This is the first in a series of 3 posts covering a conversation between Dr. Alex Tobias, Principal Mentor at The Admission Algorithm and Dean of Students with the Throop Research Academy, and Professor Christine Charvet from Auburn University.

Christine Charvet (CJC): Let’s discuss the mentors who shaped your career. Alex, what was it like to work with a future Nobel laureate during your time at Caltech?

Alex Tobias (AVT): My PhD advisor, Prof. Frances Arnold, wasn’t a Nobel laureate at the time. At Caltech, I had contact with another Nobel laureate, a prior awardee, who taught a class I took: Prof. Rudy Marcus. At the time, if you asked me this same question about what that was like, I would have talked about taking a class with him, which included a 1:1 meeting in his office when I had to justify my choice of topic for the course’s research paper. With Prof. Arnold, my thesis advisor, she was on an upward trajectory at the time, but none of us had any idea that it would culminate in Nobel-level recognition. All of us who’d joined the lab just thought the research was super cool and interesting. People came from all over the world to learn about this “voodoo science” we were doing. We were making evolution happen in the lab. We weren’t waiting around for it to happen in the wild, then studying it later. We were accelerating it and pushing it in directions we wanted to take.

CJC: What made her such an effective scientist?

AVT: Looking back, Frances (her graduate students always called her that, lol) had a number of skills, habits, and characteristics that, if you were paying attention and watching and listening to her, were really excellent, ultra-valuable lessons for a career in STEM research. For example, she was really strong at being social and networking with others in the community. She frequently met with and spoke to the people giving out grants and with companies that she could work with and get funding from. Some lab members would reiterate this joke, “Frances isn’t a scientist, she’s a politician.” We were too young and inexperienced to see the value of what she was doing, how it opened doors for us and how important those things are in any community made up of people. Years later in my own career, I began to realize the importance of networking and socializing ideas—that what’s in the written body of your research proposal is often less important than the conversations you’ve already had with the people evaluating your proposal. If you’ve already had lunch with them or pitched your idea to them or even gotten input from them and incorporated some of their ideas into it, that’s way more important for your proposal’s acceptance than what’s written in the final draft, especially if that’s the first time the reviewers have seen or heard of those ideas. That lesson is what got my proposal for an improved, automated way of handling and building our DNA plasmids at DuPont funded in 2014.

CJC: How can students from high school to grad school apply this networking lesson to their own academic journeys?

AVT: There’s a parallel advice to students applying to college or, especially, grad school. If you’ve taken the time to reach out to professors you’re interested in working with as an undergrad, one or two years in advance of your application to tell them that you’ve read some of their work and you’re really interested in it, and ask if they might have a spot for you, and, by the way, “what do you think of this idea for extending it?” You’ve already developed a relationship and put your name in the hat of these professors. Then later, when they see your application to their program, it’s not a surprise. “Oh, I remember them! Oh, yeah, I really enjoyed talking with them. I think I want them to be my next student.” That’s more likely to be the response you’ll get if you put in the time upfront to network, be social, have a conversation, and express your interest and intent. This is probably a surprising lesson to come from a Nobel laureate: students should be social, go to conferences, and introduce themselves to professors they admire. If you can’t do that, reaching out with well-crafted emails that demonstrate you’ve put in the time and really thought about their work, can really open doors and pay dividends.

As a high schooler, I thought STEM was well defined and objective. But now I’ve come to see that we’re still humans and relationships are important in any community. Research is a world of ideas, not just facts. It’s much more than “getting the right answer,” which is how STEM is presented to students in high school. Often, it’s not clear what the right answer or right path could even be, because there are so many possible directions to go. So, the social aspect of things and having conversations and developing relationships, is, I’ve come to see, very important to being successful in STEM research, and Frances was very strong at that.

This is probably a surprising lesson to come from a Nobel laureate: students should be social, go to conferences, and introduce themselves to professors they admire.

CJC: Did she teach you anything specific about writing or publishing?

AVT: Frances was a connector and a “big ideas” person. When I’d meet with her about research, and I’d say, “I don’t know if I should do this or that, ” she would say, “I think this direction is the most exciting, so try for that.” It was from Frances that I learned the importance of stories to science and publishing papers. This is a lesson I convey to all my research students today. I frequently ask my students to think of all the possible stories they could tell with how they design and write about their research, and how not all stories are created equally. It’s always a revelation to my students when I advise them to think about their project and paper as a story—a narrative they have the freedom to craft. I ask them, “what do you think are the most interesting or impactful stories we could tell with this project?” It’s wonderful to channel a lesson from a Nobel laureate directly to my own students. They’re learning that lesson much earlier in their lives than I did.

From Frances, I learned the importance of stories to science and publishing papers…It’s wonderful to channel a lesson from a Nobel laureate directly to my own students.

AVT: Professor Christine, looking back at your own training, do you have a specific story about a mentor or a lesson you learned that you now pass on to your own students?

CJC: When I was a graduate student, I was the first author on a number of research articles. I remember my mentor seemed particular about my writing and the writing process itself. We went through draft after draft—sometimes more than ten. It seemed like at lot at the time and progress felt slow. Looking back, I recognize now that it’s important to get the writing as close to perfect as possible. Communicating ideas effectively in STEM requires precision, accuracy, and brevity. These papers will live on long after us, so in a way they’re our legacy and they should represent our best. I grew up in France and French is my native language. I developed strong English writing skills thanks to my mentor. Writing papers with him has benefited me enormously now as a principal investigator. We grow by working through challenges.