Vicky Kalogera
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 was born and grew up in Greece, in a small town in a rather poor family. My parents grew up through the second world war and the civil war that followed in Greece and work and earning a living was their top priority. My dad is a high-school graduate and my mom graduated only from elementary school (her dad did not think girls needed more schooling …). Despite their limited education I was lucky enough to be greatly encouraged by both my parents to work hard and study and they never limited my ambition (not until I told them I wanted to move to the other side of the world for grad school …). My dad in particular was very encouraging of my early tendency to like math especially. I was also lucky enough to have great teachers along the way: an elementary school teacher who pushed me in math, a female math teacher in middle school who inspired me and made math a lot of fun, and a amazing physics teacher in high school who opened up the wondrous world of physics to me.
By the time I was a junior in high-school I knew I did not just math and science I was interested, I knew it was physics, and had decided to pursue it as my major in college. However, at that time I had not thoughts about grad school or an academic career, in fact I had no clue what a career in scientific research even was …
As a college freshman I got introduced to astronomy and astrophysics by two superb teachers and I fell in love the subject matter; I also met other greeks who had gone to the US or Canada for grad school and had become university professors. At that point I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life!
In parallel with my studies I worked part-time as a software engineer for a company and was able to have independent income for extras … in my sophomore year I came across the announcement of an international conference on Crete, Greece and I decided to use my savings and attend the conference, even though I had not yet started research. The conference experience was transformative: I met top researchers, attended excellent review talks, got introduced to the research world. While there, I found out about an undergraduate research opportunity funded by the european union; I applied got the funding and spent part of my junior year as a research student in Amsterdam, the center of the research I was exposed at the conference.
The rest is history as they say … Following a second internship in my senior year at a Max Planck Institute in Bonn, Germany, I finished my physics undergrad in Greece (University of Thessaloniki), applied for graduate school in the US (where I knew I would get the best education available and I could be self-supported), joined the grad program in Astronomy at Urbana-Champaign. Five years later I got my PhD and move to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics as a Postdoctoral Fellow, and four years later I was hired by Northwestern as an assistant professor.
2. What exactly IS your job? What do you do on a day to day basis?
Now as a full professor and a research center director my day-to-day activity is highly varied:
- teaching of course: I teach about 2 courses per year, undergraduate and graduate level
- research training/advising/mentoring: of students and postdoctoral associates; I conceive research projects, formulate questions, think about how to approaching solving the questions, then training students/postdocs to the point where they can do the calculations (computer) that allow us to address the research questions of interest
- raising research funds: figuring out what to study and how is a big part of moving research forward, but as a professor I have to convince funding agencies that they should fund my research plans, so I can support students/postdocs to work on the research; writing successful, quality proposals to funding agencies is a major part of what I do regularly (typically I face a proposal deadline every 1-2 months)
- writing research articles for peer-reviewed journals, disseminating results through conference presentations, invited reviews, vision talks, and colloquia
- giving public lectures
- university committee service: for academia to function professors have to do a lot of committee work, some routine (e.g., undergrad advising, graduate admissions and advising, colloquium organization, hiring searchers, etc) and others more rare, impactful, that can shape how the institution moves forward (strategic planning, leadership teams examining areas of excellence, program review, etc)
- committee service in the scientific community: peer review panels of research proposals, advisory bodies to funding agencies, etc
- I generally serve on 3-4 committees any given time within the university and 2-3 committees in the community; work on these include travel for committee discussions and meetings, and report writing
- scientific organization of research events (conferences, visiting speakers for colloquia, etc )
3. How does STEM relate to your job?How do you use the information you learned from your degree in your job?
Math, physics, computer science, statistics, applied math, is all part of my research
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?
I was completely unconscious of any biases throughout my early studies; not that they did not exist, but I was not paying attention … In practice, I never faced blatant discrimination, but once I came to the US and became more knowledgeable on the topic I started recognizing all the subtle signs, mostly of unconscious bias … in fact I can even recognize the signs in myself … Now I consciously try to fight unconscious bias
Advice: do your work as best you can, ignore the biases, and know that, yes, you may have to hit more successes than your male colleagues to get recognized, but it is important to not let other people’s unfair perceptions affect your resolve - along the way you will prove them wrong
5. What is the best and worst part of your job?
best parts:
(1) student advising, transforming the way they think, watching them get all inspired and stunned when they realize they have reached a conclusion, a result that only they have seen for the first time
(2) figuring out solutions to problems, recognizing the research opportunities and being able to pursue them and advance our knowledge and understanding of the cosmos
worst parts:
(1) the relentless, around the clock, 24/7 work cycle - even if I am not actually working on my computer or in meetings, I keep thinking about work all the time, very hard to disconnect …
(2) the highly fragmented daily schedule and the difficulty in finding big chunks of time to study and think
6. How do you balance your work and personal life? Any secrets or advice you’d like to share?
I don’t! it’s a continuous struggle, and never a solution in sight (my husband is an academic too, he fully understands and shares in every aspect of home life, so that helps, but still having small children and raising a family is difficult)
7. What do you define success as?
there’s practical measures: research funding, awards from your peers, citations to your research publications, invitations to give important talks to the community
but ultimately the best evidence of success comes from a sense of self-satisfaction for having done the best you can and having contributing to the efforts of a whole community towards answering questions and solving the mysteries that surround us, also for having contributed to the mentoring of the next generation and see them succeed
8. What is one personality trait that you think is universally important for a successful career?
restlessness, curiosity, ego, self-drive
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?
probably my dad in a very complex way; he taught me hard work and pride - also his flaws taught me what to avoid
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?
follow your passion, ignore what others tell you when you see your path clearly, work hard, don’t pay attention to micro-agressions, focus, and project positive thoughts, they will reflect back on you
I hope this helps and sorry for the long delay!
I was born and grew up in Greece, in a small town in a rather poor family. My parents grew up through the second world war and the civil war that followed in Greece and work and earning a living was their top priority. My dad is a high-school graduate and my mom graduated only from elementary school (her dad did not think girls needed more schooling …). Despite their limited education I was lucky enough to be greatly encouraged by both my parents to work hard and study and they never limited my ambition (not until I told them I wanted to move to the other side of the world for grad school …). My dad in particular was very encouraging of my early tendency to like math especially. I was also lucky enough to have great teachers along the way: an elementary school teacher who pushed me in math, a female math teacher in middle school who inspired me and made math a lot of fun, and a amazing physics teacher in high school who opened up the wondrous world of physics to me.
By the time I was a junior in high-school I knew I did not just math and science I was interested, I knew it was physics, and had decided to pursue it as my major in college. However, at that time I had not thoughts about grad school or an academic career, in fact I had no clue what a career in scientific research even was …
As a college freshman I got introduced to astronomy and astrophysics by two superb teachers and I fell in love the subject matter; I also met other greeks who had gone to the US or Canada for grad school and had become university professors. At that point I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life!
In parallel with my studies I worked part-time as a software engineer for a company and was able to have independent income for extras … in my sophomore year I came across the announcement of an international conference on Crete, Greece and I decided to use my savings and attend the conference, even though I had not yet started research. The conference experience was transformative: I met top researchers, attended excellent review talks, got introduced to the research world. While there, I found out about an undergraduate research opportunity funded by the european union; I applied got the funding and spent part of my junior year as a research student in Amsterdam, the center of the research I was exposed at the conference.
The rest is history as they say … Following a second internship in my senior year at a Max Planck Institute in Bonn, Germany, I finished my physics undergrad in Greece (University of Thessaloniki), applied for graduate school in the US (where I knew I would get the best education available and I could be self-supported), joined the grad program in Astronomy at Urbana-Champaign. Five years later I got my PhD and move to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics as a Postdoctoral Fellow, and four years later I was hired by Northwestern as an assistant professor.
2. What exactly IS your job? What do you do on a day to day basis?
Now as a full professor and a research center director my day-to-day activity is highly varied:
- teaching of course: I teach about 2 courses per year, undergraduate and graduate level
- research training/advising/mentoring: of students and postdoctoral associates; I conceive research projects, formulate questions, think about how to approaching solving the questions, then training students/postdocs to the point where they can do the calculations (computer) that allow us to address the research questions of interest
- raising research funds: figuring out what to study and how is a big part of moving research forward, but as a professor I have to convince funding agencies that they should fund my research plans, so I can support students/postdocs to work on the research; writing successful, quality proposals to funding agencies is a major part of what I do regularly (typically I face a proposal deadline every 1-2 months)
- writing research articles for peer-reviewed journals, disseminating results through conference presentations, invited reviews, vision talks, and colloquia
- giving public lectures
- university committee service: for academia to function professors have to do a lot of committee work, some routine (e.g., undergrad advising, graduate admissions and advising, colloquium organization, hiring searchers, etc) and others more rare, impactful, that can shape how the institution moves forward (strategic planning, leadership teams examining areas of excellence, program review, etc)
- committee service in the scientific community: peer review panels of research proposals, advisory bodies to funding agencies, etc
- I generally serve on 3-4 committees any given time within the university and 2-3 committees in the community; work on these include travel for committee discussions and meetings, and report writing
- scientific organization of research events (conferences, visiting speakers for colloquia, etc )
3. How does STEM relate to your job?How do you use the information you learned from your degree in your job?
Math, physics, computer science, statistics, applied math, is all part of my research
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?
I was completely unconscious of any biases throughout my early studies; not that they did not exist, but I was not paying attention … In practice, I never faced blatant discrimination, but once I came to the US and became more knowledgeable on the topic I started recognizing all the subtle signs, mostly of unconscious bias … in fact I can even recognize the signs in myself … Now I consciously try to fight unconscious bias
Advice: do your work as best you can, ignore the biases, and know that, yes, you may have to hit more successes than your male colleagues to get recognized, but it is important to not let other people’s unfair perceptions affect your resolve - along the way you will prove them wrong
5. What is the best and worst part of your job?
best parts:
(1) student advising, transforming the way they think, watching them get all inspired and stunned when they realize they have reached a conclusion, a result that only they have seen for the first time
(2) figuring out solutions to problems, recognizing the research opportunities and being able to pursue them and advance our knowledge and understanding of the cosmos
worst parts:
(1) the relentless, around the clock, 24/7 work cycle - even if I am not actually working on my computer or in meetings, I keep thinking about work all the time, very hard to disconnect …
(2) the highly fragmented daily schedule and the difficulty in finding big chunks of time to study and think
6. How do you balance your work and personal life? Any secrets or advice you’d like to share?
I don’t! it’s a continuous struggle, and never a solution in sight (my husband is an academic too, he fully understands and shares in every aspect of home life, so that helps, but still having small children and raising a family is difficult)
7. What do you define success as?
there’s practical measures: research funding, awards from your peers, citations to your research publications, invitations to give important talks to the community
but ultimately the best evidence of success comes from a sense of self-satisfaction for having done the best you can and having contributing to the efforts of a whole community towards answering questions and solving the mysteries that surround us, also for having contributed to the mentoring of the next generation and see them succeed
8. What is one personality trait that you think is universally important for a successful career?
restlessness, curiosity, ego, self-drive
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?
probably my dad in a very complex way; he taught me hard work and pride - also his flaws taught me what to avoid
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?
follow your passion, ignore what others tell you when you see your path clearly, work hard, don’t pay attention to micro-agressions, focus, and project positive thoughts, they will reflect back on you
I hope this helps and sorry for the long delay!