Gordon

When I was in middle school, I really loved the Barenaked Ladies album, "Gordon." One song I still very much enjoy is "Brian Wilson." From time to time, if I'm feeling vaguely melancholy, I'll put on that song. "You can call me Pavlov's dog," I'll sing.

I’m thinking about this album because I’ve spent this past week at a “Gordon” conference on neural development, in Newport, Rhode Island, learning about recent and exciting neurodevelopmental research. We’re not supposed to discuss any of the science we learned at this conference, as it’s all cutting-edge, unpublished, top-secret stuff. Apparently the first rule of the Gordon conference is that you don’t talk about the Gordon conference. This is a rule that I am about to break. “You say you think there’s a traitor among us,” the Barenaked Ladies might say. 

Last Sunday, I waited in a lounge in the Embassy Suites for a bus to take me to the conference center. I was typing merrily away on my computer, when an old man came up to me. “Do you work here?” he asked. I did not, I assured him; I was a bona fide scientist. But I still helped him figure out how to get his bus ticket and how to log onto the wifi network. After that, we were friends.

And you really need friends at these conferences because they are quite intense. Everyone seems to be friends and enemies, collaborators and competitors, all at the same time. It generates, in my opinion, a tense atmosphere that is overlaid with a somewhat disingenuous camaraderie. You can tell that there is a shared passion and love for science, but there is also a commonly held fear that at any moment the scientific machine will spit you out. For me, at least, it’s an incredibly complex emotional landscape. It almost makes you want so spend the week, “lying in bed, just like Brian Wilson did.”

Of course I didn’t spend the week lying in bed (partly due to the fact that no matter what I did to the thermostat, my room stayed at 65F the entire time). I went to all the talks, and I participated in and overheard many conversations about the world of science. Many of these conversations were a little disquieting. For instance, I overheard a woman who had just started her own lab speaking with a postdoctoral fellow. “The interview process is exhausting,” she warned him. “Setting up your lab is exhausting. Make sure you have the emotional reserves.”

In another case, I was having lunch with a bunch of scientists, including an Australian who was two years into having his own lab. “My first year with my lab was the worst of my life,” he told us. “I was sick all the time, both physically and mentally. I was always at the doctor or psychiatrist.” The rest of us at the table stared blankly at him for a moment, not sure what to say. Suddenly he grinned and said, “Sorry to be so bleak. Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?”

There were so many other examples of these types of stories, including a graduate student who told me that all the non-tenured neural development faculty at his institution had been abruptly fired, and a University of Chicago postdoc who divulged that her graduate PI was “broken” when he didn’t get tenure. “Science is a harsh mistress,” I remarked at one point to a table of graduate students and postdocs. They laughed and nodded in agreement, and we all sipped thoughtfully on our diet cokes.

One nice thing about this conference is that we had “free time” scheduled every afternoon between 1:30 and 4pm. I spent a lot of this time with Sarah, a postdoc from the University of Chicago. We toured one of the Newport mansions, the Breakers, once owned by the Vanderbilt family. We both agreed that the overwhelmingly ornate décor made us uneasy – it seemed unwelcoming and over-the-top. For example, over one doorway there were carved cherubs sitting in front of a steam train, and one of the cherubs was holding an anchor and a railroad spike. This confluence of classical architecture with the romanticism of industrialization was a little terrifying. “What have we done and what are we continuing to do to this planet,” I wondered.

Walking along the ocean was by far the most pleasant aspect of this scientific vacation. One afternoon, I went on a long solo quest along the “cliff walk.”  I peeked into tide pools, and eventually came to a pristine beach with beautiful white sand. The light was glittering on the waves, which reminded me of a children’s story I used to love. It was about these beings called the “glitz,” which are born from the sun, and spend the day dancing on ocean waves only to die with the setting of the sun.  I couldn’t resist rolling up my pants and wading in, experiencing a brief moment of bliss.

Speaking of bliss, I learned at this conference that I still love science. Not every talk at this particular conference was fascinating, but I love the scientific method, I love the crazy new techniques that these top institutions are developing, and I think that furthering the overall knowledge of our species is incredibly rewarding. I’m not surprised that so many people want to do this as a career, and I think it’s so important to train people to think scientifically.

But I also decided that a career at one of these top R01 grant institutions would likely break me. Those who have made it, who have tenured positions at top institutions, seem incredibly happy. They have the freedom and money to research anything they want, and they have the undying respect of everyone in their fields. But the path to that point is fraught with so much peril and, given the problems I’ve had with anxiety and depression, I worry that I would be unhappy pushing my way towards the top of the scientific heap.

I’m still staying in the world of science, however. Science media, writing, and editing are a few exciting career opportunities. This conference gave me the opportunity to speak with editors from Neuron, Nature Neuroscience, and Development, and my friend from the Embassy Suites has a son who works as an editor for Developmental Cell. Yay networking! I’ve also come to think that working at a smaller institute, like a liberal arts college, could be a great path for me. In addition, it’s possible to continue working in science as a “research professional,” which is a less stressful way to stay in research. Learning about these so-called “alternative” careers gives me a great deal of hope for the future. There are so many ways to serve science other than being an R01 researcher.

So thank you, Gordon, for this new perspective, for the beaches, for the mansions, and for the people. And I’m so happy to be going home now.

"I don't think I need a rubber room, but that might be nice.
I'm not a manic depressive paranoid or schizophrenic
So I don't need your advice.
I am crazy just like you."