Jayme: So, what I want to do today is talk about you and your journey to becoming a scientist.
so, I know
based on your description on the scientific Latino website that you were born in Peru,
you grew up in New Jersey, and you were undocumented for over 20 years.
And, you went through community college, which I think is going to be particularly interesting for
my students, before you went on to get your Ph.D., and now you're doing a postdoc.
So eventually, I do want to ask you about your science.
But right now I want to hear about your journey.
How you went from Peru to having a Ph.D. in science.
Robert: Oof, I mean, that's a lot! Let's see!
So you know, I was born in Peru, but I grew up in Elizabeth New Jersey.
So, my parents immigrated to New Jersey when I was four, and we grew up in Elizabeth New Jersey.
And, around that time I ended up going to Elizabeth High School,
for high school. And, I necessarily wasn't like: oh I want to be a scientist,
let alone what can you do with science.
Literally, in high school my dream back then was: I want to major in business,
I want to go to Rutgers,
and, hopefully, start a business
to support my family. So literally, that was my dream in high school.
And, my mom pretty much worked full-time as a factory worker.
So, it was my younger brother and me, and my dad was in and out of the picture.
So, my mom kind of had no reference how college applications worked.
So, neither did I. So it was roughly, I want to say January or February--
- Jayme: Of your senior year?
- Robert: Yes. - Jayme: Okay.
- And I didn't know that there was a college application deadline.
Uh and, I think that's in December, but like no one really told me that!
- Wow!
- The guidance counselor never really cared about, like, people who look like me.
So, it's kind of like oh shoot, like I missed the deadline.
I didn't know there was a deadline. Like no one told me there was a deadline! So, I was like
so there goes my dreams of like going to Rutgers and going to business school.
But luckily, I think somewhere around that spring semester, I want to say maybe February or March,
is when a community college representative for Union County College stopped by my classroom.
And, he passed out community college application forms, and I
was like: oh this is my chance to go to college.
So, I remember filling out the form, and I noticed that it said social security number.
I ended up calling my mom.
I was like mom, what's my social? And she was like: you don't really have one.
And that's kind of how I found out that I was undocumented.
- Wow! That's how you found out?
- Yeah, or more of like what it means to be undocumented. So, I was like: what do I put here?
So, I was like: you know what? I'm just gonna leave it blank.
I submitted my application, you know. and then like a month later: okay, you're
accepted to community college.
So I'm, you know, majoring in business. I took the relevant classes.
And it wasn't until my last year of community college where I had a choice of an elective.
I either had to take astronomy or biology, and biology sounded less intimidating.
So, I was like: okay, let me take biology. And, this is kind of where like pretty much
everything changed. Like, I guess it's kind of like the first time I'm learning about biology.
Just this kind of like: okay, I actually understand what's going on with biology.
I'm really interested in... back then I was like really into evolutionary theory.
And, I knew--I was like: okay, I can't stay in community college forever,
unfortunately, I need to transfer somewhere.
But, long story short, I applied to two Ivy League schools. I applied to
Colombia and Brown. And, this was because back then,
there was like, I didn't have DACA. I was just undocumented. So, I didn't know where
exactly I can transfer to. So, I applied to those two schools, unfortunately...
- Jayme: You didn't apply to any other schools?
- Robert: I didn't--
- Jayme: You applied to two ivy league schools?
- Robert: Yeah!
- Jayme: No other schools?
- Robert: So, the reason behind that is because there was a community college fair,
or transfer fair, and there were a lot of New Jersey state schools.
So, I pretty much went to every single New Jersey state school and I'd say: look my GPA is 3.98.
I major in business administration. I did some community outreach through Phi Theta Kappa.
I want to major in biology, can I transfer to your school? But I'm undocumented.
And, pretty much every university was like: you can't apply to my school--
- Jayme: WOW!
- Robert: you need a security number to apply to
my school or we're gonna have to charge you out-of-state tuition
even though you've been in New Jersey all your life.
And, for me--I was like okay great, I can do state schools.
So, that's kind of why my only option, literally, was Ivies. I actually have a funny story.
In addition to the two Ivies--I wasn't familiar with the New York system, so
in addition to applying to Columbia and brown, I tried to apply to Barnard,
and I didn't know that Bernard was an all-women's school! [ Laughter ]
- Robert: [inaudible] the admissions officer,
I explained my situation. And she was like:
I'm sorry to hear that... but we're an all-women's school. [ Laughter ] I didn't know that!
- Jayme: Wow, that's great!
- Robert: And, I kind of lucked out because a colleague of mine, who was also undocumented,
he kind of told me after I got rejected by the Ivies like:
"I found out about this CUNY system, City University of New York,
they accept undocumented students. You should think about transferring there."
And, then I just the first time I heard about it and I was like "I need to go somewhere."
So I kind of just transferred to the first CUNY school that I saw, and that was Queens College.
And, back then because I moved states, I was charged out-of-state tuition.
So I could only really afford one class, maybe two if I was lucky.
So I ended up transferring after a year at Queens College to York College.
But pretty much York College, to me, was where everything changed.
So I ended up taking a biology laboratory course, and one day one of the professors,
Dr. Simon, asked me "Have you thought about doing research?"
And, back then, I was kind of like, I didn't know where exactly that would lead me. So, I was like
okay, let me..., let's set up a time to chat. And, pretty much, that one conversation pretty
much changed everything. I ended up being a student of hers for two years in her research lab.
- Jayme: Wow.
- And there we kind of published a couple papers on the social behavior of the fruit fly.
So, fruit flies, just like us, they have social behavior.
Except when they're stressed they release this
stress molecules telling other fruit flies to avoid them.
So, kind of what I studied was:
What are the neurotransmitters, chemicals like dopamine or serotonin,
that make the fruit fly release this chemical to avoid the other fruit fly?
So I ended up doing two years of research on the Dr. Simon,
and kind of because she invested in me, other professors in the biology
department invested in me, and even in the physics department.
So, it was kind of like a domino effect. So, I kind of learned about ABRCMS,
Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students,
and I was able to go there and get a travel award.
I never knew what a Ph.D. was. I always thought biology,
bio degree, you do a master's, and you do a PhD.
But, it wasn't until--I
think it was a mixture of all those experiences, learning about masters and PhDs.
So, I applied to call PhDs and I didn't know, one, that PhDs were paid for,
it was like a nice surprise after I got accepted.
- Jayme: Really? I didn't know that either!
I was like are you kidding me? They're gonna pay me for this?
- Robert: Yeah, yeah, I yeah, when I was accepted I was like, do I take out loans?
And I was like: oh! They're giving me a stipend! And so--
- Jayme: I mean not a lot, but like it's better than paying for it, right?
- Robert: Exactly. So that was like a really nice surprise.
I ended up applying to a whole bunch of programs in molecular biology. I want to say six to eight.
I got five offers, and--
-Jayme: Nice!
- Robert: I chose the one at Yale. Seven years of a PhD program, lots of highs and lows,
but I think overall it was a good experience. I got a lot of mentors.
I did a lot of diversity and science outreach efforts.
And, I kind of helped improve the climate over there at yale by helping recruit underrepresented
scientists, and building a community for others like ourselves.
- So, tell me about--I want to hear about your research and I want you to explain it
like you're telling my grandma! I want--
- Robert: Yeah. [ Laughter ]
- Jayme: I want my grandma to be able to understand it.
- Robert: I always tell my students that also [laughs].
Let's see, I guess I'll do my PhD one. But in short, what we study is C.elegans.
So, it's a very small nematode, and unlike humans where we have billions of neurons,
this worm only has 302 neurons. So--
- Jayme: And you know exactly 300, not 303--
- Robert: Oh yeah.
- Jayme: 302.
- Robert: Yeah, they all have been mapped. We know how every single neuron connects with each other.
We know how they communicate. For example, they release chemicals called serotonin, dopamine,
other neurotransmitters to communicate with each other.
So, we know how they communicate and how they're mapped. We even know, like, what
the receivers that these neurotransmitters act on in order to cause changes in neuronal activity.
So, what I studied is: How does this worm modulate egg-laying behavior?
So, this worm pretty much lays eggs every two minutes, and then it stops for 20 minutes,
and then it lays extra two more minutes, and then it stops for 20 minutes.
So, what we know in the past is:
we know what neurons are involved in causing the worm to lay eggs.
We know what chemical--Serotonin plays a very important role in telling the worm to lay eggs.
And then there's another neurotransmitter called tyramine that tells the worm to stop laying eggs.
But we never really knew the receivers that these neurotransmitters were acting on
in order to tell the egg-laying system to start or to stop.
We took a green fluorescent protein, and we tagged it to that gene of interest;
and, we just looked under a very fancy confocal microscope
and saw-- okay, this receptor
is expressing these neurons based on green fluorescence that I'm seeing.
So, that's kind of what I mean by maps.
Like I looked at where exactly they are in the different cells
of the egg-laying circuit, by looking at green fluorescence.
What's interesting is we even did a couple of functional experiments.
By that I mean is, what happens when you take away this receptor? How is
egg-laying affected? Does it stop? Does it continue?
And, we ended up kind of like knocking out several different receptors at a time,
or we ended up overexpressing, and by that I mean adding several copies of that receptor
to see if it causes an egglaying defect.
So, one of my students Kimberly, she literally tested every single knockout mutant.
Didn't see any defects, unfortunately.
And, then we got ambitious, and I was like maybe these receptors are redundant for each other.
Maybe they're compensating for the absence of one.
So, we ended up knocking out five receptors that were all expressed in the same type of cells.
And we were hoping to see something. Sadly, no.
- Jayme: Oh no! That's so much work. Did you do that by mating them with each other and selecting?
[ Robert nodes ] Got it!
- Robert: Yes, yes. And--But towards the end, I would say: okay well why not the opposite?
What happens if we have too much of a receptor?
And that's actually when we found these egg-laying defects, and I said: oh great, okay.
So, we found defects when we add too many copies of a receptor.
Meaning if you have too many copies of a receptor,
maybe a lot of neurotransmitters are acting through all of these different receptors,
and that's what's causing all these defects.
And that was pretty much my PhD thesis.
- Jayme: Cool, so can you tell me about Scientifico Latino and how--
I know that you are a co-founder, so you were involved in the creation.
Can you tell me what the organization is and how you got involved in it?
- Robert: Sure. So, pretty much my first year at Yale was not that great.
I didn't really see too many people like myself at yale. Like I think it was like--
I was the only Latino in my year, and maybe one of three in six years.
- Jayme: WOW.
Definitely lots of imposter syndrome, like do I belong here? I kind of see people like myself.
Is it okay for me to ask for help
when no one else is struggling, and everyone seems to be on top of it?
And, I kind of didn't want to be like:
I need help. Because they're like: oh, of course, you need help.
So, and I kind of like-- I didn't do good academically. So pretty much my first semester,
I got two C's and I failed a class. Semester two was like completely different. I was like--
I bothered my TAs so many times. I was like:
Okay, I understand this, but I don't understand this. Can you help me with this?
And when I retook that class I ended up doing better.
So, I kind of like to sum up my time at Yale, first year: like I don't belong here.
My third year, once I passed my qualifying
exams and I gave my first oral presentation on my research,
I was like: okay, I'm starting to think I belong here.
And towards the end, I was like:
It's not enough that I belong here, but I need to help others like myself belong here.
And that whole experience was kind of like a big motivator for Scientifico Latino.
I wanted to build a resource of material where anyone can have, even if they don't have a mentor.
Just because a lot of my time there,
I only got to where I got because I had good mentors providing resources.
It's kind of like: Okay, great. I am helping a lot of these students at yale,
but I kind of want to expand further.
Like how can I use what I learned through my training as a scientist from Michael
and helping other underrepresented students at the undergrad level like Yale True Stars?
How can I do that more broader? and that's kind of where Scientific Latino came about.
Like I remember I emailed one of my colleagues, Olivia Goldman,
who we did a summer research program
together at Princeton University over the summer, and then we touched base.
And I was like look, this is kind of what I want to do.
And at first, I was like let's just list a whole bunch of resources open to the public.
So, little by little, Olivia and I worked on developing these resources. We even
had a blog series where we highlighted different unrepresented scientists and
allies giving advice on different aspects of science, or resources in science.
So, we started this program called GSMI, Grad Student Mentorship Initiative,
where we help underrepresented students, whether it's unrepresented by ethnicity,
sex, gender, disability, etc., with their grad school applications in the sciences whether it's
a PhD or a math program; and, we pair them with a grad student, a postdoc, sometimes even a faculty
member, who looks over their application. So, our program starts ideally over the summer,
and throughout September to December, to give you feedback on your applications until you submit
your application.
- Cool. So, if somebody wants to get--like if there's a student who's watching this and it's like "oh, that sounds like me," how do they get connected to your resources?
- Oh, so if you go pretty much to the Scientific Latino website,
and we have different resources at different levels. So, if you're a high school student,
we have a high school opportunity database where there are a high school
research program that you could do over the summer that they even pay you to do research.
At the undergraduate level, if you're interested in summer research programs,
we have a whole bunch of programs, different fields. And also, you know, if you're a DACA,
undocumented, we have different tags. In addition to these summer programs,
we also have fellowships at the undergraduate level that you could apply for.
And if you're thinking of applying to grad school, pretty much here's everything you need to know.
Or if you want to transition to a post [inaudible] before grad school, you know, here's our programs.
- Jayme: Well, it's been so much fun learning
about your Rob. Thank you so much for spending time with me today.
-Robert: Thank you! Have a good day.
- Jayme: Bye!