Her Story
About Kirsten
I started my journey thinking I would be an artist when I was young, but I ended up getting really into yoga and meditation, which completely changed my worldview and made me feel really good and happy. I was amazed that doing a seemingly simple physical practice - holding poses, breathing - was having such a profound mental effect on my mood and state of mind. This sparked my curiosity about the physical aspect of the mind and how doing physical things was affecting my mental state, which led me in the direction I am now. At first I wasn't totally sure what path to take - I considered teaching yoga, physical therapy, and took various classes in biology and nutrition before ending up in neuroscience. Now as a lecturer at Princeton, I work a lot with undergraduate students on one-on-one research opportunities, which I think is helpful because they don't always get that kind of attention. I also lead a monthly film night on campus where people vote for different movies, and I stay connected to the arts through museums and campus shows when I'm not doing science work.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Kirsten
01What do you attribute your success to?
I would attribute my success to perseverance and being really intrinsically passionate and motivated. It just comes from being so on fire for this thing - this is it, this is all I want to do. Whenever I look at anything else, I'm like, I couldn't possibly do that, like, this is it for me. I'm extremely passionate, and that causes me to be relentless. Sometimes when I have students asking if they should go to grad school, at the risk of being a little severe, I tell them if you could be happy in another career, you should do that. This is really hard, it's really long, it's really intense - you have to be just so passionate about it. That passion fuels me, like I have to keep doing it. It takes a whole community too - I have people who've been writing me recommendation letters for like 7 or 8 years. It's an immense amount of work to get to these kinds of places, so it really takes a village over many, many years.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
The most important quality is persistence and perseverance - everyone at a women in science event kept saying that when asked what matters most in a research assistant. Academia is such a long marathon, so you just have to ride the highs and lows and take a really long view. The people who stay are just relentless, basically, so you have to build some kind of resilience. It's also really helpful to find people you can go to when you have questions or you're in a tough spot - especially a female professor in your department or university. In graduate school you usually just have one professor, and if there's a problem with them it becomes very difficult, so it's helpful to have someone who's in the know, just a second ear, someone who doesn't control your paycheck or research but is kind of perpendicular to the rest of your stuff. If you're feeling burnt out or having issues, you can focus on other areas of your life or take a breather, be a little less invested for a few months and then come back - you don't have to fully leave. It's so easy for people's research to become their whole world, and as soon as the research is bad, it's like my world is terrible, my life is terrible, I have to change everything. But whenever you're going to make a big decision, I would say just give it like 6 months and then decide.
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