Season 11

Season 11, hosted by Whitney Souery (Bioinformatics) and Ayantika Saha (Biophysics), takes a deep dive into the lives, careers, and daily habits of successful PhD graduates across a range of disciplines and career stages. In these conversations, Ayantika and Whitney go beyond the bullet points of a CV and explore the difficult decisions, challenges, and truths that guided these PhD graduates to where they are today.

Transition Episode: Introducing Your New Hosts for Season 11 – Whitney and Ayantika

In this episode, we are introduced to our new hosts: Whitney Souery and Ayantika Saha. They will give a little background on themselves and what this upcoming season will discuss.

Whitney Souery is a fourth year MD/PhD candidate in bioinformatics and computational biology at Boston University. Her research uses transcriptomic approaches to better understand the mechanisms behind understudied lung diseases, such as mucus plugging and bronchiectasis. She hopes her work can help identify new treatments with improved disease targetability, ultimately improving patient outcomes. In her spare time, Whitney enjoys traveling, food, and long walks.

Ayantika Saha is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Physics at Boston University. She works in the Larkin Lab at CILSE and her research focuses on unraveling how biological tissues achieve their form through the emergent physics of cells and polymers that compose them. Her current research delves into the physical mechanisms behind “wrinkling” in Bacillus subtilis biofilms. Beyond her academic pursuits, Ayantika enjoys traveling to new destinations and experimenting with cooking dishes from various cultures.

Episode 1: Conversation with Joanna Davidson, PhD

In this episode, Whitney and Ayantika talk with Dr. Joanna Davidson, cultural anthropologist and Associate Professor in anthropology at Boston University. This episode explores the importance of making time for self discovery during graduate school, navigating difficult career choices, and advice on dealing with imposter syndrome.

Joanna Davidson is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Boston University. She is also an affiliate faculty member of Boston University’s African Studies Center, the Women’s Gender & Sexuality Studies Program, the Global Policy Development Center, and the Kilachand Honors College. Joanna’s research is based in rural West Africa, where she has conducted long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Guinea-Bissau for over two decades. Her monographs and co-edited books include Sacred Rice: Identity, Environment, & Development in Rural West Africa (2016); Narrating Illness: Prospects and Constraints (2016); Opting Out: Women Messing with Marriage around the World (2022); and Pathos & Power: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Widowhood in Africa, Past and Present (forthcoming 2025). She has published widely in various peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes on topics such as social and religious transformation, cultural conceptions of knowledge, the politics of storytelling, and shifts in women’s roles and gender relations. She is currently writing a book of ethnographic essays on marriage, naming, and death. Joanna teaches undergraduate and graduate level courses in anthropology and interdisciplinary humanistic social sciences. She has won several teaching awards, including the Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2023.

Episode 2: Conversation with Beverly Brown, PhD

In this episode, Whitney and Ayantika meet with Dr. Beverly Brown, biochemist, former first lady of Boston University, and Director of Development, Industry at the Boston University School of Public Health. In this episode, we discuss how Dr. Brown overcame challenges during her PhD program and explore the value of mentorship before, during, and after graduate school.

Beverly A. Brown, PhD has spent over 40 years in health care, starting in research and development of diagnostics and therapeutics and then transitioned into business development in medical devices.  In recent years, her involvement in nonprofit work has increased.  As a parent, she began her nonprofit career in small “hands on” organizations that revolved around the activities of her children.  In the past 15 + years, her nonprofit work has been focused on mentoring graduate students in the life sciences and business at Boston University.  Her external work has focused on women’s empowerment, healthcare and child services.  She serves on numerous nonprofit boards, largely in roles focused on governance and fundraising. 

Episode 3: Conversation with Rhonda Harrison, PhD

In this episode, Whitney and Ayantika chat with Dr. Rhonda Harrison, bioinformatician and Founder and CEO of Biopharmix Consulting. In this episode, we discuss the importance of being proud of your successes, managing your time, and more! 

Task manager: Remember the Milk

Dr. Rhonda Harrison is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Biopharmix, a firm that brings new medtech and biotech to life by forging alliances between entrepreneurs, doctors and drug discovery teams. The first Black person and the first woman to earn a PhD in Bioinformatics, she also presents the stories of her interdisciplinary academic journey to inspire a broad diversity of students to pursue careers in STEM. Her presentations also assist practicing scientists to attract, value and retain women and people of color with the goals of equity and inclusion. Dr. Harrison also serves on a wide variety of boards.

Dr. Harrison completed her BS with Individual Concentration in Computer Graphics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She earned an MS in Biomedical Engineering for her thesis in genome mapping.  After work at MIT’s Whitehead Institute in ML/AI-based precision medicine she returned to Boston University as a National Science Foundation Fellow completing her PhD in Bioinformatics with landmark work in the field of multiomics. The biotechnology based on her post-doctoral work on Harvard Medical School’s ENCODE Pilot Project team is employed in many drug discovery projects today.

In this episode, Whitney and Ayantika speak with Dr. Kim Vanuytsel, stem cell biologist and Assistant Professor in medicine at Boston University. In this episode, we dive into conversations about the challenge of juggling busy careers and personal lives, dealing with imposter syndrome, and the importance of taking care of yourself. 

Kim Vanuytsel is a stem cell biologist with expertise in developmental hematopoiesis, sickle cell disease and hematopoietic stem cell biology. She is originally from Belgium and obtained her PhD from KULeuven (Leuven, Belgium). She subsequently joined the laboratory of George Murphy at the Center for Regenerative Medicine (CReM) for her postdoctoral work. Since joining the research community at Boston University and Boston Medical Center, she has focused on developing tools and resources that help us understand important concepts in hematopoietic development with the goal of translating this knowledge into the realization of the immense potential that induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and hematopoietic stem cells hold for disease modeling and regenerative medicine. 

Dr. Vanuytsel currently leads a research lab at the CReM, focused on issues at the intersection of stem cell biology, cell therapies and sickle cell disease. Her experience in these diverse but complimentary research fields, has equipped Dr. Vanuytsel with a unique perspective and skillset to make meaningful contributions to emerging cell therapies for sickle cell disease patients, and by extension, the field of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation as a whole.

Episode 5: Conversation with William McKeen, PhD

In this episode, Whitney and Ayantika chat with Dr. William McKeen, author and Professor in journalism at Boston University. This episode explores the role of mentors throughout our PhD journey, navigating career changes, and the challenges of finding a work-life balance. 

Article: “AT UNIVERSITIES, THE TENURE TRACK GOES OFF THE RAILS”

William McKeen is professor of journalism at Boston University and author of eight books and editor of four more, including Outlaw Journalist (W.W. Norton, 2008), a biography of Hunter S. Thompson; Mile Marker Zero (Crown, 2011), a non-fiction narrative about Key West; Everybody Had an Ocean (Chicago Review Press, 2017), a nonfiction narrative about the intersection of music and crime in Los Angeles during the 1960s.; Highway 61 (W.W. Norton, 2003), a memoir of a 6,000-mile road trip with his teenage son; and the anthology Rock and Roll is Here to Stay (W. W. Norton, 2000) 

Before beginning his teaching career, he worked for several newspapers and magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post, The American Spectator, The Courier-Journal (Louisville, Ky.), The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post and The Tampa Bay (Fla.) Times.

His writing has appeared in Holiday, American History, Maxim, The Saturday Evening Post, Fortune, Fast Company, and many other newspapers and magazines. He has appeared on “The Today Show,” “The CBS Evening News” and many other news programs.

His major teaching areas are literary journalism, history of journalism, and history of rock’n’roll.

Episode 6: Conversation with Tommy Vitolo, PhD

In this episode, Whitney and Ayantika meet with Dr. Tommy Vitolo, engineer and representative of the 15th Norfolk District in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. In this episode, we discuss Dr. Vitolo’s experiences navigating the harsh realities and triumphs of graduate school, and how a PhD in engineering eventually led Dr. Vitolo to a job in government.

In November 2018 Tommy Vitolo was elected State Representative for the 15th Norfolk district. Tommy worked hard at school, earning a full merit scholarship to NC State, where he earned three bachelor’s degrees and met his wife, Jenn. After earning a master’s degree in Ireland as a Mitchell Scholar, Tommy enrolled in a PhD program at Boston University’s College of Engineering in 2002. After earning his PhD in Systems Engineering, and spending six months as a stay-at-home dad, Tommy began working at Synapse Energy Economics. He’s been there for the past nine years, providing technical analysis and advice on energy matters to public interest clients such as attorneys general and environmental advocates. Tommy has spent that time fighting for utility customers and for cleaner environmental outcomes around the country, resulting in the forced retirement of coal-fired power plants, the prevention of new natural gas infrastructure, and the construction of new wind turbines, solar farms, and energy efficiency installations.