Megan interviews academic researcher Aindrila Mukhopadhyay about rediscovering art after a car accident nearly took her sight away. Aindrila reflects about how water color painting, and now drawing, bring her peace-of-mind during her most stressful days. 

Current industry scientist Sergey Boyarskiy talks about how he found life balance in grad school through cycling and gaming. While cycling had a universally positive impact on his life as a grad, gaming had a problematic affect on his sleep schedule and productivity. Despite the negative impacts of his outside hobby, gaming ultimately became an escape from all that is grad school. 

Laure interviews current industry scientist Tom Eyles who started his PhD right out of undergrad. At first he felt he needed to rush the experience thinking that finishing early would help his career. Listen to find out how and why he decided to slow down to focus on his life-balance.

To open their series on life balance in grad school, Megan and Laure discuss the pressures of grad school in the context of work-life-balance. If the goal in grad school is to get a PhD, why focus on anything else? The short answer, because self-care is a critical component of success in grad school. In this episode, Megan and Laure piece together their approach to life balance in grad school and preview the series to come.

This episode is a bit special. We decided to share more of Mina Bissell's fascinating interview. In a previous episode, we focused our discussion around Mina's reasons for doing science, her personal influences, and her graduate school experience. However, Mina had so much more to say. In this episode Mina talks to us about Iran before the revolution, her family's situation during the Shah occupancy. She then tells us about how she fell in love with English literature and finally how she was able to integrate into a prestigious lab at UC Berkeley during her post-doc.

Laure and Megan bring the group of series interviewee's, Maren, Pablo, and Mina, back together for a discussion on the broader implications of traveling during a scientific career. 

Mina Bissell, distinguished Scientist in the Biological Systems and Engineering Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, talks about growing up and being educated in Iran. She discusses being exposed to science at an early age and how that influenced her career. She moved to the US for higher education, listen to hear her travel story. 

Megan interviews Pablo Cruz-Morales about growing up and doing a PhD in Mexico. They discuss participating in long-term internships abroad and feeling out of one's comfort zone.

Laure interviews recent grad Maren Wehrs about leaving Germany to do her PhD across the globe in California. They also discuss opportunities to attend conferences abroad. 

Megan and Laure discuss why they chose the subject of conference and travel for this series. They talk about the importance of having experiences outside of the comfort zone and the benefits of going abroad. Through conversation, they preview what to expect in the rest of this series.