65- Dr Dawn Scholey-Cheerleading the career progression of others

Dr Dawn Scholey is a Senior Research Fellow at Nottingham Trent University. She never intended to become a researcher. After working for an extended period in industry, she returned to academia as a technician. It was the cheerleading of her manager that convinced her to embark on a PhD.

Dr Dawn Scholey’s career is a good example that for some people, entry into the world of research is not part of a professional masterplan. Her career driver was about learning and science, not the ambition of becoming an academic researcher. It took a lot of convincing from the part of her manager, who she describes as an inspirational leader, to make her believe that as a mum of two in her late 30’s, starting a PhD was something she could do.

The cheerleading from her manager, who became her PhD and Postdoc supervisor, has been critical in enabling her to pursue her research career. She is now embracing this cheerleading role with younger researchers who are on their own research journey.

Listening to our conversation will prompt your thinking:

• How you may not see your own potential, but having a cheerleader to make you believe in yourself may take you to places to had never imagined
• How it is never too late to take a professional challenge  
• Why choosing a research environment that works for you is a key decision in choosing who to work with and where to work

Some reflections to ponder based on my discussion with Dawn

We don’t all have a masterplan

Dawn’s honesty in sharing her entry into academic research is interesting, as it illustrates that starting a career on this path is not just the privilege of early career graduates, but a viable route for other professionals. Working as a technician for her manager, Dawn did not see herself as someone who could do research as a doctoral student. She was in the technician box and her professional development could have stayed there. What fascinates me is the persistence that her manager had in convincing her that doing a PhD was something that Dawn could do. Her manager could see it in her, when she could not see this in herself.

Dawn is not someone who had a professional masterplan about the types of roles she wanted. She explained that she had fallen into different roles but was not aiming at a specific job.

Traditional career paths rarely exist nowadays, so being open and flexible to explore career transitions is the crux of employability.

If you don’t have a masterplan for your career, exposure to others and their own career paths is an important way of exploring alternative options that you may have never considered. We so often just see the success stories of others and not the meandering path they have taken. Hearing from the twists and turns of careers, when people made mistakes with jobs, applied but failed at interviews, did not receive a grant…is all part of exploring what you want for your own path. We also do not always see ourselves in some more senior roles. It often takes others to tell us to apply for a job that we felt was out of reach for us. 

o   How can you stay open to unexpected opportunities in your career?

o   Who is encouraging you to take unusual opportunities that may create a spark of inspiration to decide what to do next?

o   Who is challenging you to take opportunities even when you feel you are not good enough, ready enough, smart enough….?

A supportive research environment looks like what 

Doing a PhD as a mature student will have come with all the challenges of balancing family and work, but it brought her some calmness that younger researchers may not experience. She embraced that listening to others and learning from them was more valuable than worrying about not knowing as much as them

Transcript

Sandrine Soubes: 0:00

let's get started then. Good morning dear listeners I'm Sandra, so your host on the podcast Research Lives and Culture. And today I have done SLE who is based at Nottingham Trend University and. Looking at your bio on the university website, you are senior research fellow.

Dawn Scholey: 0:34

Yes, that's right.

Sandrine Soubes: 0:35

welcome on the show. And at the moment you're working in the School of Animal, Rural and Environmental Sciences. A very long, a very long title for a

Dawn Scholey: 0:44

it is a very long title and I'm sure that they will make it may change at some point in the future but yeah, it's a very long title.

Sandrine Soubes: 0:51

So really, really nice having you in this conversation. So let's get started. And if you can share with us, in a few words, your research career so far,

Dawn Scholey: 1:03

Yeah, well, I've had a bit of a sort of my research. I was never really intending to go into a research career, I suppose. I originally started as a research technician and I worked for a long time as a research technician. in animal research and I loved it and I would have probably stayed as a research technician but over many years I met quite a lot of people who were doing their PhDs and things and one of those people I met is currently my boss and she contacted me and asked if I wanted to do a PhD and I thought about it very long and hard leaving like a permanent technician job to go do a PhD, but I did go and do it and having done my PhD in poultry research, I then stayed as a postdoc and I have been there now for 12 years as a postdoc. First of all, just a postdoc and then now senior postdoc fellow. There certainly hasn't been any planning in my research career. It's very much been, it's been fallen into different jobs. So I spent some time in a, in a industry when I was working as a technician. And then that sort of didn't go so well and I moved back into university research. And. A lot of it has been just whatever happened to happen at the time. It's interesting that I never really wanted to work with chickens, but, but I, I'm interested in science, so. Actually, whatever we work, whatever area I've worked in, once you work in that area and you start reading the background and you start reading about the area and you start learning about things, I just enjoy learning. I'll enjoy learning about science. So now I wouldn't change it for the world because there's so much research going on in the chicken field. So it's now I'm super interested in it. I think I just like science and I just like learning. So, For me, the field was never as important as just learning new things. I just love it when you are doing something and you find something that was unexpected or a student comes and says, I found this, this result, and I don't know why it's happened like that. I love that. I think it's so interesting to be able to think, why did that, why did that happen? Why did that happen? Why did we get that unexpected result? Is it, you're trying to find sort of reasons why you've got a different result to what you were expecting? And that sort of learning and questioning I think is really the key to a scientific career.

Sandrine Soubes: 3:53

It's really funny because I have worked with chicken as well, but not, yeah, but not adult chicken. I actually did a postdoc in developmental genetics and the model organism that we were using was the, the chicken embryo. When I talk about my postdoc, I always say, well, I put pretty much spend my time cracking eggs, because that's what we did. We did a lot of micro dissection of chick embryos, which obviously for the non scientists, you know, or for, you know, researchers who are not, you know, in that sort of field, it sounds very weird,

Dawn Scholey: 4:24

but in terms of, in terms of numbers for research, they're, they're a good model animal to work with. So, and I mean, we're, we're, we're working for the poultry industry, so our work's really directly linked with chicken welfare and,

Sandrine Soubes: 4:39

So I'm really interested in this conversation that you had with the person who is now your boss, because you said that you never saw that you would do a PhD or you would be in research, even though you were working as a technician, what was it that this person saw in you that maybe you didn't see in yourself? And, what was it that made you believe that you could be? Because often, you know, we were kind of stuck and we have ideas about where we fit or what we can do. And sometimes it takes somebody else to say, hang on a minute, you know, you could do this. Why don't you give it a go?

Dawn Scholey: 5:16

And I think sometimes as well, it's the people around you put you in their box. So when I was a technician, I think I was probably working at a much higher level, I was running trials and I was doing a lot of development work, but the attitude of a lot of the other people in the department was, you have a technician, you're in the technician box and that's where you are. But because I'd worked with Emily before, she knew me and she knew what sort of work I was doing. Nottingham Trent at the time, we didn't have anything, and so she knew she needed somebody who was quite experienced to come in because we didn't have a building, we didn't have anything set up for lab work or anything, so she really talked me into it. I mean, Emily is a wonderful boss, and she is a really inspirational leader of our team. She's a professor of sustainable agriculture, and she came to my house.

Sandrine Soubes: 6:17

Oh, really? Wow.

Dawn Scholey: 6:18

and actually sat and had coffee with me one evening and talked me into applying for the PhD. So, and she, she basically, every, every sort of question I had, every sort of worry I had, you know, would I be able to do it and stuff. She, she, she basically eased all that by, by saying to me, yeah, of course you can, you know, I have every confidence. I'm, I'm, you know, I'd be so thrilled for you to come. And she, she basically talked me into it.

Sandrine Soubes: 6:46

That's a really interesting story. And so how has it been like for you then this experience of transitioning, actually doing the PhD because, I used to work as a researcher developer at the University of Sheffield. So I've spent many, many years, you know, supporting PhD student and postdocs and because of the uncertainty of what's next or just the challenge of doing research. We always question ourself, question our intelligence, question our ability to carry on. And especially because you had had that professional experience, so you didn't start, you know, as a 21 year old on this, on this

Dawn Scholey: 7:21

No, no, I was, I was 39 when I started my PhD and I had two small children. My, my youngest was just a baby when I started. So that was obviously fairly tricky as well. But in terms of the actual PhD, I didn't find it difficult at all because Because I'd come from an environment where I'd done a lot of development work, it was just really nice being able to see a lot of the background and do that side of it. So I didn't really find it particularly difficult. What was difficult at the time was the fact that we had to set everything up from scratch because we have no building or not and it was all, it was that logistical side that was more difficult. The actual, the intellectual side I didn't find too bad. I think as a woman in science then. Of course we all have imposter syndrome, I think. I don't think, I've met many people who don't have imposter syndrome. I think we all think that we're not smart enough. And there are, there are so many people in, in poultry who are so clever. You go to conferences and you meet people at the top of their field and they are so brilliant. And you come away and you just feel like an idiot because everybody seems to know so much. And you feel like you don't know anything, and of course it's, that's not true, but it's interesting. My boss went and met somebody the other week, and she said that he was so brilliant, that she came away feeling like she didn't know anything. So it's, it's the same at a lot of levels, I think. I think you never get over, And I think it's a particularly problem for women. I think we all have a bit of a an imposter syndrome that we're not good enough.

Sandrine Soubes: 9:09

So how have you been able to manage that in a way that. You push yourself, you know, you put yourself out of your comfort zone, but at the same time, you don't make yourself miserable because it's good to be out of our comfort zone in terms of learning. And, and you said earlier that, you know, learning the process of learning is something that matters to you, but at the same time, we can't, you know, we can't feel the pain all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dawn Scholey: 9:35

I, I think, I think it really helped me being older. I think having, having a lot of experience behind me really helped because although I can see those people who were, who were super smart and everybody else, and I can see that they know more than I do, I'm sort of, realistic about it. I know that there's always going to be somebody who's cleverer than you and there's always going to be somebody who knows more about a subject than you, probably. You're always going to meet somebody and think, oh, they know more than I do, but you can't allow that to worry you. All you can do is do the best you can do. You can't worrying about the fact that somebody else knows more than you. And actually what you can do is listen to those people. If you find somebody who is. really, really brilliant in a particular area, ask them for advice, chat to them. I mean, it's something I've learned is so important is to, to network and talk to people in your field, because you learn a lot from them, but also you get a lot of opportunities as well. I mean, we are a commercially funded group and all our work comes from industry. So if we didn't have those networks, we wouldn't be able to do the work we do.

Sandrine Soubes: 10:50

So how did you then sort of navigate your research? Because after you had done your PhD, you know, potentially you could have gone and, do a postdoc somewhere else, but you made the decision to stay in the same institution what does it look like to have a career when you stay in the same institution in term of progressing having new responsibilities?

Dawn Scholey: 11:12

I think it's really dependent on who you're working with. I think that's the most important thing. And for me, because I work for somebody who is very supportive and very encouraging, I knew that there would be opportunities. And there always has been opportunities. I was promoted quite quickly and we did talk about me applying for associate professor, but then I fell ill and I have chronic illness and I just don't have the energy anymore to commit to that I'm, I'm happy to work as much as I can for as long as I can. I have to work part time now. But the thing for me is that if I, if you have somebody who you know is willing to put you forward, so when external, you know, offers of talks and things come in for conferences, somebody who is willing to give you the opportunity to do it and doesn't just want all the glory for themselves. I think it's really important, I suppose people, people leave managers don't they, they don't leave jobs as much as they leave managers. So if you have a manager who is super supportive of you, then you can stay in a job a long time because you know that you will get opportunities to do what you want to do. And. mean, our team has grown and grown from it being me and Emily, and now we have technicians and other postdocs, and I still like the day to day work in our team. I'm still, I'm an organiser at heart, and I like to organise trials and organise all the research, and I love working with PhD students. So, for me, I get what I need out of it, but I think really my, I suppose what I want in the future, what I, I'm not very ambitious anymore, that's really changed because I have several chronic conditions and I know that they will deteriorate. I'm, I'm no longer focused on a career, if you like, I'm focused on doing what I do, learning and the science, if you like, but I'm a lot less involved in moving up to the next thing. I'm just, I, that, that has sort of gone for me really because I just don't have physical ability anymore to do that. And I'm aware that at some point I may have to give up work, but hopefully, you I work as long as I can.

Sandrine Soubes: 13:30

So, you're working, as a senior researcher, with, younger people. So Obviously in the UK, at least, there's been lots and lots of conversation about research culture at the moment. So how do you see your own role, creating that research culture in the way that you work, you know, with younger researchers and within the institution? What are the things that you've done yourself to contribute to that, to building a positive research culture?

Dawn Scholey: 13:58

Because we have quite a large group, we have like weekly or bi weekly meetings where we talk about things that these students are interested in. So we might, they've been talking a lot at the moment about sort of work opportunities and what they could do afterwards. And so last week I got somebody I know who works in the industry to come in and do a question and answer session with them. So. We try and look at what they're interested in and talk about it that way. Other than that, what I also do with our PhD students is that I'm sort of the mother figure in our team. And so do a lot of cheerleading because I think there's an awful lot of PhD that is just grind. You just have to work through it. And. It doesn't have to work. It doesn't have to, you don't have to get brilliant results. You just have to do the work and write it up and you just need somebody to tell you that you can do it. And so I will sit with them and say, we can do this. Come on, let's break it down to small pieces. And I sort of cheerlead them and sort of try and support them, particularly through writing up. I think write, writing up is usually where I come in with our PhD students and I support them through that and get to get the actual. thesis on paper, because I think a lot of people struggle with that. They just struggle. We have a lot of people struggle with perfectionism. So they have done the work and the work is fine, but they do not want to write it down because they're worried they won't be good enough. I always say, It doesn't have to be perfect, it just needs to be finished. It just needs to be on paper, and regardless of how good it is, your examiners will probably find something wrong with it. So, let's not worry about little things that are wrong with it, because, you know, they'll find something anyway. Because I've, I've been in vivas where the examiners have, a search to find something that's wrong with it because they didn't want to leave it with no corrections. So I'm sure that they'll always find something wrong with it. So it's just that support I think particularly towards the end of a PhD. At the beginning of the PhD I think they just need, PhD students need a lot of guidance and it's something I think we do quite well in our team, we have a lot of PhD students, but in terms of. Not letting them just fly in the wind. I think when they first start, it's really helpful if they have a trial planned and they have some work planned, like work packages planned of what they're going to do. And then once they've done the first piece of work and analyze their data and everything, they can develop from that because they'll have done some reading and everything else. But if you just leave them to read for six months, It feels like they're just struggling. They don't really know what they're doing. So, we try and make it really guided at the beginning of a PhD, so their work's, their work's guided and then they can put more of their independence into it as they go along and they can have more and more input into what they're doing

Sandrine Soubes: 17:03

one of the things that I, that I'm curious is that after your PhD, or after your first postdoc, you could have decided to move back into industry and maybe you know, to get, a much better position. So what kept you going? you know, within the university sector.

Dawn Scholey: 17:20

You know, it was always my plan to work in industry. I always, I always intended after my PhD to go and work in industry. And really it was the support from Emily. It was the, that sort of, she gave me so much in terms of just opportunities, opportunities to go to conferences, opportunities to write things, write grants, just loads of opportunities. So I just kept getting opportunities. I kept staying. But also at the time, you know, you've got to consider your family life. And at the time, my children were quite small. And. In our industry, it involves a lot of travel, and I knew my children didn't want me to be away from home that much. So, it's that balance. I had to balance the fact that, yes, I could have got a job in the industry for, well, I mean, several of my PhD students earn substantially more than I do. And, but they travel a lot, and I didn't, I wasn't willing to do that. And now, even though my children are older, now my parents need caring. So, I think for me, my family is really important, so it, the job really has to come second for me to my family. So, it was a, it was a balance. I was getting the opportunity, so I was happy to stay, but also I was, aware of the fact that my home life didn't really allow me to go and do something that was going to make me away from home a lot.

Sandrine Soubes: 18:47

So I remember when I worked at the University of Sheffield, I had lots of conversation with researchers who were, a little bit like yourself. And One of the frustration that some of them had was that, you know, there is a view that postdocs are transient within the university. So don't, necessarily get some of the same opportunities within the structure of the institution. And obviously now you're, a senior postdoc, so it's a bit different, but what were the opportunities that you were able to get, as you progressed as a postdoc that gave you a sense that you are, a full member of the institution, not a perceived temporary worker within the institution.

Dawn Scholey: 19:30

So I've been involved in the Concordat for career researchers for probably, well, at least 10 years. Been involved in it since quite early on and at the time I became involved in it because I was the only postdoc on our campus. I'm no longer the only postdoc but I've always been really keen to push the role of postdocs in universities because you're absolutely right, there is this belief that you're transient, there's also a belief that it's a stepping stone and that every postdoc wants to be a lecturer and I have no intention of moving into lecturing so I'm quite happy as a postdoc And I felt really strongly that it was important for postdocs to be on committees and to be out in the wider institution. So if there's ever anything which is a training course or some sort of concordat or some sort of committee, I will always put myself forward for it. And Emily is really supportive of that, but I will always try and do things that are university wide because I think it is so important to get yourself known outside of your school. And so. I still do Concordat stuff. I still do postdoc stuff. I also do our School Research Degrees Committee and anything like that, anything that comes up, I'll think, well, you know, I'll give that a go. I think I wouldn't have done if it hadn't been for the fact that right from the beginning My boss was really supportive for that. Anytime anything came up, she'd go, you should do that. Why don't you do that? And I, because of imposter syndrome again, I would be saying, Oh, I don't, I'm not sure I can. And she'd go, go on, you'd be great at it. Go on. She really, really believes in getting yourself known in the wider university and the wider, you know, not just university, outside the university. So I really saw right from the beginning that power of networking, because we would go to places, we'd go to conferences, or we'd go to just like an event within the university, and we'd be chatting to people, and just something would come up, and then somebody would mention that they had a piece of equipment they didn't need, and so back at the beginning we didn't have anything, we were constantly We were constantly getting pieces of equipment from people every time we went to like we'd go to some sort of event raising money for something or you know, a lunch event or something. it really showed me the power of, of that networking and of knowing people outside of your area particularly if they're on a short term contract to get focused on their bit of research. I've seen it in our school. They come in and they work on their project, and you try and get them to do other things. I mean, because I was Concordia champion for a long time, I used to say to people, Do you want to come to this, you know, town hall event or whatever? And they'd go, I can't because I've got research. I can't because I've got to write a paper. Actually It's just as important to go out and meet people and it's particularly senior people in the university and people in other schools because when you meet people in other schools you realise you've actually got quite a lot in common with people in the business school or social sciences and there's an element of that to your research and when you put in a grant you can start bringing other people in because There's always going to be some sort of crossover. We work a lot with people from other schools because there's a lot of crossover I think in all fields and it's easy to get stuck on I'm only doing this one lab technique or one, you know, I'm just doing this one thing and not see the bigger picture. And so it's really important to try and get out there, but you have to put yourself out there. So as I say, I'm fortunate that my boss pushed me into it as well, but there's an element of self pushing. There's an element of saying yes. So when people say to you, can you do this? You go, yes, I can do that. And there might be part of you thinking, can I do this? Am I, you know, am I good enough? Can I do it? And. Actually, you should just say yes, and you can always get support to help you. If you say no to everything, then you're missing a lot of opportunities. And it's something I tell my PhD students, because I think when they go out into the world, particularly if you want to go into academia, having extra strings to your bow is never a bad thing. So if you've done teaching, because you've taken the opportunity, or you've written a grant, or you've done extra talk. So you've, you know, if you've been a student mentor or whatever, if you've taken different opportunities, it just gives you something extra that maybe other candidates don't have when you're looking for a job. So I, I always try and support my students to do it, but obviously it depends on people's personal circumstances as well.

Sandrine Soubes: 24:08

I mean, it's also acknowledging the, you know, the timeframe that people have. one of the difficulty you know, for postdocs, on short term contract is that there is a sense of emergency in term of, getting the data because, you only have three years if you're lucky. And

Dawn Scholey: 24:24

but I do, but I do, think they need to prioritize it. I do think it's something that's really important to prioritize. That, that network within and without the, within and outside the university, I think it's something that you're right, it does get ignored because people are concentrating on the research, but I think taking, you know, a couple of hours a week or whatever to do networking side is so important for your future career. It's that looking forward, I suppose, rather than focusing just on we need to get this piece of work done. you've done extra things or you've done things outside and you know extra people, it's, you don't immediately see the benefits but you do eventually.

Sandrine Soubes: 25:08

you know, I completely agree with you. I've worked, for a very long time as a researcher developer and I see the challenge that some postdocs face when they're applying for lectureship position and they've never done any teaching or they've never done public engagement. It's like they may have really good research, but you know, recruiters, whether academic or external recruiter, they want a full package. And that's really the challenge for many people is balancing the limited amount of time that they have and getting all of these other experiences, you know, under their belt in a way that is manageable. I was discussing yesterday, I had a coaching session with somebody and this person was talking about one of their researchers who, really put very strong boundaries about their, their work life balance and doesn't really want, to go beyond, the nine to five, sort of timeframe of work. And that's a challenge. When you're thinking about researchers that you're working with, when they say to you, well, I want to maintain my work life balance and I have to do all of these things, you know, how do I go about it?

Dawn Scholey: 26:12

I mean, I'm a big fan of work life balance. I don't have any option, really. I have to work part time. But even when I did my PhD, I worked part time because I had small children. For me, there's an element of organization, and there's an element of being productive in the time you have available. I'm a very productive person. I can have I, I'm a list writer so I'll have my, my list and I can get through lots of stuff because I can concentrate for several hours and just pile through the work. But I think you're right, something has to give. If you were trying to work a reduced hour or a really specific set of hours, you can't do everything. So you have to then concentrate on the things that are going to provide the most value to you, I think. So I think there's a tendency to focus a lot. on the research side, which possibly also benefits the head of your group more than it benefits you. I think sometimes you have to also think, well, I'm going to do a little bit less of that in order to do teaching or whatever that you need to do in order to move on to your next role. Because if you are only there for a year, say, there's no point in killing yourself. In the lab to get a certain amount of work done and at the end of the year, you've not got anything that helps you get to the next level. It helps you get the next role. I think it's, You've got to prioritise yourself for some of the time and prioritise what you need to do. So if you want to write papers, you need to prioritise writing the papers or a grant or whatever. You can't, you can't do it all because there's only so many hours in the day. But, Also, you have to accept that you're maybe not going to be perfect in the lab, you know, or you're not going to be doing everything perfectly in the perfect number of replications or whatever. You're going to have to just do good enough because otherwise you will just fill all the time available with doing research. You could fill all the time available if you work 24 hours a day. Because always something you could be doing, that could be, you can always find extra things you could be doing. And, it need, you need to be, it needs to be good enough and you need to prioritise what is important for you and what is important for your future. Because nobody else will do that for you. If you're lucky, you have a supervisor or a manager who will push you to do things that are good for your future. A lot of people won't. A lot of people will want you to do work and just do, you know, sit in the lab and do the work every hour that God sends. So you have to make sure that you prioritize that time and you put it in your diary, protect it. Protect the time you need to do things and push for it. So if you want to go to an event. You need to push and say, yes, I know you want me to do this thing, but it's really important for me to go to this event, and it's important for my future career to go and meet people and, you know, learn new things and not just be sat in the lab all the time. So, I think people have to really advocate for themselves, and it is not easy. As I say, for me, because I was, old because I was older and I've been around a long time. It, it was easier, I think, but I think for a new student, particularly, it can be quite tricky. I mean, we have a lot of major students now, so they don't have much problem advocating for themselves, but some of the new students, particularly for us international students, often they come in and they don't have a lot of self confidence and they don't like to ask for anything because they feel bad about it. And so we really need to make sure as supervisors that we're supporting those students that we know will just work and work and do, and not ever put themselves forward. So we need to make sure as supervisors we're supporting those students, because otherwise they do get overlooked because, some of the other students will push themselves forward.

Sandrine Soubes: 30:19

And assertiveness is something that I spend a lot of time working with when, I deliver workshops do you have an example in your career where, you know, an assertive conversation was needed? And maybe, since you seem to have a very good working relationship, maybe it's not with your boss, but with some, with, you know, with a, with a collaborator, you know,

Dawn Scholey: 30:39

I do have, I do have a surgery come from conversations in my boss as well. But yes, but all the time with collaborators you go, because you'll often find that people will try and do everything. So we will, we'll be trying to run a trial and they'll just keep making it more and more complicated for the student. And I will always push back. I will be like, let's keep it simple. Let's not overcomplicate it. Because they get to the point where they're trying to answer 15 different questions in one study, and it's just like, the student's bewildered, and your results are just not going to be accurate. So I would always push back on that. And I think this comes back to seeing people as, as human again, in that although some of these people are really top of their field that we work with, they're just human, the same as us. So I'm not afraid to say No, we're not doing that. That's ridiculous. You're asking for far too much. You need to pick one thing that you want to look at because trying to do everything is ridiculous. And I often make a joke out of it because I'm quite a jokey person and I think you have to know the person a little bit as well. So, I think with some people you have to be quite subtle and maybe make suggestions of, well, we could look at this and this or this and this, but I don't really think it's suitable to do both because it might, you know, might affect the results. And so some people you have to be quite subtle and not just not be blunt because they would take offence. Some people you can be really blunt with. My supervisor, my external sponsor for my PhD, we still work with now and He's a very blunt person. So with him, I would just be like, don't be daft. We're not doing that. But it depends a little bit on the person. I, I, I, it doesn't, I think if you, if you see them as people and you don't see them as being some sort of, you know, you're them up there and you down here, you know, we're all people when it comes down to it. I think you just have to speak up and say. Is this really the right thing? Is this what we want to be doing? Are you really trying to get me to do five different things, all of which are going to confound each other? Because that doesn't make any sense to me. And sometimes I will do it. As I'll subject in a self deprecating way, so I'll say, I'm, maybe I'm being an idiot here, but I can't see how that's going to work. Why is that and that and that? Aren't they going to cross over? And often people go, oh yes. and they don't get offended that you're saying that they're wrong, It never hurts to admit that you don't know. I do it a lot with our students. If we're having a meeting and somebody's explaining something, I know it's complicated, even if I, even if I understand it, I'll say, I don't understand this. It's, can you explain it in a simpler way? Because I know, that some of the students won't be getting it. I think if I get, if I say that I don't understand it, then other people won't feel bad about the fact that they don't understand it.

Sandrine Soubes: 33:41

And, I think this idea of, the power differential is a really important one and trying to visualize that the other person is just another human being. And

Dawn Scholey: 33:51

Yeah. And they might be, you know, an expert in whatever area you're talking about, but they're not an expert in everything. So they may know everything there is to know about this particular lab technique or this particular branch of nutrition, because I'm a nutritionist. nobody knows everything about everything,

Sandrine Soubes: 34:09

So one of the things that I'll be interested to, to ask you is about the most exciting things that you feel you've done in your research life. I don't know the most exciting experiment or the most exciting finding. What, what's been the one thing that you feel, you know, in your career so far has been the highlight.

Dawn Scholey: 34:28

I've been really lucky because my PhD was looking at a new method of separating yeast from bioethanol. And we did the work and then it sort of all went really quiet. But it's sort of really picked back up again now. And we met with the person who sponsored my PhD originally. And here 15 years later, it's now coming into, they're using that technology at the new Ensis plant in the UK. to separate yeast out for protein and it's really, it's taken 15 years from our original patent to get to the point where it's starting to be used all over the world and it's really exciting to see something that's adding a new value stream onto something that's such a big industry as bioethanol is because Back when I first started, there wasn't very much bioethanol in petrol, and now it's E10, there's 10 percent bioethanol in petrol, so, and it's global, everywhere's using it, so seeing that, sort of, I've seen how long it takes, but seeing that impact has been really, really nice. We all thought it was going to be a big thing and then it sort of went quiet for a long time and then it picked up again. I think it depends a bit on, there's so many other factors, but it just, we, people often say it takes 10 years to get impact and we reckon it's 15.

Sandrine Soubes: 35:52

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dawn Scholey: 35:53

years to get impact,

Sandrine Soubes: 35:54

Wow.

Dawn Scholey: 35:55

but that's what we're all looking for as scientists, I suppose. We're all looking for impact. We're looking for effect on society and effect on the wider environment. I mean, we're looking for, you know, can we improve our industry? Can we make chickens healthier? You know, there's We're looking for that big impact well, that's what I'm looking for anyway. I don't know, maybe some people are looking for something specific, but for me that's what, as scientists, we're looking for a big impact. And of course we're judged on impact.

Sandrine Soubes: 36:27

So if, if you were reflecting, on the research journey that you've had, if you were going to make your career, easier on yourself, would you do things differently? You know, what, advice would you give to your younger self?

Dawn Scholey: 36:41

I don't know, no, possibly not. Yeah, possibly not. I think maybe I would tell my, my younger self not to worry about it so much, because I think when you first start, there's a lot of concern of, are you doing the right thing? Are you working in the right area? Are you doing what you need to be doing? I would maybe just tell myself to, you know, enjoy it and not worry so much about, you know, whether you're doing the right thing. that's how, that's where I am now. I'm at, I'm at a point where I don't tend to worry too much about when things go wrong or right or anything else. I'm just like, well but I suppose it's because I have a lot of perspective now. I think when you have a degenerative disease, you get quite a lot of perspective of, of, you know, well, this is going to be important in a year's time. Well, maybe not,

Sandrine Soubes: 37:37

so the last question I would like to ask you, Dawn, is what gives you joy in research?

Dawn Scholey: 37:44

I think for me, it's seeing students really develop. I really love that. I love it when they get towards the end of their PhD and they really understand their project and they really start making those sort of intellectual leaps. And I think it's so great when people, particularly if they've come in and they've struggled. And they get to a point, you often find that it takes them a few years to get going and then when they get to the point where they're really starting to get it, I think that's so great that, I mean, some students come in and they're brilliant from the start, but it's so nice to see them really getting it and really making progress. It's a real feeling of achievement to have helped them get to that point. Yeah, that's, that's something I really appreciate. That I really enjoy.

Sandrine Soubes: 38:40

Is there some, a message that you have, for the younger researchers, younger PIs out there that you feel you would want them to hear from all of the wisdom that you've gained over the years?

Dawn Scholey: 38:51

Yeah, there is actually, which is, I think is something that's really important in research is to be completely honest. I think it's something that we pride ourselves on in our group is honesty. I think if you want to work with other researchers, if you want to work in industry, you get a lot of respect for being honest. When things don't go right, when there's been a mistake, if you say this was a mistake, then people know they can trust your results. And I think there's a tendency to not want to be honest if you've made a mistake, but it's so important. And it just gives you a reputation for integrity and it's that integrity that brings back customers and brings back collaborators because they believe that you are actually going to tell them the truth. So that sort of integrity and honesty, I think is really important in research.

Sandrine Soubes: 39:45

I completely agree with you. And it's funny because I used to run a module in my faculty of, on research ethics and integrity. And, the concept of integrity is, one of the pillar when you're thinking about research culture.

Dawn Scholey: 39:58

absolutely. It's that complete, you know, Oh, we forgot to wear those two pens. And we'll just, we'll just tell them straight away. We'll tell the company or whoever we're working with. Somebody forgot to wear these two pens today. And, you know, you know, it's, it's just, I mean, some people would maybe just miss them out and just not mention it. But I think it's really important to tell them because they know then that if there is a mistake, you would tell them. As opposed to just try and ignore it. I think there is a tendency to want to just ignore it. It never hurts to, to hold your hands up and say, oh, it was my fault. And I will always say, even if, even if I think it's somebody else, and if somebody in our team, I'll go, well, it probably was me. Yeah, you know, it was my mistake because I think, you know, it doesn't hurt me to say that.

Sandrine Soubes: 40:48

Mm.

Dawn Scholey: 40:49

But if somebody, if they see you taking responsibility, if people see you taking responsibility, then they're more likely to speak up when they've made a mistake rather than try and cover it up.

Sandrine Soubes: 40:59

I mean, in a lot of the workshop I run, I talk about this idea of, psychological safety. So being able, when you're a senior, researcher in a group, or if you're a PI, creating the space where you share, the challenges that you're facing yourself, the mistakes that you make yourself so that it, enables other to build the confidence that they can as well is absolutely key. It's been really a pleasure talking to you. I really appreciate it. And I think that your journey is quite different from, a lot of people that I've interviewed. Thank you. Really a pleasure.

Dawn Scholey: 41:31

Thank you.