The Backstory of a Filipino Scientist in America

Maalab at siyentipikong araw/gabi, mga siyentista ng bayan! Sero here.

I realize I got ahead of myself and never got around to Motivation Monday, and so here it is kahit Biyernes na. I’ve been watching these unofficial stories from an org called Growing up in Science (bit.ly/2W87VC5), and so I’m inspired to share my own except backward.

How did I get from Quezon City PH, Kentucky US, Princeton, and one of the unexpectedly many founding members of the Filipino Scientists in America (@AFSA.official)? (Check out Fig. 1 to hang tomorrow in NYC!)

Right now, I’m a Ph.D. candidate in neuroscience. In Dr. Catherine Pena’s lab, my research asks: How does early-life stress (~childhood trauma) alter response or non-response to antidepressants later in life? I approach this question in the context of the brain’s reward circuitry and looking at changes in gene expression patterns and behaviors that link early-life stress to altered responses to standard antidepressants (Fig. 2, bit.ly/2TAR8H6, bit.ly/3y2jWXZ).

My work is both intensely experimental and intensely computational-the latter I’m still struggling with but eager to learn. I think now I’m struggling with imposter syndrome, but my mentors have been wonderful at helping me work through it after I was honest with them about it.

Rewinding to undergrad, I was in an undergraduate research fellowship where I did some computational neuro on decision-making and reward behaviors with Dr. Patrick Simen (bit.ly/3eNtcHY; Fig. 3 here as schematic, bit.ly/3BzdlGv).

Back in middle and high school, I didn’t have much access to any scientific endeavors. I grew up working class my parents started working stocking shelves or doing cashier work at Walmart as a “better opportunity” than they could find in the PH. I’m sure it was also tough for them to raise 2, eventually 3, kids all after being forced to migrate to look for “better jobs” only to be exploited at work and separated from their loved ones in the homeland. Rewind even further, when my family moved to Kentucky, USA, after being separated for a while. Rewind and I grew up in and was born in Quezon City, PH.