Barriers to New Beginnings: Lakshmi Ramachandran

My career journey started with an exploration of the workings of our body at a cellular and molecular level. In 2002, I joined the doctorate programme at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, SUNY, Buffalo, USA with a full scholarship. As I narrowed down my research to studying just ‘one’ molecule out of some 42 million molecules within a single cell, I had a humbling realization of how much we do not know. 

This realization is what drives scientists to keep going on a never-ending path of discovery, to unravel one mystery after another only to tread into a more complex world of mysteries waiting to unfold. The path I am on today is no different except that it is a discovery at a different level, more at self, human behaviour and meta-level. 

My career transitions are a result of challenges and choices I made at each phase of my life. After obtaining my PhD with a Dean’s award, I made my first career transition into the Industry. I joined Astrazeneca, India, as a drug discovery researcher. At a time when my career was flourishing, I faced a personal challenge of infertility. After a period of emotional turmoil, I made a tough decision to step aside from my career to find personal fulfilment as a mother. During this career break, I co-wrote and published an award-winning memoir-recipe book Roomies/Foodies with a friend from graduate school. After our first son was born, we moved to Singapore in 2012. I struggled to get back to scientific research due to my career break and relocation.  After two years of going from pillar to post with my CV, I got a job in science communications. Although I was disappointed about not being able to get back to research, I was happy to get back in science. 

However, a new problem awaited me. Imposter syndrome! The career break and a new field instilled self-doubt and a feeling of not being good enough. Fortunately, I became part of the women in science community at my institute and realised that I am not alone in the journey. I learned about the ‘leaky pipe in STEM’ where women drop out of STEM careers especially post PhD and postdoc, resulting in a drop of women researchers globally to 29%.  I became an advocate for women in science and co-led the global Gender Summit in Singapore in 2019, attended by both global and local policymakers and stakeholders in science. Here is a speech I gave on the topic of ‘Why the world needs more women in science’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPcnkDXAPYI).  Meanwhile, I moved into another career as a programme manager of a 22-million-dollar consortium. 

During all of these, I faced multiple challenges, which led me to embark on a journey of self-discovery. I recognised the immense potential of humans which gets blocked due to lack of clarity, fears and doubts. I invested in my self-development and became a professionally trained speaker (member of Keynote Women Speakers Directory), coach (certified by the international coaching federation, ICF) and a professional development expert. Today, as someone who has faced imposter syndrome, I am motivated to help people, especially high potential individuals from science, overcome self-doubt and imposter syndrome. I have co-created the Enoughness Coaching Programme to this end. I am also co-developing an emotional intelligence programme for researchers to better manage workplace relationships. My overall mission is to help people, especially students and early career professionals from science advance in life with greater visibility, confidence and leadership and ultimately live a fulfilled, productive life.

A big realisation I had was that it was my training as a scientist that helped me navigate my career transitions. This is through what I consider a key strength of researchers- the ‘exploratory mindset’, characterised by curiosity, creativity, adaptability and resilience.