Episode 04 - Valerie Horsley

This week I’m thrilled to share my interview with Dr. Valerie Horsley, Maxine F. Singer Associate Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology here at Yale University. After completing her PhD at Emory and her postdoc at Rockefeller University, Valerie joined the Yale faculty in 2009. Since then, her lab has made numerous contributions to the fields of wound healing and stem cell biology, among others. Valerie is also the founder of the MCDB Women in Science faculty group, and has been an advocate for underrepresented groups in STEM throughout her career.

Valerie shares her strategies for supporting her students’ and post-docs’ varied career goals, why she doesn’t really miss doing bench work, and how she created and cultivated community among women scientists in her department. Near the end of the podcast, Valerie describes the unforeseen costs of being vocal about equality in academia.

“There is a cost [to being vocal], because it puts you in—you’re a target for people disagreeing with you or even worse, so I think there is a cost… but there is also a benefit. I believe that silence is consent, and I have changed our department decisions—I have changed the culture of Yale—because I’m vocal.

And for me, that’s the place I need to be. If that means that I’m a target sometimes, that’s okay. It’s worth it to me because I have very strong principles that I feel very strongly about; unless I feel like the culture is changing, I can’t contribute to it as effectively or with my whole heart.”

- Valerie Horsley

Links

Horsley Lab website – http://horsley.yale.edu/

Uri Alon @ TED – https://www.ted.com/speakers/uri_alon