We Love Science

Ep 49: Advocating for Science and Research - The Journey

• Season 3 • Episode 17

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We continue our conversation with Dr. Adriana Bankston, founder and CEO, Bankston Policy Consulting LLC to learn more about her career path. Her journey of discovery started close to home, in a family filled with scientists–from her grandparents to her parents. As an undergraduate at Clemson University, she was introduced to the world of research through a summer program. From there her interests blossomed, and in graduate school, at Emory University, she conducted research in muscular dystrophy for her dissertation. This experience also allowed her to volunteer with patients and instilled the understanding of the social impact of science. “What you are doing actually impacts real people,” Adriana explains. As she completed graduate school, her attention grew to understanding the obscure world of postdoctoral salaries, how such positions are defined, and the policies behind the status quo. This initial project led her to the world of advocacy and finding strategic ways to solve these challenges within science. Along the way, Adriana has also had several inspiring mentors, starting with her graduate school advisor: one of two female researchers within the department. With her positive experience as a mentee, Adriana now dedicates her time to mentoring graduate students and others who are new to the world of advocacy and policy. Looking to the future, she is excited about starting as an inaugural AAAS Congressional Policy Fellow sponsored by the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy which will allow her to work directly on Capitol Hill, a change from advocating on the outside. In addition to her experience in advocacy and policy, Adriana is also a science writer; as someone who describes herself as having too many opinions, writing has been an excellent outlet to share some of her ideas with the world. After you listen to the podcast, also read her latest blog post on the podcast website: https://welovesciencepodcast.com/f/how-policymaking-works-and-how-scientists-can-engage 

And if you want to learn more about science policy, Adriana will lead a workshop hosted by Genetics Society of America: Register here


Tune into this episode to hear Adriana explain:

  • How her family history influenced her career journey
  • Her first encounter with science policy and advocacy
  • What it means to ride the rollercoaster with confidence 


Reach out to Adriana:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianabankston/

Website: https://adrianabankston.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AdrianaBankston


Other Great Episodes:

Ep 5: FORE Advocating Change - Part 2

Ep 7:

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Reach out to Fatu:
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and LoveSciencePodcast@gmail.com

Reach out to Shekerah:
www.linkedin.com/in/shekerah-primus
and LoveSciencePodcast@gmail.com


Music from Pixabay: Future Artificial Intelligence Technology 130 by TimMoor
Music from https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Holmes: Hotshot by ScottHolmesMusic

Intro  0:09  
Welcome back to We Love Science podcast. This is the journey episode; here our guest star shares more about their discovery of science, and how mentors and experiences shaped who they are today. To hear more about the work associated with this journey, please check out the previous episode. 

Shekerah Primus  0:29  
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the show, We Love Science.  Today we've been chatting with Dr. Adriana Bankston, who is the founder and CEO of Bankston Policy Consulting LLC. That's a consulting firm that works to build a strong STEM workforce. And if you'd like to hear more about that listen to the work segment. So, Adriana, thank you for sharing your work with us. Now we're going to jump into the journey segment of our conversation. And this is where we talk about sort of your career journey and how you got here. And we'd like to start with your earliest memories involving science. So did you have a science spark or any science wow moments when you were growing up?

Adriana Bankston  1:23  
Yeah, thanks for this introduction. So I guess the one relevant thing is I grew up with, in a family of scientists, but my parents are both scientists. My grandpa was an MD and he also did research; my grandma still does research. So one side of the family is very strong. The other side, it was more sort of community science. I would say but you know, I think early kind of doing small experiments, but also they had a lab my whole life. So I would go there and not understand anything. Because it was, it was cool just to see that and that was sort of infused into my personality that science was cool. And, you know, they were working on important issues and science and health. My own work, you know, I did research in grad school in muscular dystrophy; and both, well, it's it's challenging, you know, the different models that we use, but also I like to volunteer in the community. So you know, they had a walk for patients with muscular dystrophy and you could volunteer to sort of do a, do a day with them and you know, like a cookout and just hang out and did a walk around the park and all that. So that is to say that, you know, this sort of fostered the kind of social impact of science, I guess, and what you're doing is actually affecting real people, right, which is, it's important to think about that. Yeah. Yeah.

Shekerah Primus  3:03  
Oh, very cool. I love that you had science your entire life growing up, and just knew how important and how cool it was. It's really cool to have that kind of influence as a child. So how did your career plans evolve then? During your journey? So like, did you always want to be a scientist? Did you always sort of know you want it to go into advocacy? Like how did they evolve through middle school, high school levels, interesting, formative time periods in your life? Yeah,

Adriana Bankston  3:30  
I think that I was drawn to trying to help people with my science and not before I was even in grad school, you know, how can I do something good in the world and so I actually was pretty mad for most of my journey I wanted to go to medical school. They know that I can use this to, to help, help patients and I applied to med school and didn't get in. But I think that's a good story. Right? So sometimes it doesn't workout and other things happen. So but so I've always had this sort of desire to you know, to help others through what I was doing and my science, even through all the way through undergrad. And then in undergrad did a summer research experience in Louisiana. And it was really nice. I never thought about grad school before that, and we worked on diabetes and some of the things again, very kind of prevalent diseases nationwide. I was able to do that; I kind of fell in love with research. I went to grad school there you know, I had, I had a good role model in my in my grad school PI, can talk more about that. But um, yeah, research ended up being a good path for me to, to follow and sort of figure that out on my own, even though I guess if my parents were in that space, but I didn't want to do that because they were doing that. So it's sort of like you know, let me see what I actually want. Kind of from my own, my own journey. Yeah.

Shekerah Primus  5:07  
That's really cool. I love how, I feel like a lot of guests that we talked to, you sort of start off wanting to go to med school, right? You, you want to help people or you're good at whatever the case may be. And that like automatic first path is med school. I also fell into that boat, right? It's like med school. And then along the way you sort of discover there are so many other ways that you can help people. So I really, I really love how you know med school is almost like the gateway profession.

Fatu Badiane Markey  5:39  
You know just, really like how you described it that way she cared because in my mind I was like, why are all PhDs like med school rejects; I mean that in the most, you know, like affectionate way possible because that was also my experience. 

I didn't get in here, time to make a detour. But I think you're right. I

think we just realized there are so many other ways to help people.

Adriana Bankston  6:05  
Yeah. And I think you know, research I think really challenges you in some ways and you know, it's kind of intellectual thing to do, right. You're just you're always learning and growing and things don't work and you try it again. All these skills are good in life, too.

Shekerah Primus  6:20  
Yeah,

Definitely. Absolutely agree with that. So how and why did you start with your interest in advocating for science and research policy?

Adriana Bankston  6:34  
Yeah, I see. It. I really started from doing research myself, right. So I've been a number of institutions. They have types of research and the way that they deal with their trainees and that sort of shifted; I wanted to understand more about how universities help students and postdocs who are in the field, and how we can keep them there if they want to be there and support them. And that means a lot of things. So I was on, you know, a bunch of committees starting out as a postdoc, even trying to understand more of execution of policy. Trying to check trying to change that, if possible. I'm trying to see how are you supporting postdocs, especially when I got to that stage and so started understanding more about institutional policy and then ended up working for a nonprofit actually, that I left my postdoc after about two years or almost close to three years, decided to try to use this somehow to do something good and so did some research on postdoc salaries for the nonprofit which was really interesting, because salaries aren't something that's very transparent, you cannot always find that online, they very a lot. And it's actually an interesting research question because it's varies a lot based on what you call the postdoc. So if it's a research postdoc, associate, or if it's a clinical postdoc or researcher, there's different titles. So that make it really a fascinating question when it comes to an actual policy, because there was a federal labor law mandating that postdoc salary should increase I think, is this was in 2016 or so. So basically, if you made below 50,000 a year, or so I don't remember the exact number, but the law mandated that all the salaries go up that year. So we did the study about what institutions actually complied with the law. And then did a, did a research study to look at how I post docs are getting paid actually, which is not again, it's not always open information. So it was really interesting to find that out. So this was the first sort of connection between a federal policy and academic, the academic world and how that affected sort of the STEM pipeline. So follow that for a few years. And that sort of led into a natural transition, I would say when I ended up working in advocacy for research funding and the pipeline because I was already starting with that sort of the postdoc issues and postdoc pay is one of the issues and there are many other things we need to fix in science wise. That was a good sort of, you know, initial project and that kind of drove everything I did coming to, coming to DC working here in advocacy with Capitol Hill to try to actually make some change. You know, it's not easy to do, but we have to keep keep trying. Yeah, yeah. 

Shekerah Primus  9:42  
Yeah, exactly.

I mean, we're happy. You keep trying. I know that postdocs have a union now, right. I think that happened when I was a postdoc like a few years ago, and grad students have a union now too I've heard so it's, it's getting better. You know, hopefully things are improving little by little, you know, the wages are improving, the conditions are improving, you know, postdocs are not just hands to like bring about your, about your experimental dreams, right. Or people that may have to be treated like people and, and all that and I love injecting that human aspect into, you know, basically kind of like the grunts of the science world, you know, people who got a lot of the work done. So, thank you so much, Adriana.

Adriana Bankston  10:31  
Just add this. That's, that's really critical to a lot of this work, too, because you mentioned this, you know, the STEM workforce and the introduction that it's really about the people who are doing science things you lobby for the dollars and yes, you need money to do it. And that's going to help you know, cure diseases, all of that. That is one aspect, which I certainly have worked on. But I think just reminding that these are people who are doing the work and we need to treat them like that and there's a lot of things that go into that, like so pay mental health, childcare.

Shekerah Primus  11:08  
Yeah. So, can you talk to us a little bit about the mentorships that the people who have really mentored you throughout your journey, how did they help you? What did you learn? You know, how did they help you grow and to help you to choose the path that you're, that you're on right now?

Adriana Bankston  11:28  
Yeah, that's a that's a good question. Um, I would say the first is my grad school mentor, right. So I worked for a female PI. She was one of two female faculty in the department. And well that is both that is inspiring and also empowering. She took that well and stood up for herself and I think taught us how to do that. We were in our 20s or so and trying to, trying to figure out what we're doing and having a strong role model like that in graduate school suits you really well. 

Shekerah Primus  12:07  
Gosh, I

love that and I so agree with that like 1000, like 10,000 percent

Adriana Bankston  12:15  
That was, that was, I think in when I, when I switch to policy, there's a lot of I would say peer mentors, people who are my level, you know, friends that I met along the way that I could email and say, I have a question, you know, what do I do about this and I need to make a decision and they would support that and a lot of them have gone through the same transition. Some of them have been a policy before or they've been a policy longer than I have and so they had good advice to share. So I guess I'll you know, put a plug in here for internet, friends who can help you when you don't know what to do and they'll call them and they'll help you the same thing. 

Shekerah Primus  12:51  
Yeah. Yeah. Lovely. 

Adriana Bankston  12:53  
I think, you know, as we talked about the transition to, to policy, I think just mentors who have been especially in advocacy for a long time and through my experiences with Society for Neuroscience and at the University of California. Both of these I had really good bosses. And you know, they took me in as somebody who was new to the field and taught me everything and how to do it and how to write a policy memo. How do you write a pitch to a legislator, a letter to the Hill, how do you talk to, you know, legislator and their staff and how does Capitol Hill work and everything so I'm really grateful to them because they really taught me everything I know up to now.

Shekerah Primus  13:37  
Yeah, very cool. I love that. It sounds like you had lots of different types of learners, right? You have those people you look up to and really sort of teach you how to be the type of scientist and a type of person to have a type of professional that you want to be. And if you haven't had that really fight for you, you know, you have friends who are always rooting for you. So I love that you sort of had the love community, right. Community of mentors and support system that's so important. 

Adriana Bankston  14:11  
Yeah, I

think one thing to say is, you know how this sort of shapes you I think it's, you know, mentoring is important to understand what people need and kind of help them get there. Right, because I think the best mentors, I've had, you know, sort of, I would go to them and say, you know, what should I do? And they would say, What do you want me to do? Like? They would ask me questions, right? So why do you like to just sit in this and really foster my interests and build that up right, instead of saying, this is what you should do, which I did ask for and you know, you can take that with a grain do it or don't do it. But the best mentors I've had, I think have made me think about it really more about what do I want and kind of turn that towards me right?

Shekerah Primus  14:57  
Beautiful. So sounds like having good mentors. It's important for you to help you grow but it also teaches you how to be a good mentor too right. So I think that definitely comes through what you just said. 

Adriana Bankston  15:10  
Yeah,

that's something I try to do a lot of that especially because I transition myself from science to policy and I have students reaching out to me who want to do the same. They didn't want to do you do, give career talks, and talk to them one on one about how you know, how I transition and I do different this you know, different sorts of things. Like review proposals, you know, for our conferences for students who are coming into the field or students who are in science, I'm, you know, first generation all of that. So I'm very big on mentoring people in the field and keeping that going. 

Shekerah Primus  15:34  
Excellent.

Great. So consider your journey. What advice would you give to young Adriana? 

Adriana Bankston  15:59  
Yeah, that's

always a tough question. I mean, looking back at all the things I've been able to do, you know, I've been very fortunate to have a lot of opportunities, some of them I've sought them out or I'm, you know, I'm pretty proactive and persistent when I'm just doing something but also things happen and opportunities came my way. Right. So I think that's one thing is just, you know, realizing how many things come your way that you didn't expect? In your life right, interesting opportunities. Um, I think, at the same time, I've also had a lot of twists and turns right, so I've come a long way from the person who wanted to apply to med school and now I'm advocating for science. You know, there's a lot of events there. But I think taking opportunities as they come in, you know, judging what the next thing is, and sometimes you don't know what those things are, right? It's just, I honestly, you know, advocacy is something that I kind of was doing it instinctively because I knew that I wanted to make change and science and all that was kind of deeply ingrained, I think from years ago, but I'm having the opportunity to actually be in DC and do that here and work with lawmakers is something I'd never thought I would be able to do. So just think opportunities and be open minded. You know? You never know what might happen.

Shekerah Primus  17:26  
Yeah, yeah,

that's excellent advice. I love that I think to be open about opportunities and ride the roller coaster with confidence. Ride the roller coaster overconfidence, which is kind of like, trust yourself, you know, I feel, I feel like we hear that a lot. Just listening to what they've learned from their experiences and what they would say to the younger self, just trust yourself. Right. And that's so important. So is there anything that you would change or do differently?

Adriana Bankston  17:59  
I think looking back, you know, I tend to as you know, as we talked about, kind of take opportunities as they come. So I don't always plan long term necessarily, because it's like, oh, this is cool. Like, let me try this out. And that's worked well in some ways. Because I was exploring a lot of things until I found what I actually wanted. And I think that's good advice. But thinking more long term about what this is a question that everyone asks right? What do you want to be in 5 to 10 years right? Yeah, trying to think a little more ahead. I think I get that's something I'm I'm learning to do more of so if I take this way where it will go and not just; I think also just because I've done a lot of different things which have been helpful in some ways, but I think if you if you're more strategic you can maybe make fewer moves right. More time here before I move on to something else, right. So it's worked out? Well, I think I have learned from everything, but just I would say just trying to maybe stick it out in one place longer there.

Shekerah Primus  19:13  
Yeah, that's good. It's almost like being able to be a good chess player right? And see nine moves ahead. Like how many of us can do that? Right? That takes a lot of practice and vision. And clarity; is not, it's not easy. When you're young and trying to figure out what to do with my life.

Fatu Badiane Markey  19:34  
Hard agree!

Shekerah Primus  19:36  
Okay, so we've done the looking back. Let's look forward a little bit. Talk to us a bit about what's coming up next for you. Whether in the immediate future, tomorrow, next week or the near future. What's what's next for you? What are you planning? 

Adriana Bankston  19:53  
Yeah,

So I think, you know, currently workwise I'm planning to move on to spend some time on Capitol Hill. As opposed to having been advocating for things from the outside but actually being being part of Congress for a year. And then I think you know, what's really helped with kind of some of this transition is as you said, like doing it with confidence, trying to kind of maintain a certain reputation, but, you know, there's good days and bad days you just keep moving. Yeah.

Keep moving forward. Who said that also recently? Laura Canil, keep moving forward or they're gonna mow over you. I love that analogy.

Fatu Badiane Markey  20:52  
A rugby analogy. Yeah. Yes. I really liked that. Yeah.

Adriana Bankston  20:56  
I think there's a, there's a saying something like, the only way you can't move forward is to give up so you know, just keep moving. And if it's like, you know, inches every day, you're still doing something. Yeah,

Fatu Badiane Markey  21:09  
Yeah. No, that's true. I really like that. I really like that. So I'm Adriana now that you said that you're kind of transitioning into a role where instead of advocating and sort of being on the outside, you're gonna get to work as part of you know, like the actual legislative body, have you ever thought of running for office?

Adriana Bankston  21:28  
I think you gave me an idea now. It honestly, has crossed my mind before but I haven't pursued it you know, there's there's practical things without because you have to have certain connections that I don't have. Yeah, but you know the future maybe you never know. 

Fatu Badiane Markey  21:59  
I love it.

Adriana Bankston  22:04  
You know, you shouldn't limit yourself. Right? So kind of signed up here. But I'm reading a book by Michael Phelps. You know. So you know, he's got a lot of advice about moving forward and you know, winning and when things don't work, and you you know, he's won so many gold medals, I've had failures and kept going and all that. So it's very inspiring to me. The things that he said to you know, just keep going and don't limit yourself because, you know, you can other people will put limits on you but don't put it on yourself.

Shekerah Primus  22:38  
Yeah. Who also said that? Kelly, right Kelly, don't count yourself out right.

Excellent. So your successful self Adriana, describe that picture for us. What does that look like?

Adriana Bankston  22:56  
Yeah, I think right now, it looks more like focusing on my you know, self care and things that I need to ride the rollercoaster; I like how you put that and so there's, you know, certain things to do to help you navigate life like you know, meditation working out, when I take my dog for a walk, and all of that. So, to get outside when things get, get hard. You know, just take a break, walk around. I think with working from home and you know, we talked about this like being a consultant, it can be isolating, you're working from home all the time. And so I'm trying to be be out in the community more but even just, you know, dressing up like putting on a nice piece of jewelry, something like that. Like, take care of yourself as you go through everything. 

Shekerah Primus  23:52  
Yeah, gosh, 

I love that. I love that you prioritize self care, right? It's like I'm working really hard. I'm doing all these things; self care is important. I love that. Take your dog for a walk. Working out, meditating. Yes. Oh my gosh, I love that. Thank you so much for being open to sharing that with our with our audience.

Adriana Bankston  24:12  
It's a work in progress, but I think it's important because I've noticed that in myself you know, I'm just the more I do that, I think, the better I work because I take some time out to prioritize myself and actually that's how

Fatu Badiane Markey  24:26  
It's important, it is. It is right it's like putting on your own oxygen mask first. We need to remember that, yeah, to remember that; I really liked that. Wonderful. Excellent.

Adriana Bankston  24:43  
It's been such a pleasure listening to you Adriana. Fatu any additional questions for this.

Fatu Badiane Markey  24:49  
None that I can think of right now. Thank you. I really enjoy hearing your story.

Shekerah Primus  24:54  
Yeah, incredibly inspirational. I feel like every time I talk to people, I'm like, I learned so much. It was just great listening to your story and learning from everything that you've been through and everything that you've learned yourself. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. For sharing.

Fatu Badiane Markey  25:12  
All right, so this brings us to our very last segment; last but not least, which is what we call Life Lights. And this is where we discuss Adriana what it is that you enjoy doing outside of work. You know, we just talked about self care. So I think this is also a really nice transition into that. So you know thinking about your hobbies, passion projects, family friends, how do you like to relax and what else brings sort of light and enjoyment to your life? 

Adriana Bankston  25:42  
Yeah,

Um, so what I like to do these days is crafts, so painting, nice embroidery, so I did embroidery for a while. I started making my own jewelry a couple years ago, so that's pretty fun. That's obvious crafts, crafts are good for kind of stress relief. Yeah.

Fatu Badiane Markey  26:06  
And it's I think it's nice because it still also has a little bit of that like challenge, right? Because you're trying to make like a final thing, which I think can be like really nice and you're doing something with their hands, which is also really nice.

Adriana Bankston  26:18  
It's a good creative endeavor.

Shekerah Primus  26:22  
Yeah. Definitely. That's cool. Is there any crafting that you think you want to pick up in the future? That's like on your to do list?

Adriana Bankston  26:30  
I haven't really thought of this. You know, there's so three things that keep me busy and I kind of alternate between them, you know, so like painting is pretty good and easy. Just painting things that I want to do, then embroidery is very specific to you know, details about exactly a certain way and then yeah, I sort of do different things. I think they touch on different interests. Yes.

Shekerah Primus  27:01  
What kind of jewelry do you make; I dabbled in jewlery making when I was in undergrad? Yeah, girl. I dabbled a little bit.

Adriana Bankston  27:12  
Like you know earrings with beads. Yeah, a couple of necklaces too, but some of those things, made a couple of bracelets, but some of those things can be very intricate and

Shekerah Primus  27:27  
Beautiful, right?

Fatu Badiane Markey  27:30  
Yeah, I think it also takes a lot of patience you know, with like the beads and like picking it up as I think that's beyond me. Honestly.

I just I think that's where I draw the line. I'm

like, No, I'll just I'll just enjoy the end product. When someone else puts in the work.

Shekerah Primus  27:48  
I really, I feel Yeah, I think it's probably for me. I think that kind of thing is more common thing. I've always like doing puzzles. You know, it's, you know, 1000 random pieces of things and you got to figure out which one fits the next one. That's crazy. Why would people do that? I find it very calming. So I definitely get that. Yeah,

Adriana Bankston  28:11  
Again.

Fatu Badiane Markey  28:12  
That's another thing. I feel like I did when I was like six years old and then I was just like never again in my life. I'm not a puzzler. I'm not a jewelry maker. I'll just I'll just stick with my knitting. That keeps me happy. Yeah,

Shekerah Primus  28:32  
That is an excellent creative outlet as well. Adriana I know that you do some writing as well. And you've written for several different blogs and that you know you're going to be doing something for our blog as well. So, listeners look out for Adriana's blog post on our on our website. We Love Science. Right. So tell us a little bit about how you got into

writing. Yeah.

Adriana Bankston  29:02  
When I was probably in graduate school, just starting to think about issues and research in higher education and I had a lot of opinions.

You have to be careful when you're, when you're writing about these things. I think that it's coming from your own perspective and now you versus this kind of thing. So yeah, I think there's a lot of things that need to be talked about and in higher education and universities that aren't always and can help change the landscape and can be used for policy change. Right. So you know, started early I think my first blog was for a women's, women's STEM magazine and for different types of blogs and policy and trying to bridge that gap right yeah, I think it's a good outlet to raise awareness for STEM issues and policy.

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