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VOICEOVER: This is Alumni Aloud, a podcast by Graduate Center students for Graduate Center students. In each episode, we talk with the GC graduate about their career path, the ins and outs of their current position, and the career advice they have for students. This series is sponsored by the Graduate Center’s Office of Career Planning & Professional Development.

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HILARIE ASHTON, HOST: My name is Hilarie Ashton and I’m an English PhD candidate at the Graduate Center. Today I’m interviewing Jiye Son, who graduated from the Chemistry program with her PhD in Nanotechnology and Materials Chemistry in 2019. Currently she is the Associate Director for the Nanoscience Initiative and the ASRC Sensor CAT at the Grad Center’s own Advanced Science Research Center.

So, what do you do for a living?

JIYE SON, GUEST: So, I work at the CUNY Advanced Science Research Center as the associate director for both the nanoscience initiative and the sensor CAT.

ASHTON: And what’s your academic background?

SON: I have a PhD in materials chemistry and nanotechnology from the Graduate Center and a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Stony Brook University.

ASHTON: Can you describe nanotechnology in relatively layperson terms, for those who might not know what it is?

SON: I was thinking about this last night: how I could explain it in the most, the way that makes sense for everyone. So nanoparticles are very small particles that are about 10 to a hundred nanometers in diameter. So, the diameter of your single hair strand is about a hundred micrometer, which means that’s about a thousand to ten thousand times larger than a nanoparticle. So then, so to put that to scale, that’s like comparing the height of a small person, like my nephew, who’s like three feet tall, to Mount Everest, which is about 30,000 ft tall. So that’s the scale of difference.

ASHTON: Wow! That really is a very evocative comparison [that makes a lot more sense to me than the research I did. That helps a lot.

SON: And with that small size, they have these incredible properties because of the size range that they are in, which makes them really useful in different types of application, and one of the ones that I wanted to bring up is the COVID vaccine that, you know, everyone knows about. So the active component of the vaccine is the mRNA. But what gets the vaccine, the mRNA, into the cell safely is a lipid nanoparticle that coats the mRRA, so that’s how nanoparticles are used in real life applications today.

ASHTON: Oh wow. So they’re literally keeping us safe. (Laughs)

SON: Yup!

ASHTON: That’s amazing. I love thinking of–I’m a humanities person, but I love thinking of science in that very direct way, of, like how it’s operational in our lives in ways that we don’t know about, or some of us don’t know about.

SON: Right

ASHTON: That’s so great. So what does a typical workday look like for you?

SON: So a typical workday, I would say, every day is really different, of course, but typically I would have maybe two to three meetings a day. I spend a lot of time in front of my computer responding to email. Not my favorite thing, but it has to be done. And then–

ASHTON: Why is there always more?

SON: (Laughs) Exactly. And then I like to carve out time to work on specific projects, whatever we’re working on at the time, so whether that’s working on a grant application or drafting an article for publication, planning out events like large symposiums that we’re planning for next April or working out logistics to implement, like, new projects. So we are going to set up a collaboration with LifeSci NYC to set up internships for undergraduate students, so that is something that hasn’t been done before, and so we have to set up the logistics to do that. And so, every day is a little bit different and working on multiple things at the same time and trying to push it out forward.

ASHTON: Mm hmm. And keeping track of different kinds of moving parts, it sounds like? Different projects?

SON: Right.

ASHTON: That’s great, um, and so I guess the virtual aspect of the last year and a half has changed some of that workflow a bit.

SON: Yeah, so I would say definitely I didn’t used to get this many emails (Laughs) because I would always have my office door open and students, faculty, staff would just come in and ask me questions. And I could give them an answer on the spot, but now it’s like emails back and forth, multiple iterations, so that takes up a little bit more time.

ASHTON: That’s a, that’s a, very familiar — very familiar feeling.

SON: Yeah. (Laughs)

ASHTON: You are one of the first PhD candidates to complete your dissertation at the ASRC and I know that you also worked at Brooklyn, or were affiliated with Brooklyn college and MSKCC — can you talk about what that was like?

SON: Yeah, sure, I’d love to. So working at the ASRC, it was overall like a fantastic experience. I worked in Dr. Rein Ulijn’s lab, and in 2015 — well, he had come in 2014.

And he moved from the University of Strathclyde to set up his lab and also to work on building the nanoscience initiatives, so he’s the founding director there, and built the ASRC from the ground up. So when I first started working at the ASRC, the lab was totally empty. We didn’t have a lot of the instruments or even like glassware, to do the experiments, so it was a little bit difficult, just diving straight into the experiments that I wanted to set up. But I think it was still a really good experience, because then I learned what it’s like to set up a brand-new lab, what are the things I have to look out for.

And I remember one of the, I think maybe my second or third year, we had purchased a new instrument, and I went with the lab manager to the training site where the instrument is made, so it was for a DLS or like a zeta particle measurer, and we went to, I think, Virginia, maybe, to learn the technique and to learn more about the instrument, and then to make the decision to purchase it, and I came back with that knowledge to the lab, and was able to teach my labmates, like, this is how it’s done here, and these are the tips and tricks to use the instrument, so those are really good experiences that I don’t think I would have had if the lab was already established and set up.

And then, of course, the ASRC is known for our amazing core facilities and it’s really so convenient (Laughs) and makes, the researchers there kind of spoiled that we have all the high-end instruments that we need to do all our experiments in one building, and not only the instruments, but we have, like, the facility managers and the support staff who train the students, so I literally like had Dr. Tong Wang, he was, he is the facility manager for the imaging suite in the Nanoscience Initiative, and I would just grabbed it and be like, please don’t leave, just stay here until I feel comfortable to use the instrument on my own, because it’s a very expensive equipment (Laughs), and I don’t want to break it, and they’re really kind and very knowledgeable and so patient with the students, too, so I don’t think, like, there are many academic places like that where I could have gotten that experience.

And then you mentioned Brooklyn College and MSK, so, the ASRC is a place where we really, like — it is built on the idea of collaboration, of having multi-disciplinary research, so that’s how the building itself is designed, and so, when I was at the ASRC, we had Science Cafe in person, so every Friday, we would have donuts or like breakfast, and someone from each of the initiatives, so whether that’s the nanoscience, photonics, structural bio neuroscience, or environmental science, one person would come and speak about their research in layman’s terms, so that everyone in the building can understand.

And so it was a really good way to learn what others do, and in addition to, like, within the building collaboration, we try to do a lot of collaborations with different CUNY campuses. And so that’s why my dissertation project was actually a collaboration between Dr. Rein Ulijn’s lab and Dr. Maria Contel at Brooklyn College, so they — so Dr. Contel, her lab synthesizes anti-cancer compounds, and–

ASHTON: Oh wow.

SON: Yeah, at Brooklyn College, and what she was trying to do is use nanoparticles, like the ones I talked about with the COVID vaccines, to protect these compounds, so that they can get to the cancer cells safely, and also, so that it can kill the cancer cells, instead of killing the healthy cells, so that would reduce the side effects that a lot of the chemotherapy has.

And so that was the end goal, and so it made perfect sense to collaborate with researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and so my PhD was running around in three different areas of the city. (Laughs) I would be in Harlem, the Upper East Side, Brooklyn.

ASHTON: The CUNY way! (Laughs)

SON: And the Graduate Center. But it was a really great experience. I got to meet a lot of people, make a lot of friends, and yeah, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

ASHTON: Wow, that’s fantastic, just, it sounds like the experience was so, you know, formative and taught you so much about collaboration, and I love the focus on interdisciplinarity. Can you explain a little more about how that works?

SON: Sure, so, OK, I went to a seminar, I think it was last Friday, or maybe two weeks before — I also don’t have a sense of time anymore — and it was looking at how a lot of the times, you know, diseases, so, for instance, like autism, people believe that it is caused by genetics, or even cancer people think that, there’s a lot of evidence, that it’s genetics, right, but there’s another area of looking at things which is that it’s not just about your genetics, but it’s the environment that people live in.

ASHTON: Mmmm hmm.

SON: So looking at it from a holistic approach, where it’s not only your genetics, but the type of chemicals that you’re exposed to, the type of environment you’re exposed to, the things that you eat, or the lifestyle that you have, and it’s just being able to look at problems and i’m more of a holistic approach and, yes, in that sense it’s a lot harder to study and it’s a lot harder to measure because the variables are, there are so many variables, but it is the more comprehensive way to look at it, and I think if you have disciplines that are just so separated, it’s harder to solve the problems. You can solve the problems looking at one point of view but it’s –what is that analogy, you know, like the blind men, with, touching different parts of–

ASHTON: Oh, the elephant!

SON: Exactly, so when you have interdisciplinary research, it’s being able to put the whole story together and find the common, you know, find the solution. And the most effective way, and when we get to a point like that, I get so excited! I’m like, this is it, this is it, this is how we bring everyone together and talk about it and actually come up with awesome scientific solutions.

I think the humanities side — you know, it does seem kind of removed from the scientific side. But really once it merges together, like, that’s how we solve real problems, right, so you have to consider public health when you consider all these different environments.

Of course people living in different areas of New York City even are going to be exposed to different things, so we really do need a good, a better way to have these discussions between humanities and sciences as well, I think.

ASHTON: Absolutely, yeah, and just, the social — like, the structural and social impacts on different communities, the impact of, you know, racism and classism on health outcomes, um, which were — I think a lot of people really saw that in a clearer way in this COVID crisis and how it hit the city.

SON: Yeah, for sure.

ASHTON: So how did you come to this job and what was the search process like?

SON: So (Laughs) actually, I came to this job in a pretty serendipitous way.

ASHTON: We love that.

SON: (Laughs) Yeah. When I was writing up my dissertation and kind of getting prepared to finish, the associate director at the time was going on maternity leave. So she was going on maternity leave, she needed help with, you know, the things that are most urgent and kind of needed to be done during her absence, so I stepped in at the time, because I was graduating and I had — because I had experience with like setting up the lab and helping out with those tasks, I think it was easier for me to transition into some of the things that she was doing.

And so I did that for a few months, and when she came back from maternity leave, she actually was promoted to the director of operations position at the ASRC, so then the associate director position was vacant, and so I, you know, after a few months, I was like, okay, this — I kind of like this. And so I applied for the permanent position and went through the search process through the Graduate Center and then I was hired for the job.

ASHTON: Getting sort of that time to think about whether you wanted to stay, like, having a little bit of a — well, I guess your feet were already wet, but in the job, to get to kind of think, do I want to do this.

SON: Exactly. I think, had I not had that opportunity I wouldn’t have known to apply for a position like this. I would have said — because from the outside, you don’t really know exactly the day to day things that you have to do.

ASHTON: Sure.

SON: So it was a really good opportunity for me and serendipitous, yes, but it really worked out. (Laughs)

ASHTON: That’s so great. So it sounds like maybe — we’ll get to a little bit of job search tips and advice, but it sounds like maybe implicit in that is, if you think you’re not qualified, maybe apply.

SON: (Laughs) Yeah.

ASHTON: You know, if you meet certain number of the requirements, maybe apply and see what happens.

SON: Mm hmm.

ASHTON: That’s great. What part of your job or parts of your job energize you the most?

SON: So I was thinking about this one, and it’s gonna be a long answer, Hilarie. (Laughs)

ASHTON: (Laughs) We have time!

SON: So the first thing that came to mind, there’s a couple of things, the first thing that came to my mind is that this semester, in fall 2021, we just piloted a course on entrepreneurship and tech transfer for STEM graduate students.

So, yeah, the course is designed as a collaboration with faculty from Baruch College, so they’re business faculty from Baruch college, who have the expertise in, you know, business models and customer discovery and all that, and in collaboration with scientists like Rian, who is the co-instructor. And so the course is meant to teach students to think about different ways to commercialize the invention that you make in the lab and put them out in a real-world setting, as well as expose them to different career paths that you can take, that’s not just an academic path, and I think that part is really what excites me.

So, we also put in a training grant to the NSF earlier this year, and training grant was to kind of reimagine or like reshape a little bit of the traditional PhD training, which really prepares you to work in a lab or work in an academic setting, but, in reality, most students who graduate are not going to get an academic position, they’re not going to become a tenured faculty. And so, it’s really rethinking about, like what are the transferable skills, what are the technical skills that students need to learn, so that, once they graduate they can be — they’re more employable. What are the industry employers looking for and also training the students to think about entrepreneurship, because I think it’s just so cool, and it’s — it’s really exciting to think something that you make yourself in the lab can be something that can help other people in the world. Like, that’s such an honor and it’s so exciting.

And then also participating in internships, so other programs like, if you think about — even business school: students go through an internship so that they know, they have the hands-on experience on what it’s like to go out into the workforce. So I think internships like that for STEM students would also be really helpful, so it’s about — I get really excited about thinking about how to shape the PhD program in a way that would benefit the students. Because I feel very fortunate to have gotten my PhD from CUNY, and I had an excellent training and, but there are things that I feel like, I wish I would have learned, while I was there, and so, if I have the opportunity to include that in their training now, then I will be doing the service now, and it’s something that really — it humbles me and really inspires me to do that; yeah.

ASHTON: I think that’s such a beautiful way that — the service aspect of thinking about, I guess, any kind of training, but especially academic training — this, this idea of infusing it with what you learned, because otherwise it’s static, you know.

SON: Mmm hmm.

ASHTON: Otherwise people are just doing things the same way they always have. I really like that, like, responsiveness of it.

SON: Right, for sure, it’s like, the demands are changing now and the technology is changing, so the technical skills that we have to learn change. And even the transferable skills that we have to learn change; a lot of things are virtual and so these are virtual skills you need to have as well.

ASHTON: So you alluded to this, but it’s actually next on my list of questions: what do you know now that you wish you had known as a grad student?

SON: Mmm, I think, I wish I knew to ask for help when I need it.

ASHTON: Mmm.

SON: I grew up kind of like fending for myself, and I think a lot of students at CUNY also. So I’m a first-generation immigrant and I’m also the first generation to pursue higher education and, you know, I had a job since high school, all the way through college and we just, you know — I grew up not so well off and also like just not being able to ask for help. And I feel like a lot of CUNY students can relate to that because I see it.

And I would say, you should ask for help when you need it, because now being on the other side, I really wish that students would ask for help more proactively, instead of when things have gone off the rails (Laughs) you know, before it goes off the rails, you should ask for help.

ASHTON: I say that to my students, like, I can understand why you might not believe this, but I really am here to help. Like I want to help, but I can’t help unless I know what’s going on, so you do have to tell me some of what’s going on. (Laughs)

SON: Absolutely.

ASHTON: And that does apply to graduate students too.

SON: Yeah, and that applies for, you know, not just research, not just, like, schoolwork, but things that are even going on in your personal life. Like the Graduate Center has the Wellness Center and, like other mental health services that I took advantage of when I was a graduate student, it was really stressful, you know? (Laughs)

I also struggled with depression, since I was younger, so I knew that I needed that help, and it was — I didn’t really proactively look for help, and I wish that I had so that I could have prevented some of the more stressful things that happened.

ASHTON: That’s good to hear because, yeah, I think, maybe a little less so in recent years, but in some ways there’s not enough discussion in academic circles about supporting your own mental health in these bigger ways that go beyond you, you know, like reaching out.

SON: Yeah. I guess, unexpectedly, with COVID, mental health awareness became very forefront of everyone’s mind, because it was just a stressful time. In a good way, I think that did increase the awareness, for students and even staff to say, look, I need help, let me go find out what I can get, what are the resources.

ASHTON: That’s a great point. Asking for help is hard.

SON: It’s very hard.

ASHTON: And so I just, I really appreciate that you talked about that, because I think, you know, that’s one of those, like, oh, just don’t be so anxious, it’s like —

SON: (Laughs) And I think that’s something that I’m still learning to do; it doesn’t come intuitively to me that I should ask for help, I struggled with it for a bit and then it’s like, I really need to give in and ask for help. (Laughs) It doesn’t have to be that way.

ASHTON: Mm hmm. Yeah, and again, I think that’s a great thing to model for, you know, anyone you might be mentoring, or for students, especially to you know sort of — sometimes to say it, but other in other ways, I guess, to show that that’s what part of what you’re there to help them with.
SON: Yeah.

ASHTON: It’s a great answer. What traits or interests might be useful for someone to have who’s going into your field?

SON: So my field, like higher education administration, I would say, if you’re going into an education field, you should like, or would want to, serve others. And my — and most people, I think, in education, you’re serving the students. You’re really there to serve the students, make sure they get the best training, make sure they get the best education, so that once they graduate they’re ready for the workforce; they’re ready for what life brings next and.

You have to have the mentality that you’re there to serve the school, the community, everyone there; otherwise it’s going to feel like there’s a million things to do, and you don’t know why you have to do it. (Laughs) You’re doing it to serve others. And, with that, I think you can have like a niche focus or a niche interest that you like. So for me, entrepreneurship is something that I get excited about, but I know other people at work, who are super into community engagement or into making collaborations with other universities, creating different scientific centers with different universities, or maybe hosting large global symposiums. So, all these things that you’re curious about or have interest in can definitely be applied to this field.

ASHTON: What professional skills would you recommend that people have?

SON: The number one professional skill — this is, like, technical skills you’re asking for, right? This is not highly technical, but it is organization. If you are really low organized then it’s easier to prioritize what needs to be done it’s easier to manage your time, so that you can meet the deadlines, and that you can manage multiple projects that are going on at the same time, but without that organization skill, I would think it will be harder to do all those things.

And so organization would be my number one, and then the second, probably other people might argue it’s the other way, but communication. Because you really can’t do anything by yourself.

ASHTON: Yeah.

SON: So you have to learn to communicate, you know your vision, of course, and then you also have to learn to listen to other people’s vision and to communicate expectations from each other. So yeah, I’d say organization and communication, even though they seem like very small things, they are highly, highly valuable skills. (Laughs)

ASHTON: So, I know that you did not work at Estee Lauder for a super long time, but I’m — my sort of antenna went up, because of my skincare and makeup obsessions. So could you talk a little bit about the safety and toxicology work you did at Estee Lauder?

SON: Sure, so I also love skincare and makeup, and so I was really excited to work there. And in the, the department that I worked in, what they assess is literally the safety and the toxicology of the ingredients that go in to the products.

And in the E.U., they have strict regulations in comparison to the U.S., where cosmetics isn’t really regulated. So, in order for these products to be sold in the E.U., they had to have all these profiles. So they had to have a list of all of the ingredients that are listed and the toxicology reports on all of them, and so that’s what we were putting together at the time, so that was a project that me and my coworkers were working on.

ASHTON: Oh wow. So the products are the same for the different markets, but the E.U., requires more information about the safety of what’s in it.

SON: Exactly. I’m sure the files were then, you know, used to give detail about the products in the U.S. as well, but they weren’t required so really, the company was doing this as part of the regulation, they had to meet for the E.U.

ASHTON: Oh, that’s fascinating. We could do a whole other hour on skincare.

SON: We can. (Laughs)

ASHTON: Okay, big question. What do you think is the future of your field?

SON: The future of higher education administration. (Laughs) I think that has to change, again, with the changing times of what students need to learn, and we can’t — academia is very stiff and rigid and sort of hard to change, but if it doesn’t, then the students aren’t going to be prepared for what’s to come. And so, I think the future of our field is to adapt to the demands and change the curriculum, change the training programs.

ASHTON: This was really wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences, your advice, your wisdom with our listeners.

SON: Thank you, Hilarie, for asking me to speak!

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