Terrell Hatzilias
Interview Posted By: Ashley Smith
1. Can you tell us a little about your background? i.e. Where you grew up, what education do you have, a summary of your resume, did you always want to do what you are doing now, when did you start to become interested in STEM, what internships/ volunteering
I grew up outside Washington D.C in northern Virginia. I was really lucky in that my county had a highly competitive science and technology magnet high school (Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology - it was actually the number one high school in the country while I was there), so I was exposed to STEM early on. My first research experience was through the biotechnology Senior Tech Lab in high school - I was sequencing small subunit rRNA at George Mason University. It was also during high school that I became interested in neuroscience. I remember learning about the brain in AP Biology and being fascinated by the idea that everything that defines who you are as a person can be traced back to cells and biochemistry. I immediately wanted to understand how that happened and how you could help people with neurodegenerative diseases preserve this idea of ‘self.’
I attended Duke University for my undergraduate studies and majored in Biology with a minor in Psychology; at that point Duke did not have a Neuroscience major so I made my own! I did research in labs in three different fields (molecular biology, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience) while at Duke and also worked in a microbiology lab at the Naval Surface Warfare Center during the summers, just to be certain that neuroscience was what I truly wanted to pursue. Again, I was incredibly lucky in that the neuroscience lab I worked in at Duke really let me take control of my own project - I was doing brain surgery on rats as a 19-year old and was eventually selected as a fellow in Duke’s Howard Hughes Forum for Undergraduate Research in the Neural Sciences.
I attended graduate school at Emory University in the Neuroscience doctoral program. I entered graduate school still focused on my original high school questions of a) what (cellularly) makes an individual unique and b) how can you biochemically preserve that identity in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease. While in graduate school, I switched my focus to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease), and I conducted my thesis research on the role of protein aggregation in ALS. I was investigating the idea that protein aggregates in the disease state may not be solely toxic, but could also serve a protective role in sequestering toxic, soluble protein species away from neuronal interactions. Again, I was highly fortunate in having a plethora of wonderful mentors who encouraged me to follow the data and deviate from the known doctrine that aggregation causes toxicity. After graduation, I did a post-doc at Georgia Tech in the Biomedical Engineering department investigating implantation of neural stems cells after traumatic brain injury. It was during this post-doc that I became aware of a new program starting at Tech called the Grand Challenges program. This program encouraged undergraduates to pursue engineering solutions to world problems and then actually gave the students funds to create those solutions. I got involved in the program and eventually left my post-doc to teach the second year level course. While at Tech, I was also doing science and medical writing in my spare time. I found that I really enjoyed the active learning involved in medical writing and eventually left my position teaching at Tech to pursue medical communications.
2. What exactly IS your job? What do you do on a day to day basis?
I am a medical writer and editor. I write and edit articles for pharmaceutical companies, Continuing Medical Education (CME) companies, and medical professionals, just to name a few. Medical communications is very different from Health writing. Health writing is more journalistic and is writing for the layperson. Medical communications, on the other hand, is highly technical and it targeted at medically trained professionals. I have written coursework for doctors and nurses to study in their CME classes, have ‘ghost-written’ public health epidemiology research articles, and have written technical assay explanations for pharmaceutical companies. One of the aspects of my job that I really enjoy is that I have to stay up-to-date on current biomedical research and medical guidelines, and in this way, I am always learning something new.
3. How does STEM relate to your job? How do you use the information you learned from your degree in your job?
I could not do my job without a strong grounding in the sciences! In doing technical medical writing, you have to know the ins and outs of the biomedical sciences in order to write coherently about genetics, pharmacology, neuroscience, etc. Part of my job relies on my training as an analytical thinker - I have to be able to read a research article and readily assess what the caveats and pitfalls of the study are and what we can realistically conclude from the study, both in terms of research advances and medicine. I draw on my knowledge of biomedical protocols, assays, theories, and data analysis in interpreting data and deciding how to communicate and relate that data to others.
4. Have you faced any discrimination/ challenges being a woman in a stem field? If so, how did you deal with it? Do you have any advice for up and coming women in STEM?
In my current position as a medical writer, I have not faced challenges directly related to being a woman, however the majority of my communications also occur over the internet. While I was doing bench research, I definitely did face challenges related to my gender. I never faced anything as blatant as being told I couldn’t do something because I am female, but there are a million smaller ways to undermine someone, from talking over them, to talking down to them (I actually had male engineering graduate student talk down to me as a post-doc in his attempt to explain a neuroscience concept to me...incorrectly), to making jokes about women being emotional, less rational, or otherwise less competent to perform in ‘male’ fields. Thinking back, I wish I had addressed these comments in a more straight-forward manner than I did. I would usually get frustrated and try to work harder to prove myself, but very rarely did I actually challenge the other person. In our society, women are trained not to be confrontational or directly challenge others (as opposed to men, who are seen as being strong leaders when they exhibit these traits). I have consciously tried to both assert myself and stand up for other women more in the past few years, but it is a difficult road. One of the lines that I have found works with offensive ‘jokes’ is asking the teller to explain why they think the joke is funny - this helps them to realize that the reason it is funny to them is that they are actually being demeaning and offensive! Of course, this tactic also requires the other party to have a certain level of self-awareness, but I have overall found it to effective.
My advice to women in STEM is don’t be afraid to assert yourself. You have just as much right to be in the room and to be heard as anyone else. Additionally, if you hear someone saying misogynistic comments, challenge them. Sometimes people are afraid to challenge off the cuff comments that others make, but a simple ‘what do you mean by that?’ can go a long way.
5. What is the best and worst part of your job? What do you look forward to in your job on a day to day basis? What do you wish you could change?
The best part of my job is that I am constantly learning. My degree is in neuroscience, but I have written articles related to oncology, diabetes, heart disease, and public health. I am always excited to start a writing assignment in an area that I am less well-versed in because it provides a wonderful opportunity to learn.
The biggest thing I wish I could change about my job is that there are frequently very short turn-arounds on assignments. I am very organized and very much of a planner, so I like being able to plan a procedure out to complete an assignment in a certain period of time. When an assignment has a short-turn around, I get stressed out because my planning power is taken away from me.
6. How do you balance your work and personal life? Any secrets or advice you’d like to share?
This is a battle I will probably have to fight my entire life. I have a tendency to dive into my work and try to complete it both as thoroughly and as quickly as possible. This is good for assignments with quick turn-around times, but is not so great for a healthy work/life balance. I have had to set defined limits for myself in terms of when to stop working each night. One thing that is helpful with this is having set activities that occur in the evening. My husband and I are on a bowling and trivia team together - these activities have set times every week so I know I have to be ready to end the work day by a certain time. Something else that is helpful is committing yourself to taking advantage of weekends. I like to travel a lot on the weekends and this really does limit the amount of time I can spend working on Saturdays and Sundays. Having pre-set plans is also helpful in having a goal for what work you have to get done before you can take a break. I like to make myself a schedule of what I need to get done and try to stick to that schedule.
7. What do you define success as?
This is a very complicated question! I think success is pursuing whatever you have personally decided you would like to achieve. I’m a big advocate of not letting others define the parameters of your success for you. You have to decide what the benchmarks are in life that you would like to hit and find a path to get you there. Those benchmarks might fit with a prototypical career path, but they also might be wildly unique and individualized. The important thing is thinking through what will make YOU both happy and fulfilled and then pursuing that with everything you have.
8. What is one personality trait that you think is universally important for a successful career?
Persistence. As I have transitioned from one career to the next, I have found the trait that is the most useful is being persistent. This is crucially important in graduate school when you are struggling to define your thesis and graduate, but is equally important in non-research tracks. No one is going to come along and hand you a career - you have to work for it and defend it at every turn. The more persistent you are, the easier you will find it is to do that! Being persistent and hardworking opens up countless doors and opportunities for you - never be afraid to go for an opportunity after you have decided you want it.
9. Who was a mentor to you throughout your career? (can be more than one!) What did they teach you? How did they impact your life?
I have been incredibly lucky in my mentors throughout my life. I had multiple exceptional mentors in graduate school, wonderful faculty members who took an interest in my research and my career and really tried to foster my development. One of the most important lessons I learned was to always have an open mind in research and to follow the data wherever they take you. This is a lesson that a lot of young scientists have a hard time learning - the data are what the data are, and your primary job is to try to understand them, not make them fit a preconceived idea. I also learned to defend my ideas analytically from my mentors - they had very high academic standards and demanded that I fully supported and analyzed my theories and interpretations. Your opinion is great, but ultimately that’s all it is, your opinion. You need analytical data in order to be convincing.
10. What do you think is the best advice you've ever received ? What advice would you give your younger self if you had the chance? What’s one piece of advice you can pass on to us?
That by believing in yourself, you give other people permission to do the same.
I grew up outside Washington D.C in northern Virginia. I was really lucky in that my county had a highly competitive science and technology magnet high school (Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology - it was actually the number one high school in the country while I was there), so I was exposed to STEM early on. My first research experience was through the biotechnology Senior Tech Lab in high school - I was sequencing small subunit rRNA at George Mason University. It was also during high school that I became interested in neuroscience. I remember learning about the brain in AP Biology and being fascinated by the idea that everything that defines who you are as a person can be traced back to cells and biochemistry. I immediately wanted to understand how that happened and how you could help people with neurodegenerative diseases preserve this idea of ‘self.’
I attended Duke University for my undergraduate studies and majored in Biology with a minor in Psychology; at that point Duke did not have a Neuroscience major so I made my own! I did research in labs in three different fields (molecular biology, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience) while at Duke and also worked in a microbiology lab at the Naval Surface Warfare Center during the summers, just to be certain that neuroscience was what I truly wanted to pursue. Again, I was incredibly lucky in that the neuroscience lab I worked in at Duke really let me take control of my own project - I was doing brain surgery on rats as a 19-year old and was eventually selected as a fellow in Duke’s Howard Hughes Forum for Undergraduate Research in the Neural Sciences.
I attended graduate school at Emory University in the Neuroscience doctoral program. I entered graduate school still focused on my original high school questions of a) what (cellularly) makes an individual unique and b) how can you biochemically preserve that identity in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease. While in graduate school, I switched my focus to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease), and I conducted my thesis research on the role of protein aggregation in ALS. I was investigating the idea that protein aggregates in the disease state may not be solely toxic, but could also serve a protective role in sequestering toxic, soluble protein species away from neuronal interactions. Again, I was highly fortunate in having a plethora of wonderful mentors who encouraged me to follow the data and deviate from the known doctrine that aggregation causes toxicity. After graduation, I did a post-doc at Georgia Tech in the Biomedical Engineering department investigating implantation of neural stems cells after traumatic brain injury. It was during this post-doc that I became aware of a new program starting at Tech called the Grand Challenges program. This program encouraged undergraduates to pursue engineering solutions to world problems and then actually gave the students funds to create those solutions. I got involved in the program and eventually left my post-doc to teach the second year level course. While at Tech, I was also doing science and medical writing in my spare time. I found that I really enjoyed the active learning involved in medical writing and eventually left my position teaching at Tech to pursue medical communications.
2. What exactly IS your job? What do you do on a day to day basis?
I am a medical writer and editor. I write and edit articles for pharmaceutical companies, Continuing Medical Education (CME) companies, and medical professionals, just to name a few. Medical communications is very different from Health writing. Health writing is more journalistic and is writing for the layperson. Medical communications, on the other hand, is highly technical and it targeted at medically trained professionals. I have written coursework for doctors and nurses to study in their CME classes, have ‘ghost-written’ public health epidemiology research articles, and have written technical assay explanations for pharmaceutical companies. One of the aspects of my job that I really enjoy is that I have to stay up-to-date on current biomedical research and medical guidelines, and in this way, I am always learning something new.
3. How does STEM relate to your job? How do you use the information you learned from your degree in your job?
I could not do my job without a strong grounding in the sciences! In doing technical medical writing, you have to know the ins and outs of the biomedical sciences in order to write coherently about genetics, pharmacology, neuroscience, etc. Part of my job relies on my training as an analytical thinker - I have to be able to read a research article and readily assess what the caveats and pitfalls of the study are and what we can realistically conclude from the study, both in terms of research advances and medicine. I draw on my knowledge of biomedical protocols, assays, theories, and data analysis in interpreting data and deciding how to communicate and relate that data to others.
4. Have you faced any discrimination/ challenges being a woman in a stem field? If so, how did you deal with it? Do you have any advice for up and coming women in STEM?
In my current position as a medical writer, I have not faced challenges directly related to being a woman, however the majority of my communications also occur over the internet. While I was doing bench research, I definitely did face challenges related to my gender. I never faced anything as blatant as being told I couldn’t do something because I am female, but there are a million smaller ways to undermine someone, from talking over them, to talking down to them (I actually had male engineering graduate student talk down to me as a post-doc in his attempt to explain a neuroscience concept to me...incorrectly), to making jokes about women being emotional, less rational, or otherwise less competent to perform in ‘male’ fields. Thinking back, I wish I had addressed these comments in a more straight-forward manner than I did. I would usually get frustrated and try to work harder to prove myself, but very rarely did I actually challenge the other person. In our society, women are trained not to be confrontational or directly challenge others (as opposed to men, who are seen as being strong leaders when they exhibit these traits). I have consciously tried to both assert myself and stand up for other women more in the past few years, but it is a difficult road. One of the lines that I have found works with offensive ‘jokes’ is asking the teller to explain why they think the joke is funny - this helps them to realize that the reason it is funny to them is that they are actually being demeaning and offensive! Of course, this tactic also requires the other party to have a certain level of self-awareness, but I have overall found it to effective.
My advice to women in STEM is don’t be afraid to assert yourself. You have just as much right to be in the room and to be heard as anyone else. Additionally, if you hear someone saying misogynistic comments, challenge them. Sometimes people are afraid to challenge off the cuff comments that others make, but a simple ‘what do you mean by that?’ can go a long way.
5. What is the best and worst part of your job? What do you look forward to in your job on a day to day basis? What do you wish you could change?
The best part of my job is that I am constantly learning. My degree is in neuroscience, but I have written articles related to oncology, diabetes, heart disease, and public health. I am always excited to start a writing assignment in an area that I am less well-versed in because it provides a wonderful opportunity to learn.
The biggest thing I wish I could change about my job is that there are frequently very short turn-arounds on assignments. I am very organized and very much of a planner, so I like being able to plan a procedure out to complete an assignment in a certain period of time. When an assignment has a short-turn around, I get stressed out because my planning power is taken away from me.
6. How do you balance your work and personal life? Any secrets or advice you’d like to share?
This is a battle I will probably have to fight my entire life. I have a tendency to dive into my work and try to complete it both as thoroughly and as quickly as possible. This is good for assignments with quick turn-around times, but is not so great for a healthy work/life balance. I have had to set defined limits for myself in terms of when to stop working each night. One thing that is helpful with this is having set activities that occur in the evening. My husband and I are on a bowling and trivia team together - these activities have set times every week so I know I have to be ready to end the work day by a certain time. Something else that is helpful is committing yourself to taking advantage of weekends. I like to travel a lot on the weekends and this really does limit the amount of time I can spend working on Saturdays and Sundays. Having pre-set plans is also helpful in having a goal for what work you have to get done before you can take a break. I like to make myself a schedule of what I need to get done and try to stick to that schedule.
7. What do you define success as?
This is a very complicated question! I think success is pursuing whatever you have personally decided you would like to achieve. I’m a big advocate of not letting others define the parameters of your success for you. You have to decide what the benchmarks are in life that you would like to hit and find a path to get you there. Those benchmarks might fit with a prototypical career path, but they also might be wildly unique and individualized. The important thing is thinking through what will make YOU both happy and fulfilled and then pursuing that with everything you have.
8. What is one personality trait that you think is universally important for a successful career?
Persistence. As I have transitioned from one career to the next, I have found the trait that is the most useful is being persistent. This is crucially important in graduate school when you are struggling to define your thesis and graduate, but is equally important in non-research tracks. No one is going to come along and hand you a career - you have to work for it and defend it at every turn. The more persistent you are, the easier you will find it is to do that! Being persistent and hardworking opens up countless doors and opportunities for you - never be afraid to go for an opportunity after you have decided you want it.
9. Who was a mentor to you throughout your career? (can be more than one!) What did they teach you? How did they impact your life?
I have been incredibly lucky in my mentors throughout my life. I had multiple exceptional mentors in graduate school, wonderful faculty members who took an interest in my research and my career and really tried to foster my development. One of the most important lessons I learned was to always have an open mind in research and to follow the data wherever they take you. This is a lesson that a lot of young scientists have a hard time learning - the data are what the data are, and your primary job is to try to understand them, not make them fit a preconceived idea. I also learned to defend my ideas analytically from my mentors - they had very high academic standards and demanded that I fully supported and analyzed my theories and interpretations. Your opinion is great, but ultimately that’s all it is, your opinion. You need analytical data in order to be convincing.
10. What do you think is the best advice you've ever received ? What advice would you give your younger self if you had the chance? What’s one piece of advice you can pass on to us?
That by believing in yourself, you give other people permission to do the same.