Priya Modi

I attribute my success to so many things. There's my family and the support they've given me. My life partner is a really big factor - I feel like we do things together, so we're supporting each other and we help each other. Then there's just hard work on my own part, keeping my head down and doing the work, and believing in myself and having faith that things will work out. I found that if you just work hard, opportunities just come up, and then it's just a matter of saying yes to things that come your way. But also, you know, it helps you get out of your shell. Sometimes new opportunities are scary, but I found that every new opportunity I've taken has always given me some experience or some wisdom. So not being afraid of new opportunities has been key. I also attribute a lot of my career successes to having a healthy mind, body, and soul, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and just being out in nature.

The best career advice I've received and want to share with everybody is to follow your passion. I know it's a little bit cliche, but in a more tangible, specific way, it means finding the things that make you really happy and enthused, and then trying to forge a career out of it. It takes a lot of goal setting and determination, but I find casting a very specific net is actually what worked for me in my career. It took a lot of time just finding out what I'm passionate about, and then casting a specific net for a very specific fish, which was medical illustration for me. I say there's a career for everybody, no matter what their passion is. It's always a tough job market, so one of the best things to make yourself stand out is to be very niche and specific in a certain area.

I would advise another young woman to not be afraid to talk to people. That's the number one thing that helped me in my career, and it took getting used to, obviously. When you're younger, you're kind of shy or more timid or intimidated. But I found that all the opportunities I've obtained are because I was brave enough to speak out about what I wanted out of my career and what skills I wanted to grow and develop. Whether that's reaching out to professors in university or reaching out to people in a career that was something I wanted to do one day, like a mentor, having those conversations really helps. You'll always get something out of it. Maybe it's telling you that you want to be doing something similar to them, or maybe you don't want to be doing something similar to them. You really learn from people, and then doors naturally might open up for you. Like, they might say, oh, I know a friend who's hiring for something and you sound good. But you never know.

The biggest challenge in this field is that because it's a very niche field, people in the industry don't know about it or literally don't know about this field or the skills that people like me have. This makes it a little bit difficult in terms of marketability. Personally speaking, I studied in Canada and then recently moved to the U.S., so coming from the Canada market, which is already a little small, and then going into the U.S. market with the degree I have was challenging. It's about explaining to people what I do for work and what skills I have. But I find usually that once you do communicate and people can see the work you do, they're impressed. So finding opportunities is a little bit challenging. I did have freelance work, which I was very grateful for, but having these specific roles that merge both science and art, I feel like I'm a little bit limited just because people don't know about it.

I really value clear communication, and I think that applies both in my work and my personal life and relationships. In my work, for example, I'm all the time communicating complex science and relaying information and channeling it into a different medium in a way that's understandable. One of my mentors used to say, clear is kind, unclear is unkind. So similarly, in my personal life, if you have something bothering you, the clearest, or sorry, the kindest way to go forward about it is to just be clear. And things work out if you can communicate well. You have to be aware of your audience when you're talking, and if you get that first step right, that's where things work out.