I'm a STEM research scientist

[JohnMcCainsDeathStare]

Early mid-career material scientist - don't want to be too identifying but ask me questions about career, life as a scientist and what it's like to be a parent too.
My second time in AMA.

The most interesting thing?

For me, it was finding out that something that was obvious to me was less obvious to other people in related fields because (a) they were rather dogmatic about their research, (b) nuclear people seldom talk to other people outside of their field and (c) no-one thought to repeat the experiments with better specimens for 60 years.
It was a collaborator of mine who did and which underpinned one of my main hypotheses as to why my materials idea should be considered as a contender to solve a very difficult engineering problem.

Experiments that have not been reviewed or reproduced enough can mean that results end up as dogma if not properly scrutinized. Scientists are human after all.

What would you say is the better working environment for a female STEM scientist - academia or industry?

Hello another STEM person here bsc and msc in different subjects and been working in industry for nearly 30 years. I used to live right next to the material science building at university, although that wasn't my subject. On my course it was 50/50 women/men. Although mostly since being in industry women have been scarce on the ground.

the nature of academic life really isn't family friendly, that and the fact that the rest of society is still playing catch-up.
All the STEM scientists I know from my background are either unmarried or married to someone in the same field of work.
Like they say, we are making our women work in a workplace that was designed to cater to the men of our fathers’ generation.
I still remember how I was treated when, pre-Covid, I tried to work flexibly around my DCs. It was so severely looked down upon and considered a problem. I knew full well, and Covid has proven me 200% right, that the work can done remotely and very effectively too. Yet I had to face all that. Now that mostly-men team is doing remote working in exactly the same way that I proposed initially. But I had to cut my losses and they are being praised.
STEM for women is still so fucked up that I despair sometimes.

Variable - industry and academia depend a lot on the institution and have their own advantages and disadvantages.

My time in industry was with a European multinational company where I acquired my experience in refractory ceramics. I found it quite a nurturing environment and took advantage of its international presence to establish networks. It had a good attitude to parental leave (just as well as I got my BFP on the first day there!). I was able to establish new measuring techniques and a research network as well as identification of new industrial and academic collaborators and IP generation.
However, this changed somewhat when it got bought out by a US company. It became a lot more corporate and more short-termist - they tried to get rid of 'tinker time' - you could spend up to 10% of your time working on projects of interest that weren't directly related to work and seemed a bit more twitchy about business-business collaborations. Eventually it got sold off and moved to the EU - my job left me!
Thing is, unnecessary hierarchies don't sit well with me and most scientists in general and this is a thing in corporate circles - especially US business - I narrowly avoided redundancy once before I was actually made redundant - but the two years in that period made me polish my CV.

In academia, there is the erratic hours and the problem you have when you are on fixed term contracts, housing and family - this can be disruptive and this is one of the reasons why disproportionally more women leave during the postdoc phase than men. If you are on a fixed term contract you can't apply for grants - you have to get a fellowship or create your own funding but that involves a lot of red tape. However, you do have some freedom with your hours and location where you work providing you are keeping term as it where. Even in industy we had laptops and I lived close enough that I would come in on the odd weekend when it was expedient to do so - practially there wasn't that much difference in day-to-day life but in industry it is usually more presciptive.

So it depends a lot on the business - I suspect that more modern industrial STEM places have more women but more old-fashioned places, particularly in defence will have fewer women - even some of my male friends are aware of the disparity.

Anyone else think that most current politicians would struggle to pass a year 6 Science SAT exam, let alone GCSE science?

There's certainly a dearth of scientifically and technologically literate politicians. It's not necessarily so much that they don't know specific content as that they don't always seem to be able to comprehend what experts are telling them, or what questions to ask.

MNet can be a lonely place for us STEM people - I could start another thread for us to hang out.

Currently awaiting the outcome of a BIG interview - should be over by Christmas either way...

Also a lonely place for an ASD woman too. And I'm both. Still here for your questions.
Don't be afraid to ask a scientist. We don't bite!

Forgive me if i dont phrase this in the most elegant way, i dont mean any offence by it, but do you think that certain ASD traits are beneficial to working in a stem subject as I often wonder if there is a positive correlation.

ASD - it is something that is definitely part of why I do my job. ASD is essentially you having to determine people from first principles while everyone else has the script. So it follows that determining things from first principles and wanting to see what might happen is a natural partner for science.
However, ASD is different for anyone who has it - there are lot of actors and performance artist who have ASD. You have to roleplay all the time, especially at school.

That and the fact for many people even today, I don't exist. Part of my ASD is I do not respond to emotions like most people do. Nor do I necessarily show them - but that does not mean I don't feel or show them. I suspect my default expression is somewhat strange because I have been treated as somewhat slow by people who didn't know me - this was more of a childhood thing but it still happens occationally.

But yes, I suspect that most maths, physics and engineering departments have a higher than average number of ASD people. Not sure about ASD women since these are still very under-represented. I only got my official diagnosis in 2017 and I payed for it!

I guess that is the social aspect, but I was thinking more along the lines of questioning things, focussing on repetitive tasks and finding patterns in data, which whilst not exclusive to ASD, I wonder if there is a higher propensity to be able to do this over sustained periods if you have ASD.

I think with AS you certainly can enter a flow state when you hyperfocus and not notice time - but this can be a two edged sword - you can end up going down a rabbit hole that might not be that useful to what you need to do. Also, I find I am at my most productive if I have a choice of things to do - like two different projects so one doesn't get stale.

But yes, I think that the focus and need for detail with ASD can be an asset in research.

I also have ASD and all my quals are physics-based. Hyperfocus + rabbit hole describes my working method

but the nature of academic life really isn't family friendly

I thought it was the opposite. The flexibility makes it more family friendly than working in industry.

It depends on the job and the employer in terms of flexibility - my industry employer was very family friendly - it was one of the reasons why I was able to return at 4 months post birth.

Academic life can be problematic, particularly when conferences are taken into account. Also with COVID and no after school provision - work-bleeding is a real issue now.

My daughter will hopefully be going to uni next autumn. She wants to study Physical Chemistry. Is this likely to head down a career path of material science? I tried reading the course prospectus but it went over my head!

Do you think it's safe to give babies or children with a brain injury from birth stem cells? If so which type?

Forget that. It's the middle of the night and I didn't read the intro properly!

With respect to stem cell research - not really in my wheel-house but this is still very much in its infancy. It would depend on clinical trials but at the moment there is a great deal of medical quackery associated with stem cell research.

Sorry @Strictlystem I didn't see your message until now. Thank you!

I'm still here if there's anyone who want to talk science. Granted, MNet might not be the place that people go to talk science but I thought there were more STEM-minded folks here. Don't be afraid to ask questions, no matter how basic you think they are. I ask the most basic stuff all the time.

I did materials science ! Very enjoyable degree and I’ve had some interesting jobs, I hope your thread encourages others to study it :)

I hope that this thread encourages other people to follow science news and do their own research. Scientific illiteracy certainly exacerbated issues like Brexit and the current pandemic.

People are seeing so much information on social media but do not know what false equivalence is. For instance, having Ken Ham or Katie Hopkins with anyone who's scientific.

Dang it! I was expecting some more interest here! Especially when posters who think that climate change is a scam get more attention than here!