Research lives and cultures

33- Dr Vijay Raghavendran- Sketching a polymath international research career

November 12, 2022 Dr Sandrine Soubes
Research lives and cultures
33- Dr Vijay Raghavendran- Sketching a polymath international research career
Show Notes Transcript

Dr  Vijay Raghavendran is an Indian researcher was has experienced the tribulations of short term research contracts. This has led him to work in many countries on several continents. Vijay has also worked as a science teacher. His broad ranging interests from science to the humanities have enriched his nomadic research life.

Warning- getting a perfect transcript is  hard. This transcript may have mistakes. Be kind to us by accepting these potential errors. I hope that the transcript is helpful to some of you! Apologies in advances for any mistakes in the transcript.
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Sandrine: Let me just take a sip of coffee before we start. Let's make a start.

[music]

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, dear listeners today. Today, I have the pleasure to have with me somebody who is coming all the way far from Sweden. this is Dr. Vijay Raghavendra. It's really a pleasure to have you on the podcast today, Vijay.

Vijay: Thank you, Sandrine. Thank you for the invite. I look forward to engaging with you during the next hour or so.

Sandrine: When we met in Sheffield, you were doing a postdoc, and the post in Sheffield wasn't your first postdoc. When I looked at your CV on LinkedIn, I was really gobsmacked to realize that you had worked in so many different countries. It will be really nice if you gave us a very brief overview of your career so far.

Vijay: I'm originally from India. Then I did my bachelor's and master's degree in chemical engineering and biochemical engineering in India. I worked in a nonprofit institute, and then went to Denmark as a research assistant because I wanted to do a PhD in metabolic engineering for which Professor Jens Nielsen who actually moved from DTU to Chalmers in 2008, so he was the pioneer. He said, come over. Then I became a research assistant for one year, and then he took me as a PhD student a year after. I spent four and a half years in Denmark on yeast and the baker's yeast physiology, and mostly fermentation and bioreactors.

Then I moved on to the US where I did a short postdoc. I didn't like it. I thought it was not the right place for me. I left the postdoc and I became a high school teacher in the UK for eight years at a nonprofit school called Brockwood Park School in Hampshire, in the south of England. Teaching chemistry, mathematics, biology, and then doing all sorts of things. In 2014 I decided to come back to research. That was hard. It was not easy. Then I had to go to Brazil because I used my network for my Denmark days. I wrote a grant proposal, got accepted, and then went to Brazil.

Then stayed there for Brazil for two years on sugar cane ethanol fermentation. It's still related to my PhD topic of yeast fermentation. Because I knew the person there, that was really a fantastic stay there. Really enjoyed there. It was a short-term contract, pure postdoc. From there, I moved to Sweden for a one-year and one-month short-term contract with my PhD boss, co-supervisor called Professor Lisbeth Olsson, who is actually the acting head of my division where I am.

Fortunately in June 2017, there was an advert for Sheffield, and Sheffield was fantastic from 2018 until 2020, just before the pandemic. Then I came back to Chalmers in a permanent position as a research engineer, which is equivalent to a laboratory manager in those days. I don't think it exists in the UK anymore because they have scrapped it. I work with researchers, train them, show how to use instruments, manage the lab, manage procurement, organize journal clubs. It's a combination of different things. That's what I'm doing now since last year, September.

Sandrine: It's really a fascinating and diverse career. There are many trying to pull from this first introduction. In a way, the first question that I would have from the start as an Indian student or graduate, what drove you to go and do science abroad? When I think about academics in the UK, who receive many application of Indian graduates, it's always how you make yourself seen as a potential candidate among a very large number of the potential applicant? What was the desire of living in India and doing science somewhere else? How did you go about making somebody want to work with you?

Vijay: I was fortunate that you went to two prestigious universities in India. I think that was really very important for me. My bachelor degree in chemical engineering and master's degree in biochemical engineering, which was from Delhi, from Indian Institute of Technology, which is renowned all over the world. The CEO of Google is actually from an IIT from India. The CEO of Twitter, I think, is also from an IIT. That name, I think, was there in Europe and everywhere. Around 1997, 1999, I was very interested in this emerging field called metabolic engineering.

Doing the search, then Professor Jens Nielsen's name came up on so many papers, and I thought that is a place where I wanted to go and do my PhD. I went to IIT library, and then I printed, photocopied all the articles that I could come across of that. Then I just bought a book with my entire month's salary. It was just $100 but that was my salary then in 1999. I bought the book. I really reading, consuming all this information, so I had some background. Then when I wrote to Jens, and then I could say, yes, I've read this paper and that paper. Jens knew IIT Delhi because Jens is a PhD boss, Professor John [unintelligible 00:06:03]

He had been to India in the United Nations Development Program, and he knew IIT Delhi. I think then everything fell in place. I'm from, IIT. Jens knew IIT through [unintelligible 00:06:14] Then he invited me over as a test. I was a research assistant to help a PhD student, and also to work on my own project to implement what I had learned in all those papers. I think that was really the test period I passed. I had two publications from that period. I think that was really the basis for securing a position in PhD. IIT, I owe a lot to that institute. I did not have any mentor to talk to. Unlike nowadays now we have internet. At the time, the internet was just coming up.

Sandrine: It was a mixture of coming from the right institution in the first place and the connection, but also you really demonstrating that you were interested in the topics, just actually doing the homework of reading about the stuff.

Vijay: Absolutely. Yes.

Sandrine: It's interesting because in the discipline that you were working in, many people may have considered moving to industry after a PhD. In a way for you, what was, in a way, the drive to carry on working in research straight after your PhD? I mean in academia instead of just having a go at working in the industry?

Vijay: I think I have to take this question in two parts because straight after my master's actually, even after my bachelor degree, I got a job. After my bachelor degree, I got a job, I did not take it. I went to my master's. After my master's, got a job in a pharmaceutical company. I worked there for three months and I fell ill. Maybe it was a chemical or something. The doctor diagnosed it with blood cancer, and then I had to quit the company. It was good, my experience, but then I realized that you have one project and then there's a CEO of the company or the boss asking, the deadlines are very strict. You've got to meet those deadlines.

Even in that three months, it was just one project and you're doing one particular thing. Moved on to PhD. Then in 2005, I think that was a very crucial year because I did apply to many industries, but I did not get a position because it is hard to get a position without demonstrating that I have worked in an industry before, or it's a catch 22 situation as well.

They want experience in GMP, which I didn't have, or a training. In 2005, I was supposed to get married. There was a girl waiting for me in India. I did not want to get married, and then this position came through in the University of Pennsylvania in the US and I just grabbed it.

I went for it knowing that it actually was not the right choice. I stayed on in academia for that very reason because the freedom that you get in academia, I think that is unparalleled. I had been working with very good professors. I don't know if all the postdocs have the same experience. I think it depends on the position of the person, the assistant professor or a senior lecturer. I worked with professors all the while. They are pretty relaxed. They give you freedom. I think that was important. The professors really, I think, or assistant even for that matter, they need to give the postdocs the freedom to explore, not to constrain them, I think.

That's very important. I was fortunate to have that opportunity all across. Then I flourished, I think. Then I realized this is the place I want to be because I get to read journals, nature science every week. Journal clubs in Brazil, particularly in Brazil or in Sheffield, I went to lectures in humanities where even, Sandrine, you gave a lecture. There was a something about anthropology, there was a department. You gave a talk on that. I attended that. You were doing or finishing your PhD on education at the time. That, I think, you wouldn't have that in an industry. I thought this is what I want.

Sandrine: You had some period in your career that is a little bit more than an interlude. It was a period where you became a a science teacher. Can you tell us about this? Because often we have an idea that we have to follow a certain trajectory in research career, and if we take side step, we are never going to be able to go back. Why did you decide to become a science teacher? What was this experience like?

Vijay: At Brockwood Park School in Hampshire, I think it was founded by an Indian philosopher called Jiddu Krishnamurti. I had come across his book in Denmark at a bookshop while my PhD was going through some challenging times. I read this philosophy book and that brought so many questions. It actually answered some of the questions I had during the PhD like the big existential questions. What am I doing with my life? Is this the right thing that I should be doing? Am I helping the society by just publishing one paper?

Then I really wanted to take a break from the PhD, and I just took it because I thought that is the place where I want to be. Because I want to inquire and to answer these fundamental questions that I had about, what is the right livelihood? What does it mean to be a good person on the planet, and not just as a career? I think this was more important for me than the career. I think that's why I took that plunge and I left the postdoc and became-- At the school, the inquiry that I was doing before was on my own, while at Brockwood, there was a critical mass of people engaging in these fundamental questions.

Why are there wars in the world? Why do we judge people? We engaged this with the students as well. We had a Tuesday, Wednesday, weekend during my time. On a Sunday morning, we will have an inquiry time. The whole school of 65 students, it's an alternative school, private school, people come from all over the world. Then we discuss these questions with 14 to 18 year old students who will become the future citizens. That was, I think, what was important for me. I flourished. I think I really gained from that place. That's also where I met my partner who is a pianist.

In 2014, I thought there was a change in the management. That questioned some of the values I had. I thought this is not the place, so I should leave on friendlier terms. Then I came back to research. The teaching was a fantastic experience because we would just sit at a table, four students in my classroom. I taught chemistry and mathematics. It was really a very, very important time in my life, my stay at Brockwood for eight years.

Sandrine: That's fascinating. Obviously it was a very unusual school in term of the dynamics of bringing different disciplines together. In a way that's something that's always interested me in you, I don't know whether the term is a polymath, but I think that it is. I think that you are very unusual among the people that I've met, in really having a deep interest in lots of different things beyond just your own disciplinary topic. What was it like for you then to go back?

Because you had been teaching for many years. Going back and being a post-- I was thinking about it, the idea of going back to the lab and doing a dilution of a solution. Although if you were teaching chemistry, you probably still were thinking about this thing. There is some basic experimental stuff when you've not been doing them for a number of years. It's going back is like learning from scratch. How was it like?

Vijay: It was not easy. There was a lot of fear. Would I manage my own? I put a lot of pressure on myself to perform well, not to disappoint my boss, who is also a good friend, Andreas Gombert from Brazil. I think I also applied to a post of position in DTU in Denmark where I did the PhD. Again, I used the network. I wrote a grant, a proper grant to a foundation, I think it was Novo Nordisk Foundation in Denmark, which is a very prestigious charity. They give lot of money for research. The panel liked my project, and then they said I'm a bit old.

I was 38 then. I did not have enough publications. Even though they said they're not going to screen candidates by age, which is another good thing with England, I think in England, there is no age limit for anything. You cannot discriminate people on age. I didn't get that even though I did a rebuttal and all that. Then Brazil came through. Again, there were two funding agencies. The first one, they said, no, you don't have enough publications, so I fell through. The second one with Andreas, there was money at the university, and there was a panel. They evaluated my application and they thought, wow, being a teacher in a school, you've done enough.

I think they liked my proposal. Then went back to research. I realized that not much has happened in that eight years in terms of yeast physiology, understanding glucose metabolism. Why does yeast produce ethanol? That was a fundamental question I was asking. Understanding the pathway, the signaling pathway, the proteins involved, the genes involved, and so on. Then in Brazil, Andreas was asking a fundamental questions because Brazil is now the second largest producer of bioethanol in the world. They don't know where the yeast, which comes into the bioreactor, which does the job, nobody knows where it is coming from. Is it from the soil?

Sandrine: Really? That's incredible.

Vijay: Is it coming from the soil? Is it coming from birds? Coming from insects? Because it's an open tank. Then of course they start the process with the baker's yeast, with tons of them. Over months, the baker's yeast are washed out, and then native, wild yeast take over. Our question was why do these wild yeast survive? What makes them survive? Can we understand them? My skills for my PhD, and that was very important for that project.

I think that came through. I did not forget everything. I think I was very happy that Andreas assigned me a project. Your job is to make this bioreactor work. I had a very good PhD student in the lab. Bruno and I, we put the reactor together. That was great. I think we learned together. I was never hesitant to ask, look, I don't know. I reached out always. If I don't know, I would go to chemical department or someone across the corridor.

That's how I think I gained the confidence and then I gained the people's trust, and then you can do it. I got again three publications from there. The entire lab spoke in English for me, and I learned the Portuguese language. It was great. My background in chemical engineering, that was very helpful to do all the calculations. Because the students, they were all science background. I helped them to really quantify how much oxygen is entering the bioreactor under anaerobic conditions. That became a fantastic PhD project for Bruno. I think it all fell in and came together very nicely.

Sandrine: One of the question that I'm really interested is how you've managed in a way to thrive in the context of a very international career. Because you've taken many opportunities, you've created opportunities, but every time you move to different country, the culture of research, the culture of the country is different. Making friends, understanding how to function in the country. Considering that many postdoc position and the research funding is often short-term contract, a lot of people have to have international careers, not necessarily by choice, but to actually carry on. What's been your approach to moving around so much?

Vijay: I think it's a difficult one because in Brazil there were so many postdocs who were also on a two-year or a three-year project. Because Brazil was my second proper postdoc and I wanted to get the most of it, and I really soaked in, and I absorbed as much as I could. Learned the language, that was very important to to talk to people on the street, on the supermarket, people from other labs. I think that was learning the culture through the language, because they were also, "Where are you from? India, UK." My experience as a teacher, they were all also excited to talk to me, and then I equally I was as well.

I think that made it possible. I never thought about what I'm going to do in two years' time until October 2016 when my contract was coming to an end. I think that I made very good friends in Brazil, I think. I'm still in touch with them. I'm still publishing papers with them. Still actually there's one revision coming through with a PhD student in a postdoc there. I continue that, even though my contract, it was only short-term but this network will continue for as long as I wish. For Sweden, I knew it was only one year. In Brazil, staying away from my partner, I never felt that actually I was missing Jerome because we saw each other every six months.

He came once, and then I met in December, and then came to a conference. That was good. Then in Sweden, I didn't get the job in Sweden until a month before I was leaving Brazil. There was a lot of anxiety, what am I going to do? Because going back to Brockwood as a teacher again. It's an international school, yes, but then everyone was paid the minimum wage. That was also the reason why I left because if you want to have a house, you cannot buy a house with the minimum wage in England.

That was all these options. Then Andreas sent the email around, to which I learned a year afterwards from a PhD student, that he wrote, I've got the best postdoc ever, would you please give him an opportunity? He used his network. That was how Maurizio Bettiga from Chalmers, and Lisbeth Olsson. They contacted me because they had a deliverable for one year, and I would be the right person to do it because I've lived across in multiple cultures. I would reach out. I think that was helpful, the cultures, various places that I've lived in. It was a positive thing.

I had one year to finish the project, and I had four papers in that year. I didn't know when I started all the things, but then I reached out again. I think that was the very important because there's a lot of confidence. As a postdoc, you're supposed to know everything. You cannot ask questions. It's all right to say, look, I don't know, can you show me how to do it? Or I've never done that experiment or this thing, I would like to learn. I think it was one, an employee of a company called Rakesh, and he was very helpful. There was a PhD student, [unintelligible 00:22:29] very helpful. I think that one year I knew it was very short, and then again anxiety kicks through after half a year.

What am I going to do? Would I get a position? Fortunately, Sheffield came through, and then jumped again. In all this, I don't have a family as in a traditional, children. My partner was there and he was always supportive all the while from the beginning. He bought the grant. He was living alone. We Skyped every day, even now, for the last eight years. FaceTime, internet issues, calling. That's what was missing out, not being able to celebrate things with him. That's the downside, but I think you need somebody to be supportive. Otherwise in 2017, Sweden by myself, with not getting a job, and then in June, in a winter in 2016 was very hard. I was depressed.

Sandrine: That's something that we rarely talk about when we think about international research careers, is that the partners that people have, either they come and they lose their own job. They move to countries maybe that they didn't really want to live in. Sometime leaving their own families, parents, and so on behind can be also challenging. It reminds me of when I was a PhD student in the US. I remember a French postdoc who had an opportunity to go and get a position at the Institut Pasteur.

At the time she had a boyfriend, an American boyfriend. The American boyfriend, he didn't want to go and leave his own job. She left because for her, working for the Pasteur Institut was really the most important. At the time, it really, really shocked me. I understood that when your ambition is to work in a really prestigious institute, but that was a very-- I don't know how to say it.

For me, it was really in my own life to actually motivated me to get married, to actually make a commitment that we will not live apart, and that was a choice. I didn't plan to live so long in the UK. I didn't really want to, but that was a choice I made. In your case, how did you make your life work for you? Because the science is exciting and there are lots of places where you may want to work, but still we have to not let go of personal life. How did you make it work for yourself?

Vijay: It's a hard one, Sandrine.

Sandrine: I know there is maybe not a specific answer, but--

Vijay: I'll share what, I think, my experience. Jerome likes his job very much at the [unintelligible 00:25:34] Foundation, the work that he does. He reads through the recordings of the philosopher, and he makes extracts. He enjoys that the work that he does, that particular aspect of the job. I wouldn't have wanted him to leave and come to Brazil all on a short-term contract. He had been living in England for 30 years. I couldn't just uproot him. I think that was a decision, I will come back to Europe, hopefully somewhere in Europe, I'll get a job. Although I can always become a teacher again.

It's not as a default, but as a no, nothing demeaning about it because I still enjoy teaching. That was one thing. I think we respected our-- you like research, it's fine, let's make it work. We made that, I think, decision. It was hard, it was very hard the first month in Brazil when I landed that night, first night, my God. Then the last walk we had in Portsmouth. It was very difficult. Then having the friends there, I think it was very important for me in Brazil. While I don't know about Jerome, how he managed on his own in Brockwood, it was very difficult for him.

Sandrine: In a way, creating a support network to really making sure that you're making friends in wherever you're doing the following postdoc as a way of creating a bubble of support very quickly, because if you have a short-term contract, it's--

Vijay: Yes. Then when he came to Sweden, of course it was closer and then we would see each other more. Sweden is also very forward-thinking. It's very exciting to be in Sweden. Then came back to Sheffield. There were two options in Sheffield just in July, 2020. Either I could continue in material science as a postdoc for two more years, or I think I was almost selected at a company in Manchester. It was a startup. Now actually it is doing very well, called Holiferm. I thought I would be almost selected. Then this job in Sweden came through as a lab manager.

Now again, I made a change. This was a permanent position. I did not wanted to go for another short-term. Then a startup, I thought maybe it's a bit risky. Again, I might be in a similar situation in a few years time. I didn't wanted to move again to another place. I thought, all right, let's take it. It's a good compromise because I can still listen to researchers, talk to Rena, maybe get an opportunity to do a small project here and there. Then train researchers, and maybe pass on the experience that I have, maybe to help the postdocs and PhD students.

The plan is in know for room to come over here because he's a pianist as well. We will have to see how that's going work out. Sweden is not the US or Australia, so it's still in COVID times. It's hard now, but I think it's possible. Because my families, they don't know anything about us, I think India is not an option for me, unlike other people where the parents would support them. I had only Jerome, nobody else to talk to. That's why I didn't wanted to also let go of both of us. We didn't wanted to let go of our relationship. It's a combination of things. Thanks to, really Jerome, for where I am now for being very supportive.

Sandrine: When you reflect on the different PIs that you've worked with over the years, and again having experienced lots of different countries and lots of different research cultures, what do you think is really key in the way academics are able to create an environment for PhD student and postdoc to really help people thrive in whatever way they wish?

Vijay: Like I said, Sandrine, In the beginning, I think I had been very fortunate that I worked with fantastic professors throughout my career. They gave the freedom. In Sheffield particularly for example, Professor Jeff Green and Professor Poole, Mike Williamson, the head of the department, and so many people in Sheffield. I did so much teaching. I got my FHEA, Fellow of Higher Education Academy, and MSC courses with Kaiser, with Jim Gilmore, and with [unintelligible 00:30:17] my supervising masters. I think that is missing out in Sweden, particularly, I've heard from postdocs here. Maybe it's the language as well.

England, English is the language offered for teaching undergraduates. While here in Sweden, it's Swedish for the undergraduate students, and only in master's level you can do English. I think they miss out on that opportunity. Maybe this is where, particularly for Sweden, I don't know about Denmark. It will be nice if postdocs and PhD-- PhD students get their teaching credits, but not postdocs, not all of them. It will be nice for postdocs to give that opportunity.

Maybe have a forum where they also, if they want to go in that track, academic growth, maybe get some logical skills, and how to design a lecture. That was possible in Sheffield, t, which is missing here. I think Jeff, for example, or Robert, they never micromanage. They gave the freedom, they trust you, I think that was very important, to trust that person, and not to judge, he or she or they would have done something wrong.

Sandrine: From what you're saying, trust and creating a space of freedom for researchers.

Vijay: Yes. I think that was really the key in all the places. While in University of Pennsylvania where I was, I think that was hard because there was a lot of emphasis on just work, six days a week on Saturday as well. Coming from Denmark where it was a very free culture. You do what you want, I need the results. Doesn't matter when you work and how you work. That was the freedom I had in Denmark, which was missing in the UPenn. It was all an Indian lab. There was an Indian PI with all Indian postdocs. I didn't wanted that. I think we need diversity as well.

Diversity as not just, let's just do a tick box exercise of equal number of men and women, and also trans men and women, or LGBTQIA+. I think that Sheffield was great because theirs, I went to everything, all the research staff association, went to every meeting I could. That was possible because Jeff trusted me that I will produce the results. I went through in every quarter.

We had the presentation for Innovate UK, they were the funding body. They were all happy with the progress that we made. We made a very good paper. It was a team effort. I didn't write the whole paper, Jeff wrote because he's very good at writing. I wrote, he corrected it and then he polished it, he made figures. It was really a team effort. Nothing saying, that's your job, you do it. No.

Sandrine: Trust is really important in a relationship between a PI and a postdoc. As a postdoc, you expect it to be trusted, but if we look at the PI, because at the moment, I'm particularly interested in new PIs, people who are setting their research group, people have worked so hard to actually get there, and they've worked so hard getting the funding. In a way, it's easy to see why some PIs don't really want their postdoc to go into all sorts of other stuff.

That is not really necessarily that helpful to themselves, to the PI. What advice could you give in term of a way of thinking about the culture that they're creating for postdocs? We understand the challenges that they're facing, but at the same time their action, their behavior, the way they enable others really shaped the expense that postdoc and PhD student have of the research environment. How can we support PIs to really create positive research culture?

Vijay: It's again, a difficult one, Sandrine. I think the funding bodies also have to play a role in this. In 2019, I went to a national postdoc event at Queen Mary's. There was someone from the Welcome Trust who was saying, don't emphasize on publications for the new PIs. Maybe that is the thing. It's not just, yes, we need to have publications, that is the proof that the taxpayers' money is well spent and the science progresses, but then we need good science as well, and not just publications for the sake of it. Maybe for a new PI, if they can establish, this is what I want, what do you want?

Have some kind of a conversation so that they both know what to expect from each other, because in Sheffield, and then that the latter part, when I was working with the professor, that person wanted, "I'm very ambitious, I want a publication in nature." I said, look, I'm happy to work but I also want my work-life balance. I don't want to be contacted after 6:00 PM on WhatsApp. I don't check my WhatsApp or email, or Skype, or not on weekends. If there is a need, I will do that. I think having these boundaries, I think this will help everyone there. Everyone will be happier.

Rather than just complaining behind closed dose, let's bring it out, let's make a culture where let's talk about this. Let's put it, this is what we want. We want to have this high-impact paper, let's work towards it. Let's celebrate and give the freedom, and not just work all the time, to have some activities together, fun activities. I think that's what I would say to a new PI, because even in Sheffield, I've seen some PIs are very hard-working because you have to prove, otherwise you're out after 5 years. I understand that. If everybody is stressed, then the whole place is-- nobody wants to go there because you can feel the energy of the place.

Sandrine: What you're saying is important, this thing of acknowledging that motivation and aspirations of different people are different, and having conversations about them, instead of pretending that we're all aiming for the same thing. Often people are scared of having these conversations.

Vijay: I think it is well-known fact that not every postdoc will become a PI, because the positions are limited. Not everybody wants to climb the hill. I think someone gave this example in a postdoc event. Some are happy just going midway. They can just see the landscape. Only very few can reach the top, the summit, not because they cannot. They don't want to because they're happy with the landscape where they are. Maybe to accept that maybe then we thrive, we'll have maybe not another short-term contract, to have a family if you want to have children. I think having realistic ambition as well, and not only nature. They're also PNAs and our society journals, they also have very good impact.

Sandrine: In that context, in the role that you have now in where you're training people lots of the technicalities of doing the research, how do you see your own role in being a positive contributor to the research culture? Because obviously you're not running your lab, but you're not a postdoc. You have a role that's slightly different than maybe you thought you will have when you started. We all have a role to play for positive research culture.

Vijay: I think in the presentations the students make, PhDs or postdocs, then how asking the right questions, because then not in a very accusatory or saying you've done something wrong, just giving a different perspective. I think that my experience sometimes helps. That they really appreciate that there's the value, because I read a wide variety of journals. I see Twitter or Instagram, or PNAs, nature science, and I share it with the whole group. Then there is that, let's go beyond our discipline, then let's work together. We have a fantastic group of people, because I'm sure they're interviewing process is quite elaborate here.

That's also the people who come here, they're already pre-screened. I think that's very good. I think we have movie nights, we have got dinner. Let's go for dinner or lunch together. Doing things together, I think that was very important here. From the PIs as well. Sometimes we have a whole day of research day talking about research, or we have a retreat where we retreat to a place and then we do activities together. That brings in a sense of belonging to a place. Then anything that you may have like a disagreement with each other, or maybe you don't want to drink and if you don't drink alcohol, or want a juice or a tea.

We can talk about it in a different setting. That hasn't been possible because of COVID, but there is this opportunity where they want to invest in people and to create this culture. Chalmers is very aware of it, and Lisbeth, and the new head, Calley, they're all aware of this. It's never one person, it's a team of people who make this possible. Not to complain, not to moan about things, and then, look, something is not working. Let's not finger-point.

Let's take that. how can we make this better so that it doesn't happen again? Because my role as a manager is I cannot be accusing, you haven't done that, you haven't done that. Let's help each other. Yes, you haven't done it this time, but maybe by doing it this way, you will remember that you will not do this way. Our culture is let's not complain, let's do something. We are here and let's make it happen. Then our job is to help you researchers so that you don't have to spend time looking for things, and we will do it for you. Let's help each other.

Sandrine: If you're thinking about almost like your legacy of how you want to have contributed to research culture in the context of the position that you have now, what will be the legacy that you will want to live in terms of the way things are done to really have a culture that's really is supportive and doesn't deny the individuality of people? What's really the most important for you?

Vijay: We want to belong to a community. That's how I see, because Brockwood was a community for me. That was very important. Because we are sociable people, human beings, we want company. COVID has shown that we really need to talk to people. We need to have good people, good conversation, not just complaining all the time, or moaning about things. There are uncertainties, but let's discuss it and see if we can bring it to the foray to funding bodies, to the professors. That's what I talk with the PIs here as well. So that you do something. You present it.

Yes, it is hard, but maybe you can change. By talking it openly, maybe then going one level higher and higher, that's what I'm hoping that I would leave behind, the sense of togetherness. Not just my group, but it's more 45 people as one community of researchers. We are doing something in bio-based processes to replace fossil fuels. Yes, we all have our ambitions and our own grants and money and all that, but if we can work together, and that's a dream. That's what the philosopher was talking about, can we work together, help each other, and not judge each other?

Yes, there will be anger and there will be jealousy, and all that, but can we talk about those things? Hierarchy, assistant, associate professor, tenure track. We really have to be talking about-- In Sweden, it'll be challenging because they may not talk about this openly because nobody wants conflict. These are all very difficult topics to talk to. This is where I think something like what you might do in one of your workshops, that could help to continue this culture where we talk about such things, and it's all key to--

Sandrine: Open spaces, yes. I've seen that it's not necessarily that people don't want to have this conversation, that could be challenging. Because often when we talk about open science and collaboration, we do these things but they're not necessarily easy. We often do not have spaces to address these challenges and find alternatives in the way we host conversations. That's why bringing in facilitation, external contributor, I think can be helpful, but I am a little bit biased obviously on that front. [laughs]

Vijay: I think it's because it's good to have a perspective, because you've got two PhDs, one in science and one in education. Then you bring a different-- the humanity aspect of it. The holistic. I think that's important because sometimes scientists can be caught in, I just want publications, my project. It's good to have the big picture as well.

Sandrine: One of the thing I'll be interested to, among those things, to finish off our conversation is if you could tell us about the science and art activities that you have, because I remember you sharing a website where you were writing poetry. If you could just tell us a little bit about that side of your thinking space in some ways. What is it about?

Vijay: Thank you. I nearly forgot about that, Sandrine. Thank you. That was really, I think because I'd always been writing from Denmark. I wrote a lot in Denmark. At the time, I had come out, so it was a lot of anger came in my text. Then came to Brockwood. I was sucked into the place teaching and all. Then I didn't write that much because we were inquiring all the time. When I went to Brazil, and that's when I really tasted that, and that came back again, the writing and art, and drawing. I still have a very good friend from Germany, from the school, called Helena.

She taught me some drawings, some techniques. That was very important. Sadia, another art teacher, she was very important and a good friend of mine. Then in Brazil, this really flourished because I did so many drawings there, and writing. I would write prose poetry on my yeast research work. I even wrote a prose poetry of a journal article, and I sent it to Jens Nielsen who was the editor of FEMS Yeast Research, and he loved it. I asked him, why couldn't we have something like this every issue? I think that was my breathing space. If there is anything that is bothering me, I will go and write or draw.

That was very important in Brazil, and I think that environment helped me. In Sweden, became less because it was dark. Everything became closed as well in 2017. Sheffield, again, I wrote more because I had more. I think it's the environment also contributes to the inner expression. Now coming back again, the COVID, I haven't written much, but I still draw. Pretty much every day, I draw before going to bed.

I don't think what I'm drawing, I just draw, use different colors. Then every now and then, there's an opportunity to write something in our team's channel. Then it just comes, "I have to write." Then it just comes and it flows. I think it's really good art. It's so important for science. I think it helps to embrace the softer side in us. Not always is let's go for it, but we need the other side as well.

Sandrine: People have been talking obviously, also in the context of COVID, and there's been a lot of reports about issues of mental well-being of researchers. I think that getting people to consider their well-being and their resilience through engaging with other things. In some of the program that I've run, there is an expression that I use of, "What's your me time?" The me time, for you, if it's drawing and writing poetry, but in a way it's like we all need me time. I think that in many of these programs that have run, in a way that's what people reclaim.

Either they've stopped exercising or they've stopped just going to the cinema, or whatever. I think that obviously COVID, we've all been so disconnected from other people and from activities that we were able to do, that the me time also maybe is something that disappeared, and for many families who had to look after kids and so on. In a way, for you, the drawing and the writing is part of that resilience space that in a way we need to remind people is so important to keep going in research and in science. You don't just have to be a yeast physiologist. You can also be a poet and an artist.

Vijay: Absolutely.

Sandrine: I think that's really beautiful.

Vijay: Just one thing I wanted to add is because-- while Jerome was living in Brockwood while I was in all the other countries, and then my family is from India, the only way I could communicate with them is either of course through a telephone, but then I also write a lot, either sharing things with Jerome. I read newspapers or articles that I come across in New York. Then we share each other, and that also brings us together.

Otherwise, we can't talk everything, otherwise it'll be a long call. With my families, I had been writing letters for the last two years since, I think 2019. Every Saturday, I look forward to it. I give what happened in this week, I give a little gist of my life here, and then in English, I write it in English so that they can improve their English as well, take some pictures. That has been very important for me because they're all out there, so they have something of me that my life here, because most of this, it's not known to them.

Sandrine: To finish off our conversation, I've got just two more questions for you, Vijay. One of them is if you had to rethink your career, if you had to do it all over again, would you do things exactly the same? Would you do things differently?

Vijay: Definitely. I think I would like to learn programming. [chuckles] That's one thing I miss, and to have humanities right from the beginning, from bachelor, master's to bring the philosophy. Again, in France, you have philosophy all the way up to A levels. It's compulsory, the baccalaureate. While in most countries, they don't have that. I think that's important. Then hopefully interdisciplinary as well, because chemical engineering when I learned it was just chemical engineering and it was all very textbooky and problem-solving as in the teacher writes the problem on the board, and then it's the same question is going to come in the exam.

While I much prefer active learning, giving a context, challenge-based research, posing a problem and how we are going to address the problem, because real life problem does not exist as a nice question. It's quite messy. I think that's what I would've liked, whether it's active learning, teaching. Flip the classroom, more engaging. Both my bachelor and master's program, and for PhD, definitely programming.

Maybe time abroad as well, because I was only in Denmark, which is already very prestigious, but it's also good to go to another place to see workings. Maybe then that can create newer network as well to see, particularly in the third year, maybe second year, third year, and to visit the lab always because at University of Pennsylvania, I took the job because otherwise my life would've been different with the girl waiting in 2005 to get married. I think it's very important to see the people.

I think it's not the job, it's the people. The people make it possible. Not the place, not Chalmers. I think that is very important. If I had done it differently, maybe, I don't know, I would've had a different life. Really to see disciplines connectedness of it. I think I always had that. This is maybe an advice where to see a problem as a connected problem and not just this is a physics problem, a biochemistry problem, or a mathematics problem, because we can all talk with each other. I think that is needed.

Sandrine: It's interesting because with the work that you were doing before in term of the bioethanol, when we're thinking about the challenges in term of energy for the world, everybody is always saying we need to have people collaborate and it's about interdisciplinary working. Actually, in the way that we train researchers, often there are not as many opportunities that we think there is in term of doing that interdisciplinary work. To finish off, my last question is, what's really next for you in your professional life?

Vijay: I think I was just watching a video yesterday of Harvard Business Review. It's when you take a new job, but then it's always a lot of excitement, there's the S curve that she was speaking about. Then when you reach a plateau, and that's when you have to decide, what am I going to do? Am I going to take the plunge or do something different? I think I'm still in the beginning of the S phase. One thing I really would like to do more is to maybe do a bit more teaching, active learning, and to help the PIs with the budget and with the procurement of the instruments so that we can have better planning.

They will do all the work, but I'm more another voice to them. If I'm involved, I can contribute, I can see myself contributing for long-term vision with my experience. Not that I have a lot more than them, but with whatever I have. More, finally, communication which I've been doing. I would like to continue this more. Maybe if not for just my division, but maybe for the whole bio department and across bio, because at the moment, everybody's in a silo. Even across the flows, we are not talking with each other. To bridge that gap, to create the space. That's what I hope to. I don't know whether Chalmers and the PIs will-- I'll have to come up with something and then present it, and say this is what I want to do in the long-term.

Sandrine: That's all it takes, is to have a vision of what you want to happen and then just go for it. A space for conversation, basically, that's what you--

Vijay: Yes.

Sandrine: Wonderful. Thank you you so much, Vijay. It's been really your pleasure. I could carry on talking to you for hours. The podcast can't be too many hours, otherwise it's a bit too long. Really a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Vijay: Thank you, Sandrine.

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