In this episode, Jan Naegele, PhD, and her former graduate student, Megan Van Zandt, PhD, discuss strategies for building confidence and public speaking skills as a scientist, touching on personal experiences from graduate school to current research endeavors. Dive into their stories about mentoring, public speaking, and the importance of collaboration in the lab. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of science and effective communication!
>> Jan Naegele: My name is Jan Naegele I, am professor of, science and mathematics, at Wesleyan University, in the department of biology. And, I'm now emeritus. and, my laboratory worked for, my career, really, on studying, epilepsy and cell death associated with epilepsy and neuronal replacement strategies, including methods for trying to encourage, transplanted cells to form new synapses and endogenous cells to form new synapses. The overarching interest of the lab, has always been in the GABAergic interneurons, the inhibitory interneurons of the cortex and the hippocampus. And here today with me is, my former graduate student, Meghan Van Zandt, who will introduce herself.
>> Meghan Van Zandt: Hi there. I'm Meghan Van Zandt. And as Jan said, I got my doctorate in her lab. I'm currently a associate research scientist at Yale University. Recently graduated from postdoc. And I'm currently working on, looking at sex differences in the striatum and how they contribute to various behaviors. I'm particular interested in circuits that are relevant to Tourette syndrome pathology. And just recently published a paper on how there are sex differences in histaminergic regulation, of dopamine in the striatum. so, that should be getting published very soon, which I'm very happy about. And I worked in Jan's lab. I was working a lot on GABAergic synapse formation relative to synaptic proteins like Neuroligin-2 and how they had differential outcomes on behavior. And in the transplantation project, I worked on how whether these are transplanted interneurons could form synapses and improve behavioral and memory deficits in our epileptic mice. So that's about what I'm doing at the moment. And I hope to continue looking at the sex differences and how they impact behavior and pathology.
>> Jan Nagle: Thanks, Meghan for that introduction to your research and your position. congratulations on the promotion to an associate research scientist at Yale. and also congratulations on your recent publication.
>> Meghan Van Zandt: I'm very excited about it.
>> Jan Nagle: I can't wait to see that come out. Today we're going to talk a little bit about communication and confidence building as a scientist. of course, confidence building involves a lot of things when you're in graduate school and as a trainee. so I wanted to ask you to talk a little bit about, our early. Really, our early meetings, together and how we met when you came to Wesleyan University. You can say a little bit maybe about your rotations and selecting the lab that you ended up in. In my lab and why, and what your goals were as a beginning graduate student. And then we can talk a little bit about, writing and public speaking.
>> Meghan Van Zandt: Sounds good. So I remember those years ago when I first came to Wesleyan. I was at an interesting transitory point in my career because I had originally planned on going to veterinary school. And at that point I had. Was coming to the realization that that wasn't going to happen. But I was starting to consider alternate options. And I looked at research and I've said, this is really cool. This is really interesting. This is potentially something I want to do. So Wesleyan was one of the first places that I came to, looking, to potentially get into research. And that's when I met you, when I came to do the interviews. And I think something that I really enjoyed when I first came to Wesleyan, to do the interviews was that you'd sort of. It wasn't just an interview. It was an introduction to all the interesting things that everybody's labs were doing. We got to. I got to get a real feel for the research by talking with everybody. And you just one of the great things you did, you just made me feel very welcome there. It wasn't as stressful as I was expecting. It felt like you were sort of taking me into the fold and saying, look, this is what you're doing. Is this something you might be interested in? And by the time you. You invited me to breakfast the next day after the interviews, and I just, you know, thought I would like to work with this person. I would like to be involved in this project. And that was about the time where you introduced me to the group, effort that. The epilepsy project, the transplants and everything. And I just thought that was so neat, especially since I did have an interest in the brain, based. Because I had a grandmother who had Alzheimer's. So I was interested in brain pathology and different circuits that might contribute to that. So eventually, I got the call from you guys, inviting me to come to Wesleyan, which was very. I was actually on the train to Boston when I got the call. So I didn't get it right away, and my parents called me up saying, check your messages. Wesleyan invited you to be part of the PhD program. And it was. So I'm in Boston, jumping around, celebrating, having the best times. It was a wonderful trip because of that. so I came in and Wesleyan, has the great system where you do rotations in different labs before you finally end up where you want to be. Which I think is great. You get a different handle on different neuroscience techniques that you may or may not end up using, and you get a feel for the different projects. I ended up rotating in the three labs involved in the transplantation project. You know, Jan's lab, and then also Dr. Aaron's lab and Dr. Grable's lab. And eventually I decided I like the behavioral aspects. I like the immunohistochemistry. I like that aspect the most. So I ended up back in Jan's lab. And I like. I mean, I love Gloucester and I love Laura, but I, I think I wanted to work with Jan the most, so. And, that's how I finally ended up.
>> Jan Nagle: And I was so happy when you decided to join the lab. and particularly because you had this long abiding and strong interest in doing behavior. And so you brought this commitment to doing something that is quite difficult to do in mice. Right. It's to test cognitive function in mice. And they're not the most cooperative little creatures. And, I do remember you having to, invent. Really. one thing that really stands out about your inventiveness and creativity when you came into the lab was troubleshooting the novel object recognition task.
>> Meghan Van Zandt: Oh, yes.
>> Jan Nagle: And this, this makes me. I think this makes us both laugh for probably the same reason, which is your love of all things Disney.
>> Meghan Van Zandt: Yeah, I love animation and cartoons and Disney, so.
>> Jan Nagle: And that led to seeing whether Disney figurines would be suitable for novel object recognition tasks in mice. So that was a hilarious lab meeting, as I recall.
>> Meghan Van Zandt: yes, I believe in our, lab meeting slideshow, I had a data slide with a mouse perched on the head of a Disney princess figurine.
>> Jan Nagle: Right.
>> Meghan Van Zandt: I went through so many novel objects to try and test ones that A, the mouse could not move and B, that they could not climb on top of. So I had a plethora of dollar store objects that I had acquired for this test.
>> Jan Nagle: Exactly. And I had envisioned we would be using something simple like Legos, but as long as you could sterilize it with alcohol, it was a suitable object.
>> Meghan Van Zandt: So try the Legos. The mice started moving them around the cage. So it was either use sticky tack to hold them down or chew something else.
>> Jan Nagle: So you were quite inventive when it came to animal behavior. and that makes me also think back about, in your first, during your first rotation or after your first rotation in the lab, you were, giving a talk to the department. So once a year, the graduate students would present their research to the entire department. Perhaps one of the most intimidating things a first or second year graduate student at Wesleyan goes through. And, one is often asked questions you try to anticipate, but you never can, like statistical analyses and then more general knowledge. Questions that come from botanists or entomologists in the department because it is a department of integrative biology. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about, how public speaking was a challenge for you. and I remember every piece of writing you did was on almost perfect when you gave it to me. So you came to graduate school with really outstanding writing skills, but without experience giving public talks.
>> Meghan Van Zandt: Right. In my undergrad career, I didn't do a lot of presentations. And even if they were, it's just in front of a class. like I said, I was originally interested in going to veterinary school. So I hadn't really considered public speaking as becoming a major part of my career. But now that I'm a research scientist, obviously it's a center stone of what I do. I have to present what I've, what I've discovered to the world. So I remember my first, big departmental presentation. I was absolutely terrified because I hadn't done public speaking before. And this was a big audience. And not only was it people in our field, but as you said, we had the big department with ecology and all sorts of different scientists from different fields. So I, I had no idea what I was doing going in. I was scared. so a major part of me developing as a scientist was learning to overcome this fear. And as Jan said, I was. The writing aspect wasn't an issue. I was fortunate enough to have a mom who was an educator, and she always encouraged the development of vocabulary and writing skills. So writing was something I had confidence on, but actually presenting that writing, that was an issue. So I think one of the, one of the most useful pieces of advice that you gave me, Jan, going into this was to visualize success when you're giving a presentation. So you go in, you envision yourself getting up, presenting your data perfectly. Everybody understands. And you get a big round of applause at the end. And, you know, just thinking, I'm going to get through this. I can do this. I have done it. Well, at that point, I hadn't done it before, but during the future presentations, I've done it before, I'm not going to have a problem just thinking that helps with the confidence to move forward through it. And then the other useful piece of advice that Jan gave me was to sort of get training in public speaking. Which is where we got the. Jan recommended that I try Toastmasters. And where did you get that? The idea for Toastmasters from again, Jan.
>> Jan Nagle: So this for folks who haven't heard about it. Toastmasters is a national organization, community based groups, folks, who for the most part are post college and are out in the workforce and have a fear of public speaking often. So these meetings were in the evening locally in Middletown, but they're in most major towns and cities I think across the US I first heard about Toastmasters from a course that used to be offered by Michael, Zigman and Beth Fisher called Survival Skills for Neuroscientists. And I, went to a trainer session for how to teach survival skills and heard about Toastmasters as a way to get graduate students and postdocs up to speed in giving public presentations. So I have never been to a Toastmaster meeting. But you have. Tell us what it was like for you.
>> Meghan Van Zandt: So the meetings are actually quite nice for developing different aspects of a talk because they have two different. They have multiple different forms of practice. They have the spontaneous talks where you just have to get up and give a presentation on whatever topic they give you without any preparation. Which is great for preparing for those questions that you're not expecting because you have to learn to think on your feet and speak fluently about a topic. And then they also had you give speeches that you'd prepare before the meeting. And so that's you know, good practice for preparing for a talk and giving it. And there'd, you know, be little short talks as well, just you know, to practice giving a quick speech and communication. And it was really a nice set of different activities to train different aspects of your speaking skills as well. They had little modules that would help you with various aspects such as being aware of pause words like um, and ah, and those kinds of little blurbs that sneak into your speech and to be aware of those and try to, you know, cut down on using them too often during speaking. But it would be a meeting about once a week. I think. I drove up to the, I believe it was a community college where I was being held and it was a group of. I think there were about 20 of us there. So it was nice practice to be able to talk in front of people, I don't know, from all walks of life. And it was great practice for what I had to do. And it really helped with my speaking skills. I think I went for about a year and we definitely saw an improvement afterwards. So it was probably the best advice you ever gave me for public speaking Jan. It really helped with the.
>> Jan Nagle: And I think we were laughing that that's one of those things where, yes, we would practice your talk before your department seminars. We would always practice in lab meetings and individually in my office. But here was something that I was really outside of the graduate program entirely, outside of any mentoring that I did for you. And it was available in the local community. And you took the initiative to, go to that and go many times to that, and it paid off in the end. as I recall, you received. The faculty nominated you for the, best graduate PhD presentation. your year of graduating from Wesleyan. So you. You walked away with a really nice prize and a feather in your cap for all the work that you'd put into your public speaking. And I'm sure it's paid off as a postdoc and as a research scientist at Yale, where you have to give many talks. I think the other thing about it is as neuroscientists, we think about public outreach, now more than ever, because it's really important for, the lay people to understand how much, neuroscience contributes to human health and understanding of disease processes and cures. I think that being able to speak about one's work in terms that anybody can understand, with a reasonable education is really, really important skill, lifelong skill. And it also comes in useful at weddings when you have to give a toast.
>> Meghan Van Zandt: That's true. Yeah. It's something I've been thinking about lately a lot. About my work, trying to communicate to the general public versus a scientific community. Obviously, when I'm giving my departmental talk here every, every semester, it's a lot different than if I need to go in front of a group of students or, just the general public and talk about what I'm doing. So I think a lot of what I've learned is, you know, why is this work important? You got to talk about the broader picture and get people to understand how that relates back to that. And that's definitely a skill I developed working with you and now working with Chris Pittenger, who's my current mentor. And it's just so important these days, as you said, since science is in a rough period at the moment.
>> Jan Nagle: Well, I'm so thrilled that, you're staying in science and that you're using those skills. And I remember, also that, one of the areas where your communication skills were honed was, in our lab meetings, there were a couple ways in which communication became really important in lab meetings. For one, the graduate students in particular, and I think you were one of the really regular, steadfast members of the lab who did this. But everyone was asked to present one data slide at the weekly lab meeting. One thing where you said, Here's a question. Here's what I did to address this question, and here are some results, and explain those results and what they meant, and then talk about maybe what you were going to do the next week. So it was just a microcosm of a talk based on one or maybe two slides. The other thing was, I wanted to ask you about was that for the longest time, I don't think anyone took me up on my offer to pay them a dollar if they asked a question in one of our departmental seminars.
>> Meghan Van Zandt: I forgot about that.
>> Jan Nagle: I used to try to bribe my graduate students and undergrads in the lab to speak up at departmental seminars, and that dollar pretty much stayed on my desk for months and months. But I don't know if you ever got up the nerve to ask a question, but I believe you did.
>> Meghan Van Zandt: Yes, I believe I did, but I forgot about the dollar thing. So that wasn't important. But, yeah, our lab meetings, they were a great place to discuss what was currently going on. It was nice that we shared a data slide every week, so we got an idea of what everybody was doing. And it was a great place to, you know, work on troubleshooting as well, since we would also present any problems that we were having. Did you want me to talk a bit about one of my favorite, troubleshooting moments that we went through in that lab meeting?
>> Jan Nagle: Sure. By way of rose, bud, thorn?
>> Meghan Van Zandt: Rose, bud, thorn. So I remember for the longest time with my work looking at synapse formation, I was trying to use a viral vector in order to induce overexpression of neuroligin-2 which is a synaptic scaffolding protein, in order to see if that could recruit additional GABAergic synapses. But for some reason, we could not get it into the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus, which is a very, very small target. So, during one of our meetings, I presented this problem, saying, look, we're not seeing any of this expression. So Jan said, okay, maybe try going back to the literature and see if you can find any information about targeting the dentate gyrus and see if you can troubleshoot this problem. So I did, and I found this one single paper about, instead of using exact coordinates for stereotaxic injections, instead you used a formula to calculate the distance between bregma and lambda and then injected based on those. And wouldn't you know, after doing that, I was able to successfully target the dentate gyrus with almost every single injection.
>> Jan Nagle: Yeah, truly, precision targeting of the mouse hippocampus and the dentate gyrus became your thing. And you're able then to go on and train new members of the lab and how to do this.
>> Meghan Van Zandt: Yeah, our targeting was very consistent after that, which was. I felt very proud that I was able to figure that one out.
>> Jan Nagle: Absolutely. That led to many, many other discoveries. So let's talk a little bit about rose, bud, thorn as a communication mechanism for lab meetings. I learned about this, from. I think I may have learned about this from a student. and it. And I can't remember exactly who introduced it, but it was a student who introduced it as a possible way that we could, come together in lab meetings. And at the time, the lab meetings were still in person before the pandemic, come together at the beginning of a lab meeting and be present. Have everyone be present in what was going on in the lab meeting. Not looking at their cell phones, not thinking about the test they just came out of and whether they did well or poorly, not thinking about what they were going to have for lunch or dinner, but being present in the moment. And that seemed to really help us come together and talk about science. So it's, a warmup exercise, an icebreaker called rose, bud, thorn. The rose is like a rose, a beautiful thing that had happened to oneself that week. So what was one thing that you held up as the loveliest thing, the best thing that had happened? The bud was the rose bud, the thing that's forming that you're looking forward to in anticipation. And that the thorn was like the thorn of a rose sticking in your finger and pricking you, making you bleed, making you unhappy. Failure, to get precise targeting of your injections on the mouse hippocampus was the thorn for you for a while. what do you remember about this icebreaker? How did it make you feel about the lab members or each other yourself?
>> Meghan Van Zandt: Honestly, I thought it was a great idea. We started doing it, I think, about halfway through my time with you, and I thought it worked out quite nicely because I think it's also a great tool for sort of guiding your thinking process for the week. Here's something I did, here's something I'm going to be doing, and here's something I'm having a problem with. I feel like sometimes, especially, with the thorn part, people are reluctant to talk about things that are going wrong or things that are bothering them. So I think. True, I think, you know, sort of being forced. I don't really mean anybody was forced to do anything, but, being encouraged to bring up problems makes people more willing to talk about them and then actually get help with them. Instead of trying to be like, oh, I'm just gonna keep this problem to myself and try to solve it on my own. And then you struggle with it. And getting a different point of view is so helpful sometimes because people have different perspectives, people have different experiences, and.
>> Jan Nagle: And that's nothing to be ashamed about.
>> Meghan Van Zandt: Yeah. You know, never be ashamed of making mistakes. That's something I also learned from you.
>> Jan Nagle: Or even the Thorn. It's like it actually involves other people in problem solving with you. and that engagement makes for more cohesion and cooperation in a team. So it was not just an icebreaker, it was team building. I think when it worked well.
>> Meghan Van Zandt: Yeah. And I feel like it did work well. working with Dan, Kevin, all the talented undergrads in our lab, Jyoti, I feel like we worked really well as a group. We were able to go to each other and ask questions and say, hey, what's your thoughts on this? I'm having an issue with it and, of course, asking you as well. And, the rose, bud, thorn thing helped to guide that in the lab meetings. And even if we couldn't solve it during the meeting, it put a pin in it for later to talk in the lab up in our little office area.
>> Jan Nagle: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
>> Meghan Van Zandt: And I. I think the format also worked well because you start out with something positive, you know, to sort of lead into later the problem. So I think it's good to start with a positive thing as well.
>> Jan Nagle: And I like the fact that as. As, ah, the PI at the lab, everyone, had to hear that I also had a rose, a bud, and a thorn, and that, you know, I could. I was able to share the things that were really, the thorn in my side, in the group. And, I think that was, you know, always thinking in terms of trainees becoming future scientists. I think it's important to realize what the life of a faculty member is like, what the life of a department chair is like, what's going on, after training, when you've become a faculty member, what it's like to head a lab. And I had to be careful about what I said was my thorn. Of course. and also I was careful about, acknowledging success of each member of the lab. So those were important times for us. And then we took that during the, in 2020, we took that exercise on with our online weekly lab meetings. And I recently came, back on a screenshot I took during the spring of 2020 of a lab meeting. And every person in the picture is laughing about something. Probably somebody had a very funny, funny thing that they said about the thorn. So there was a lot of humor in some of those meetings as well. So, I think that we might want to kind of end with a question. Do you and I, I guess I'll respond this is as well. Do mentor and mentees need to think? What are your thoughts on that?
>> Meghan Van Zandt: Well, I think that on some level there has to be cohesion between a mentor and a mentee. Obviously your goals should align for the future. you both have to want to do good science. You have to be motivated moving forward and the mentor has to support the mentee in their professional development. But you know, it's, they, there's not always agreement on everything. For example, sometimes the mentee may decide they don't want to do something in the lab. I'm, sure you remember that one incident where I came into your office and said, Jan, of course it was not that clear. I was waffling back and forth because, you know, I admire you so much and I was a little worried about disappointing you at the time. But I knew I could tell you, despite that because you're a great mentor and you understand. But I came in and finally you said, Meghan spit it out. And I said, Jan, I don't want to do cell culture.
>> Jan Nagle: I remember that.
>> Meghan Van Zandt: I admire people greatly who can do it. But my results were not coming out the way I wanted, no matter what I was doing. So I think very well. So I think that's something that's important, that mentors and mentees aren't always going to be on the same page about everything. But the really important thing is the ability to communicate and to compromise and to talk about issues that might be occurring, changes you might want to do to whatever you're working on and you know, to come to an agreement on what these, clashes might be. So I think that while you have to be on the same page about some things, it's okay to be on different pages as long as you're able to discuss it clearly communicate your thoughts about it, and then come to a resolution at the end.
>> Jan Nagle: I think that's a really good response to the question. And I don't differ with you on any of those points at all. I completely agree that, communication and confidence building go hand in hand together. for trainees. And building, the confidence to be able to go back to your mentor and say, this project isn't working for me. I have put my heart and soul into it. It's not working. I'm really frustrated. Can I take a break from this or can I do something else? And, hopefully there are many, many ways to ask a question and many different approaches that can be used. So that's where confidence, the confidence to be able to say what you're thinking becomes, very important.
>> Meghan Van Zandt: Yeah. And that's just such an important trajectory for building a relationship with your mentor is that ability to communicate and to alter course based on experience and compromise. And I always. That's something that you always instilled in me, was that I could come over to your office anytime and discuss what I need to discuss with you and have the confidence to say, to tell you my opinions, even if they might differ from yours.
>> Jan Nagle: And I was always interested in listening too, because you were usually spot on, With your concerns about the science. I
>> Meghan Van Zandt: And I think, thanks to you, I was able to build up that confidence in my career. I came in, you know, straight from the veterinary failure, starting to do, scientific research. No idea what I was doing. I felt like I was lost at first. And then you helped build me up in. From being a nervous little early scientist to a confident presenter and someone who could have confidence, in my work and go on to become a associate research scientist here at Yale and do my big presentation every semester and go on to present at the Society for Neuroscience multiple times. I was able to. Oh, I was able to actually do a mini, symposium last year at another conference with another group, talking about a, big review we did on sex differences in OCD over the past 10 years, a big review article. So actually doing a symposia was a big leap for me. And that confidence really helped with that as well.
>> Jan Nagle: So can you say a few words about how communication and confidence is going to shape your future career goals? Or is shaping your future career goals?
>> Meghan Van Zandt: Absolutely. So I've always. Well, not always. At the start, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. Again, as I said, I had just gotten into research. But as I went along, my relationship with you, Jan, helped inspire me to want to do what you do. I'd like to run my own lab someday and help mentor undergrads. So I want to be able to nurture the same kind of relationship, the same kind of confidence with my future, mentees that you had with me. And right now, things are a little bit complicated. And I'm still working on my other research here as well. But that's something that I want to do in the future as I keep moving forward. And, hopefully I will be able to do it. So I want to be able to pay it forward.
>> Jan Nagle: Wonderful. And I'm so glad, that we're able to keep in touch with each other frequently, the way we do, since we live just a few miles away from each other. and, you're doing so well at Yale and also have expanded your mentoring team there to include Marina Picciotto. So you've got, in addition, you have other mentors as well. So I'm really proud of the way you've sought, different kinds of mentors and sought out training and learning many of the techniques and skills that will put you in very good standing, for starting your own lab in a faculty position.
>> Meghan Van Zandt: Yeah, it's been great building up a bigger mentoring team here. Part of that was in the development of a K grant that I submitted that I'm waiting to hear back about. Scored well, though. So I've been learning all kinds of new techniques that are going to help me build my lab, thanks to these people. Fiber photometry, genetics. It's just so fun to be building this different toolbox with different experts in the field, and every mentorship relationship is different. But it's been great to have a great team here as well.
>> Jan Nagle: Well, great. thanks so much for meeting with me today and talking about the communication and confidence building and, career development. We could add that third C into this. Communication, confidence and career development.
>> Meghan Van Zandt: Gotta love the alliteration.
>> Jan Nagle: Exactly.
>> Meghan Van Zandt: But, yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to what the future is going to bring. And obviously, you'll be one of the first people to know every time something exciting happens. Because whenever I get something published or if I'm going to get a. a grant, scored well or something, I say I've got to tell Jan about this. She'll be excited to know.
>> Jan Nagle: Absolutely. I'm a big cheerleader for you,
>> Jan Nagle: Bye.
