From bench to museum--an unlikely journey.

Molecular Biology of the CellVol. 24, No. 21 PerspectivesFree AccessFrom bench to museum—an unlikely journeyKristina YuKristina YuSearch for more papers by this authorDoug Kellogg, Monitoring EditorPublished Online:13 Oct 2017https://doi.org/10.1091/mbc.e13-04-0194AboutSectionsView PDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference. Robert FrostDeciding to “leave the bench” and basic research after committing many, many years to graduate school is not an easy thing to do. There is real pressure from peers, principal investigators (PIs), even parents, to stick it out and follow a more established career path, either to academia or the biotech industry. In my case, I realized fairly early on in graduate school that the traditional options were not areas I was interested in pursuing. I also felt strongly about how science was frequently misrepresented in popular culture and the media. The epiphany—that I was “okay” leaving basic research, despite not really knowing what else was out there—came late one night, in the cold room of all places. I trotted down the hall of our building and announced this to my friend and classmate (also working in a cold room) who was having similar thoughts herself. We high-fived. We would support each other. We would be okay.Fast-forward 15 years. I now work at the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum in San Francisco, directing the museum's Living Systems Department. In this essay, I discuss how I wound up at the Exploratorium and what it is like to work in a museum environment, creating science experiences for the general public.NOT JUST A LABOR OF “LIKE”Although I knew deep in my heart of hearts that a life of basic research was not for me, it took me awhile to announce this to my PI. When I finally did, I confessed that, although I enjoyed bench work, basic research had always been a labor of “like” for me and, given the rigors of academia and industry, “like” was not enough to base a career on. I wanted to take the training I had received and the enthusiasm I had for science to the public in some way. Fortunately, my PI was incredibly understanding and supportive, recognizing the general need for greater science communication.Not long after completing a fairly standard PhD in cell biology, I started searching for jobs, with the intention of eventually applying to the science communication program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Fortunately, I was not entirely certain of what type of job I was searching for, so I cast a wide net. Because my thesis work involved a lot of live-cell imaging and microscopy—which I genuinely enjoyed—I would diligently type “microscopy” into every job search engine I had access to at the time, and every time I would come up empty-handed …AN ALIQUOT OF GOOD LUCKUntil finally a hit. And what a hit it was—the Exploratorium was looking for a microscopist. Growing up in the San Francisco Bay area, I was very familiar with the Exploratorium and had visited many, many times. Founded in 1969 by Frank Oppenheimer, the Exploratorium—a museum of “science, art and human perception”—pioneered the concept of a science center. The Exploratorium had recently been awarded a grant to develop a microscope facility where the public could control the microscopes to examine live specimens. The position described online was everything I was looking for—but that I did not know could exist in one job. Several months later, I found myself reporting to work as the one and only microscopist at the museum—a place that was at once a familiar childhood memory, yet completely foreign as a workplace.A CRASH COURSEBiology exhibits at the Exploratorium are unique in that they are built in-house and more often than not involve a live specimen or organism. To care for and culture the organisms that are included in exhibits and other activities, the museum has a working laboratory and a staff of biologists who maintain cultures of more than 40 types of organisms all under one roof. Colonies of termites coexist peacefully with tanks of zebrafish and incubators full of mouse embryonic stem cells. A variety of plants, insects, marine invertebrates, and microbes also call the lab at the Exploratorium home. After spending so many years in a fly lab focused on the first 2 hours of development in Drosophila, I got a crash course in husbandry of a much wider variety of “critters and bits,” as I now fondly call them.In my role as microscopist, I was charged with setting up a microscopy facility so that museum visitors would ultimately be able to “drive” the instruments to examine and explore live biological samples in the way a research scientist might. Choosing samples that the public would actually care to look at, specifying equipment, advising on software design, and prototyping interpretive media for visitors were all part of my new position. The learning curve was rather steep—not long after I started at the Exploratorium, a colleague and I wheeled a brand-new motorized stereo zoom microscope out onto the exhibit floor to try out with visitors. Very quickly we realized that cords, buttons, and levers are extremely tempting to little hands—the Exploratorium being an interactive museum—and that eyepieces look an awful lot like handlebars to anyone under 8 years old. What I naively thought would be amazing to share with visitors (cytoskeletal dynamics and cell cycle regulation, for example) wound up being way too esoteric for the general public. I quickly learned that the samples that worked for a microscope exhibit in the museum were colorful, moved (but not too fast or slow), had some level of familiarity either as an object or a concept, and could be the subject of a scientific “story” that would be relevant to a broad number of visitors. Our exhibits need to appeal to a range of visitors with diverse backgrounds and interests, so honoring the inherent beauty and “wow factor” of a biological sample viewed with a microscope became incredibly important.At the Exploratorium, projects for the museum floor are almost always developed by multidisciplinary teams. Depending on the project, there might be scientists, exhibit developers, carpenters, graphic designers, writers, structural engineers, artists, educators, programmers, education researchers, and volunteers involved. Every team member brings a critical expertise or skill to the project, and more often than not, works in some way with every other team member. Developing successful exhibits is also extremely challenging and is a skill unto itself. Seemingly simple exhibits at the Exploratorium are the result of months (sometimes years) of development. Curiosity and respect for other métiers is incredibly important, as are good communication skills and the ability to problem solve, both on your own and with a group. The broad range of expertise and interests represented in the museum never fails to amaze me, and it presents a constant opportunity to learn and appreciate other disciplines. Because the work is highly project-based, a “typical” day is hard to describe; it really depends on the kind of project you are working on and what phase of development it is in. In one of my more recent roles, a colleague and I were asked to curate a new gallery of biology exhibits in preparation for the grand reopening of the Exploratorium (Figures 1 and 2). For this large, multiyear project, I led a team with all the roles described in the paragraph above and more, so good management skills were important as well.FIGURE 1: The Exploratorium overlooks San Francisco Bay.FIGURE 2: Exhibits at the Exploratorium are designed to appeal to a broad range of visitors with diverse backgrounds.THE ROAD LESS TRAVELEDWhen I was asked to contribute this Perspective, it was with an emphasis on my career path. It seems that more and more graduates are interested in science education and outreach, or other careers that use a background in biology applied to other areas. After reflecting on my career trajectory and talking with a number of colleagues—all PhD scientists from various disciplines—I cannot really say that there is a defined career “path” from the bench to a museum. Not long ago, I was at dinner with a table full of the scientific colleagues mentioned above. No two of us had arrived at the Exploratorium in quite the same way—some had come straight from grad school to work on a specific project and stayed, others had years of formal teaching experience before coming to the museum. Another had started out with internships in museums and media before landing a series of positions at science museums.Positions for scientists at museums do not crop up all that often. There are, however, opportunities out there that might increase one's odds of the right door opening at the right time. There are postgraduate programs in museum studies and internship programs at museums, science centers, and other media outlets. Volunteering can also be a way of gaining some informal science education street cred, and it also puts you in an institution—all the better to network and keep an eye open for positions. There are also professional associations, like the Association for Science and Technology Centers, the American Alliance of Museums, and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, whose websites have career information and may be places to get familiar with the type of projects in which member institutions are engaged. Scientific publications are not necessarily what one is judged by in the museum world—it is more about demonstrated experience doing the type of work you are applying for (teaching, exhibit design, implementing outreach programs, etc.).Working outside academia and industry has certainly opened my eyes to what is possible with a background in basic research. There are lots of interesting, very diverse careers out there that draw on the skills one learns at the bench and in working in an academic lab—the challenge is finding a good match for your interests. And although there may not be a defined “road” or even a path to some of these careers (such as in a museum), defining one's own way can make for a very rewarding journey.Kristina YuFOOTNOTESmbc.E13-04-0194Abbreviation used:PIprincipal investigatorFiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Vol. 24, No. 21 November 01, 20133263-3481 Metrics Downloads & Citations Downloads: 133 History Submitted: 10 September 2013 Accepted: 12 September 2013 Information© 2013 Yu. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). Two months after publication it is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0).PDF download