The Nomadic Life of a Scientist

Aida Bakri: 0:00

Welcome to ESWI Airborne. In this series featuring our early career scientist community, we will talk about life as a scientist. This series is made possible thanks to the kind support of CSL, Seqirus and Sanofi.

Clare Taylor: 0:30

Welcome to ESWI Airborne, the podcast of the European Scientific Working Group on Influenza, otherwise known as ESWI. I'm your host, Clare Taylor, and this episode is one of a three-part series on life as a scientist, zooming in today on the international dimensions of a scientific career, and I'm very happy to welcome to ESWI Airborne three scientists to tell us all about it. Firstly, welcome to one of ESWI's early career scientists, Irene Gonzalez, who is a faculty instructor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. Hi, Irene.

Irene Gonzalez: 1:06

Hello Clare, good morning everyone.

And next up Nathan Brendish sorry, I should say Dr Nathan Brendish a clinical lecturer in infectious diseases and general internal medicine at the University of Southampton and the University Hospital Southampton in the UK. How are you today, Nathan? I will note you are also an ESWI early career scientist.

Nathan Brendish: 1:28

Thank you for having me. Very excited to talk to you today.

Okay brilliant. And finally, Florian Krammer, Mount Sinai Professor in Vaccinology at the Department of Microbiology, also at the Icahn School of Medicine in New York, ESWI board member definitely not an early career scientist, although you wouldn't think it to look at him, he's so fresh faced. Great to see you again, Florian.

Florian Krammer: 1:54

Hi, how's it going?

Oh, pretty good, pretty good, pretty good. So on the move, do you have to move a lot as a scientist, I mean, how many times have you relocated for professional reasons, Nathan?

So I've moved three times in my career, all within the UK. I started out at University College, London Medical School, then went to the West Midlands within England as a newly qualified doctor to work in hospitals in the cities of Coventry and Warwick. I then moved to Southampton, which is on the south coast of the UK, to work as a slightly less junior doctor. But even within Southampton I've moved around within institutions. So I've started out as a research physician doing malaria vaccine trials in our hospital's NIHR clinical research facility. Then I went on to do a PhD with a separate team looking at point of care testing for respiratory viruses and then, after my PhD and now with the pandemic, I've been seconded to what was Public Health England in North London. That was a very long commute and then later NHS Test and Trace, but that was the remote working.

Okay, well, it sounds like it's all going. How about you, Irene? You've moved a long way, haven't you?

Yeah, so I did my thesis in Spain, in Barcelona, in the Universitat Autonoma. So during my PhD I did two international stays: I went to Vienna, to Austria, to Bocco University, and then I did a second stay in Montreal, in Canada, and then, after I finished my PhD, then I moved to New York, where I'm still here after three years. But yeah, it's been all great experiences, especially since they've been to different countries as well. So each place has been very enriching professionally and personally.

And there are some pretty nice places you've relocated to right Vienna, Montreal, Barcelona, New York I can't complain. It's not bad, is it? I can't complain. And was it Vienna where you ran into Florian, or where did you meet him?

No, not really. I think I went to the same place where he did his thesis, right, Florian? But you were not there yet. Like you moved already to New York at that time. I think I went in 2016.

Correct.

Florian, we've spoken before, but how often have you moved?

No, no, I'm definitely a new yorker, um, so I'm the lazy one here, only relocated once um. I started my phd in vienna, at the university of natural resources and life sciences in german called boku. I moved there in 2005 to study, and finished my PhD there in 2010. And then from there moved to New York, to Mount Sinai, to the lab of Peter Balese, and I really liked it here. But at some point I was considering, you know, becoming faculty and I was applying and for a moment I was considering moving to Singapore, but then decided against it and stayed in New York and, you know, I've stayed in the same department since, so I've only moved once, but it has also been a great experience.

It's great. Now, Florian, if you're the lazy one, I don't know what that makes the rest of us, I have to say, because you've always given me the impression that you're an extremely hardworking man. But should we try and get like an average here? Did you move four times, Irene and Nathan? Were you saying you moved three times?

Yeah, yeah, in my case yes.

And over how many years is that? Over six years, something like that.

Since I started my PhD. Let let me think it's been long ago.

And I moved three times in about 10 years and threw in a couple undefined secondments here and there, but actually as a doctor in the UK that's actually remarkably few times. Some of my junior doctor colleagues end up moving every year as part of their physician training and then again if they're going to do a PhD or other scientific work. We've got very long, uh, specialist training programs after medical school. That gets longer if you combine them with a research career, as I am trying to do. Um and so yeah, by the time I finish training in infectious diseases I'll have been a doctor for 15 years, and that's after six years at medical school. So I'm, I'm, I'm tired of further training, let alone moving around.

Have you found any of the moves particularly challenging?

I think when you change uh. So moving from London, uh medical school to to the, to the West Midlands, was a big change, because it was a change in going from being a student to full-time work with long call schedules and everything, and that was quite a difference, at least whether it was a challenge or not, I'm sure it was. And then moving away from all I'd known in the West Midlands to Southampton again a different set of computer systems, a different set of people. So I think, yeah, both the places and the people, changing was quite hard work.

Irene, how about you? Do you find it difficult to move?

So to me, I would say each of the moves were challenging in some way, like, for example, the first one. That was when I moved to Vienna. It was really short, only for one month, but it was my first international experience, and actually it was in February, which is, I would say, the coldest month in Vienna, and I'm from Valencia, from the Mediterranean, so it was like, yeah, a huge change in temperature. No, but it was my first international experience. So, and English is not my native language, so just to be there speaking in English was a challenge for me at the beginning.

Then I would say Canada was challenging for the personal point of view because I had to move, and I moved in summer, it was for four months, and while I was doing my stay I had to live in four different places while I was there. So that part was not really comfortable really to have to move that much in a city that is not like yours. And then to New York was like bigger move because it was for long term. So it's not the same when I I would say when you move for short periods of time, you don't have to consider that many things. Or, and then when you move to a place to live for longer times. You have to deal with things that you didn't have to think before, like taxes and like having, like, a rent apartment for long term this other kind of commitments that you also need to think about when moving. Florian, how about you?

Did you find any of your moves particularly difficult?

Yeah, well, of course, moving to the US is not so easy, right, it's not like moving within the European Union, for example. There's a lot of questions about visa. And I think what I underestimated in the beginning was, you know, I knew European cities, I knew many European countries and what I expected is that New York or the US is somewhat similar to a central or Western European country and society. But you know over time and it took a while, right, to realize, but there was a culture shock. It's not the same. The culture is very different here. And specifically, new York is challenging. Right, it's a very high energy city. The infrastructure is actually not that great. It's very old. Compared to European cities, it's not great.

There's a lot of things that look like they're from the 60s because they are from the 60s, and so I think that needed really a change in thinking. And the other thing that was very positive was also that the professional kind of attitude was different. Right, I moved from a university that was relatively laid back, where people sometimes left the lab Friday noon for having lunch and then didn't come back and didn't show up on the weekend, and I ended up here in a department where people work on the weekends right and work long hours and everybody's excited about science and enthusiastic and everybody's like putting in a lot of work to get stuff done. So that was also a cultural difference in a way, but a very positive one. So in a way, of course it was challenging, but it's also very nice to experience these differences.

For sure, that sounds like almost your natural environment, then that you landed in where? Everyone is so motivated that they really work long hours, but is this just something you have to do if you want a career as a scientist? Do you think it's inevitable that you are going to relocate?

I don't think it's inevitable, but I think scientists are a certain kind of type of person, often right, there's a lot of curiosity, there's a lot of interest in new things and I think it's almost I don't know like a selection criteria. The people who succeed in science are often also the people who, kind of you know, want to try new things and are looking for a challenge and want to see things from a different perspective, from somewhere else. Right, and I think it's not. You can have a great career with not moving, I think, but I don't think you get this international perspective and this global perspective that you, I think, really need as scientists.

Nathan, what's your take on that? Do you think scientists are explorers and enjoy surfing the new frontiers?

I think it's utterly vital to be curious, to be exploring, to move on to the next challenge and maybe even the next change, and part of that will therefore mean that many people will move institutions, I think, or even within an institution, as I've done. So I can totally see how you know scientists who are driven curious, always looking for the next thing, whether it's research or other challenges. I can totally see why scientists end up moving around hugely.

And Irene, did you think this was? Did you just assume this was something that was going to happen in being a scientist, that you would be living and working in different places?

Not assuming, but especially coming from Spain, that perhaps doesn't have that many opportunities within the country. It's something that you see in the older people or the people that might be your reference. So, yeah, it was a real thing that I thought, and actually I was really excited to take advantage of that part of our work that maybe, if you dedicate to other fields, you cannot, you don't have really the opportunity to live that experience as well.

And how do you prepare? How do you prepare for moving, how do you prepare for relocating?

So for me, if I were there again, I would say I would recommend the people first to take time, especially if you are thinking in moving like for long term to do a postdoctoral stay, for example, because you need to consider a lot of things. First, of course, the language. That's also that's always a barrier. So the more you know the language, the better or the easier it's going to be the adaptation. Then, I guess, check very well the place. So if, um, if you can know or try to meet someone that is that has been in that uh like department or in that city and that can give you feedback, that's always really helpful to know how is, because it's not only the science but but also the environment. I think that's really important and, as Florian was saying, like it can be a cultural shock when you move from just one like one department in one country to another. So just the better or the more that you know about how is the working environment in the place, that is going to be important, I would say.

Florian, what's your advice to anyone listening who's thinking about an international move? What would you say to them?

I mean, as Irene said, getting as much information as possible is really important, right? What I would also recommend is you know if you're knowing you're applying for a position somewhere or you already have an offer, maybe before you accept and before you really make the move, you know, go there, right? In some cases you might get invited to give a talk. That's great. In other cases, you might just go there for tourism, for you know a few days and look at the place and think if you could live there, do you really think that this is the place where you could spend, I don't know, half a year a year, maybe a few years, right? So if you have that possibility and not everybody has that travel to that place and look at it. I think you know I did that with New York. I came here before I actually moved and that helped to get an idea how it is to be here.

That is really good advice, Irene. What do you? Did you follow that advice, or did he tell you that before you moved?

Me? No, I was. I moved during the pandemic, so we couldn't really travel at that time. Yeah, okay, I came at risk, no, but but I knew, like, what was going on, since I was in Boku and, for example, Florian was coming.

Just curious did you guys bring like cats or children or plants or you know any other kind of household features along with you on any of these moves?

No, I mean, No if you bring plants across the us border, you probably get arrested. Um cats you can get here, but I guess they need to go through quarantine, um, and I don't have kids. So I I brought two suitcases. Actually, I brought one directly, one got shipped and then it got lost and it arrived six months later. So that's my experience with bringing things. But I basically started from scratch and I have to say, when I came to the US the idea was to come for one year, but of course that didn't pan out.

Irene did you bring a lot with you, or did you go with one suitcase, or what did you bring?

I brought my husband. Oh, yes, that is really helpful, yeah, but in terms of things not really, because, like an international move crossing the Atlantic, you cannot bring too many things with you. I just packed some like basics for the house to New York. So, with my husband, we moved in November 2020. That was in the middle of the pandemic, so actually New York at that time was completely shut down, so restaurants, everything, and so we had to come and we had to quarantine and we arrived to an empty apartment that there was nothing. So actually it was kind of challenging and what we ended up doing was to buy things online from IKEA so that they would deliver them to our apartment, and meanwhile we were doing quarantine to have basically something to do and something where to sleep in, because we had nothing and we couldn't go to any shops or anything to buy neither. So, yeah, it was a fun experience into that, but it was challenging at the moment, yeah well, assembling all that flat pack furniture must have tested your relationship extremely.

Actually, I always find it very difficult in my family. What have you experienced from the rewards of being in New York?

Well, for me in New York is an amazing city to live. Um, it's as like it's. It has a vibrating energy, there's always things to do, things to see and, like you, just you just get addicted to it. I would say so personally. It's really rewarding. And then, from the scientific point of view, it is the same, like New York has so many research centers just all concentrated in like Manhattan and just in the other boroughs of New York that you you end up meeting so many people that have similar interests to you. And, for example, in the case of Spanish researchers, I have to say I've met so many people postdoc fellows like me that joined at the same time, that have similar interests here because of this niche effect of Manhattan.

Yeah, you get a real concentration of expertise right. Did you find that as well, florian? Is that what kept you there past the initial one year idea of how long you'd stay?

Yeah, of course there's a lot of expertise here. As Irene said, there's a lot of concentration of research centers, but I also have to echo the vibrating energy here. Right, they say New York never sleeps, and that's true and you know, there's always something going on and that's really, as Irene said, addictive. Right, I really like that In a way. My problem initially was that I like the countryside, I like hiking, I like backpacking, I like I like, you know, kayaking, stuff like that. And initially I wasn't super happy with manhattan and I preferred places in brooklyn that were more like, you know, vienna or berlin. But over time that changed and now when I leave new york I really miss it and I miss the energy and I miss the city, and that was one of the reasons I stayed. But the scientific reasons were the main reasons why I stayed.

Of course, yes, and Nathan, I mean from a research perspective. What would you say about the? You know the benefits for scientists to collaborate internationally.

That's fantastic, it's really important. I've been fortunate enough to collaborate with commercial partners internationally, diagnostics companies mostly. I mean. They've got offices all over the world, so we might have people we're speaking to in France, but their technology development side comes from the US. It's just, it's absolutely crucial that, not just from a purely scientific point of view, but from an industry point of view and everything, everything's global now and if you can go there, that's even better, not just see it on a screen.

And what do you see as the big benefit of international collaboration, Irene?

Like, people have different brains so we think differently. So when you have the same problem but you have different points of view to the same problem, you are going to find the solution faster. I think, and especially in this like new era of science where everything is so complicated and we have all this information, and I feel sometimes the difficulty now is to make the right question so we can have all the answers or many answers. But sometimes it's hard to make the right question and for that the more points of view you have, the better you're going to make it, or the more likelihood that somebody sees the critical thing that you need to take into account.

That's really interesting. You need perspective to make sense, to be able to interpret the data. What do you think, Florian? I mean?

In a way, science is a global enterprise, no matter what, right. So you can't really think in oh, we are doing this here in this country or this city, and you know you have to collaborate. There is a lot of expertise that's all over the globe. You have to look for the right collaborators with the right expertise. If you're working in influenza, for example, often specifically with animal influenza, it's also about outbreaks in certain locations, right, and so if you want to work on a certain virus, you probably need a local collaborator too who is in that area and has isolates and so on and so forth.

But in general, I don't think you can have national science or local science. It's always global, right. And, as Irene said, the nice thing is you talk to so many different people and you get many different perspectives. And it's not just you know. You talk to so many different people and you get many different perspectives. And it's not just you know, you talk to somebody who sits in Hong Kong, it's also you talk to somebody in your lab who actually came from I don't know, kenya, right. So it's also a global situation locally, in a way.

And how does this work when it's a more temporary form of collaboration, like for global level conferences Like Nathan? Why do you go to these, for example?

I think, yeah, the key benefit of going to a conference is meeting people. It's quite hard to get to know someone through a screen and be able to have those deeper conversations. Don't get me wrong, technology is amazing. To have those deeper conversations, Don't get me wrong, technology is amazing. It's almost as good. But nothing quite beats being face-to-face and building up a personal connection. Having said that, having just said that, I've actually been now part of five papers now where I've never met the key collaborators in person. It's all that. We're outside our own institution. We've only communicated with them via a video call. In fact, there's one paper about to come out where everything was done by email. I'm not actually sure what these colleagues look like. So, yeah, there's a lot you can do with the change in technology.

Yeah, that's kind of a modern phenomenon, isn't it? That we, yeah, we don't even know how tall the other person is? And do you find it valuable to like travel for conferences? And, Irene, do you go? Do you travel a lot?

I've been very lucky. During my PhD I had the opportunity to go to several like conferences. I used to, so my PhD was more focused on biotechnology, so we went, and especially in like vaccine development and trying to optimize the production platform, so what's more centered towards animal cell technology. So I went to those kinds of conferences and since I moved to New York, I went to ESWI in Valencia that is my hometown that I was really happy I could join there, yeah, and other more virology or vaccine, like technologies.

So absolutely yes, every conference is going to give you, especially if you have the opportunity to go to conferences where not the same people go, like if you move a little bit fields. I think that's the best because, again, like people has different perspectives, different like interest on the same like problem. So the more you hear about different ways of seeing and trying to improve things, the better you are going to do your research. So I think it's totally worthy to go. But on the other hand, I think like pandemic has brought other advantage, as Nathan was saying, like we can do a lot of things online Like maybe you cannot afford or, or time-wise, you cannot join all the conference. You may want to go, but maybe you can connect to some of them online, which also is rewarding and you can learn a lot from that process. So I think to have this hybrid opportunity is one is the best to be honest, they sure do.

Yes, the conferences do take up a lot of time from your day-to-day work. I mean, Florian, do you find it worthwhile to take the time to attend the bigger conferences?

Yeah, absolutely, and they go to a lot of conferences right. In a way, it's always stimulating to see you know talks, presentations in person where people are excited about the research and present new findings. I also like, similar to what Irene said, to go to conferences that are a little bit out of my field, because that's where I learn and you get new collaborators Right, and what I really value is you know personal connections. You go to conferences, you catch up with collaborators in person, usually at the bar, and that's also where the best science ideas come to you like bars. That's a really important part of going to conferences.

But I also like that there is now a lot of conferences that have the opportunity to attend virtually, and I think that opens conferences up to a larger audience. And I think we also have to be honest If you have a European or North American passport, you're very much privileged, right, you can go to places. But if you don't have that, often it's really hard to get visas and also for the European Union, it's really hard to get just a visa to come in and go to a conference and often people can't go for that reason. And for that reason it's also good that there is virtual attendance possible for many key conferences.

That's for sure. Whether it's online or through travel grants or whatever, it's really important that this is more accessible to a wider public, that's for sure.

Just a big shout for ESWI there for providing funding for young scientists to attend, particularly at last conference. Valencia was fantastic. You get to meet all sorts of people. Again, from my perspective, there are many people from different fields within influenza and respiratory viruses. So, yeah, a big shout out and a big thanks to ESWI.

Well, because I didn't expect to be so excited by their program, but there were. You know there were presentations at like eight o'clock in the morning that I was really just blown away. You know there's a great standard and a great variety. Ok, we've got to wrap this up. So is there anywhere? Is there anywhere like a dream destination, a country or a lab or a particular group? You know what's your dream destination, Irene?

Difficult question. I don't know right now. Um, there might be. There are, like many places, many labs, many cities that I would like to visit, um join or live there for a while, and also labs to learn from. I I can't tell you one at this moment, to be honest.

Okay, fine, it's still wide open. How about you, Nathan?

Well, New York has just been really bigged up in this discussion we've had today, so clearly I've got to work on getting some funding to go to New York. I know that's outside of Europe, obviously, but you know what? There's great work being done all over the world and I was. I'd love to go back to see colleagues at the influenza center in in norway again, uh, there's some great stuff happening obviously in the us, as we've talked about, and in Seattle, um, there's some great stuff even just a couple of cities away, uh, from me. It's amazing stuff done in London with challenge studies and, uh, and all sorts. So, yeah, there's almost too many places I want to go and see and too many groups I want to talk to and collaborate with.

Well, that'll keep you going for a while yet. How about you, Florian? Have you got a dream destination, or are you already there?

I have this romantic idea of doing a sabbatical and going to Mongolia and just doing field research there and swabbing birds and look for influenza viruses right for half a year. So that will probably never come true, but I think that's what I would like to do. It would also be pretty relaxing, I think. So we'll see about that.

Okay, well, that's a brilliant last note to end on. Okay, well, that's a brilliant last note to end on. Thanks so much to all three of you for sharing your experiences and insights with me today. That was really interesting. Thank you, thanks, Clare, and thanks a lot for tuning in to ESWI Airborne. Please do share this podcast episode with anyone you might know considering a career as a scientist or in the early stages of their scientific career. Clearly, it can be an intensely competitive, challenging and rewarding life, and we've heard a bit about that from our lovely guest today.

Good news there's more on the way. This is one episode in a three part series all about life as a scientist. So stay tuned to ESWI Airborne and get the latest info directly from the people who know the most about viruses, immunization and more. And until next time, dear listeners, stay safe.

Aida Bakri: 31:37

ESWI Airborne is brought to you by ESWI, the European Scientific Working Group on Influenza and Other Acute Respiratory Viruses. These episodes would not be possible without the team's efforts and we would like to extend special thanks to our ESWI secretariat, our technical and IT teams, our arts team and our host, Clare Taylor. The podcasts are recorded virtually and we thank our guests for their participation in this inspiring series. Talks are adapted to a global audience and are intended to be educational. For any specific medical questions you may have, these should be addressed to your local general practitioner. Many thanks to our sponsoring partners and thank you for listening.

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