In high school, Rachel Wilson mistook research neuroscientist for an unattainable career. Then she read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sachs, a clinical neurologist whose case histories humanize patients striving to preserve identity, beset by mysterious disorders that insult their nervous systems.
Sachs’ ode to the aberrant husband and his hat planted the bee in
“Through his writings I realized that the brain, while incredibly complicated, is what makes us so very human. And it’s also modular. So if you lose a specific module, you lose a specific function or computation. And if that’s true, maybe you can study specific functions by studying certain brain regions.”
After studying olfactory systems at
At Caltech, she developed techniques to make in vivo recordings from a single, tiny neuron of an adult fruit fly brain—a feat that had eluded scientists for 30 years. In 2004, she joined the Department of Neurology at
Women, said
“I just fell in love with the experience of poking a brain cell and watching it emit electrical signals in ‘real time’ as I prodded it….It can be like playing a video game, almost—you spin various dials and goof around with stimuli, and every time you show something interesting to the neuron, it speaks back to you, sometimes in an unexpected way! Most electrophysiologists are in the business because they just get a kick out of this.”
And she had some good mentors along the way. The first was in grad school, where “sometimes people have a bad experience, like the boss plays favorites, or is wrapped up in ego, or is distracted by things outside the lab.”
But her grad advisor “was an inspiring scientist. Data was the big reward for him, which meant you could set everything else aside. I was the only woman in the lab, but I knew gender wasn’t a problem. He’s also considerably older than me, and we have no outside interests or hobbies in common, but we just talked about data. And that was fine.”
“The important thing for me was the value of being trained in different labs. I learned two different styles—both were great, but quite distinct.”
“Maybe the key is that I’m always trying to convey my enthusiasm for each project, my interest in the underlying question, and my faith that each person is capable of making progress toward our goal. This is sincere on my part. When I need to deliver a negative message—like confronting somebody about being really unproductive—I tend to just pull them into my office, shut the door, and make it fast and businesslike. There’s never a need to humiliate somebody.”
“What’s important for me is keeping connected to the data, while giving people a sense of mission and what the goal is, and then hiring people I respect, and conveying my respect to them and treating people as I want to be treated.”
Those who know her say she is determined, optimistic, and comfortable with risk—qualities
“Everything in research science is risky, like we’re setting out on an expedition into an unknown, uncharted place. I choose my lab staff based partly on their appetite for risk and their suitability for the tasks that lie ahead in our
journey. Determination is part of being optimistic. Someone once told me that almost everything in research science fails the first time, but most things work out in the end. I basically agree.”
“Lots of the models we have for interacting with others are inappropriate in the sense of professional management.” She cautions young and inexperienced lab heads against “trying to be friends with the people in their lab, because it
can lead to favoritism and conflicts. I like to joke around and discuss non-science stuff, but ultimately I can’t be their friend.” To help maintain an institutional base of knowledge in her lab, “I very early on established a very long document we call the Lab Book of Knowledge. It’s a list of several hundred things, logistical information and our bread and butter tools—everything from running a complicated microscope, to where to get paper towels, to what documentation you need to give a particular company to get tax-exempt status.”
“Most days are pretty good, actually. One fun thing about this job is that, as a lab head, you get to create your own job description. A lot of variables that determine the pace of my day are within my control, at least over the long term, and I’ve been lucky enough to assemble a team of students and post-docs who are an absolute joy. I think most research biologists have high job satisfaction, and it’s easy to see why.”
