Did you ever drink an espresso (preferably) somewhere in Italy? If you close your eyes now, can you feel the nice energetic lift that drinking a good balanced espresso gives? Well… that’s Elena! Her words: if she was a coffee, she would be exactly an espresso!
I hope you already had the pleasure to meet her! In this case, you know of what kind of passion I’m talking about. But in case you don’t know her yet, I’m sure you will want to connect with her as soon as you are done reading this post!
I met Elena on LinkedIn and my impression after talking to her is that she is a powerful energetic young woman with a clear vision in mind, determined to make an impact with her work. She is a people person who works hard on self-discovering and self-development, dedicated to make a difference in academia. The reason why I asked her to share her PhD story is that I thought she would be inspiring and she truly was for me.
To keep using food analogies, Elena already had a bit of a taste of Sweden during her bachelor study in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology in 2015. She was intrigued by how vaccines work and how can they be delivered in a more effective way. She enjoyed both the environment of the Karolinska institute and the research she was involved in.
When deciding to do a PhD or not, she got back in contact with her bachelor supervisor in Sweden, who, as often happens, knew somebody who was looking for a PhD student. The feeling Elena got by talking to her was extremely positive. She felt immediately a good interaction. She said “This supervisor has at heart her students’ development”. This gave her trust that, if she would have pursued a PhD with her, she would have the space to steer her research topic, if needed.
Next to that, she knew that the environment at the Karolinska institute would be fertile soil to pursue both a high quality research and her personal/professional growth, surrounded by many like-minded young PIs.
While in this decision-making limbo, she met a person who had a great impact on her and that she would identify as a mentor. She looked up to him for being a real person, willing to inspire and develop students to grow to their full potential. A person highly qualified, successful in her eyes while still very humble, who encouraged her to do a PhD as a stepping stone to pursue an entrepreneur path in Pharma Biotech.
So, this was the turning point that convinced her to go for a PhD. What I found very interesting is that she was absolutely clear from the start that she didn’t want to do a PhD to become an expert in her field but use the experience of a PhD as playground for growth and development.
With this mindset, she started a PhD on skin immunology, aimed at studying T-cells that can in the long run cause diseases like psoriasis and vitiligo.
For her research to be successful, it needs to be read, useful and valuable for the reader. So I asked her “Elena, how do you define success?”. And she said “Success is personal and consequently professional growth. Measuring growth is not easy but I noticed how much more confident I have become, how much my mindset has changed, how much more willing I am to get out of my comfort zone, how much I believe that I can make things happen when I put my mind onto something. I can now also say out loud and without shame that I don’t know something”. The old saying ‘The more I learn, the less I realize I know’ totally applies here.
Like Miguel, whose interview you can find here, Elena has learnt to unlink her personal value from what she knows. Working on her mindset has certainly helped her to debunk limiting believes that often lead towards the imposter syndrome. She speaks very passionately about this. She is learning to understand her mind-patterns and to do the work because “life doesn’t just happen”. Meditation is for her a powerful ally to get clear and make things happen.
She is certain that going abroad has been the best decision! She enjoys living in Sweden. Although making friends there is not very easy, she has chosen her acquired family among her peers. This is a very recognizable pattern when you are a PhD student abroad, where the culture of the country you are in can be very different from that of your origin. So many people in the same stage of life, facing the same problems, become a little family, where often it’s research talks all around all the time.
Exactly these talks among her peers opened her eyes to a few common problems among PhDs:
- What to do after a PhD? This topic is never too high of a priority while you are busy with it but it should be given serious thoughts much earlier that when majority of the people do.
- And what are other positions out there in case of wanting to transition outside academia?
- How to communicate academic achievements and skills into industry language? How do you fit them in a CV or a resume?
Finally, I loved the fact that she is an absolute advocate for doing a PhD and she is fueled with passion when she talks about these issues. Her future entrepreneurship adventure aims at tackling these problems and at making a positive impact in the life of as many people as possible. And for that, I wish her the best of luck!
At the beginning of this post I wrote that talking to Elena has been inspiring for me. And I want to close this post by telling you why: I think it’s important to pursue inspiration in our daily life. It can come through a conversation, like in this case. I hope, in your case, it happens by reading about this conversation!
And why being inspired is important? Because it sets you in the flow. Being in the flow, according to the emotional intelligence*, corresponds to the highest level of channeling emotions to achieve the best level of learning. This is because that’s when you are completely focused on what you are doing, you enjoy it and you are not worried about the outcome of it. In addition to this, I experienced that recognizing these moments of “being in the zone” is important because they contain little hints to what we truly enjoy doing, what we love and, at some point, comes easy to us.
And as a scientist, don’t you feel a little excited if you think of yourself like an experiment where you can write a note to self-awareness when you recognize to be in the flow? It may seem like nothing, but actually these moments are important indications to help you answer that serious question Elena asked “What to do after a PhD?”.
*Daniel Goleman, Emotional intelligence, book, 1995
Linkedin Elena: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elena-hoffer-