Academic cultures, turning points, and redefining goals

A few years after achieving tenure, I found myself increasingly uncomfortable with the culture in my subfield of theoretical cosmology. It was characterized by ruthless competition, overwork, arrogance, and bullying behavior. When I found myself exhibiting most of these traits, I had to step back from research. Becoming a parent was my espoused reason but the reality was a gender role strain that would result in my redirecting my career toward administration and service. Starting with efforts to mentor and advance students, especially those who were not white, male and heterosexual like me, I was fortunate to have a series of leadership roles enabling me to serve a progressively broader community. This work extended to many professional societies, including the APS. Eventually, my gender role strain was eased when I obtained a secondary appointment in Women's and Gender Studies and began doing physics education research.

In this talk I'll describe the turning points of my career, all of which involved serving others. I'll share how, despite the mismatch of my values to traditional physics culture, I persisted and made positive impact as a physics faculty member. Some of the lessons I learned may help students and early career scientists.