Smitha Yerrum

I attribute my success to my family and my friends for their continuous support and encouragement. I also credit my willingness to get things done and being proactive about things. I think having that curious mind, always asking why and how, has been crucial. Since growing up, I always ask why is that, why is this. People would tell me I ask too many questions, but I need to know why. Those traits of being determined, curious, and asking questions are what I would say have contributed to my success.

The best career advice I ever received was to never shy away from opportunities and to take everything as a challenge. Don't underestimate your strengths. I had a great example of this when I started my career transition from being a lab technician to lab manager. I wasn't sure about it, and I told my boss I can't do administrative work, I'm not that person. He told me, no, I'm sure you can do it, take it as a challenge, go face the demons, your inner demons, and see what happens. He said until you walk the walk, you'll never know. Having mentors like that who can tell you and guide you to go face it head on was wonderful advice. Once I was into it, I realized, hey, I can do this. I can do science, I can do management also.

I would tell young women entering this industry to not go in with any preconceived notions about how the work is going to be. Just go with a clear head, like a clear slate in hand. Walk in and see if you can do the job and the task at hand, and most importantly, see if you enjoy doing it. That's the main thing. Until you enjoy your job, if you're not happy with what you're doing, it's not worth it. I also tell them to explore and see if it works for them. Lab operations is not for everyone because you need to have certain people skills. If you're not able to deal with different people every single day in and out, then that's not for you. If you're somebody who wants to just sit behind a desk and do your own work and be out after 5 o'clock, you can't do it. So just go explore it and see if it works for you. Until you do it, you'll never know.

There are so many opportunities in my field right now. You just have to have that dream and imagination. People can get into drug discovery, personalized therapy, gene editing. The science is evolving as we speak, and the technology, especially with AI coming into the picture, has drastically changed things. I keep telling people, especially the girl I'm mentoring right now, that you need to get into coding. I have learned coding and I do coding. I can write code, do some programming and algorithms. Those are things I keep telling people to learn, to go out of your comfort zone and learn something that challenges yourself. With AI, a lot of opportunities have opened, but it's also a little scary because you wonder if AI is taking over our roles. You never know, but just be prepared for that. The challenges include making sure we maintain human oversight, which is very important. The machine will do it, but you still need a human to verify it, to make sure it is following all the compliance rules, how the documentation is done, to make sure whatever the AI spits out is correct. You still have to read the report and review it. Some people are shying away from implementing AI, and I say no, don't shy away, use it, but use it with good judgment and know the ways you should use it and where you should not use it.

Having very trustworthy relationships is important to me, along with having clarity and focus, and transparent and honest, open communication with your team members and with people you collaborate with. I think that opens up a lot of opportunities and also creates a safe environment where people can share their ideas and you can work as a team, achieving your goals and milestones that you set for yourself and for your team. It helps in growth. Communication is the topmost value for me. Until I can communicate clearly, things can't work. I keep telling people at work and also at home, if you don't tell me, communicate clearly what's bothering you, or if you're happy, or sad, or whatever it is, I can't read your mind. So please communicate that with me. I say the same thing at work. Just having that clear communication channel, open channels, just makes everything easier, and everything can be sorted out and resolved at the end of the day if two people just sit across from the table and discuss anything and everything.