How Sharing My Mistakes as a Woman in STEM Changed Everything

As your career has progressed, have you uncovered any limiting beliefs?

For example, many of us experience impostor syndrome at some point. This syndrome stems from the belief that we don't belong somewhere.

You'd think that after earning a doctorate, these sorts of beliefs would go away. But I discovered a new one when asked to be the featured speaker at the 2025 ACS San Diego Women in Chemistry Enterprise Breakfast:

No one wants to hear my story or what I think.

This limiting belief has hindered my journey to create helpful content for researchers about broader impacts. But I am happy to share that developing and delivering this talk has healed this limiting belief. Here's how:

Impact Spotlight: A Healing Talk

On April 3rd, 2024, Bee Kelley of the University of Arkansas invited me to be the featured speaker for the Fall 2024 WICE Breakfast in Denver, CO:

As you are an entrepreneur and a chemical educator, we believe you can bring a unique perspective which will be appealing to all the breakfast attendants.

Sadly, I wasn't planning on attending the Fall 2024 ACS meeting (I typically only attend the Spring meetings).

Thankfully, I was invited again by Annie Gordon of Texas Tech University.

We were disappointed that you were unable to meet with us at ACS Fall 2024 meeting in Denver. After hearing about your story, we would like to try again... As both an entrepreneur and chemical educator with a unique life and career path, you can present your perspective which will be of great interest to all the breakfast attendants, many of whom are students or still developing their career path.

This time around, I was able to accept and then was confronted with my limiting belief in the form of a question:

What could I possibly share about my career that would be meaningful to someone else?

I toiled with this question for months, unable to see the limiting belief within it whispering, "No one wants to hear my story or what I think." I shared my concerns with my partner, friends, and therapist, and received strong encouragement and validation that my story was interesting and informative. My partner sealed the ideas behind my talk by suggesting:

You could share the mistakes that have changed who you are and what you do.

My mistakes! That framing, what I've done wrong, was accessible to me, and I set off to create a talk. I reflected on each mistake I've made and chose the most informative, most clearly linked to a change in how I have navigated my career, and created a talk that comes down to this slide:

It contains six stories reflecting the lessons I've learned in navigating my choices as an entrepreneurial woman in STEM.

While I was nervous to bare my mistakes and experiences this way, the response was robust. So many attendees expressed the sentiment that they, too, have made these mistakes or shared similar experiences:

A few of the messages and support given after the WICE talk. So grateful for all of you!

Their reactions were humbling, and taught me that the greatest mistake I can make is not sharing what I've learned. To us, our life, thoughts, and experiences may feel typical, but to others, they could be:

Validating
Inspirational
Informative

So this is my takeaway for you: Share your story. It does matter, you matter, and your ideas could help guide someone through a difficult time or career.

Thank you to the American Chemical Society's Women Chemists Committee, not just for choosing me to feature at this event but also for helping me heal my limiting beliefs (and for this cool lunch set!).

Want the complete presentation? Here are the slides:

Translation Toolkit: Informal Science Communication that Mirrors Brain Encoding

What if we used how our brain learns to communicate informal (or even formal) science?

This week's translation toolkit is a codex I find helpful in developing engaging outreach activities from technical research. With the codex, I aimed to organize decades of STEM education research along the processes by which the brain encodes information. It's been helpful and produced some particularly engaging outreach activities!

The full paper can be found as a pre-print here (Stay tuned, as I plan to publish in a STEM Ed journal by the end of the year):

From the YouTube Lab: Starting fresh with a new channel!

If you've followed my content for any time, you've noticed several rebrandings and experiments with different approaches (thank you for hanging in there, by the way!).

For my 36th birthday, I spent time reflecting on what I want to improve on. I realized I get excited about new challenges and topics, saying yes to far more than I can reasonably achieve as a human being 😅. So this year, I am giving myself the gift of focus.

For the YouTube channel, this means I want to focus on the following two types of content:

Interviews with Impactful Scientists
Short videos covering the latest in impactful STEM

I've rebranded a compelling (and timely) interview with Dr. Adri Corrales as the first of what I hope will be CONSISTENT and focused interviews with impactful research scientists.

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Reader Impact Challenge: The Elevator Transformation

This week, I challenge you to transform your technical research into an impact elevator pitch. Can you explain what you do & why it matters to society in one sentence?

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Share your impact pitch in the comments!

Share your pitches with our community, and I'll highlight the most dramatic transformations in next week's newsletter.

What's Coming Next Week: