this evening school for continuing education for adults and high school kids to help them complete their high school education. I had to go to my uncle's class in the evening after school the following week to start learning how to do chemistry.

So, I went. I walked into the classroom and there he was, standing in front. But what was really neat was not only was he standing in front but he was making everyone laugh. Everyone was having a great time and I wondered, “Is this a chemistry classroom?” They all were having just a fantastic time.

He came over. He said to me, “I am just so happy you are here and I really hope you participate in the joy of this community.”

That day, we were learning about oxidation and he decided to share his opinion that Jesus was not given vinegar intentionally. They actually gave him an old bottle of alcohol that just so happened to oxidize to acetic acid, which is the main component in vinegar.

And I was like, “That actually does make sense.” That was my introduction to oxidation reactions. I will never forget that ethanol goes through acetic acid.

I developed this love for chemistry in his class. And the love for chemistry I developed wasn't because I needed to do it to save my family. It was because it was something I wanted to do.

And so I got really close to my uncle. It was the first time in my life I had a male father figure around. I was there every day spending time with him.

I also just found a community in a classroom of people who shared a love for science and that was what kept us together. Unlike in high school when my friends or classmates made fun of me because I wasn't masculine enough and I wasn't like hitting on all the girls, I was in a community where I felt like I belonged.

And so the night before our big Caribbean‑wide exam, we were all at my uncle's high school. By this time, half my class was coming with me to get chemistry help in the evenings at my uncle's education school.

So, we were there the night before, working problems, having a great time. This much fun should not be had in a chemistry classroom. And at midnight, my uncle said, “That's it. We're done. You are all ready.”

So we all left. He decided to take one student home. She lived in a really bad neighborhood and he was worried about her safety so he said, “I'm gonna take her home. The rest of you have rides. Good luck. See you all tomorrow. Break a leg.” And so we went home.

The next morning, I got up, went to my exam. I was really excited waiting outside the classroom. They hadn't opened the rooms yet. I was like, “Let's go,” and my phone started ringing. I looked at my phone. I'm like, “Why is my uncle's fiancé calling me? Did he have something else he needed to say?”

So I answered the phone and she was crying. I said, “Dorith, Dorith, calm down. What is going on?”

She said, “Andre, your uncle was murdered on his way back from taking that student home.”

I was devastated. I was shocked. I went from hopeful to helpless in that moment. I did not know what to do. I sat in that exam room. I failed in a spectacular fashion. My dreams were shattered.

I did not go on to college that year. I got an acceptance at a university in Jamaica. I deferred my acceptance to figure myself out. I got really angry in the following months because there was no justice for my uncle. No one wanted to testify because they feared for their lives. So I decided I was leaving Jamaica.

I applied to colleges in the US and I landed in Worcester, Massachusetts at the College of the Holy Cross. I decided to give chemistry another shot.

I took my first exam. I was really nervous. And then my professor emailed me and said, “You need to come to my office.”

I was like, “Oh, no. I'm failing my uncle.”

I went to his office and he said, “You are a star.”

I said, “Really?”

He's like, “You did extremely well on this exam. “ He's like, “You should take this upper level class and you should think about going to graduate school.”

In that moment, everything turned. I once again had the hope that I had lost. Someone believed in me.

I kept doing well in classes and I went on to do my PhD in the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Things are going very well. I did so well on my first exam. I was loving the community I was building and the friends that I made. My sister came to visit me from Jamaica. We spent so much time. I came out to her, the first person I came out to.

And she said, “Do not tell your mother. She is so conservative Christian. You know she's not going to be happy.”

I was like, “I'm not gonna tell her. It's fine.”

We took pictures. She met my then boyfriend. We took some pictures and she left, went back home to Jamaica.

A few days later, my mother called me crying. She had found the pictures on my sister's camera, not iPhone, you know. We actually used cameras back then. And she told me, she's like, “You are no child of mine. You need to repent. You need to find Jesus.” She sent me Bible verses every day for the next year.

I had uncles who stopped talking to me, relatives who didn't communicate with me at all. I lost a lot of friends and I fell into a deep depression. My work started suffering, graduate school.

And there's been this recurring theme in my life where mentors have really helped me up when I was down. My PhD advisor saw that I was struggling and he called me into my office and he said, “What is going on? You are not yourself.”

I told him all my struggles, what was happening, and he said, “I'm sending you to San Francisco. I have a collaborator there. Go. You're going for a month. I'm gonna book your hotel, your room. You're gonna work on stuff. Find yourself. And when you do, come back.”

I went to San Francisco. It was a great time. I learned a lot of chemistry. I met a lot of people. I came back and I finished my PhD. I did pretty well.

He connected me with a professor at University of California Berkeley so I could go back to California and I spent two years there doing my postdoctoral work.

Fast forward ten years later to 2021. I am now an associate professor of chemistry back on my alma mater, the College of the Holy Cross. I told my students that if they dressed up for Halloween, I would give them extra points. I walked into class and, surprisingly, 90% of them were dressed in Halloween gear.

We laughed. We danced. We vogued. We recorded TikToks. We posted them online and we've been building a community ever since, one that welcomes everyone. One that makes every student feel comfortable.

After that lecture, I went back to my office and I looked through the window and I said, “Dear Uncle, I hope I made you proud.”

Thank you.

Part 2

Early on in my life, I saw the world as a collection of boxes. Everyone had their place and, unfortunately, I didn't really fit into any of them.

As a Black man who grew up in environments where I was usually the only Black man in the room and a bisexual person on top of that, my identity and belonging was always questioned, I felt.

Joey Jefferson shares his story in a backyard in Los Angeles in October 2022. Photo by Mari Provencher.

“You're not really Black.” “Bi now, gay later.” “This is just a phase.” I heard these statements quite often. I wasn't aware but these opinions, which I should have just ignored, profoundly affected me in my early 20s.

Amid of all this identity fun, I was given an amazing internship with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Spitzer Space Telescope. The spacecraft needs its infrared eyes to peek at galaxies, nebulae and exoplanets as far as 13,000 light years away. It was magical.

The job gave me a chance to learn how we sequence or program spacecraft how to respond to alarms, antenna communications and much more.

But deep down, again, I felt I didn't belong. These people went to MIT. I went to Cal Poly Pomona. I was a math major, they majored in aerospace engineering. The feeling of exclusion began to creep up again and led me down a dark depression in a place literally focused on light.

After some time, this feeling began to dominate my thoughts every day. I assumed people thought less of me as I walked down the halls and could hear snickering at my lack of knowledge in computer science, even though I was determined to learn.

In retrospect, the odds of this actually happening was very low, but when you have low self‑esteem, it can feel like the world is against you when it's not.

I began to see and expect negativity everywhere. And, after a night of drinking with some friends to escape this reality, I went back home darker than ever.

I cried out to the world in anger, “Why didn't I belong anywhere?”

So I made a decision to leave this dark place forever. I took every pill in the house I could find and, in the end, just waited for what's next knowing that I might not wake up again. Surprisingly, I felt peace, even though deep down I knew it was exactly the opposite.

I woke up in a hospital room with my sister praying by my side. I was told I was going to be committed for 72 hours, which meant I was going to be hospitalized, unable to leave until doctors were convinced I wasn't going to hurt myself again.

Following the hold, I began to start intensive therapy, which did help, but that feeling of not belonging persisted. I couldn't shake it.

After a few months, I was meeting to discuss my career with my supervisor. I was 99% positive I was going to be fired. Commanding spacecraft takes mental fortitude and I let it be known that I was struggling mentally.

When the day of the meeting came, it felt like time slowed down as I got out of my car and walked to her office. Einstein would be proud to know my inertial frame of reference was different from my peers nearby. And I'm not going to get into the theory relativity but that was actually kind of funny. It was.

I still remember the smell of the flowers and that there was not a cloud in the sky. I wanted to take everything in because I didn't know if I'd ever be on JPL's beautiful campus again.

I entered my supervisor's office sweating bullets. A picture of her family sat behind her chair. And, as she closed the door, the quiet was deafening. Each of her footsteps back to her desk matched my heart beating out of my chest.

I said, “Hello,” and immediately apologized for any headache I caused. She said it was okay and glad I got the help that I needed, but it was time to talk business.

She said, “We need to take you off the Spitzer Mission,” and my heart immediately sank. I had been gone for too long and they needed to find someone else to monitor the spacecraft.

To my surprise, she said, “We found a place for you, though, on the Cassini Mission and you'll begin training next week.”

I was dumbfounded. In that moment, I knew how special of an opportunity I'd been given regardless if I felt I belonged or not. I was here now. The second chance meant everything to me.

An average of 890 million miles away from Earth, Cassini was on a mission to explore Saturn and its diverse moons. Moons like Enceladus with water jets spewing from a global ocean within cracks of its ice crust or Titan with oceans and rivers of methane surrounded by beautiful canyons.

When I joined, Cassini was in its final year of her voyage to Saturn, so NASA pulled out all the stops. Picture mission control from the movies. Everything felt historic on this mission. My role would be on the real‑time operations team watching over Cassini as it downlinked data, entered alarms, experienced issues with NASA's deep space network and more.

And after that year, Cassini was tasked to perform something no other spacecraft had ever attempted known as Cassini's Grand Finale. After a series of 22 dives between Saturn and her rings, Cassini would crash and disintegrate into Saturn's atmosphere. This was chosen as an end of mission because Cassini exhausted all of its propellant during its 20‑year mission. Crashing into Saturn ensured Saturn's potentially life‑supporting moons were protected from Cassini, and the data collected as it touched Saturn would be groundbreaking.

So on September 15 2017, the grand finale arrived. The entire flight team was invited to sit on console as the last bits of data were emitted by Cassini. The visitors area and the mission control room was star‑studded and it seemed every news outlet in the world was focused in the room that we all sat in. Hundreds of Cassini's designers, scientists and engineers arrived at Caltech to witness Cassini's final moments.

The time trickled down slowly but surely. And at 10 seconds to go until atmospheric entry, you could hear a pin drop across all of JPL. Everyone was focused on their telemetry and data. And, out of propellant, Cassini was on her own.

Finally, we lost the signal. Cassini successfully crashed into Saturn. Tears flowed and hugs were given as Cassini gave her last breath, and I smiled to the rest of the flight team aware that we had a small part into something that was so amazing.

All of a sudden, I wanted to be here again, in the science community, in Cassini's community, the Black community, the LGBTQIA‑plus community, and eventually just all of humanity. I did belong. And, more importantly, I was more than my mistakes.

So, I experienced two lifechanging events that year. Personally, I was able to gain confidence in who I am and celebrate all parts of me regardless of the opinions of others. Professionally, Cassini cemented my love for spacecraft operations. Both Cassini's Grand Finale and my newfound confidence were 20 years in the making.

I now know that there are no boxes. And, just like the moons of Saturn, we are all unique, needed and belong.