0:04

Welcome to the Cohort SysSys podcast, where you give voice to the stories, struggles and successes of Black women and non-binary folks with doctoral degrees.

0:12

I'm your host, Dr Jamakola, and today we're sitting down with Dr Seraq King, an educator with a resume that is a masterpiece of diversity and achievement.

0:23

They earned their PhD in education with a concentration in neuroscience and anthropology from UCLA, and they're not your typical academic.

0:32

Dr King is a neuroscientist, a political and learning scientist, a medical anthropologist, an educator, a social entrepreneur all roles in one.

0:42

I thought I did a lot. Dr King does even more, but what's really cool is how they are weaving all of these different threads and these disciplines that seem really disparate from one another.

0:53

All of it is weave together very seamlessly in Dr King's work, which dives into mindfulness, community alternative medicine, art and social justice, and everything is with the goal of making spaces where people can heal and thrive, individually and together.

1:10

Dr King is also the brains behind MindHeart Consulting and MindHeart Collective and is pushing the envelope with Libertory Technology, which I'm excited to get into in this episode.

1:22

The work has also made waves in places like UCSD's Center for Empathy and Social Justice and even Google's Vitality Lab.

1:31

So welcome to the Coercises Podcast, Dr King.

1:36

Thank you so much. That was like a delicious introduction.

1:41

I feel so seen, I feel so visible and uplifted and celebrated in my PhD in doing the most.

1:50

But actually your PhD really isn't doing the most, and so I kind of want to start there.

1:54

We usually start with, like you know, bio background, but I just have to get into it.

1:58

You, like did three PhDs Education, neuroscience and anthropology are all three distinct degrees programs, so how and why do they all come together for you?

2:10

Why was it important to combine all of them in your academic scholarship?

2:18

Yeah. So I love talking about the importance of interdisciplinary research and I've always been an interdisciplinary scholar and I feel that it's really necessary to do this like bridge building between departments, because oftentimes we can be incredibly like siloed in our pursuit of knowledge.

2:39

And I think I just like I love the book this bridge called my back and I feel that I very much embody that as a human being, and so when I first got to the education department, I think that the kindergarten to prison pipeline was really on my heart and mind as a human being.

3:03

A lot of my family members have been incarcerated and, as we all know, the incarceration of one human being really impacts their entire family their entire community, like it is never just like one solitary person that is being imprisoned right.

3:21

And so when I was examining this issue of the prison industrial complex and really looking at the roots of it, I remember when I first got into my PhD program and like they set us down for the orientation, you know, and you're all in like some auditorium or something.

3:35

And what did they say? They were like I think this is actually like a very lofty statement, but they were like you are all here to pick one of the nation's issues, greatest problems, and find out how to make your contribution to solving that.

3:55

And I was like, oh, can I?

3:59

Am I being empowered to do that? Is that what you're saying?

4:02

Challenge accepted.

4:07

And so, yeah, so when I was looking at the kindergarten to prison pipeline and I was just really thinking about the role of education and how it socializes us and the fact that curriculums, in the way that they are delivered, are traditionally cognitive, and in my opinion, in my perspective, I was like wow, well, you know, like we've been talking about race and institutionalized racism and systemic oppression, just like you know, especially within the black community, since the inception of this nation, we've been talking about it.

4:43

So I was like, so then, what are other ways of approaching education that are not purely cognitive ways of thinking about learning processes, that are actually embodied?

4:57

Because the thing that I was really fixated upon was, you know, the divisiveness and the racism that are still so entrenched in our nation, and I'm like, okay, clearly, just cognizing about it is not the path forward, like we have to have other like tools at our behest in order to be in a different type of relationship with one another.

5:22

So that's when I found, you know and I was involved in my own mindfulness and yoga practice Personally there was just like my own personal practice of healing from systemic oppression and the way that intergenerational trauma was really present in my own mind and heart and body.

5:41

And then that was when I was like, wait a minute.

5:44

Like is this happening in schools?

5:47

Is this happening in schools with people who look like me?

5:52

And if that's the case, what is the impact?

5:56

Like, is healing emerging?

5:58

Is well-being emerging?

6:00

And is it emerging in the same ways for students who come from, you know, more dominant backgrounds or for students who come from marginalized backgrounds?

6:11

I had a lot of questions about that and I could not answer those questions in one department alone.

6:18

So that's the reason why I just got.

6:22

I just I'm pretty audacious in my personality and I remember I went to my dissertation advisor and he was like, well, you know, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to actually go to these departments and as much time as you're spending here in education, you're gonna have to spend that much time and dedication in each of those departments.

6:45

You're gonna have to find advisors, you're gonna have to take the classes.

6:48

You're gonna have to know the canon. Like, are you prepared for that?

6:52

And I was like, well, hey, I'm here, so let's do this.

6:59

That was my attitude, oh my goodness. Well, I'm so excited to learn more about your doctoral journey.

7:04

But now I'm going to backtrack a little bit.

7:06

I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about who you are outside of your scholarship, so where you're from, where you currently live and what are some things that you'd like to do when you are not doing all the things, seriously, all the things.

7:24

Yeah, absolutely so. I currently live in San Francisco, california, but I very much consider myself to be a citizen of the world, so I love traveling and I especially love it when I get the opportunity to travel to other countries and present on my research.

7:41

And one of the things I think is really incredible about those kinds of opportunities that I've been building is that, because my research intersects with embodied practice, I oftentimes get invited to not only teach about the science but to hold workshop spaces where people can feel what for themselves, what their capacity is to heal from intergenerational trauma, like using contemplative practices and art and music.

8:13

There's a whole variety of tools that I bring.

8:16

So, yeah, you'll find me a little bit globetrotting and I'm also a mom to a 15-year-old daughter.

8:27

Her name is Dahlia. She's the light of my life.

8:31

We like going to support together, talking about the boys and the girls and the people who she's currently crushing on.

8:43

I love that stuff. I'm originally from the East Coast, like the Pennsylvania area, spent a little stint in Minnesota.

8:55

What's good, my Midwest people. Yeah, I've been in California for the past several decades and I just love it here.

9:05

So I would love to know a little bit more about you know.

9:07

Was there a critical moment in your younger educational years, whether in elementary school or high school, that you feel like really set you on this academic journey, the path to ending up in a doctoral program where you were studying education and neuroscience and anthro?

9:26

Do you feel like there were some formative moments that you can highlight that essentially spearheaded or shaped your academic trajectory?

9:36

Yeah, there were. It was a coalescing of many moments.

9:41

So on my mom's side of my family, I think that we are blessed to be very educated as a family.

9:49

So I think my grandfather was the first person on my mother's side to go to college and obtain his degree.

9:59

So I'm a third generation, you know, college student.

10:04

And so I think that, like, growing up in a family where my grandparents and my mom and all of her sisters, all of my aunts, like we have a lot of MDs, phds, lawyers, like all the degrees that you can think of, that's what my family is about.

10:22

And so when I was growing up, I had a lot of questions like wow, like why is everyone so obsessed with education in my family?

10:32

And every single one of my aunties and my mom, my grandmother, like it was a whole intergenerational group of people who would sit me down at regular intervals and they would say Sarayafa that's my real name, sarayafa.

10:46

Education is liberation and don't you ever forget that.

10:52

And so that was like really hammered home inside of me.

10:56

And when they spoke of liberation, I knew, because they would tell me bedtime stories about their involvement in the civil rights movement, like my.

11:04

I come from a family, who are you know, who are activists and who have been very dedicated to the black liberation movement.

11:13

So I think that there was also this idea that was planted in me of you know, when you have been given a lot of gifts, then you have the responsibility to give those gifts back into the world in the form of service, and it was a, it was a spiritual mandate in my family, right?

11:34

They wouldn't, like you have a choice. It was like no, this is your calling.

11:37

And so I think it was that, you know, like, really growing up within this African American intergenerational tradition of like being aware of all that which had been taken from our ancestors, being holding this awareness of the fact that, just you know, a few generations prior, it would have been punishable by death just to read a book that wasn't the Bible, you know, it would have been punishable with extraordinary violence just to even pretend as though you were human enough to want to receive an education, you know.

12:23

So I think holding that, like bearing witness to that pain, really inculcated in me this feeling that I had like an ancestral responsibility to like carry that torch forward and to achieve in ways that my ancestors were really prevented from doing.

12:46

Yeah, I have a very left field of question that I hope you'll indulge me.

12:54

But if you're like, no, no, no, too much, then we can just come to a wrap it.

12:58

So I come from an immigrant background, so education was also very much hammered into me as like the tool, to like the key to the American dream is like if you just get enough education, like you'll be fine.

13:11

So different perspectives, same focal point of of education being that kind of the solution and the end all be all and the responsibility that we now have to do.

13:22

Something I've been thinking about a lot lately, now that I have kids of my own and I'm going to ask you as well, is you know, how are you thinking about?

13:31

you know, you kind of mentioned this intergenerational nature, intergenerational legacy and really like pouring into you of reinforcing this idea of education as liberation and education as a spiritual responsibility, the pursuit of education, the, by extension, the utility of that education for good as a parent how are you kind of thinking and navigating and thinking about passing along those messages to your daughter without the asoce potentially associated messages of like responsibility that can kind of now make someone feel like, well, I have to do this, because my whole family is like telling me I have to do this.

14:18

The thing that's on my mind now is and my husband and I have had a couple of debates about this is like is college still necessary in the 21st century?

14:26

Right, like there's so many ways to just you know, one, it's so expensive.

14:30

And two, ai is about to take over everything, and I know we're going to talk about AI.

14:34

But is education like, does it hold the same tradition?

14:39

Not traditional education, brick and mortar education, the systems of education that exists in the US?

14:47

Is that still the end, all be all goal that we should be striving for our children?

14:53

So, are you thinking about that at all?

14:55

Are you communicating? How are you communicating that to your, to your daughter, and hopefully that's not too much of a wild question for you.

15:03

No, it is not. Actually, that particular conversation is very alive, very present in our household, especially because, you know, with her being 15, she's actually turning 16 at the end of December, which is wild.

15:18

Like I, you know, like Dahlia, has been with me pretty much since almost, like you know, since I graduated college.

15:28

So we like to joke that she already has a degree from UCLA because, like she was in preschool at UCLA, I would go and drop her off at UCLA preschool and then go to my classes and then pick her back up and sometimes I would have her in my little carrying case, like sitting there, you know, like trying to comfort her, like while I'm in class.

15:47

You know, like that was very much my experience and so.

15:52

But I was very aware that just having her be present with me in the university environment was a major potential leg up for her if she did want to embark on that journey.

16:04

You know, like it was just such a regular, it was just so normalized for her.

16:08

But Dahlia is an artist and one of the things that I want to I want to be a little bit vulnerable and share is that, like when I first started undergrad, I wanted to major in art, like truly.

16:24

I think that I am an artist spirit.

16:28

I'm an artist at heart and at soul, and I have had to learn how to one of my favorite words I don't know if this is a real word, but I love using the word transmortify.

16:39

I communicate something.

16:43

I've had to like transmortify myself into a scientist because I received a lot of messaging and I don't think anybody meant any like harm by this in my family, but when I would express the desire to be an artist, it was just like and how are you going to pay your bills?

17:03

You know, this is important. Like, yes, education is the path to liberation and you got to pay those.

17:08

Okay, so it's all about, like taking the practical route.

17:15

And so for me, part of how that also manifested was, you know, like when I showed up to undergrad and I was like really determined to be like a medical doctor and I showed up to those like first classes and, to be totally honest, like I went to very like small, predominantly white and wealthy liberal arts institution, fits or college in Claremont, california, big up to the sage hens, and you know, I was very intimidated.

17:47

I felt a lot of what I would now describe as stereotype threat on me.

17:54

Like I just, yeah, I was very frightened.

17:58

And then I also had this I took a black studies class that first semester and I was shocked to discover how little about my own history and culture and just about my, my, my people, like I knew nothing.

18:14

I had like very little concept about my relationship to the African diaspora.

18:20

And I was struck and I was like, okay, so pivot, now I want to get a degree in black studies.

18:27

But I also had this messaging that I wouldn't be able to pay the bills with that.

18:31

And so I was like, okay, and I need to double major because black studies isn't good enough.

18:37

It was that not good enough.

18:40

That was really like kind of implicitly embedded in me.

18:43

So to pivot around to our daughter yeah, so Dolly knew she wanted to be an artist when she was four, and when she came to that realization, I just remember this like this, like freeze response in my nervous system, where I had that same kind of like but how are you going to do that?

19:01

And I was like I was going to like pass that message from my family.

19:06

And then I had to take a pause and be like okay, and why do we have that narrative.

19:11

You know why? Why is there this narrative that we, as black people, can't be anything that we want to be and do it to the most?

19:18

and be great and and transform society and and also contribute to collective liberation with our artistic practices.

19:26

And, in fact, why can't art be a science?

19:30

And vice versa? Like I really, I really had to like confront a lot of that internal cultural conditioning and I noticed that.

19:41

So we put her in art classes outside of school.

19:44

But she would turn to YouTube and educate herself.

19:49

She would start constructing mini curriculums and for hours she would be finding artists all around the world and their techniques and then trying it out for herself.

20:00

And then that did start a conversation in our household where, you know, when she got older, we were like you know, we want you to know that if you decide that you don't want to pursue getting a university degree, we will support you.

20:14

There are other ways.

20:17

And she just said to me the other day she turned to me and was like, she was like, yeah, she has like these moments of realization.

20:25

She was like you know what, mom, I think I want to be a big time entrepreneur.

20:33

And then she goes maybe not McDonald's big, I don't know about them.

20:40

I don't think that they have the right values as a corporation and I represent, with ethics and values.

20:46

But I do want to be big. I want to be and I was like CEO big and she's like mm-hmm.

20:50

So you know what I'm saying, I'm just sort of like you know, is that journey going to happen through a university space?

20:59

We're not sure and I think that, in my humble opinion, university spaces really need to be reconceptualizing how they are framing the education they are offering for this next generation, Because they are highly motivated, they're very innovative and they ain't trying to wait around for nobody to tell them how to create the worlds that they are building.

21:29

And I just think that what's happening right now with like student loans, like as a last thought, like when I be globetrotting which I love, I am lately, because I just started traveling a lot once in 2023, like I wouldn't say post pandemic, but at this stage of the pandemic, and so many people come up to me and are like concerned, they're just like, but when they find out that I'm from the United States, they're just like, oh, they're like, oh my God, are you okay?

22:05

Like we've heard, we've heard about the student loan situation and you know, we've heard about the violence in schools and we've heard and like, the reputation abroad is not good.

22:18

It's not good for us.

22:21

And it's a real moment for me where I'm like, oh my gosh, like I was.

22:27

I'm not, you know. I'm like literally like in Bali, driving on the back of a little like scooter, and the driver is like, oh my goodness, I'm gonna pray for him.

22:35

He's like I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna put your name on my altar, like I'm so concerned, and I'm just like oh my gosh, like I.

22:45

This is an issue that we need to talk about.

22:49

So, yeah, Well, yeah, definitely, the reputation of America has definitely plummeted in recent years worldwide.

22:59

I concur, and I love that you are, and I had a feeling this would be the case.

23:05

But thank you for echoing your sentiments around having expansive thought process or expansive perspective on what a quality education could look like and how.

23:17

That doesn't necessarily have to be in a university environment, and you're totally right.

23:22

I feel like universities are, once they start like to see like two, three years of that enrollment dip as kids, cause why, why go to school when there's YouTube?

23:31

And like like why, what's the reason?

23:33

So they're gonna have to reimagine and reconfigure how things work and so I'm interested to see.

23:40

But back to you and your journey, cause we got a little bit off track, my complete doing.

23:45

I would love to know about your experience in your doctoral program.

23:51

So kind of, walk us through those early years.

23:55

You get to UCLA. How did you know that was the right place for you?

23:59

What were some of your early experiences?

24:01

You mentioned Having your dropping your daughter off at preschool and then going to class, or some of the highlights or some of the challenges.

24:08

Tell us everything that we need to know in like a couple of minutes about your doctoral experience.

24:16

Yeah, I'm so happy that you're asking me about this because I do a lot of podcasts and this is I'm reflecting.

24:24

This is the first time anybody's asked me that question, like to.

24:28

You know they want to know about the research.

24:31

And you know but like they don't necessarily want me to like walk them through what it was actually like to get to the point where I could even do the research.

24:40

So I'm gonna tell a confession right now.

24:46

I was so lazy at the end of my college years and I everybody was telling me like you have to apply to like 10 to 15 grad schools if you have like any hope in getting into one, and I was like I just I don't really have the time.

25:02

Like I picked UCLA and I picked Harvard and I was like I'm either getting to one of those two or I'm going on a totally different journey.

25:11

Maybe I'll become a farmer in Hawaii. I don't know, but that's just like where I was at.

25:17

I was just like very like low motivation to go beyond that and I got waitlisted at Harvard and UCLA accepted me for a master's program and you know, so I, one of my degrees was in linguistics and undergrad, looking at like the science and the math of language Super me, and so I.

25:43

But I was also still very passionate about black studies and African-American studies and what's very interesting is that UCLA, among other universities, did not consider African-American studies to be worthy enough of being a full department.

26:04

And this is a pattern across the United States Since the inception of the discipline in 1969, literally black people have had to, have had to literally violently revolt in order for our life, our history, our experiences to be considered worthy enough of study.

26:25

Like that is just wild to me to like to no end, cause you know we can study Europe, we can study, you know like we can study anywhere in the world, but when it comes to the particularities of that group of people and how they have shaped this nation, it has always been like, hmm, gosh, mark, so I couldn't get just a master's in African-American studies, you had to straddle multiple departments and get degrees in both.

26:56

So I was in African-American studies and linguistics at UCLA when I began, and here's a fun fact that I think that people really need to know when applying to graduate school, because this has happened to me probably five or six times from multiple master's programs, my PhD experience and my postdoctoral experience and I'm in my second postdoc right now, so I think this has probably happened to me like six times.

27:29

When you apply to a program, it is super important that you everything is relational in grad school.

27:36

It is important that you know your mentor is a person who you have established relationship with.

27:42

It is very rare that you're going to apply to a program and they're just going to be like oh my God, you're so amazing, put them in.

27:49

It's like no, they're going to professors and saying do you know this person and what?

27:53

Do you know this person and are you willing to vouch for them?

27:56

Are you willing to put part of your career trajectory on the line for this person?

28:01

And if they're like I don't know them, chances are you probably are not getting into that program and I don't know if you've had that experience, but I feel like largely that's how it doesn't matter whether you're in the hard sciences, humanities, what it is is very nepotistic.

28:22

I think, if not just one thing interjection I think if not, as you go further in your career it can expand a little bit beyond the side, beyond like do they know you to?

28:31

Do they know your advisor, so like people who are in your dissertation committee.

28:35

But I think for the people applying to graduate school and doctoral programs.

28:39

You really need to establish a relationship yourself, and then, as you get further in your career, your circle of peer scholars and your advising circle also matters as well.

28:52

For sure, for sure. So I think that a little bit advice that I may have is that, like when you're on campus and you see certain scholars who are in fields that you think that you may want to explore, it's important to like show up to those talks and start building that community and being a presence, and like find the courage inside of yourself to be, like because sometimes you can be like, oh my gosh, who am I to talk to this person?

29:18

And you just like get up there and talk to them and like have and be able to have a bit of an elevator pitch, but one that comes from the heart, like be able to speak and synthesize your interests.

29:35

And I was very strategic about like if I would go to someone's talk, I would go into their CV, I would find it online, or I would go on Google Scholar and I would read their literature so that when I went to like approach them and say I'm interested in potentially being in your department or something, I could speak to their work and put it in conversation with my work and kind of like demonstrate and like and this is how you know and ask them very directly do you have the time for mentorship?

30:09

Like show up to those office hours?

30:11

Like it really makes a difference. And but what I was gonna say about my experience is that sometimes, like you will, you know you'll get into that program, you'll be excited, you'll show it to the university and then that professor will get an offer at another university and leave.

30:27

And now, what Right?

30:30

You're kind of sitting there like I moved all the way You're coming to study with you and you're aware you know what I mean and it's I don't know.

30:45

And so then you really have to, I think, be creative and open minded about how you're gonna pivot in that moment and, you know, cultivate other mentorship relationships.

30:57

And for me it actually meant jumping departments.

31:01

I had to leave linguistics and go to political science, cultivate that argumentation, you know, ingratiate myself with that community.

31:12

And so then I ended up having a master's in African-American studies, in political science, which was not at all in the plan.

31:20

Yeah, interesting, yeah, yeah.

31:26

And so I think that it was when I was in that space, that very like interdisciplinary space, that I was meeting other interdisciplinary scholars and I was inquiring about what other departments traditionally support interdisciplinary work.

31:43

Because, like, for instance, some departments you'll go to and you'll say I would really like to study the intersection of these different disciplines and they may say, no, that's not what we do here.

31:58

You know, like we stick in our lane and this is our field, this is our canon, and you're either with it or you're not.

32:06

So at UCLA, the education department historically has been that and literally so.

32:14

This happened to me in my master's program with, like, my advisor my first pick advisor leaving.

32:19

I got into the PhD program and literally, like two weeks later, my advisor left to go to Columbia.

32:26

I literally I remember getting a call on the phone because I was so scared.

32:33

I was like, oh my God, does that mean that Cause? Like within I don't know if it's this way for all PhD programs, but like at least in the education department you had to have an advisor who was vouching for you, like yes, this is my school.

32:46

So they literally called me up and they were like, yeah, for the first time in the history of our department, we don't have an advisor for you and we don't typically accept people without an advisor.

32:59

But because your advisor left so abruptly, like we ain't going.

33:03

We're not going to do that to you.

33:04

We're not going to drop you, but we do have to figure this out.

33:07

And I was just like, oh my, like, what does this mean?

33:11

In your first month?

33:13

That was, yeah, that was it took some resilience.

33:21

I would say that, as a person, my mindset is I orient towards all challenges as opportunities, all the time.

33:33

I think that's something else that was ingrained in me from, like, my family.

33:36

So was it a challenge?

33:39

Yes, but then I was like, okay, like how do I rise to this moment?

33:43

And I actually ended up having to go through a special petition process, which is not typical.

33:52

One of my PhD advisors was from education and then my other PhD.

33:58

I had two dissertation advisors and one was from USC, a totally different university, but this person, dr Mary Helen Amardino, yang shout out to her, she's such an extraordinary neuroscientist and I wanted to study neuroscientists, I wanted to become an educator and anthropologist and a neuroscientist and they were like we better get that advisor.

34:22

And when I actually fun fact I watched a TED talk of hers and I was so inspired and I just have like.

34:34

I said like I have an audacity, I have inner audacity and I was like what would happen if I just like read my whole thing, I read every article that she had ever written.

34:46

And then I emailed her and was like is there any chance that you would be willing to meet up with me?

34:51

And not only did she email me back within a couple of hours, but I was shocked.

34:57

She said she was like you know, I'm a mom too.

35:01

Why don't you bring your daughter over to my house?

35:05

And the next week I was like there with my toddler on my hip at her kitchen table and she's like grilling me on, like and what do you think is potentially like the means of doing fMRI on this and that?

35:21

And like I had all the answers. Like I was there, I was like with her, because I was like.

35:26

I was like I can't be ever.

35:28

You came prepared Like I was so prepared and she was impressed, like she was the one, that I did my work.

35:36

So she was willing to go through that process with UCLA of creating a special petition so that I could have advisors from two different universities, which I think is different.

35:48

I've never I mean I've heard of like people being on your committee that are external but not a primary advisor.

35:54

So, okay, you are like the blueprint for creating your own doctoral experience.

36:01

I have we've interviewed a lot of people.

36:04

I've interviewed a lot of people for this show and I have never heard of someone who, like really just handcrafted what they wanted.

36:14

And I think that this is I hope people who are listening get some motivation and inspiration, because I think that one of the struggles there are many struggles of doing a doctoral degree, but I think one of the struggles that we don't talk about so often, is like it can be kind of prescribed and constrained, like you don't have to take these classes, like this is the track and you know your advisors or whoever's in the department, because that's who we got here, so that's what you need to study under, and you were like no, this is what I want to do and I'm gonna figure out a way to do it.

36:46

I'm gonna concentrate in these different things.

36:48

I'm gonna have this advisor contribute to the scholarship in a really critical way and I absolutely love that.

36:55

That's amazing. I love that for you.

36:57

But I also feel like you know juggling multiple discipline, multiple departmental requirements.

37:05

You're now emailing folks. Maybe the schools don't even have like overlapping, I don't know spring breaks or something.

37:13

How did you navigate the coordination like the bureaucratic coordination of all of the different moving pieces that were required for your doctoral work?

37:24

It was stressful I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna.

37:30

I was just like a lot of y'all. You know what I mean.

37:32

I am a person, I'm very persistent and I don't really take no for an answer.

37:43

So I want to be clear that there were a lot of people who were like this is not how things are traditionally done.

37:48

There were a lot of people who I would go to and I would ask them questions about how to do this and they would just be like I don't know, you know.

37:59

And so I think that for me, communication is key.

38:08

I will also mention that I was working as a teaching fellow in the communication studies department at the same time, so I was actually straddling four departments.

38:16

I was like, oh my goodness, I was like classes in, like evolutionary psychology, it was just like, oh my goodness, I was all over the place.

38:30

But I think you know, one thing I really noticed about my tenacity was just like I really went out of my way to be physically present in all of the departments outside of just taking classes.

38:46

Like I was like are there study groups that I can join in?

38:52

Are there, you know, the outside?

38:54

Like I was just like really made myself like a presence.

38:57

I showed up at the office hours of professors whose classes I wasn't even taking because I knew that they, I like, did my research and I would know, like everybody who was in the department and like, what their specialties were and what classes they were teaching and did they pertain to my work.

39:14

And if that's the case, I'm gonna try to build a relationship, you know, and just like make myself a presence.

39:22

And I did, you know, get a lot of feedback from people that this was unusual to do, because I was oftentimes like the only person in that department.

39:34

I was the only person in these neuroscience classes from education, the only person in these anthropology classes from education, you know.

39:43

And I also was told by a number of students who were actually in my department, like they would say, which I thought was like kind of odd.

39:54

They would be like, well, we're not here to become scientists, why are you doing this?

39:58

Like, why are you? Why are you? And I would be like, well, I am.

40:03

So I just think I just really it really requires knowing yourself and being clear on what your mission is and what your values are, and also I was clear on how it would make a contribution to each of the different cannons.

40:22

I always had the future generations of scholars in my mind, which is also something that I was taught in my family.

40:29

You always keep the future dream. You keep the ancestors, past ancestors in mind and future ancestors in mind, and you ask yourself what kind of ancestor am I shaping up to be right now?

40:41

And that was always just like, very present in my practice, and I think that at the end of the day, at the end of the day, it takes a certain belief in yourself, a lot of.

40:59

I think that my practices of yoga and meditation were really important because in those spaces I was really cultivating a lot of healing and a lot of self love, self compassion, forgiveness, empathy and compassion for myself and others.

41:17

So I think that having and this is just me speaking for myself, I'm not pushing this on other people in any way but for me, having an embodied practice of connecting to myself and my spirit was very important for me to continue the path of like, knowing who I am and knowing what kind of emotional experiences are important to me.

41:45

And I will say that throughout this journey, I was battling with like.

41:52

I was battling with diagnosed depression, diagnosed severe anxiety.

41:57

So I don't wanna make it sound like, oh, and I didn't have any mental health struggles on this journey, like they were very real for me.

42:05

But I was very vocal about them and I did whatever I could to gather campus resources, and if the campus resources weren't there, I would find the people in power and say why aren't these resources here?

42:22

You have a responsibility to me, like, especially as, like a young black single mom and I'm gonna say it here I was a young black single mom on welfare.

42:36

I didn't have enough money. You know, it's like they only give you enough money for yourself as an individual, not for your child, and so I was having a very real experience of marginalization in the context of my PhD journey.

42:53

But my daughter I really felt like it was important for me to do mirroring and modeling for her of what was possible and she really just kept me on my journey, kept me moving forward when I felt like, gosh, this just feels impossible.

43:13

And I'm just so happy to say that a lot of people told me in particular I would never, ever get a neuroscience postdoc.

43:22

They were like you need a neuroscience PhD, just you need to have neuroscience undergrad, master's, phd.

43:33

That is what your resume should look like. What is all this interdisciplinary Like?

43:37

What is that? And I was like watch me and I did, I did.

43:45

I completed a nearly like four year postdoc in neurology at Oregon Health Science University and I'm immensely, immensely proud that I decided to break with the mold and I am proud too.

43:59

You're such. This is such an inspiration for me, for anyone who's listening.

44:04

This episode is just so I almost like started to tear up, but I'm gonna keep it together Because I feel like this is why hearing and amplifying stories like yours is like, really at the core of like why I do anything that I do, because I know that there's someone who's listening, who's feeling like, who maybe has not started yet or is in their doctoral program and they're just like they're feeling down, they're feeling like they don't have the right support, the right resources at their institution in their program, and I think that being able to hear one that they're not alone, that there are people who also struggle in the same way that they're struggled, that they struggled or that they are struggling, but more importantly, that there are people who made it out and who survived and not only are thrived like you're thriving, I wish to be like this.

44:58

It's so impactful and you know, I think if this can help one person stay in their program and carry on and soldier on through their doctoral degree, we, the more people who, the more people like us, who don't get their doctoral degrees, who quit because they don't have the adequate support, who quit because they don't have the right financing or the right community.

45:24

I just feel like we're losing and missing out on so much amazing research and potential.

45:30

So thank you so much for your vulnerability, for doing the work, for thinking about the future ancestors, because they're here.

45:39

They're here right now and they're listening.

45:41

So thank you so much for thinking about them and being an inspiration for them.

45:46

I know that you said that you typically talk about your research when you're on other podcasts, but not on this podcast, because on this podcast, we care.

45:54

We care about the journey.

45:56

But I do want to ask one question about your research, because I just am really curious about this perspective.

46:05

You know you are a certified yoga and meditation instructor and so well-being is really important to you.

46:11

I feel like a lot of the conversations that I hear about technology, especially AI, talk about technology as the encounter to promoting well-being.

46:21

So I'm interested to know how you are envisioning the intersection of contemplative practices with technology.

46:33

What does liberatory technology mean to you, what does contemplative AI mean to you, and what impact, what positive impact do you think that this could have on society, especially in the black community?

46:45

Deloaded question.

46:47

I know, I know.

46:53

You know, I'm actually delighted to speak to this and I'll try to be as concise as possible.

47:02

So that actually brings me to discuss my post-doctoral research, because I was just very much fascinated with the research that was coming out of the neuroscience and psychiatry and psychology of mindfulness and yoga and contemplative practices.

47:22

That was really framing how it is that these practices they are what's called biopsychosocial interventions, and a biopsychosocial intervention is any intervention that has a combined impact on the physiology, the you know, like the biology of our body, our psychology or our mental health and our relationships.

47:48

And within medicine, like the whole medical model of health, at least like the most advanced medical model of health frames health and well-being as a biopsychosocial phenomena.

48:02

You really can't strip them apart, right?

48:05

But what's so interesting to me is this idea that by shifting your awareness right, as human beings we all have the capacity to be aware.

48:15

You're aware because you're having emotions, feelings, thoughts, sensations.

48:20

You're listening to this, you're watching this, right, that's all faculty of the function of your nervous system right at work, and you don't have to ask it to do any of those things, just miraculously, like you know, you wake up and you are aware.

48:32

Like, how wonderful. Right. But we also have the capacity for meta-awareness, and that is, you can be aware of your awareness, you can witness your own awareness, which is a facet of human consciousness, and when you practice this, it's actually a skill.

48:54

Paying attention, mindfulness is really referring to our capacity to be aware of what's happening in the present moment.

49:03

So, like usually, when we're like really caught up in, like in our thoughts, our thoughts are happening and they're telling stories about what happened in the past or they're projecting what we think might happen in the future.

49:15

And both of those stories, both of those narratives are not necessarily what's happening now.

49:20

So there's kind of like a real space in between and these practices help us to like shift and like orient into that space of presence.

49:28

Like what am I present to right here and now?

49:31

And we don't know why.

49:34

Right, this is like the big, it's like one of the big mysteries in neuroscience.

49:37

We are not sure why we even have the capacity to shift our awareness into the present moment.

49:43

It's a skill, it's a tool, and when we do that, interestingly, it can have a whole host of impacts on our physiology on our mental health and on our relationships right, which is fascinating.

49:59

I'm like, wow. So each of us are born with the capacity, with the tools inherently in our bodies to shift our perspective, shift our awareness and then shift our health and well-being.

50:11

That's extraordinary.

50:14

And I got the idea that I was going to try to map that out.

50:20

So in my postdoctoral program I developed a theoretical map of human awareness and it's a two-dimensional map of all of the different phenomena that happen inside of our bodies and how we can be aware of everything that is happening outside of our bodies, all the way out to the environment, society and culture.

50:44

And I really went out on a limb with this.

50:50

I was like, oh my gosh, they're really going to kick me out of the department now.

50:55

And I remember I took it to my advisor, who's a hardcore MD neurologist, and I was so nervous.

51:02

I was like, oh my gosh. I was like I made this map.

51:06

He's like what have you been doing with your time?

51:10

And I thought he was just going to be like oh my god.

51:16

And to my surprise, he took one look at it and he was like Actually, that makes all the sense, good job, what are you going to do with it?

51:28

Like, oh, what? Oh, I was not expecting that response.

51:32

He was like, from a medical point of view, okay.

51:38

I was like dang, all right. Well, what do you know?

51:41

Where do I go from here? And a little tip for those of you listening I.

51:47

So when I graduated from my PhD program, I built a website and I started a consulting company because I hadn't figured out like quite which postdoctoral program I wanted to go into.

52:03

And, as a matter of fact, the day that my dissertation was filed, done PhD officially over.

52:10

We my whole family, my husband myself, my daughter got a major car crash.

52:15

That day and I I was literally busy a lot.

52:21

I was in physical therapy. I was physiologically incapable of like getting out of bed by myself.

52:27

It was like that bad Right. So I had like a gap period of time where I was just like healing my body and my mind after that trauma.

52:36

But true to myself, because I can't quite totally sit still, I was like, well, I'm going to be in PT and start a consulting company and my thought was I want to get I don't want to wait for the university institution to get my research into the world and I started recording videos of myself talking about my research, sometimes in conversation with other scholars or just people who are interested in it, and I would.

53:02

I would post those up online on my website just free resources to learn about my research and and I kept doing that for my postdoc and what happened was that the Museum of Modern Art in New York was watching and listening to my videos about my research and I love art.

53:25

Right, I remember when I was saying like I always wanted to be an artist and I love art and it's just like I'm so passionate about it.

53:30

And you can't even imagine the look on my face in the middle of the pandemic when I got an email from them saying we've been watching your videos and learning about the science of social justice in our institution and what would you think about partnering with us in some capacity, like bridging your research with our art collection and designing meditations.

53:52

And it was this whole wonderful collaboration and I ended up being able to launch my map of human awareness and partnership with the Museum as their first scientific intervention.

54:09

Wow, wow, wow.

54:10

Ever and there's became my postdoctoral project, and I had no idea or intention going into it that that would ever be the case.

54:19

I was just being vulnerable and putting my work into the world, and so, to answer your question about technology, I'm getting there.

54:30

I forgot about the question. That's an amazing way.

54:36

I highly recommend it. Like people, institutions like you know, tech companies and philanthropic organizations, like they have entities that are looking for cutting edge research and they're not necessarily going to the university to find out where that information is.

54:53

But the the limitation of that map was that it was two dimensional and it it was fixed, it didn't move.

55:02

It didn't. It wasn't something that you could like relate to and I really want I had this, like aha, because there were MDs all around me at Oregon Health Science University it's actually it's a medical school.

55:18

So I was I was one of very few PhDs there and they were all training a lot of them how to translate their research into, like clinical drug development and being trained like how to use technology to like translate their research into let's be honest here, like some money making technology.

55:42

Okay, like entrepreneurially speaking, and I was just like wait a minute, why can I do that?

55:48

Can I translate my research into technology?

55:51

Like, why not? Because with AI, suddenly you can take text, you can take images, you can take video, you can take any kind of data you want and transform that into an experience that other people can be in relationship with and learn from.

56:10

So that is what I'm doing right now, so I do have a university position.

56:18

I also have an AI company called mine heart AI and I'm working together with a team of incredible designers from a company called radius motion, and we are going through the design process of making a map of human awareness that is 3D, interactive, fully AI integrated and a well being guide a personalized well being guide so that you can actually visualize your own moment to moment awareness and see how it is developing over time.

57:01

And to me like thank you, it is very, it is very challenging.

57:06

But that's what I mean by contemplative AI, because you know this whole conversation about like you know, AI like it's.

57:16

It's coming for our jobs and it might kill us all, but like listen, we created AI and AI doesn't do anything outside of the data that we feed it.

57:31

So if we, if we are conscientious about feeding the AI data that is representative of our greatest human capacities, like our capacity to be contemplative, or to be empathetic, or loving or compassion, like what whatever we want, then the AI will support that and part of the issues that a lot of people in big tech companies aren't thinking that way, because they thinking about you know the bottom line, they thinking about that dollar and not necessarily like I don't know, liberation.

58:18

I'm thinking about Wow, wow, I am.

58:21

I'm like starting to fangirl. What is this feeling?

58:24

I'm just telling all such of your work, your research, that impact, the scholarships of balance, the reflexivity, like all of it, all of it.

58:36

I'm also just recognizing that we are very much over time, so I want to be respectful, a little bit respectful, of the time that we have left.

58:45

As we wind down, we ask every guest on our show two questions, the first of which is what is something that you would do differently if, for some strange reason, you had to go back in time and redo your PhD?

59:01

I think that I would have tried to be more intentional about creating community on campus.

59:14

That was about exploring healing, the relationship between healing and liberation and like, how do we bring art and music and just like creative, like bring the artists inside of all of us alive towards this effort and I was I definitely had my own like healing and liberation practice that was very individual, you know, like on my mat, on my cushion at home or in the yoga studio, or like maybe when I would go on meditation retreats, but I did not have that on campus.

59:53

I do think that that would have been an and I would have invited professors into that space, but I would have been very clear that this was an equalizing space.

1:00:10

You don't come in here with all of your status and everything like that.

1:00:14

Like in this space, we are humans who are all deserving of well being and healing and liberation, and let's meet from that heart space.

1:00:24

I love that. I'm trying to envision how different my experience would have been if I had something like that too, and I cannot.

1:00:31

I cannot fathom what it could have been like, except that it would have been amazing.

1:00:36

I love the idea a lot.

1:00:39

And then, lastly, you've given a couple of really great pieces of advice, but if you could just pick one final word of advice for any person who's listening, who might be a black woman and non binary person who's pursuing doctoral studies, it's like one final take away that you have with them.

1:00:59

Yeah, I'm never believe anyone who tells you that your lived experiences don't matter inside of academia, and I don't care what department you're in, what discipline that you're in like, your lived experiences are informing your work.

1:01:20

They are a gift, they are what makes you so beautiful, so special, so magical, and anybody who tries to tell you that's not the case might not necessarily be aligned or the mentor that you should be working with.

1:01:46

That's a mic drop moment right there. Thank you so much, dr King, for joining us on the Cohort Sisters podcast.

1:01:52

I really enjoyed learning about your.

1:01:54

How do I describe your journey in one word trailblazing, your trailblazing doctoral journey for yourself, for your family and for others.

1:02:05

I really appreciate you sharing your story with us and I hope that we get to be in community with you again another time.

1:02:14

Oh, my goodness, it would be my honor. You have such an effervescent and bright and loving spirit and I have had so much fun Please.

1:02:23

Oh, we absolutely will. Thank you so much as well Again for listening to this week's episode of the Cohort Sisters podcast.

1:02:39

If you are a black woman interested in joining the Cohort Sisters membership community or you're looking for more information on how to support or partner with Cohort Sisters, please visit our website at wwwcohortsistascom.

1:02:53

You can also find us on all social media platforms at Cohort Sisters.

1:02:57

Don't forget to subscribe to the Cohort Sisters podcast and leave us a quick review wherever you're listening.