From bench to museum—an unlikely journey

Abstract

Deciding to “leave the bench” and basic research after committing many, many years to graduate school is not an easy thing to do. There is real pressure from peers, principal investigators (PIs), even parents, to stick it out and follow a more established career path, either to academia or the biotech industry. In my case, I realized fairly early on in graduate school that the traditional options were not areas I was interested in pursuing. I also felt strongly about how science was frequently misrepresented in popular culture and the media. The epiphany—that I was “okay” leaving basic research, despite not really knowing what else was out there—came late one night, in the cold room of all places. I trotted down the hall of our building and announced this to my friend and classmate (also working in a cold room) who was having similar thoughts herself. We highfived. We would support each other. We would be okay. Fast-forward 15 years. I now work at the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum in San Francisco, directing the museum’s Living Systems Department. In this essay, I discuss how I wound up at the Exploratorium and what it is like to work in a museum environment, creating science experiences for the general public.