Jackie Wirz: The Opportunity for Impact

On this episode of Humanizing Tech, we’re joined by Jackie Wirz. Jackie helps develop creative, confident, and curious critical thinkers by engaging them in socially conscious and equitable STEM experiences as the Executive Director of Saturday Academy. We discussed how she nurtures her mental health, how she defines making an impact, and what being an advocate means to her. Jackie was also this year’s winner for Speaker of the Year with PDXWIT! Tune in to hear about the work Jackie’s putting in toward our collective future.

Transcript

Intro: Welcome to humanizing tech, a PDXWIT podcast. We interview people to dig below the surface of their achievements and challenges showcasing the story behind the story. We believe that focusing on the person and humanizing their lived experiences will help us shape the future of tech.

This episode of Humanizing Tech is brought to you by First Tech Federal Credit Union. First Tech puts people over profit with personalized financial services and convenient banking solutions. To help you thrive. First tech offers individualized tools for your financial wellness, whether you're saving for college, buying a house or looking forward to retirement, when you're ready to save time and money visit firsttechfed.com and see how first tech invests in you. 

Before we get started, we want to acknowledge the ground roll on. So wherever we're tuning in from. PDXWIT has events all over Portland, Oregon, and beyond. And we want to acknowledge the history of the area and work towards decolonization of the tech industry. Portland rests on traditional village sites of the Multnomah, Cathlamet, Clackamas, Chinook, Tualatin, Kalapuya, Molalla and many other tribes who made their homes along the Columbia river. So please join us in a moment of acknowledgement for the land we're all on. If you'd like to learn more about PDXWIT’s action related to land acknowledgement, please visit our website. 

During this episode, Jackie uses language that might not be appropriate for younger listeners or those who are uncomfortable with explicit speech, please plan accordingly and tune in at your discretion.

Rihana Mungin: Welcome to a very special episode of humanizing tech, a PDXWIT podcast. My name is Rihanna. My pronouns are she/her/ hers. I'm the board chair for PDXWIT and I'm absolutely thrilled to be here.

Anusha Neelam: And this is Anusha. My pronouns are she,her, hers as well. And I am so excited to be co-hosting my first episode with Rihanna and I want to say on this lovely day, but let's be real. It's probably going to be way too hot for any of us, but still super excited to dive into this discussion with our guest today.

RM: Yeah, we are definitely looking forward to chatting with Jackie Wirz, her pronouns are she/her/hers and she's the executive director of Saturday academy. Jackie works closely with the Saturday academy community of staff instructors, students, parents, donors, and STEM professionals to nurture the spark of curiosity into a lifelong love of learning. Thank you for joining us. 

Jackie Wirz: Thank you so much for having me. I am thrilled to be on this podcast.

AN: Awesome. Well, Jackie, we're going to be diving into some deeper topics today, but to start us off, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do in tech and STEM? 

JW: Oh, for sure. Well, I am a biochemist by training, which I always tell people is a fancy way of saying that I did not have a date to prom, but I did have a successful research career way back in high school. So I started doing bench research in high school, studying fish viruses. And then for the next 15 years studied a lot of really cool areas of biochemistry ranging from that fish virology to DNA repair, the college and biophysics. I ended up getting a PhD in college and biophysics where I was learning about some unique structural properties of a disease that affected a specific strain of horses in the United States. After doing all of that bench work, which at times, let me tell you, was pretty darn stinky, which may or may not have led to me not having a date to prom. I decided that I wanted to get out of bench research science, but still engage in the sciences and became a data science librarian at Oregon Health and Science University.

There, I worked with other stakeholders to develop curricula and training for entry-level data science and data management techniques, making sure that people understand the importance of data cleaning and those basic skills of file naming structures and all of that good stuff that leads to usable data that lives beyond your original project. After years of doing that, I ended up going into student advocacy and career professional development. I kept on working and advocating for graduate students, and eventually they created a position for me as the assistant Dean for graduate students at OHSU. And I also was the director of the career professional development center, where I focused on giving graduate students in 26 different programs the professional skills to succeed both during their tenure as students, and then also as new professionals. So after many, many years in academia, I decided to try my hand at something different.

I wanted to see if I can make an impact in a different sector. So I jumped to the nonprofit sector and started working at Saturday academy as the executive director. There I oversee the entire organization on all the little details from our 401k trustee management down to how we're going to be structuring our programmatic offerings to best serve students in grades two through 12 in the stem disciplines. So it's been quite a winding journey, but throughout I've had a lifelong passion for STEM and science and technology in particular, and have tried to nurture that growth area for women as they pursue careers in these two fields.

AN: Wow. That is such an impressive background. And I'm wondering earlier when we spoke, you mentioned that you had graduated from the 24th grade, which I thought was really witty. So you're a woman in the stem industry with an extensive educational background. And you've gotten your PhD in biophysics and molecular biology. What are some of the challenges that you faced along the way?

JW: Well, along the way, it's always been interesting balancing expectations and reality. I always grew up thinking that stem was going to be a pure meritocracy, that if you're smart and you do the work, that is how you're going to advance. And I quickly learned that there's a lot of other factors that come into play when it comes to scientific and technological success. One of the things that I think was difficult to manage was being a woman in a tech area. So in the area of biotech in particular, it was just not very many women in the field. When I went to college, I originally signed up to be a bioengineer because at the time that was a more of an emerging discipline and I was super excited to go into something that would combine my love of the biological sciences with the mathematical precision and planning of engineering.

So I show up to the bio-engineering orientation and there was no females at all. So I'm a pretty outgoing person, all things considered. And I looked at that room and I felt so intensely uncomfortable that I ended up going to my best friend's orientation in biochemistry. So that's how I got into biochemistry, but it's the death by a thousand cuts of every situation that you're in, you might be the only female, or you might be the only minority, or you might be the only person who is looking at things from a different lens. And it really started all the way back in elementary school. So in elementary school, my parents were told repeatedly, like, yeah, she's really good at math for a girl. And then as I got older, they stopped telling my parents that. And they started telling me that you're really good at math for a girl.

And, um, you know, it's just intensely frustrating and each time it would happen, it didn't completely destroy me as a human being, but each time that was another out of the armor and that aspiration to keep on moving forward. And it just keeps on happening. So happened all the way through high school in college. When I ended up going into biochemistry, then, I was told I was pretty decent for a girl in biochemistry. I was pretty decent for a girl in biophysics. Those comments just never really stopped all the way through graduate school. I would still get comments about being pretty smart for a woman in this particular field. And that's something that we have had a lot of dialogue about. I think people are way more aware about how inappropriate those comments are, but it doesn't seem to necessarily be stopping them because I talk to people all the time that had the same experience.

And then on the side, I'm also Asian American. So I have the model minority myth that I carry with me quite a bit. So there's this converse expectation because I am Asian that I must be good at math, and I must be going to get a PhD or an MD because I'm a good Asian girl. So the juxtaposition of the, you are not smart enough because you're a woman, but then you must be good at it because you're Asian. Those two competing stereotypes have always been those death by a thousand cuts that have kind of carried with me throughout my career. And as I've gone further in my career, I've developed the self-confidence and the career stability to be able to say, no, that's not appropriate, but the power dynamics of the education system are really crushing. And it's very difficult to be able to speak up when your grade depends on this person, when your letter of recommendation depends on this person, when your first job, and you are a brand new into the workplace, being able to speak up and have those conversations is incredibly difficult. And that's just something that I hope that we can change the cultural dialogue to empower people, to be able to have those conversations earlier.

RM:  So pivoting from research to working in the nonprofit sector, that's huge, was that inspired by trying to end that death by a thousand cuts as you call it? 

JW: Mhmmm. Yes. I pivoted not only into the nonprofit sector, but I pivoted to an earlier time in a person's career/professional development all the way down to elementary school. And when you talk to elementary school kids, they don't have preconceived notions of who should be good or who should be bad at math. And that type of enthusiasm is something that if I can nurture and really support early on, then we can change that dialogue right there and then. And I think that's hugely important and that's one of the reasons why I went into the nonprofit sector is because there's the opportunity for impact. And the opportunity for impact is not just with individual students. It's who we choose to partner with; it is about working with our instructors; it's about working with our parents and our community. There are many different ways for us to be advocates and really change that dialogue. 

RM: So you've been connected to PDXWIT, and I want to congratulate you for winning speaker of the year for your talk called “Mental health matters, reflecting on the past to see the future clearly.” What inspired you to develop and have that talk? 

JW: So, first of all... OH MY GOSH! I still can't believe I got the speaker of the year award for PDXWIT! Like I nearly peed my pants. And we're going to keep that in the podcast -don't edit that out. [All laugh] I was so terrified because the other speakers were phenomenal and their life stories were amazing. And as usual for me felt tremendous imposter syndrome, like, why am I here?

And I just was second guessing myself, but, the reason why I chose that topic is because I am bipolar and I feel that we do not talk about mental health as much as we should. Having a mental health diagnosis is relatively common. One in five adult Americans will have a mental health diagnosis at some point in their lifetime. And one in two will experience a mental health crisis. So it is really more common to actually have known somebody or have had to experience some kind of mental anguish yourself in this day and age, but yet not enough people are talking about it. I'm fortunate that I was diagnosed in graduate school and I had an extremely supportive environment as I was learning to navigate my diagnosis. That's not always the case. I've been extremely fortunate in my career that I've been very transparent about being bipolar, that I've always let my employers know that I always let the people I work with know so that we can learn through this experience together. Not everyone has that flexibility and latitude to do so. So that's one reason why I think it's really important because I feel secure enough and I have the support network to speak out about it. That is why I choose to speak out about it because I believe it's tremendously important that we do talk about it.

AN:  That's amazing. And I know that there has been a bit more of a spotlight on mental health, especially as we have gone through the pandemic in this last year, but for folks who don't necessarily understand what mental health challenges can look like, and I know that it varies for everyone, I'm curious, Jackie, if you can share a little bit about how being bipolar affects you on a day-to-day basis.

JW:  Well, it affects me in many, many ways. So the first is that I wake up in the morning, I brush my teeth and I take lithium. So medication management is hugely important to making sure that I have the ability to achieve my best as a bipolar individual. Now is a very personal thing. Not every person with a mental health diagnosis has to take medication, but at this moment in my life I do. So I take my lithium in the morning, there a little pink pills. I always think they're like, they're trying to be very happy. I enjoy that about the pill. So I take lithium in the morning and this is after I've gotten a good night's sleep. One of the things about me that we've learned as a trigger is that if I start getting low on sleep, that can push me over into a manic or a mixed mania episode, the lack of sleep is something that causes short-term irritability.

And then, like I said, it could tip over into something that is actually much more of a serious episode. So a manic episode where I am acting erratically, just a lot of energy, not sleeping a lot, not making a lot of rational sense. A mixed mania is a devastating combination of that kind of energy and erratic thinking, but also with severely depressed thinking at the same time. So mixed mania is a really, really interesting beast in terms of mental health and how to deal with that. And that's something where you really, really, really have to be in close coordination with your psychiatrist. But back to my day to day, a good night's sleep - so I've made sure that I had a good night's sleep. I take my morning medication, and then I go about my day. It is important for me to have a schedule and to know what's going on.

And that I have an idea of what's going to be coming down the pike in my day. Uncertainty can cause me to spiral into anxiety and anxiety can spiral further into really some negative self-talk, uh, and that can lead down to further and further roads that can ultimately end up with a more serious episode. So making sure that my day is well planned. I need to make sure that I'm taking self care moments. So I don't exercise as much as I should, but I take walks and I make sure that if I have a half hour break, that I'm actually getting up and getting out of the house and getting a walk, because that's going to help reset my mindset a lot more than other, activities that I've engaged in so far. I do have regular psychiatric appointments where I check in and I get that nice external perspective on how I'm doing, because sometimes I'm too caught up in my own thoughts and my own work to notice.

And then I also do that with my best friend. My best friend is on the end with me about what triggers I have and what things are unusual behavior for me. So when we chat and if I'm acting a little bit off, then she can alert Andy, my husband or my psychiatrist. And then the close of the day is time with family. So it's really important that I hang out with my husband and my son, Henry, and then there's that closing of a festival of pills. So there's lithium, there's Ativan, there's a couple of other things in there. It's a combination of things that we constantly iterate and make sure that we are updating as appropriate. So a normal day we have the medication management portion of it. We have understanding your schedule so that mentally I'm prepared for the day. And then we have the self-care throughout to make sure that I am going to be able to have the skills necessary to tackle the day. Did that answer your question? 

AN: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for running us through exactly what your day-to-day looks like. And I'm curious too, you said that you found out that you were bipolar in graduate school. So what did the journey to getting that diagnosis look like?

JW:  Yeah, so this is one of those things. When you tell somebody that you're bipolar and you haven't seen them for a long time, there's like, usually there's a portion of the population. That's like, oh my gosh, I never would have guessed. And then there's the people that are like, oh my God, that makes so much sense. It's one or the other. [laughs] So I was really, really busy in middle and high school and college. So I did all of the things I did all of the sports, the clubs, the music, and the research at the same time. So when you're really, really busy, no one at any moment in time could really see how my full mental state was. And I think that I got a lot, I got away with a lot of bad behavior and a lot of behavior that's crying out for help because I was just moving around so frequently that nobody could see the bigger picture.

I definitely retrospectively had manic and depressive episodes when I was in high school and college. And you know, hindsight is 2020. So as a high achieving person, however, as long as you're still managing to get the grades, to complete your activities, to do the performances, all that good stuff, then people forgive you a lot. So that's how I made it through high school and college. People knew that I was emotionally volatile, but no one, I think really at that point suspected anything in particular. When I got to graduate school, graduate school is a very, very, very special kind of pain and the stress was tremendous. And my second year I developed a neural pain disorder in my hands. So I lost use of my hands for nine months and did my whole qualifying exam on voice recognition software, and the stress of all that and then my qualifying exam and just everything coming together. 

And I ended up having this total breakdown and I had a manic episode followed by a really, really deep depression. And the depression ultimately ended up in me calling my husband, my then boyfriend, you need to take me to the ER, I need help now. So we went to the ER and I got put into the psychiatric ward at OHSU, which was the same place I was getting my PhD from. So I had the uniquely horrifying situation of being in the psych ward, wearing one of those hospital gowns that covers nothing. I am disoriented, I'm sobbing, I'm in a room that literally has no sharp objects for your own safety. And then my boss comes in, my boss comes in to check on me. At the time I was mortified, absolutely mortified. And my entire committee over the next several weeks that I was in the psych ward came to visit me.

And at the time I was like, this is fresh out. This can not get any worse than these people seeing me at my abject worst. But now with perspective I can say that that was one of the things that saved me because these people were willing to fight and care for me. Like they were, they were fighting with physicians to like, get me better care. And I was kind of like, I'm sure they're doing fine. But having that whole experience happen and then seeing not only my committee come out and support me, but my friends, my parents, it was just something that a lot of people came together because they were so concerned about me. And a lot of people had to educate themselves because they had never had to experience this before. 

So I come from a Midwest family. I grew up in Minnesota, we don't talk about emotions and we don't talk about mental health. And there is no damn way that we talk about psychiatric diagnoses. So when I was diagnosed and I'm in the psych ward and my parents come and visit me, I can only imagine how difficult it was for them. I can't even fathom. But my parents are amazing and they went and they educated themselves about what bipolar disorder was and they want to see a psychologist to learn more about how they could support me. We went to a family session. They did all the things to support me. And that is one of the things that I am so grateful for is that we made it through as a family. We don't talk about it much because we're still from the Midwest, but the support is there.

So, the diagnosis happened in graduate school. It was really spectacular because during the manic portion of it, I was screaming and yelling and doing all sorts of erratic behavior in lab. Then followed by that depression. And it was difficult because I was a good graduate student. I had just gotten this big fellowship and then I just went completely off the rails. And I felt like the world was ending. Like everything was going to be taken away that I had worked hard for. But I took a year off and got my medication sorted out and I came back and I kept on keeping on. And that's what I've been doing ever since. 

RM: Jackie, this is absolutely amazing how vulnerable you're willing to be with us. I just appreciate and respect you that you're able to talk about it and you're able to talk about it so openly and honestly.  Especially as someone from the Midwest who doesn't normally talk about mental health. Did that experience with working with your advisors when they were visiting you in the psych ward… is that how you got the courage to talk to your future employers about your diagnosis? Is that what inspired you to do that? 

JW: Partially yes. So my boss at the time was an MD-PhD. So I had the advantage of the fact that he also had medical training and had more of a context of what I was going through than most other people on my committee. So first of all, he was incredibly knowledgeable. I think that part of it was because I had flamed out so spectacularly, like it was a very special flame out. When you said we have a very special guest. I was like, oh, it's like a hallmark channel, like a TV show and I'm the special guest that’s making a special flame out. That's what we're going to talk about. It was a special flame out and OHSU is a small community so the whole graduate program knew what was going on which is fine. So part of it is because the most embarrassing thing that could happen, already happened as far as I'm concerned - being in that psych ward and having my boss walk in and having my parents walk in, like that is the worst thing. So I felt like after that happened it couldn't get any worse. If I disclose to somebody and they were mean to me about it, or they were discriminatory about it, I would be like, well, that's my lived experience.

I lived that experience and I deserve the right to be able to own up to that. So yes, part of it did derive from the fact that the faculty that I was working with at the time were so incredibly supportive. When I came back to graduate school, in the year I took off, my boss's lab shut down during that time so I had to find a new lab. And so right off the bat, the very first thing I had to do was be like, disclose that, yeah, I took a year off because I went nuts. And I didn't do it face to face. I did it via email and I was just kind of like, oh, okay, this is going to be my life now. This is gonna be my life - sitting there, sweating bullets over this email and hitting send, and then being like, I just torpedoed my career. Right?

Boss already knew about it. So he didn't care. He's like, can you still do chromatography? Then, fine.  So that was fine. [laughs]  And I think that kind of that first, that first time of disclosing to somebody who didn't know and their subsequent reaction, it turns out that they already did know, but the fact that they were like, just do your work and it's going to be fine. I think that is kind of what set me on the road to be able to be much, much more open and vulnerable about it. Subsequently with each time that I've been hired, it's been part of the discussion that I am a bipolar individual. There are some things that come along with this. What I've gotten better at is describing what that really means if you have me as an employee.

So if you have me as an employee, it doesn't mean that I'm going to be part of some Hollywood drama in part, because I'm not nearly good looking enough, but also because that shit ain't real. So bipolar doesn't necessarily mean that I run around just being all crazy all the time. I am well managed and I am well medicated. So what I tell people, I was like, yeah, so I am bipolar, full disclosure. I am well medicated. I am well managed. I have  a list of things that if I'm displaying these behaviors with key people, that's kind of a check and balance, it's the canary in the coal mine. So this is what I do to make sure that I'm safe. And then I also say in the case of an episode, whether that's mania, mixed mania or depression, this is what I do.

I have emergency calls with my psychiatrist. We have a plan in place for this. I would be taking time off as part of that kind of interaction. So having that plan and having something that I can say is like, hi, I'm bipolar, but here is exactly what happens is really helpful. So I don't make my boss be one of the canaries in the coal mine. I don't give them the full list of things to watch out for me. And I don't give them my psychiatrist phone number because that's not their job. Their job is to observe me as an employee. Other people that are trusted are the ones that look out for me. So that way it's not the bosses added responsibility, my particular diagnosis, if that makes sense. Yeah.

AN: Yeah. So it sounds like you have a very structured plan that you kind of put in front of folks to let them know that this is the situation and this is how you go about managing it. I'm curious to know throughout the remainder of graduate school and your career, do you still face any prejudice and how do you overcome that on a regular basis if so?

JW:  So I do. It is one of those things that you can kind of tell who's been educated because you can see people start to use the word crazy and then rein it back in, in my presence. And they're like, that's batshit cra-- Ah, wow. That's really weird. And I honestly don't care. But it is not as overt as the gender discrimination which is, I guess, good thing, bad thing, but people are concerned. They're like, “well, is this going to be too much for her to handle emotionally?” I've heard that statement more than once. And then I heard, “well if things go badly, we just have no guarantee about when she would be back.” So I kind of heard those statements here and there. The thing is that people are generally trying to come from a good place and they start trying to treat you a little bit like glass.

They're going to be like, ah, well, like if you push her too far, like that's going to be... and then we're going to have an incident. And that is not how it works. So I've been fortunate that the times that those statements have come up, other people have been like, no, it's fine, go ahead and behave as per normal because it's managed. So yeah, it does happen, but it is usually, helpfully mitigated by my colleagues. And I would say the other thing that happens is just stupid discrimination… if I've posted something about being bipolar and a public forum sometimes there'll be comments about ‘bitches be crazy’ kind of stuff. But that's just from anonymous trolls. And so I've just…  it doesn't mean that it's not bad cause it's still bad, but it is not, in my opinion, personal to me.

AN: And you mentioned that you had gotten a lot of support when you had your episode from both your family, as well as your colleagues, it sounded like, but for folks that are trying to navigate their own mental health struggles, do you have any advice on resources that they can make use of?

JW:  Yeah! So NAMI, the National Alliance for Mental Illness, has lots of resources and then they break them down by state so that you can find ones that are unique for you. And then there are, depending on which organizations you're part of, this is usually covered as part of an employee assistance plan or as part of your health benefits, the ability to talk to counselors. Most employee assistance plans will offer a certain number of sessions with a counselor for free, and then referring you to a practitioner for more long-term discussions, if you would like at that point. I really encourage people to do that. And that is a certain number of sessions free per year. So if you find the counselor and then after working with them, that don't fit, then you can find somebody else. But when it comes to acute needs, there are hotlines, there are hotlines that are specific for NAMI that are national.

There are ones that are specific for Multnomah county. There are ones that are specific for Portland, and I'm not going to rattle any off the top of my head right now because I will get a number wrong. I can send links to those. So there are lots of different  nonprofits and organizations that specifically are there to help in times of crisis for mental crisises. So, totally recommend doing that. The next thing is, is that it is tremendously isolating to have the feelings of anxiety and depression and  just all the different types of mental illnesses that they're out there. I think one of the most unifying things about them is that you feel isolated. You feel like there is nobody out there. And I am an extroverted introvert. So I don't have a huge circle of friends at all.

And then when I get depressed, I'm like, oh my God, I'm alone. And no one else understands. Even my husband, who's been around through thick and thin. Like I'm just suddenly he doesn't count anymore. And nobody counts as being a resource or a support mechanism. And that's just something that I have to fight off because people want to help and people will help. And your friends are truly your friends, even people that you didn't think are your friends want to help. And that's the hardest thing. So the hardest thing is learning that you do need to have that help in order to get through it. For me, I had to land in a psych ward and wear that stupid gown for me to realize that I needed help and I needed to ask other people for help. So don't be me -  get help earlier, avoid the shameful down.

RM:  I really appreciate you being so candid about this because I  really think this is going to help a lot of people, especially because of how COVID has impacted everyone's mental health. But I want to have to go back to something you said, cause you work with a lot of elementary school kids and you want to change their perceptions. I just want to know how else your challenges that you've gone through in your academic career with your mental health, how has that helped with your guidance towards the students that you serve in Saturday academy? 

JW: Hmm, because our students are phenomenal. In the early part of my career I was working with graduate students and they are the most amazing people on the planet. And then I work with high school students and they're the most amazing people on the planet. And then I work with elementary school students and I'm like, oh, they're the most amazing people on the planet. The very act of being a student is one of wanting to learn. And that is a level of vulnerability and openness that creates a mindset that is just delightful. And interacting with people that have that mindset is the cornerstone of my career, whether they've been adults or whether they've been elementary school students. And that mindset is something that changes and being a student is pivotal. Those changes while you're a student in elementary, middle,  high school, college graduate school. Those are all pivotal changes in their unique and different ways, but being able to help with that and help with those transformations is really why I do what I do. And being someone who can support students that might have mental health struggles is something that  is a privilege, because the courage and bravery of the students that I've worked with that have had OCD, or eating disorders, or bipolar, or any other of the myriad of mental health disorders that are out there, the courage that they display and continuing to pursue their education, that's inspiring. And anything that I've done in my career is only so that I can help those students further their careers and then someday hire me.

AN:  That's amazing. Um, I was going to say actually, fun fact, my love of STEM actually started through a camp that I did with Saturday academy. So I feel like I need to thank you [laughs] for the work that you do, Jackie, and for of course, everything that you had shared with us throughout this discussion and just want to know, do you have any suggestions or advice that you'd like to share with our listeners?

JW:  So I have two things that are unrelated to mental health, but this is all part of things that I believe in advocating for. The first of which is perseverance. So my first experience with Saturday academy was when I did not get an ACE internship. So I was rejected from Saturday academy. So the board likes to joke that I'm exacting my revenge now by being the executive director. But I didn't get that internship, but it is absolutely what catalyzed me into advocating for myself to create my own internship that summer when I was in high school. So that absolutely put me on the path for a STEM career. And that was because I wasn't going to take a single rejection as being something that was going to deter me. And that ties back into earlier parts of our conversation.

I'm not going to let one person tell me that I'm bad at math, let me not do math. And I'm not going to let one person tell me that they're worried about my ability to do work because I'm bipolar. I'm not going to let that person stop me from doing my job. So, be resilient and resiliency is the number one skill that's going to get you through life, through COVID through your first job or through your first senior position. All of it is going to be resiliency. And it's the one thing that really can't be taught. It's just you learn by doing, and that is sometimes difficult, which is why mentorship and connections and networking are so important. So, in order to be resilient, make sure that you find your tribe and find those people and those people will help you through anything.

So that's one. And the second thing is to advocate for yourself, advocating for yourself can take a lot of different forums and it takes courage and courage. So it can be sometimes hard to find when we are exhausted and are suffering from burnout, but advocacy for yourself as something that will always pay off in the long run. Whether it's saying that I have a diagnosis, and then I want to make sure that you're aware of this and that I need to have these types of supports in my job in order to perform it as best as possible for the entire organization or whether that advocacy for yourself is saying, hey, I need them to go shoot the salary a little bit more. That advocacy is truly important. Now I specifically bring up the salary because this is one of my biggest soapboxes. So here I am standing up on the soap box.

The soap box is  - woman, negotiate your salary. Your salary is so important and you are worth it. You are worth more than whatever they offer you the first time round. I can guarantee it. There are lots of different books and bootcamps on negotiation, just Google it online. As a general rule of thumb, I always like to say come up with five things that you're going to negotiate about -  two to three of which you know are not going to happen, but the other two are ones that you're going to go down to brass tacks on. But negotiating for yourself now is really going to change the trajectory of your career. Think of it this way. If your base salary is X and it could have been $10,000 more, the amount of retirement savings over the course of your career, that $10,000 difference makes right now at the front of your career is huge.

And the amount of confidence that you're going to get after you negotiate because your bad-ass self is worth it. That is something that's going to stay with you for a really long time. So negotiate when you get those awesome job offers. And if you need any help with that, look online, look at the PDXWIT website, give me a call or an email and I'll cheerlead for you to get the best contract that you can. So my two last partying things are resiliency and advocacy. 

RM: Jackie, you are an absolute delight. I love everything you had to say. I think you're totally amazing. And I really appreciate everything that you said. I appreciate your vulnerability. I appreciate your ability to navigate this entire world, especially in academia. And I just love the work that you're putting back into our future. It's just, you're just the best. Thank you so much for coming and talking with us. This has been so great. 

JW: Thank you so much for having me. I'm just excited. I was thrilled to get asked. I did a little dance when I got asked.

AN: Well, we are just as excited to have you here and to be able to have this discussion with you. I thank you again so much for being vulnerable and sharing your experiences. I think this is going to be so helpful for so many folks that are going to be tuning into this episode. And also just a huge shout out to our incredible podcast team, all of whom make this possible. You guys rock, and to our listeners, thank you for tuning in. We will provide links to the resources that Jackie provided to this episode. So look out for those and we will catch you on the next episode. 

RM: Bye, everyone! 

Outro: PDXWIT is a 501C3 nonprofit. We're building a better tech industry by creating access, dismantling inequities, and feeling belonging. Find out more about us at www.pdxwit.org. Like this podcast? Subscribe and review us on your favorite podcast platform. Want to give us feedback? Contact us at podcast, a pdxwit.org to help us improve and ensure you learn and grow from the stories you hear in humanizing tech.