Episode 05 - Ashley Schloss and Anthony Scruse

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For this week’s episode, I had the pleasure of interviewing two of my fellow graduate students: Ashley Schloss and Anthony Scruse. Ashley earned a BS in Chemistry from Temple University and then started her doctorate here in Lynne Regan’s lab. She very recently earned her PhD from the MB&B Department, where she focused on designing novel drug delivery devices and tissue engineering platforms. Anthony attended Morehouse College where he majored in Chemistry and completed several research projects both at Morehouse and at institutions like Brown and The Broad Institute. In the Newhouse lab here at Yale, Anthony studies transition metal catalysis, primarily using synthetic organic chemistry. Both Ashley and Anthony served as Diversity Fellows through the Office of Graduate Student Development and Diversity (OGSDD).

Our conversation ranged from adjusting to the STEM lab culture at Yale, finding and identifying mentors in academia, and what it feels like to be the “only one in the room” on a daily basis. Anthony and I discussed our reactions to going to lab the day after the Pulse nightclub shooting, and Ashley spoke about how race often trumps the other identities she holds.

“I think the hardest part is that I wear my blackness on my skin, and that [my race] could put me in any sort of danger. Or that people can see me—and not see me as this Yale-educated PhD scientist, but instead see me as something to be afraid of—is the hardest part of dealing with all this.

No matter how educated I get I’m not going to get any less black. And that’s the thing that you end up grappling with on a Monday morning when you’re like, ‘What am I doing here? Is it going to make any difference?’ […] It’s that deficit of credibility: until you open your mouth and tell people that they should respect you because of all of the things that you have on your CV, what are they really seeing you as?”

- Ashley Schloss

Links

Office of Graduate Student Development and Diversity (OGSDD) website – http://gsas.yale.edu/diversity/office-graduate-student-development-diversity

Regan lab website – http://medicine.yale.edu/lab/regan/

Newhouse lab website – https://campuspress.yale.edu/newhousegroup/