0:13

Welcome to the Cohort Sisters podcast

0:15

, where we give voice to the stories , struggles

0:17

and successes of Black women with

0:19

doctoral degrees . I'm your host , dr

0:22

Yama Cola , and today we have a true

0:24

trailblazer in our midst

0:26

Dr Jamie Valentine Miller

0:29

. She made history as the first

0:31

African American woman to earn a PhD

0:33

in physics from Johns Hopkins University

0:36

, and her journey has been one of breaking

0:38

barriers and inspiring change

0:40

. She's the founder of the organization

0:42

African American Women in Physics and

0:45

she's committed to fostering diversity

0:47

in STEM . Dr Miller's

0:49

outreach work with young physicists

0:51

and engineers is equally impactful

0:53

and , beyond her thriving career , she's

0:56

a wife , a mother , a licensed Sumba

0:58

instructor and an explorer of

1:00

cultures through travel and

1:02

cuisine . So welcome to

1:05

the Cohort Sisters podcast , dr

1:07

Miller .

1:08

Thank you so much . I'm excited to

1:10

be here . I'm looking forward to a good conversation

1:13

.

1:14

So am I . So I know that we just kind

1:16

of heard about your accomplishments and

1:18

accolades , but tell us a little bit about who

1:20

you are like really like where you from

1:22

, where do you live ? What are some things that you like to do

1:25

when you are not being a

1:27

? Well , I guess you can't stop being a trailblazer in

1:29

STEM .

1:29

But what are some ?

1:30

things that you like to do when you're not on the clock .

1:33

So I mean I'll start from the beginning . I'm originally

1:36

from Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , and

1:39

I grew up in a time , fortunately , where

1:41

there was a thriving program

1:43

to encourage minorities who were interested

1:46

in engineering careers . It

1:48

was prime Philadelphia regional

1:50

introduction from minorities to engineering

1:52

and that program allowed

1:54

kids who were interested in engineering and who had

1:57

some talent and math to spend

1:59

each summer on a different local

2:01

university campus learning

2:03

prep for classes that they would take in the fall

2:06

, taught by campus students . So you got

2:08

like this whole pipeline of

2:11

energy and education where

2:13

you have professors , you had undergrad , you had grad

2:15

students , you had high school , you had middle school . I

2:17

think I started in around seventh grade and

2:20

I stopped around the 11th grade . So

2:22

I was very fortunate to be a part

2:24

of that program . I went to a gifted

2:27

middle school , which also

2:29

helped . You know , even though it was a , it

2:31

was . It was kind of influx at the

2:33

time because Philadelphia is a city

2:36

that back in the 80s

2:38

was still doing busing

2:40

and desegregation , so

2:42

there was some challenges there , but

2:44

I feel fortunate for the time I was there

2:46

. When I got to high school

2:48

, I attended a vocational technical

2:50

high school , which means that everybody had a trade

2:53

. So I'm a big believer in having

2:55

a trade . If college is not for you , there

2:57

might be a trade that will help you to have a very

3:00

successful and profitable life

3:02

. My trade was computer science , so

3:04

that put me on a college track

3:06

, and during my senior

3:09

year , the you

3:11

know , we had our college fair . It's a small

3:13

school but the college fair came and

3:15

different universities came , and I was

3:17

very fortunate that the

3:20

alum national

3:22

alumni president for Florida A&M University

3:24

was from Philadelphia , and

3:26

so he personally went and took a team to

3:28

every single high school in Philadelphia , including

3:31

my little hood high school , and

3:33

at the end of their spiel he was like all right

3:36

, now I want to see your valedictorian and your class

3:38

president . And I said , well

3:41

, doesn't he want to talk to me too ? And

3:43

he said , well , why would we want to talk to you ? And

3:45

I said , well , I have the highest SAT score in

3:47

the school for the past five years . All right , well , you

3:49

come to , you come to . And so

3:51

from that they hosted

3:54

a trip for top students

3:56

in Philadelphia who were interested to travel down

3:58

to Tallahassee to Florida A&M University

4:00

for their student preview week . We

4:02

got to meet the president one on one

4:04

, Dr Frederick Humphries . May

4:07

he rest in peace . And he , on the

4:09

spot , offered me a full four year scholarship

4:11

, including four summer internships , to

4:13

Lawrence Live More National Lab . I

4:15

mean , who could say no ? Right , I

4:18

was like I'm in , get my t-shirt , I'm going to

4:20

be here , I'm a rattler , let's go . So

4:22

that is how he ended up attending Florida

4:24

A&M University . While

4:28

I was there , I had a great time . I learned

4:30

a lot , I made a lot of good friends , and it was

4:32

really a unique time at the university because

4:34

the president focused

4:36

on bringing in as many top

4:38

black dollars undergraduates as

4:41

he possibly could . So two of my

4:43

four years something like that we

4:45

had more national merit scholars

4:48

than Harvard , and so

4:50

it's not weird

4:52

for me to be a physics major . My

4:55

roommate was a chemistry major , my

4:57

current husband , who I met at Famuse , Computer

4:59

Science , and there was a girl who won a million dollars in scholarships

5:01

and I just had this one . So I

5:03

didn't feel like I was standing

5:06

out by being a physics major . It was very normal

5:08

to be a black scholar at that time

5:10

, and so it was a wonderful place to

5:12

learn and grow . When

5:15

I left FAMU , I applied

5:17

to graduate schools , and I'm going to do

5:19

a little more detail here than I would do for most , because

5:21

this is the cohort system , so

5:24

I want to make sure that you all know . When

5:26

I got ready to choose a graduate school

5:29

, my advisors at Famuse said I

5:31

got into a number of good schools and they

5:33

said you should

5:35

go to Vanderbilt because we know

5:37

people there , we know that they

5:39

have had other people who have graduated . We

5:41

know you'll be well treated , we can peek in on you . And

5:44

I said I am

5:46

going to pick this Ivy League school because it's Ivy

5:48

League and

5:51

that's what I did . And

5:53

so I went to Brown University in Rhode

5:56

Island where it

5:58

was a very good school . I had a great learning

6:00

opportunity and I

6:02

did good research . But I really was challenged

6:05

with those qualifying exams . It

6:07

was two days , eight hours a day , and

6:10

I took it once . I failed . I

6:13

took it a second time and I did not pass

6:15

and so I had to leave

6:17

. So I said

6:19

, OK , I talked to my advisor at FAMU

6:21

, I talked to my research advisor at Brown

6:23

and my advisor at Brown said Jamie , I

6:25

know that you are excellent in the lab

6:27

and you can be a good physicist . If you choose to

6:29

reapply to grad school , I will write a strong

6:31

letter for you . And of course , everybody at FAMU

6:34

was like we know you can do it , you should

6:36

go to Vanderbilt . I'm going to go to Vanderbilt

6:38

. And so I

6:41

put on my brown sweatshirt

6:43

and I printed my resume

6:45

on very nice paper Y'all don't do that

6:48

anymore . And

6:50

I went to the National

6:52

Society of Black Businesses Conference , which

6:54

was February . I think I had the exam in January

6:56

, the conference was in February , and so

6:59

I said I'm going to go to every recruiter

7:01

who's at this conference because these

7:03

are schools who actually really are interested

7:06

in having black students and

7:08

helping them to succeed and do their best . And

7:11

when I got there I was really struck by

7:13

the students and a professor who at

7:15

the table for Johns Hopkins University , because

7:18

they were so chipper , they were

7:20

just happy and cheerful

7:22

. And so in

7:24

my opinion at that time , at Brown

7:26

the undergraduates were deliriously happy

7:29

and the grad students were really kind of miserable

7:31

. But at Hopkins the

7:33

undergraduates are so

7:36

stressed out because they're

7:38

65% pre-med , they're 25%

7:41

engineering everybody needs to A in physics

7:43

and the grad students are kind of like hey , you know

7:45

what ?

7:45

we've got to live .

7:46

So I made the switch , I applied

7:48

and got in and switched to Johns Hopkins University

7:51

, which was a great move for me . Long

7:53

story short , I was the first African-American

7:56

woman to get a PhD in physics at Johns

7:58

Hopkins University . But as

8:00

I look back and as I have done

8:02

my research , which I'll talk about a little

8:04

bit more I was also the

8:07

first African-American woman to get a

8:09

degree in physics from Brown University

8:11

, brown founded in 1764

8:14

. I was the first black woman to leave

8:16

FAMU and continue on to get a PhD

8:19

in physics in physics , not also

8:21

in physics . So I'm like

8:23

Dr first and I own it now

8:25

and I'm super happy for all of my experiences

8:27

. But for all of you out there who are

8:29

also Dr first , nobody is going

8:31

to tell you . Nobody told me

8:33

until I started doing research on it . So

8:36

if you've never heard of somebody at

8:38

university with you I get a PhD in

8:40

biochemistry , you might be the first

8:42

, and you know , look it up

8:44

and claim it . So that's

8:47

my educational experience . As

8:49

I was finishing up at Hopkins , I

8:52

was really feeling a sense of isolation

8:54

and so there was a . The year

8:56

was like 05 . And so I went

8:58

to the big physics conference

9:00

and then we went

9:02

to there was an international conference for

9:04

women in physics in Rio , rio de Janeiro

9:07

, brazil , and then I

9:09

went to the NSBP conference and so I had met

9:11

all of these different black women in various

9:13

fields in physics and I said I'm just going to start

9:15

, I have a notebook , I'm going to write their name down

9:17

, what school they're at , what's the email address , and

9:20

then I converted that into an Excel spreadsheet

9:22

, I made it to a website

9:25

and then , as I continued to keep track

9:27

of all of these different women in physics

9:29

, eventually that became

9:31

African American women in physics incorporated

9:34

. And so now we are a

9:36

small nonprofit who seeks

9:38

to continue to increase diversity

9:40

in physics , astronomy and all related

9:43

fields . We

9:45

do we certainly help undergraduates

9:47

, grad students and postdocs and we do what we can

9:49

to help them to be encouraged

9:52

and stay on track . And we also do senior

9:54

scientist check-ins , where we talk

9:56

to the older dolls in physics and astronomy

9:58

and we make sure that they are okay

10:01

and we listen to what they have to say

10:03

for hours on end if they want to , because

10:07

the truth of it is that people

10:09

older than my generation and I'll be 50 next

10:11

year if you were a woman in

10:13

STEM and you're older than

10:15

me . If you decided

10:18

to start a family , you might have gotten kicked

10:20

out of your lab and lost your health insurance . That

10:22

would still happen in the 90s . So

10:24

a lot of our older scientists don't have

10:26

children . Some do , many don't , and

10:29

so I'm all of their daughters and I

10:32

just check in on them and make sure that they're doing

10:34

okay .

10:35

Yeah , oh , my goodness . So

10:37

many amazing things that you brought

10:39

up . I'm like where do I even start ? Do I talk

10:41

about the childhood programs ? Do

10:43

we go into the intergenerational

10:45

nature of your

10:48

organization ? I kind of want to go

10:50

in chronological order , so we're definitely going to

10:52

get back to AAWIP , but

10:55

let's start . Why physics

10:57

? What is it about physics that

10:59

interested you , that sparked

11:02

your curiosity ?

11:05

So I was really good in math and science

11:07

. I can recall my

11:09

junior year in high school

11:11

. I'm not athletic , I'm

11:14

kind of classy , but I was some team

11:16

manager , so I can keep the statistics

11:18

and you know all that stuff . And so I would

11:20

miss the physics class two

11:22

or three days a week , but I always show

11:25

up on exam day and I was like , ah

11:27

, but I would do well in the exams . And so my

11:29

teacher , mr Rabinowitz , was like

11:31

you know , you're really good at this , you have

11:33

a talent for it . And so because

11:36

of that prime program , I knew I

11:38

wanted to choose an engineering field . And

11:40

because I grew up in the Projects

11:42

of North Philadelphia , I knew I needed a full

11:44

scholarship . And so when I looked

11:46

at all the magazines I said , okay , well

11:49

, everybody in their mama is major engineer

11:51

and nobody's choosing physics . So I'm

11:54

going to pick physics because it will increase my opportunities

11:56

to get a full right scholarship , because

11:59

all the crazy people are going to choose physics

12:01

. I couldn't choose anything when

12:04

I was like I will increase my eyes to get a full ride

12:06

if I choose physics . And that did work out for

12:08

me . So I had an interest , of course

12:10

, and I had a natural talent towards it , but

12:13

most it was because I really needed a full ride scholarship

12:15

.

12:16

Yeah , I love the calculations

12:19

that you are already doing in high school . I

12:21

know what I need to succeed in life and I'm going

12:24

to make it happen Good for you . I

12:26

don't know if high schoolers today are thinking

12:28

that way , with all the TikToks

12:30

and whatnot to occupy their time

12:33

, but I love that tenacity

12:35

and really the desire to control your own destiny

12:37

. So I appreciate

12:40

you sharing your experience at Brown

12:42

, because there aren't a lot of people who talk about

12:44

. Actually , I haven't met a lot of people

12:46

who have had to transfer

12:48

doctoral programs unwillingly

12:50

, and so can you kind of talk about

12:52

how did you feel when

12:55

they said that you couldn't stay and

12:58

how did you channel that feeling into action

13:00

? Like , did you wallow a little bit in your thoughts

13:02

, did you cry , and then how

13:04

did you kind of transform and then

13:06

pick yourself up and then start going to that conference

13:09

to find another program for you ?

13:12

So for me , of

13:14

course , you know , when we're young

13:16

we know everything . So I'm like , oh , this is

13:18

a travesty , I've been robbed . But

13:20

I mean I know that , like looking

13:22

back on the question , that I didn't

13:24

perform up to the highest standard

13:27

, so it's fine . But I also

13:29

knew I'm a good

13:31

scientist , Like it's okay . So

13:34

I gave myself maybe a day

13:36

or two to have a pity party and

13:38

to cry and you know , and call my mom

13:40

and all that stuff . But then

13:42

I reached back to my professor , the family

13:44

, and I talked to my researcher Pfizer

13:46

, who's James Dallas . He's still at Brown today

13:48

and I said , OK , well , let's make a plan

13:50

to move forward . Either I can go back to

13:52

Philly or preference president McDonald's or

13:55

I can reapply to grad school . Because that was

13:57

always my fallback , which is not a great fallback

13:59

Because , as I haven't

14:01

mentioned , I'm a patent examiner for the US Patent

14:03

and Trademark Office . I could have left Brown and

14:05

taken this very same job and had a great

14:07

life . But for me , I was so

14:10

focused on getting the PhD

14:12

because my entire undergraduate

14:14

career they're like well , if you're going to major in physics , you have to

14:16

get a PhD . Because part of the

14:19

goodness that comes out of HBCUs is that

14:21

they push you towards the highest goals possible and

14:23

they inspire you and hype you up like

14:26

, look , you're going to do it , you're going to be great . Everybody

14:28

oh yes , we're all here for you . So when I failed

14:30

that exam and I reached back to those professors

14:32

, they said to me oh , this

14:35

professor also had to leave this

14:37

program because it's a program . It is common

14:39

In fact I don't know why Neil deGrasse

14:42

Tyson left his program and

14:44

finished somewhere else , but it's

14:46

very common that people leave one program and finish somewhere else

14:48

, whether it's an exam or an advisor , or the climate or whatever

14:50

it is . And

14:53

so I love to tell my story so that students

14:55

know if it's not working , you can

14:57

move , you

15:00

can go somewhere else , because you

15:02

can have a different experience . That would be more healthy for

15:04

you . So

15:09

I at the time I was very embarrassed , I felt shame , but

15:11

I also was very determined . I felt like this is something

15:15

that I have a calling

15:17

and a drive to do and nothing but

15:19

God can keep me from it . And that's a color purple , but I'm going

15:21

to continue as far as I can until somebody tells me that

15:24

, you know , it's absolutely just can't be done . And so perseverance

15:26

was a strong thing . Yes

15:30

, I absolutely love that .

15:35

Another thing that you mentioned

15:37

was how you were not only the first at Hopkins but you discover

15:39

that you were the first

15:42

, you know , in these other places . Can

15:48

you kind of talk us through , like , how you actually

15:50

went about figuring out you're the first , like ? Did you email

15:52

someone like and say , hey , can you confirm whether or not

15:54

I'm the first black woman to get a job ? Can you confirm whether or

15:56

not I'm the first black woman to get

15:59

a doctoral degree here ? Just like , what did that actually

16:01

look like ?

16:03

So for me , I there's

16:06

a young woman she's a current grad student

16:08

named Jamel Watson Daniels

16:10

and she completed her bachelor's

16:12

in physics maybe five or six years

16:14

ago and she's in . She's

16:16

a rock star and she was like you

16:19

know . She gave one of the class speeches at graduation

16:21

at Brown and she's amazing all

16:23

around . But in the articles that they wrote about her

16:25

they said she is

16:27

the first African American woman to get a bachelor's

16:30

in physics from Brown University .

16:32

And I said oh , five years ago .

16:34

Wow , well , she's the first

16:36

to get a bachelor's and we have

16:38

no PhDs , then that makes me the

16:40

first to get a master's . So first to

16:42

get any degree , and then

16:44

for FAMU . Because I

16:46

keep the history of all black women in physics

16:49

on my website at awpcom , I

16:52

was able to see no other people

16:55

had a bachelor's degree from FAMU who

16:57

completed a PhD elsewhere . Now

16:59

I think that when I was 1718

17:02

, if they had said to me oh , you have to

17:04

get a PhD , after all , you'll be the first

17:06

oh , my gosh , I would have been intimidated

17:09

by my would have . I don't know that they knew or didn't

17:11

know , but it would have definitely been too

17:13

much of a way to bear . But also

17:16

, we are the gatekeepers

17:18

of our history and if we don't keep

17:20

our history , nobody else is going to

17:22

do it . When I call schools every year and

17:25

say , oh , do you have any ? You know African

17:27

American women who have graduated or who

17:29

are grad students , and for the most

17:31

part they don't keep those statistics . The

17:34

NSF does annual

17:36

surveys but they didn't always ask questions on these

17:38

things because our numbers were so low

17:40

. So we're the gatekeepers of our

17:42

history and a lot of us are first

17:45

and we just don't know because we never asked . We're just like

17:47

putting our head down and staying in the lab and getting our

17:49

work done .

17:50

Yeah , yeah , that's so fascinating . I'm

17:52

wondering , I'm like excited actually to hear

17:54

if , after folks listen to this episode

17:57

, if there's anyone who is like who finds

17:59

out that they ended up being the first or that they will

18:01

be the first if that's you and you're listening or

18:03

watching , please let us know so we can

18:05

help you up and celebrate you , because it is . It's

18:07

amazing . But it's also astonishing

18:09

to me that in the year 2023

18:12

, they're still the first like we're still checking

18:15

off boxes , and it's crazy . I love

18:17

it for us , but it's still . I'm just like wow

18:20

, in this millennia , we're still

18:22

making history . We

18:24

have a long way to go . Let's talk

18:26

about mentorships . When you finally landed at Hopkins

18:28

at the program where people were chipper

18:31

, that was I'm like envisioning people

18:33

being happy at this conference and I feel like that's so

18:35

funny . Did you have any black

18:37

women mentorship ? It sounded like you had a lot

18:39

of really strong mentors at FAMU

18:41

, but at Hopkins , what was

18:44

it about Hopkins , aside from the graduate

18:46

students being happy ? What

18:48

kind of mentorship did you receive there , especially

18:50

if you've had any mentorship from black

18:52

women or other women of color , how

18:55

did how did that mentorship , kind of like pursuit

18:57

, help you persevere ?

18:59

So at Hopkins at the time

19:01

there were no African American

19:04

Professors in the physics department

19:06

. It's the department of physics and astronomy and we

19:08

didn't have any . Hopkins is very

19:10

closely aligned with the space telescope

19:13

science Institute , which is across the street

19:15

. They run the Hubble and I think they were in the James West

19:17

, the J W S T , and

19:20

so I didn't get African

19:23

American mentorship in the physics department . But

19:25

I definitely have professors in the physics department

19:27

who were in my corner and

19:29

who were there to cheer me on when

19:32

times got tough . One thing that was

19:34

very different about Hopkins is that when I left

19:36

the physics department and met with other

19:38

black grad students , 90%

19:41

were in stem , as opposed

19:43

to it Brown , the other black grad

19:45

students . There was a huge program

19:48

. There was a like all of it

19:50

. Most of the black grad students were in social

19:52

sciences and it was just like

19:54

5 of us who were , you know , physics

19:57

, engineering or whatever , and

20:00

so at Hopkins we were all in stem . So if I

20:02

say , oh , I haven't seen sunlight in a week , they're

20:04

like me , they could kind

20:06

of relate to what's going on

20:08

, and that made a difference to me . So

20:10

I had those close

20:12

interaction . Also because Hopkins

20:15

is in Baltimore , which is a predominantly

20:17

black city . Most of the support

20:19

staff is African American and

20:22

so there's a cleaner

20:24

lady who would come and clean my office every

20:26

day and at the holiday she bring me a sweet

20:28

potato pie baby you still here and

20:30

she would look out for me , and the girl the coffee cart

20:32

would look out for me and just check in on

20:35

me . Because you know , you need many

20:37

different types of circles of people who support you

20:39

. You have your homegirls

20:41

, you have your family , you may have a sorority

20:43

, you may have , you know , friends from your elementary school

20:46

. You need all of those different circles

20:48

to support you in different ways , and

20:50

so I got a lot of that happens . I was

20:52

involved in the black faculty and

20:54

staff association , which was

20:57

essentially people who've been at Hopkins for 30

20:59

, 40 , 50 years , and

21:01

then admin or , as you know , whatever

21:03

their position is . They've seen it all , they know what

21:05

everything is , and so that was very , very

21:07

helpful for me and I'm grateful to

21:09

all of those different circles for helping me to get through

21:11

and , of course , my research advisor who

21:14

was a very

21:16

traditional Chinese tough love

21:18

kind of advisor . He treated me

21:20

exactly the same way that he treated all

21:22

of his Chinese students , except

21:25

that I was not Chinese . I was

21:27

like , oh , I'm being tortured . But

21:30

in the end I was like , oh , actually he's

21:32

. He's treating me the exact same way , but

21:34

they understand it in a way that I didn't

21:36

, until I read the book and

21:38

I was like battle him of the tiger . Mother

21:40

, if you have a Chinese research advisor , go

21:42

get that book and read it . He was loving

21:45

in the way that he knew , which

21:47

felt very painful at the time

21:49

. But now I recognize it as

21:52

just tough love , to make sure that

21:54

when I went out into the world

21:56

that I would be prepared , that

21:58

nobody could come at me harder than he

22:00

was going to come at me . So I was ready

22:02

for any question or any challenge .

22:06

Yeah well , I'm so glad that you had such

22:08

a positive experience and

22:11

that you were able to complete your degree

22:13

so that you can continue to inspire others . I

22:16

want to talk about , you know , towards the end of

22:18

your dissertation process , towards

22:20

the end of the doctoral degree , what were some

22:22

of the different choices that you were weighing

22:24

in terms of what your next career steps would

22:26

be . Did you consider doing more research

22:28

? Did you consider an academic career

22:31

at all , and what were you kind of thinking

22:33

at the time ? And then how did that

22:35

translate ? Kind of walk us through your career path

22:37

right after or right before you defended

22:40

to the present .

22:42

Sure . So I watched a

22:44

number of the African American professors

22:47

who were at Hopkins and I

22:49

noticed that not only do they have to

22:51

do their research and be excellent , but they had

22:53

to provide community service . They had to

22:55

be the faculty advisor for the different

22:57

African American student groups . They had to

22:59

do campus outreach and local outreach and

23:02

they were burning out and

23:04

at the same time they had to always

23:07

convince other people that I'm

23:09

here because I'm qualified , not because

23:11

I'm African American . And I decided

23:14

for me . I was like I mean the physics

23:16

, the pretty much prescribed

23:18

route is you're going to do a postdoc and apply

23:20

for an assistant professor and move forward . And

23:22

so I was like I'm kind of halfway on that

23:24

train , but also I don't want to spend the rest of my

23:26

life proving to you that

23:28

I'm qualified , I'm just tired

23:31

. And so my advisor

23:34

was like well , listen , I'm not going to let you set a defense

23:36

date until you have a job . What will

23:38

I say to your mother at graduation

23:41

if you don't have a job ? Oh

23:43

right , it's

23:45

very intimidating . And I was like

23:48

you know what I'm going to take the first day , smoking . And so

23:50

the patent office at the time was

23:52

hiring in huge numbers . They doubled

23:54

the number of examiners they had over

23:56

a two year period . They were hiring 100

23:58

people a month for two years and so

24:00

I applied . I got in . It was eight months paid

24:02

training and I said , okay , I'll do this

24:05

, and then if these postdoc offers come rolling

24:07

in , then I'll , you know consider . It

24:10

turned out that this was the right job and the perfect

24:12

job for me . I've been here for 17 years and

24:16

I still love it and I still recommend it to people

24:18

. But yeah , I took the job

24:20

because I needed a job to get out of grad

24:22

school .

24:24

Okay , but it turned out to be a job that you love . So can

24:26

you talk a bit about how your

24:28

doctoral training prepared or

24:30

equipped you for the role that you

24:32

have and that you love so much ?

24:35

Yes . So what a patent

24:37

examiner does is we read an

24:39

application . It looks very much like a journal article

24:42

. It's got an abstract , drawings , a description

24:44

and all that stuff , and at the end it has a set of claims

24:46

. We have to study those

24:48

claims , make sure that they're written clearly and

24:50

unambiguously , and then we search

24:53

to see has this been done before ? Is

24:56

it novel and is it a non obvious

24:58

improvement over what's already out

25:00

there ? Like so if you're just

25:02

the first person to combine a camera

25:05

and a telephone , that was really new

25:07

. Now we have a camera phone , but now cameras

25:09

have been out for a while . So if you just paint it

25:11

blue , that's not really non

25:13

obvious . Anybody could have done that . So

25:15

my role is to search , see has

25:17

it been done ? If I cannot

25:19

prove that it's been done before , then applicants

25:22

and that is not obvious Applicant is

25:24

entitled to a patent . And

25:26

so I get to look at new technology

25:28

all the time . Because

25:31

I was a grad student , I understand

25:33

how to analyze a journal article . I

25:36

understand how to look at a novel problem

25:38

and break it into a substituent parts

25:40

and see , you know boundary conditions , all that kind of

25:42

stuff , and I'm fortunate that I'm placed

25:44

in a technology that's related to the work

25:47

that I did in grad school , so I do

25:49

semi . I look at semiconductor devices

25:51

and their methods for manufacture

25:53

, and that also

25:56

encompasses magnetic rim

25:58

, which is kind of spintronics , which is where

26:00

I did my graduate research . So I

26:02

can remember . Oh , I remember it was

26:04

2013 when this guy gave a talk

26:06

at the conference and everybody's like . Oh my God . So

26:09

I know when that article came out . I know

26:11

right where to search for it to see if

26:13

this is new or if they're just changing materials

26:15

, if it's really significant , and

26:18

so I love . The parts I love

26:20

about my job is seeing new technology , being

26:24

able to relate it back to things

26:26

that are important to me from my previous research

26:28

, and also knowing that the work that I

26:30

do is important to somebody

26:32

out there , because a single patent can spin

26:34

off a whole company . So sometimes there's one

26:37

guy waiting in his garage . He's like I

26:39

can't wait to get my patent , and I

26:41

know that the work I do is important . So

26:44

that's some of the things I love about my job .

26:46

Yeah , I , it's always like so

26:48

pleasant when people

26:50

like really love the work that they do , and it doesn't

26:53

happen that often anymore , I

26:55

think , especially with millennials and Gen

26:57

Z years . What do they call millennials

26:59

? They call us like the job hoppers . So I

27:02

always get encouraged when I hear folks

27:04

who really find passion in the work

27:06

that they do and also can relate

27:08

that work to to their research

27:10

, and so it doesn't feel as if your doctoral

27:12

degree was a waste . In fact , it really has

27:14

equipped you and made you an expert

27:17

in your field so that you can do this role

27:19

really really well and really excellently .

27:21

Out of curiosity , let me add one thing

27:23

, because I work for the US

27:25

federal government . They cannot give

27:27

us big bags of money , so

27:29

what they do instead is

27:32

give us quality of life . So

27:34

I have lived here in sunny Florida for

27:36

the past 11 years . Every

27:39

two weeks which is a pay period I

27:42

need to get 80 hours in two weeks . I

27:44

can get that done generally almost

27:46

anytime , because I'm not a morning person

27:48

, I'm an evening , though , so I can work from two

27:50

to 10 . That works , they're like , as long as you get

27:52

it done . If I want to take vacation

27:54

, I can Smoosh my hours into

27:56

the second part of the bye week . They

27:59

are very flexible with that . I'm

28:02

dressed up for y'all , but usually I'm in my pajamas

28:05

. I'm able to volunteer at my son's

28:07

school and to go to tech day

28:09

or teacher what

28:12

do we call it ? They call it I

28:15

can't think of the name teach in , where

28:17

you teach the kids about where your profession is

28:19

, and so I do that and I go and field trips

28:21

. I'm able to spend some time

28:23

with working on my nonprofit outside of my work hours

28:25

. I really have a lot of flexibility

28:28

and I have a reasonable salary , but it's

28:30

not the big bags of money that I would get if I

28:32

work in an industry .

28:34

I appreciate that context because I think

28:36

that In STEM specifically

28:39

, it seems as if the conversation is often

28:41

in terms of career either academia

28:43

or like high paying

28:46

industry and so it's good

28:48

to have additional options , such

28:50

as a government job . That might not be

28:52

eight figures , but you

28:54

have a much higher quality of life . So thanks

28:56

for reminding us that quality of life is

28:58

just as , if not more , important

29:01

than your salary when

29:03

you are considering a postdoctoral career

29:05

.

29:06

There's another question I just want to add one last

29:08

thing , which is that , even because we're

29:10

a government , we don't often recruit , but

29:12

we are almost always hiring

29:15

, because no engineer

29:17

wakes up and says I want to be a patent exam and no lawyer

29:19

is like who , I want to be patent exam , but the

29:22

US Patent Office is

29:24

the American Sphemesis Safety

29:26

Net . We will hire you when you're fresh out of college with no

29:28

experience . We will hire you when you retire

29:31

from a big company , because nobody

29:33

has patent experience with the only patent office . So

29:35

if you're ever like , what am I going to do ? Please

29:37

consider Patent Office . Okay .

29:40

So actually , that was going to be well similar

29:42

to a question that I had , which is you

29:44

know what , what kind of fields ? Perhaps

29:48

? Are there any fields outside of STEM where if someone's

29:50

getting a doctoral degree in that field , they would still

29:52

be able to be

29:55

eligible for a role at the Patent Office , or

29:57

do you feel like it's , you know , specifically for folks

29:59

who have specialized in STEM

30:01

? So all ?

30:03

examiners have to have a STEM degree , but

30:05

there are roles in like HR and

30:07

our outreach and education departments

30:09

where the non-STEM people would be able to help

30:11

.

30:12

Okay , yeah , thanks so much for clarifying that . So

30:15

now I want to go back to talking

30:17

about the African American Women and Physics

30:19

Organization . I

30:21

always also love chatting with folks who have

30:23

nonprofits is a fellow nonprofit

30:26

founder and executive director

30:28

. Would love for you to share a couple of

30:30

the initiatives that you've done

30:32

to promote diversity and inclusion in

30:34

STEM , and specifically in physics and astronomy

30:37

.

30:39

So most of what we do

30:41

is to build up a community

30:43

, because most African

30:45

American women who are in a physics or

30:47

astronomy program they're probably the only one

30:49

in their program , unless they're at an HBCU

30:51

, and I think there's maybe

30:54

four or five HBCU programs . So what

30:56

we do is we have our small community . We

30:58

have a private network where students

31:01

can talk to each other and say

31:03

, hey , you know , I'm in Iowa and

31:05

I'm struggling my quantum class , and you can talk

31:07

to somebody who's like I'm in Maine and I'm struggling

31:09

my quantum class . They're using the same

31:11

textbook , so they can

31:13

have that relation and that feeling

31:15

of like I'm not the only one which

31:18

often helps people to remain

31:21

in their programs rather than leaving . They

31:23

don't feel like they're so isolated

31:25

. So that's really part of the

31:27

core of what we do . The

31:30

next piece is the record keeping

31:32

, because we keep track of everyone

31:34

who has a PhD in physics or

31:37

astronomy or planetary science

31:40

. We also try to keep track of nuclear

31:42

science . We're expanding the idea of

31:44

what a physicist is , because

31:46

some people who do physics don't have physics

31:48

degrees . Some people have physics degrees

31:50

, don't do physics , and so

31:53

we're just trying to keep track of that . Another

31:56

thing is that . Oh

31:58

gosh , it was right on the tip of my tongue , it's

32:02

gone . We

32:05

want to make sure that the greater

32:07

physics communities are doing

32:09

things that serve African American

32:11

women in particular . So , for example

32:13

, we noticed and read

32:15

that there has been some issues with harassment

32:18

at certain conferences , and

32:21

when we talk to the people who run

32:24

those conferences or when we read about

32:26

what the people who are managing the conference

32:28

are doing , our young

32:30

ladies still don't feel safe , and

32:32

so we have joined the

32:34

society's consortium against

32:37

harassment in STEM with

32:39

two M's , and our

32:41

board members attend their conferences

32:43

and are participating to make sure that we

32:46

know how best to inform

32:48

our members on what they can do so

32:50

that they don't become

32:53

victims of harassment , and so they

32:55

know what to do if they are harassed at a conference

32:57

. We also want to enforce societies on

32:59

what they can do to reduce likelihood

33:01

of harassment . So there

33:04

was an example , and this came from

33:06

a training I had there

33:08

was a conference and they had a post-accession

33:11

for undergrad , and so they were in a narrow hallway

33:13

, but then at the conference room at the end

33:16

of the hallway they had some kind

33:18

of like let's call it old

33:20

scientist wine happy hour , and

33:22

so you had all these old scientists coming

33:24

out of their social hour down

33:27

this narrow hallway , past all of these undergraduate

33:29

students , and it just was not a great look

33:31

. So we want to make sure that conferences

33:33

are planning and are aware of ways

33:35

that they can reduce opportunities for harassment

33:38

. Yeah

33:40

, so we are . That's

33:43

another one of our main focuses is reducing

33:46

harassment of our

33:48

students and our members and our adults

33:50

, because it's not just students when they are

33:52

attending various conferences and

33:55

, of course , senior scientists check in and

33:57

I think and yeah

33:59

, retaining that history , I think that's the main

34:01

thing we also have a little book club

34:03

that we do , we've done for

34:06

the past couple of years where

34:08

. So I think our 1st 1 was

34:10

Malika Grayson's book like

34:12

by girl PhD . I might have to

34:14

check my shelf and she was kind

34:16

of guide to the PhD . Thank

34:19

you . She was kind enough to do a

34:22

book author chat

34:24

with our members and we get copies of the book

34:26

. And then the next year

34:28

we did Dr Chanda Prescott

34:30

Weinstein's book and

34:33

she also chat with our students . The

34:36

title is why am I blanking

34:38

? Oh , my gosh , I'll Google it

34:40

. Chanda , don't hate me , I know

34:42

the title of the book .

34:44

We'll also put it in the show notes so folks will

34:47

be able to find it .

34:49

Thank you , it's

34:51

called . It'll be in the show notes

34:54

Disorder cosmos . That's it . And

34:56

then this year another African American

34:59

woman in astronomy , dr Alma

35:01

Schild , published her memoir

35:04

and so she was kind enough

35:06

to have her publisher send copies for our

35:08

members and we're going to try

35:10

to do a book chat . She's on a book tour

35:12

so I'm not sure if we'll be able to get her to come to speak

35:14

with us this year , but we definitely

35:17

going to discuss the book because there's so many

35:19

good lessons in there about you

35:21

know the various ways that we show up

35:23

as we go through these different programs

35:25

.

35:27

I am so excited we actually we also had

35:29

a book talk with Dr Grayson in

35:32

our first year , which is exciting that our worlds

35:34

have overlapped in terms of the

35:36

books who are interested in . There's so few of

35:38

us doing not only

35:41

STEM work but

35:43

especially , like now , writing about our experiences

35:45

of going through graduate school and turning those experiences

35:48

into advice for other people . So

35:50

Dr Grayson's book is one that we absolutely love

35:52

and recommend to our community as well . I

35:55

want to kind of circle back to this intergenerational

35:57

piece that you've mentioned , not

36:00

only in a AWIP , but

36:02

kind of circling back to the prime program

36:04

that you did when you were a kid

36:06

, because you kind of talked about there were faculty

36:08

and graduate students and undergraduates and high

36:10

schoolers and middle schoolers and kind of just thinking about

36:13

how we develop the pipeline for

36:15

people to be interested people like us

36:17

to be interested in STEM . And

36:19

then now on your organization

36:21

side , you are not just cultivating

36:23

and supporting graduate students

36:25

and in physics and related disciplines

36:28

, but , as you mentioned , senior

36:30

sister , check in what was the title ? Again

36:32

, sorry .

36:33

Senior scientist check in .

36:35

Yes , senior scientist , check in . So I'm

36:38

wondering to what is the importance to

36:40

you of working

36:42

intergenerally ? Ooh , let me start that again

36:44

. What is the importance to you of

36:46

working intergenerationally in terms

36:48

of supporting the diversity , inclusion

36:51

and an equity for black women in

36:53

physics ? Why is that important to you to do that

36:55

work across generations ?

36:59

Well , two reasons

37:01

come to mind . The first one

37:03

is that our seniors still have

37:05

a lot to teach us . I

37:08

know that as I get older

37:10

, there are lessons that I would

37:12

not have told other

37:14

undergrad when I was younger , but today I'm

37:16

like , oh , this is important that you know this . And

37:19

so I think that as our senior scientists get older

37:21

and I know that they would not love me call

37:23

me senior scientist even though they're over 70

37:25

, but I'm going to call it when I call it I'm sorry

37:28

, but they have lessons still

37:30

to teach us . And

37:33

so the first part is that I

37:35

want them to have the opportunity to still

37:37

share and teach and help

37:39

us to grow . The second part

37:41

is that I want to make sure that

37:44

that they're doing okay . I'm

37:47

a student of Florida and I'm university and we

37:49

had a famous alumni , althea

37:51

give the tennis player , and

37:54

at some point it came to light that

37:56

she was struggling and

37:59

it was like , oh my God , so alumni , you know they donated

38:01

money or whatever to make sure that she had everything she needed

38:03

in her later years , and so I just want to

38:05

make sure that none of our senior scientists are struggling

38:07

and we don't know about it , if there's a way that we

38:09

can help , and a lot of times they

38:12

just want to talk . They just want

38:14

to talk and I'm like you know

38:16

what I grew up my grandma . I have a

38:18

listen to ear and

38:20

I have been in for hours , so that's

38:22

what I do . But they do still have a

38:24

lot of good ideas and they call me

38:27

when they're like I think you should do this

38:29

with a WIP and I cannot ignore

38:31

them because they'll just call me again . So

38:33

I have to listen to what they say

38:35

and they still have a lot , a

38:37

lot to contribute , even if they're not physically

38:39

in the lab .

38:41

Yeah , I really appreciate that . You've

38:43

inspired me to think more critically

38:45

about how we can ensure that

38:47

cohort sisters is also working across generations

38:50

, because that hasn't been kind

38:52

of like at the forefront of our work and our mission

38:55

, but as you've now talked about it , I'm

38:57

like nodding along like that's important

38:59

and that's definitely been an oversight on our part . So

39:01

thanks for inspiring change on this end of

39:04

the work as well . So we're going to start

39:06

winding down . I have one last

39:08

kind of question about your specific

39:10

experiences and then we'll wrap up with

39:12

some general advice questions that we ask all of

39:14

our guests on the cohort sisters podcast

39:16

. So , in addition to all the work that

39:19

you do , you also are a motivational STEM

39:21

speaker . Can you talk about

39:23

how you tailor your motivational

39:26

speeches , messages , workshops to

39:28

different audiences ? And again

39:30

, I'm kind of curious about the . You

39:32

know if you do anything

39:35

differently in your speeches when you're talking

39:37

to people of different ages , or

39:39

when you're talking to STEM folks versus non

39:41

STEM folks , where you're talking to predominantly black

39:43

women in the room versus not predominantly black

39:45

women in the room . Do you kind of tweak the messaging

39:48

or the story in any way ?

39:51

Absolutely . For each talk that I give

39:54

I definitely spend some time thinking

39:56

about who is the audience and how can I best

39:58

reach them . So if I'm talking

40:00

to my son's fifth grade class is

40:02

going to be a different talk that if I'm talking to undergrad

40:04

and that's when I'm giving a talk at

40:07

a QWIP , which is the conference of undergraduate

40:09

women in physics , is diverse conference , it's all

40:11

races but it's all women

40:14

and gender minorities . That's going to be a different

40:16

talk than if I'm speaking at the National

40:18

Society of Black Women

40:20

. And so I try to tailor each talk

40:22

to the audience so that I can best

40:24

relate to them and I might highlight different

40:27

parts of my experiences so

40:29

that you know it may hit

40:31

home differently for the different audiences

40:34

. One

40:36

thing that I do is I definitely

40:39

have different slide decks for the different age groups

40:41

. But if I'm talking to

40:43

a general science audience , then I'm going

40:45

to pull back on a lot of the detail physics

40:47

as opposed to more like generalized

40:49

experience , whereas if I'm talking , when

40:52

I gave a talk at the Society of Physics students

40:54

they were all about you know , I'm like I'm going

40:56

to bring some equations in . I can bring my geek

40:58

jokes . I got an Einstein joke in there . I'm

41:01

going to do it wrong .

41:02

So , yeah , I try to tailor it Nice

41:04

. Thanks for sharing that . So

41:06

if you had to go back

41:08

in time and redo your doctoral

41:11

journey , what is something that you would do

41:13

differently ?

41:15

I think that the world would be different if

41:18

I had taken the advice of my advisors

41:20

at FAMU and gone to Vanderbilt the first time

41:22

. I probably would have finished in five years

41:24

, instead of the 10 total that

41:26

it took me between Brown and Hopkins

41:28

. I probably would have pursued an academic

41:31

route and that

41:34

would be different , not just for me but

41:36

for all of the students , the undergrads

41:38

, the other professors , the people I would have interacted

41:40

with . So I can't say that it would have been better

41:43

for me . I can say that it would have been very different

41:45

for me , for my family

41:47

, for all the people who interact with

41:49

me .

41:50

Interesting . I

41:52

was not expecting that response . I have

41:54

so many follow-up questions , but we're almost out of time . Okay

41:56

, let me ask one follow-up question have

41:59

you ever considered exploring

42:01

an academic career ?

42:04

My life goal used to be to be president of Florida

42:07

A&M University . I

42:09

have considered it . However , I

42:11

think that , with a traditional route

42:14

that's going to be close to me , I'm

42:17

going to drop a couple bombs on you right now

42:19

. You ready , okay ? My

42:21

husband retired last year at the age of 49 . Wow

42:24

, good for him Along with Lockheed

42:27

Martin , and so we're considering

42:29

because I choose to work financially

42:32

I don't have to work , so we're

42:34

considering eventually choosing

42:37

to live in Tallahassee for a few years and

42:39

teach classes , but outside of the

42:41

tenure process , because we're retired

42:44

but we still have a lot to contribute

42:46

and to give . It's

42:48

something we're kicking around . We don't have anything

42:50

on paper , but it's an option

42:52

where we can still contribute to academia

42:55

, but outside of the tenure process

42:57

.

42:58

Yeah . I love that . I'm

43:01

excited for that process when

43:03

you get there and congratulations to him for retiring

43:06

. So our last question excuse

43:09

me , I'm a frog in my throat . So our last question

43:11

is what is one piece of advice that

43:13

you would give to current Black

43:16

women and non-binary doctoral

43:18

students , especially those who are in

43:20

physics and other STEM fields ?

43:23

Well , I'm sure that your other panelists

43:25

have already given lots of advice about

43:27

being in the lab and finishing grad

43:29

school and stuff like that . My advice

43:31

is outside of the lab . It is to

43:34

be very critical

43:36

about the relationships that you develop

43:38

outside of the lab . Unfortunately

43:41

, I had a relationship with

43:43

a narcissist and what I've

43:45

learned through extricating myself from

43:47

that relationship is that narcissists

43:49

love highly qualified

43:52

academic people , they love a PhD

43:54

, and then they want to

43:56

try to destroy you . So

43:58

if you find that you're in a relationship that

44:00

excludes you from all of your family and all

44:02

of your friends , that alienates all the people

44:05

who love you , take a moment to see

44:07

if you should extricate yourself from that relationship

44:09

. If you're in a relationship that is not serving

44:12

you , it is okay to step back from that

44:14

relationship . Even

44:16

if I got married after I knew

44:18

them for three months and three months later I got divorced

44:20

, it's okay to get out of a

44:22

bad relationship . So be

44:25

critical about the relationships and the people

44:27

that you have around you . You're smart . You

44:29

can apply that knowledge to many different things . Also

44:32

, apply it to your relationship .

44:36

You were right . So that advice that we have heard

44:38

yet on the podcast , but it is an essential

44:41

advice . So thank you so much for sharing it

44:43

with us . Thank you for sharing so much of your

44:45

story , your journey , your ups and your

44:47

downs and your inspirational

44:49

career with us today

44:52

on the Co-Criticist podcast . Thanks again , Dr

44:54

Miller .

44:55

And thank you for the invitation .

45:07

Thank you again for listening to this week's episode

45:10

of the Cohort Sisters podcast . If

45:12

you are a black woman interested in joining

45:14

the Cohort Sisters membership community

45:16

or you're looking for more information

45:18

on how to support or partner with Cohort

45:20

Sisters , please visit our website at

45:23

wwwcohortsistuscom . You

45:26

can also find us on all social media platforms

45:28

at Cohort Sisters . Don't

45:30

forget to subscribe to the Cohort Sisters podcast

45:33

and leave us a quick review wherever you're

45:35

listening . Thank you so much for

45:37

joining us this week and we'll catch you in next

45:39

week's episode .