Interview: Alexandra Gomez, IT Data Analyst & Conexión Latino ERO/ERG Leader 

By Angela Tai

You received your Masters of Science from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and you received your PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Drexel University. How did you become interested in the STEM field?

Initially, I wanted to be a doctor. I went as far as getting into medical school - my parents are from Haiti who migrated to this country. There’s a language barrier and there’s an educational difference too. They did their schooling in Haiti; when they came here, they didn’t go to college. They just started working and wanted to provide a better life for their children, my parents are very hardworking. One of the main things they always stressed to us is how important education was and how education was going to be our way out of poverty. They truly believed that education was going to be the way that people would respect you and open up new doors. That was ingrained in me ever since I was a child and I always did extremely well in math and science. I hated history and I hated writing essays although I did have to write a whole thesis but I prefer creative writing; I’d rather just be myself on the blog. My brain enjoys solving problems and then I started physics courses and realized that I can add math to science which was great. I got really good at it and my parents encouraged me to become a doctor. To them, that was the occupation to have because they wanted to tell all their friends that their daughter’s a doctor. I went through the whole process of medical school in terms of all the science classes in undergrad - organic chemistry, physics, genetics, human anatomy etc. I took the MCATS which is not an easy test at all and applied to medical school. I went through the interview process and got in but then I said nope. By the classes I was taking, I didn’t like medical science because I felt like I was reading and had to regurgitate. You have to read, suck it in, and spit it out on an exam. To me, that wasn’t fun. I guess I could’ve pushed myself to remember all those things but I didn’t care enough about it.. I sat down with my parents and told them that being a medical doctor wasn’t my dream and I can’t in good will start this program and get myself into $600,000 worth of debt just to be in a career that I hate. Instead I did a masters program, it was 30 credits and I could do that in a year and a half and be fine. It was during my master’s that I met a biomedical engineer and he was doing really cool research over at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) on prosthetic arms. He was trying to circuit a prosthetic to your brain so that it could send signals to your arm to move as opposed to most other people who wear prosthetics and have to physically move their arm. Technology has advanced a lot so you do have a lot of those that are on the market now but this was huge back in 2011. I’m like, “how can I get your job?!” I spoke to him after he gave this lecture and told him I was very interested in what he does. I told him that I have a very strong science background but I don’t have an engineering background - what can I do? He told me that I could go and get a second master’s in biomedical engineering so I applied to a bunch of masters programs in BME because I had a biomedical science degree. I got into NJIT and a couple of other schools. Drexel University in Philly actually gave me a call and asked me to come down which I thought was weird but I was also ready to move out of the NJ/NY area. After I met with them in Philly, they asked me why I was getting another master’s when I could get a PhD. I had never met anyone with a PHD and wasn’t even knowledgeable on what a PhD was. I didn’t know any scientists, I was exposed to nurses, doctors, lawyers, etc. I didn’t know how to start a PhD program and what it entailed and they told me it would take me five to seven years but they said it was free and that’s when I was like, “let’s talk some more about this!” I told them my concerns because I really wanted it to be engineering-based and they have a dual program where they allow you to take engineering classes and if you pass the exams, you’re an engineer. As you start passing the class, you take your qualifiers which is a written math test and if you pass that, then you automatically switch over to the engineering part of things so I did that and ended up with the second highest score on my qualifiers and that’s when I knew I was meant to be an engineer. That was how I got into my PhD program, I always tell people this was something I never could have dreamed of doing, I didn’t know it was possible. I didn’t know anyone with a PhD at all in the sciences. I didn’t know there were other careers you could do with the sciences - my whole STEM journey opened up at Drexel University. 

Have you always trusted your instincts? 

That’s all I ever trusted! I  really think I didn’t know what I wanted or exactly what I wanted to be. If you ask me now what I’m going to be doing in five years, I’ll say I don’t know but I know what I don’t want and I believe you should  run away from what you don’t want for sure. You follow things that interest you and then you figure it all out. I actually recently left academia and now I’m in government work because I knew I could be doing more with my voice and my experiences. I can help change the climate of what STEM education looked like for black men and women. I felt this pull even as I was doing my PhD and was in a lab...a part of me wanted to give back to the community and I did a lot of outreach and held workshops. I raised a lot of money to sponsor students. Also, as I mentioned before my parents are from Haiti and it was hit with crazy earthquakes and hurricanes that destroyed the country. I wanted to raise money for them, specifically for students. Students that their only meal was at these schools were now displaced, I always knew that being hands-on in the lab and doing experiments was important to me but a bigger part of me knew I could be doing something more for those people coming after me who don’t have the same opportunities I do or even just sharing my experiences so people don’t go through and make the same mistakes I did. For instance, you don’t need a master’s to get a PhD, that’s two years of loans that didn’t have to happen so that’s always something I like to tell students too. I just went on a rant haha but yes all in all, my instincts and my gut has gotten me this far!  

You were recently named the Member-At-Large (and the first black woman to sit on the board of directors) at the Orthopaedic Research Society. Congratulations! You were also candid about how you’ve struggled to find your community within your field/ORS in the past. What advice would you give to others who might be feeling like an “outsider” at work or in other areas of life? 

That’s a great question! After undergrad and my master’s, I realized that there were people who didn’t look like me in my PhD program. In undergrad, there were plenty of us. As you continue down this pipeline, less and less of us are there and people are dropping out left and right because we lack the support. And thus, you end up feeling like an outsider. This is why community is important.  Your community can be made up of anybody - it doesn’t have to be just professors or students. There was a point during my PhD program where the lady I spoke to the most was the secretary, she was another black woman. She just worked at the front desk but that became the person I was excited to see everyday. She became my support system too; she encouraged me along the way and we would have lunch together. She became a part of my community, a lot of us think that it has to be academia where we can find someone who looks like us but it could be people who are working the academic structure too. Further, I think some people think that they can’t have a community in terms of being friends with people who don’t look like them. One of my colleagues - she’s a white woman and she rides for me, she goes so hard for me if she sees something inappropriate going on or if she thinks people are speaking to me disrespectfully. Although I am the type of person to speak up for myself now too, it’s really great to have someone next to you who’s also speaking up for you. Then, there’s the virtual world. I’m a part of STEMNoire which connected me to a bunch of black women in the STEM fields, we meet every two weeks and that also became a part of my community. They became people I reach out to if I need advice and if we need help with x, y, or z, we reach out to one another and lean on each other. My advice is to think beyond community - it’s not just the people that’s in your immediate circle, it could be the people you meet in the virtual world or it can be your family. It could be people who work at the institution you’re in - it literally can be anyone. Gravitate towards that and lean on that because it’s going to be extremely important as you continue on down the pipeline because it does get harder and you can find yourself in a place where you do feel isolated because I went through that. That’s the best advice I have - think beyond what a traditional community may feel or look like to you.

You’ve participated in the Chery Charity Gala and you curated a Nanoparticle Workshop for the young girls who participated in the Girls Powered by STEM event. How can we get more young people excited about a career in STEM? 

I think the first thing to do is lure them with the coolest shit that you know. You have to show them the coolest science experiment because that’s how I got into it. I saw the coolest thing ever and my mind was blown away by the possibilities you can have in STEM. When you’re younger, when you think of scientists, you think of very boring people. You don’t think that they’re the ones out there making these Tesla cars, that’s super cool. But that’s not what we see - we see a picture of Albert Einstein and are like okay cool this guy figured out light, what’s next? When I’m speaking to younger men/women, my approach is to always do the most intriguing eye-catching experiment that I can. Once I do that and they’re excited, that’s when I’ll speak to them about my journey and the different career options that are there. During my PhD, I received a fellowship from NSF called GK12 that allowed me to spend a whole year at Philadelphia High School for girls in one their Chemistry class -  I came in twice a week and one of the days, I just sat in and chilled and observed. The other day, I would do some sort of experiment with them. The day that I sat in and chilled, I just wanted to see what they were like with their teachers and how interested they were in STEM. Anyways, I remember the first time I spoke in front of the class and I asked them if they knew what an engineer was. Many of them thought the engineers were the janitors because they’re called sanitation engineers right. I was like okay, that’s one way to look at it but I told them what an engineer does and I went through all of the different things in the classroom and stuff that they had in their hands that is created by an engineer or manufactured by some sort of scientist. They weren’t really interested in what I had to say so I came in the following week and did an experiment where I showed them how to hack an account. I gave them a scenario and told them that I needed to hack my man’s account so I know exactly what he’s posting. Then, I taught them how to code, how to bypass certain firewalls, it wasn’t anything major but introducing them to what computer scientists and engineers do got them so excited. They were hype about me coming in and doing these different things where their minds would be blown and just talking about different occupations that they can get into. Their minds were blown because I did something in STEM that piqued their interest, I met them on the level that they were on. I think that’s the big missing piece - we want people to meet us at our level instead of meeting them where they are. That’s what I did - I went home and tried to remember what I was like in 10th grade. For those who are trying to do outreach and draw young men and women into STEM, do a demo or experiment that’s going to wow them. You ease them into what the career is, what kind of opportunities are there, and what kind of work you can do with it. As a hardcore scientist, I never thought I’d be working at the Deparment of Defense and working on policies that affect STEM education but that’s an opportunity that came because I was already in the STEM field, got my PhD in it and that door opened up. 

Additionally, you were the 2018 Drexel University Student Commencement Speaker and you’ve spoken at a number of other notable conferences/events. In your opinion, what elements are essential for strong public speaking?

I have to thank my mom for that, my mom was a show mom. She threw me out there as a child to sing - I sang a lot when I was a kid so I got over stage fright very quickly because I was so used to singing in choirs and doing solos as young as five or six years old. I don’t do much now but that’s how people knew me when I was younger. When you come into the sciences, there is a level of imposter syndrome that you end up having. Even though you’re the most confident person.. when you stand up, there is this feeling that sinks into you where you feel like you’re not good enough and that you’re going to do a horrible job. There was a period of time where I thought I didn’t do too well with public speaking. My mentors always thought I did so well but I was always trying to spit it out and rush away. My biggest advice for people that feel that way is to know your stuff! Know your stuff and overly prepare yourself! Now whenever I have to give a scientific talk (which is very different from a talk about my journey), I spend a lot of time just talking because I’m comfortable with the material I’m presenting. Everyone needs to understand that when you’re doing a science presentation of your own research, you’re the expert and no one can tell you differently. This is something that you’ve been working on for x number of years; you’re the expert and if you come in with that mentality, then you’ll be okay. You’ll know that you’re educating everyone else on this subject matter, you’re the expert that has put in years of research and effort into this particular field. My advice is to overly prepare yourself and when you get up there, just relax. If you need to focus on one person in the crowd, then do that. And just allow your natural speaking voice to come out. 

You recently talked about your own experiences with microaggressions throughout your academic journey during the Annual STEM Success Summit. What are some ways to effectively deal with microaggressions at work? 

I always say microaggressions are a spectrum. There are people who have the best intentions and they don’t know that what they’re doing is offensive and then there are those who know exactly what they’re doing but they’re going to do it regardless so it’s a spectrum. Depending on where the person falls on the spectrum, determines how I react. During my post-doc, I had one of the most amazing mentors who was very open to listening to me educate him about these microaggressions and changing behaviors if need be. He was very open to it but then there’s people that I’ve met throughout my career who will bluntly say something and regardless of how many times you try to educate them on it, it wouldn’t matter. If the person is important to you and if they don’t have any malice behind what they said, simply just educate them on it. I think everything from prejudice to racism and discrimination comes from a lack of education. Now, I don’t think it’s a woman or black peoples’ jobs to educate anyone on this because there are a million resources in which you can educate yourself. If it’s a personal relationship that you have with this person and you want to maintain that relationship, I would say to simply educate them. For those who fall on the other end of the spectrum, you can either ignore it, call them out on it or you can make a joke back. I don’t think there’s any wrong way to answer microaggressions. Nobody can tell you how to react to them saying something offensive to your identity. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to respond but if it’s a personal relationship that I have with somebody, then I will educate them. If it’s not, depending on how outrageous it is, I will either report them or I will ignore it and just keep moving. 

You published a blog post about your own personal journey - you’re careful to note that you’re not just talking about your professional accomplishments but your mental and emotional state as well. In addition to journaling, how have you been able to find peace of mind in the midst of having a busy schedule? 

I think so many of us suffer in silence. I read somewhere that Instagram is kind of like a highlight reel - we put our best foot forward and show the best possible picture. We show people all these great accomplishments but never really talk about the journey of how we got there and the struggle that is behind the smile that you see. And, that was me. I’m a pretty charismatic person but I was in such a dark place and not speaking about it that it was affecting my own physical and mental health. I really wanted to write that blog post because I was able to eventually dig myself out of it and I honestly  feel like if I had spoken about it earlier on, it wouldn’t have gotten as bad as it did - in terms of the weight gain. It wouldn’t have taken so long for me to dig myself out of it if I had told people what I was going through instead of putting on this facade that everything was great. My goal with opening up about where I was for that one year of my life is that for those who are going through it, it is extremely normal that we go through these peaks and valleys of life. Everything is not always on the up and up. You’re not alone and you’re not the only one going through this, there’s people out there that you can learn to help get you through it as opposed to tumbling down a dark hole. For me, my comfort was food and I had to reimagine my whole relationship with food to get where I am right now. I’ve lost about sixty pounds and have since kept it off, I’m still on this journey but now it’s not about aesthetics anymore, it’s about how I feel on the inside so that’s what’s really important to me 

Your personal brand has quite a reach. How do you find inspiration for your posts and what are you trying to convey with your personal branding?

I don’t necessarily try to curate anything, there was a point that I did but that was early on when I felt like I couldn’t post a picture of myself in a sexy dress and could only be talking about science. I’m not trying to curate anything in particular, I’m just trying to be my very authentic self. One of the things that I really hope gets across from someone looking at my page is that there is no one definition of what a scientist or engineer should be. You can be into your hair and nails and also be in the lab curing cancer. You can be all things and I try to convey that; I am a woman of faith and having faith in my relationship with God is extremely important to me. I love my family and I love my friends; I love fashion and clothes but I also love science and doing outreach activities and teaching new techniques. I try to be my whole authentic self on my page and no cute, catchy captions either! I literally write captions the way I speak and that’s how I approach my blog too. I just speak naturally and people will either embrace it or they won’t but I promise you that the more you are yourself, the more people will gravitate towards you. 

You talk about facing our insecurities and fears head on. Can you share a moment in your career where you felt insecure or vulnerable and how did you overcome those thoughts?

There’s been so many but I think one was earlier on in my career. Before I was ortho heavy, my PHD mainly started off doing physics work and material work; I went to a physics conference and at the conference, I was a presenter, it was my first time doing a scientific talk at a conference. I put my hair in a bun and I hate how my hair looks in a bun, I think my head is too big and I don’t like it. I’m wearing a power suit and I have all the tags and I'm just walking around at this conference. I can’t begin to  tell you how many times I was stopped during that conference and asked if I work there. They’d ask me where the bathroom was or where they could get food and water. I’m standing there like, this is unreal! I’m sitting here in a bun and not looking like myself at all with this wack grey suit on. I’m trying to fit this part but I’m still looked at by other conference participants as a worker there and that really hurt. It also started settling this fear among me that I’m not meant to be here or that I didn’t belong here. I was about to give a talk but thought imposter syndrome was now sinking in and I’m thinking the audience would boo me out. And, I was at that conference alone, my mentor wasn’t there and none of my lab mates were there so I was there completely alone in a whole field that I didn’t know anything about. This was new to me at this point so fear started settling in and I started thinking “hey nobody would even know if I didn’t show up”. I literally sat in my hotel room and that’s what I said the night before my speech. But then, I called my parents and explained to them how I felt and my mom was like “okay, we have to cut this out - take that ugly bun out of your hair and put your loudest lipstick on and walk in there and give your presentation. We laughed because it was so funny and after I got off the phone with her, I decided that I was going to wear my hair how I wanted to and was determined to sit there and practice. I told myself, when I go in there, I’m the expert and I’m just going to go for it. At the end of the day, community was what helped me get through it. Community and being my authentic self was how I was able to overcome that moment because I was so close to sitting up in my hotel room, running up my mentor’s credit card for room service and then heading back home. I pushed through those fears and decided to just be myself and go for it. 

What keeps you doing what you’re doing? 

I won’t go into too much detail but all my experiences brought me to where I am now. I think everything that I went through on my journey has lit a fire in me to want to serve underprivileged communities. I am doing policy work right now, specifically educational policies for a targeted program at the Department of Defense for HBCU’s and MSI’s. I’m a AAAS fellow at the DoD and I work with Ms. Evelyn Kent who is awesome. Our whole program wants to strengthen the capacity of research at HBCU’s and MSI’s. Now, we do this a few different ways by giving grants, establishing centers of excellence, putting internships together for the students throughout the summer so that they can go into the DoD laboratories and run experiments. We have town halls, outreach events and we bring in black scientists to motivate the students. I do believe in helping people, more than just the individual. In government policy, you can touch a large number of people at once, they have nine centers of excellence at nine different institutions across the country. That’s nine different cohorts who are not only being supported throughout their journey but they’re learning so much about different opportunities in STEM, workforce placements, etc. This is all because we petitioned congress to support this community of scientists. What keeps me going now is knowing that I can impact so many people on a larger scale than what I was doing in academia. Petitioning congress and the senate and learning about what the white house initiatives are towards increasing blacks in the STEM field - that’s extremely fulfilling to me. Meeting the students who are benefitting from these large grants and all of these modernization priorities that are important to the DoD is also so fulfilling to me. That’s what keeps me going - knowing there’s a community of people out there that I can help and now be a part of their community.