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Ep 69: BioBus of the Future - The Journey

• Shekerah Primus & Fatu Badiane • Season 4 • Episode 14

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Today Latasha Wright, co-founder and executive scientific officer of BioBus takes us through her career journey, which had some very unexpected twists and turns along the way. Her childhood began in Mississippi as the youngest of 5 children. Both her parents nurtured the importance of education through constant exposure to books and just asking, “What did you learn today?”. Once Latasha started high school, however, she truly discovered her love of science with an incredible science teacher who encouraged mixing things together and blowing things up! She continued her education at Tougaloo College, a historically black college and university (HBCU), determined to get her degree in chemistry. As a college student, Latasha also received the Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC U-STAR) scholarship. She also confidently declared her interest in going to graduate school for a PhD–but she didn’t know what a PhD actually was! This experience opened the doors to completing a program at the NIH, giving her first-hand experience in lab research. And, Latasha absolutely loved every minute of it. Excited for her future as a scientist, it was now time for Latasha to apply to programs; she was grappling between NYU, Berkeley, and Emory. However, a chance encounter with the associate dean of NYU changed her trajectory completely, and she ended up attending NYU. After receiving her doctorate in cellular and molecular biology, she completed two post-doctoral fellowships at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Weill Cornell Medical College. By chance, during her time back in NYC she met Ben Dubin-Thaler, and that connection led to the creation of BioBus. Currently, Latasha is really excited about bringing BioBus to the Bronx with a Community Lab. And she keeps reminding herself to “Be ready for the journey, it's gonna be good!”.

Tune into this episode to hear about Latasha’s journey and:

  • How Latasha learned about the option of completing a Ph.D.
  • Why she decided to go to NYU over Berkley and Emory
  • What convinced her to transition from academia to science-outreach with BioBus


Reach out to Latasha: 

Email: latasha@biobus.org

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/latasha-wright-95bb7a16/ 

Book a BioBus visit: https://www.biobus.org/programs 


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Music from Pixabay: Future Artificial Intelligence Technology 130 by TimMoor
Music from https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Holmes: Hotshot by ScottHolmesMusic

Some journeys are just explosive, like literally. And that's exactly what you'll hear on today's show as we continue our conversation with Dr. Latasha Wright, who is the co-founder and executive scientific officer of BioBus. To hear more about the inspiring work she does with BioBus, check out the previous episode. What was your favorite part of this episode, Shekerah?

I really just loved interacting with Latasha. her energy is so incredibly infectious. So, that was a fun conversation. But you mentioned explosive and I think that was a theme throughout her career journey. She seemed to make these really bold moves. Even her decision to leave her job to start this nonprofit organization, right? That was definitely a bold move. What was your favorite part?

Yeah. Yeah. And I loved hearing the full story of how BioBus was founded. And you're right, it was a bold move, but also the way she did it, like no hesitation. just leaning all in, just being like, I'm just going to take the jump and see what happens. That kind of certainty is rare and priceless. But as they say, when you know, you know.

Yep. It is a really great story. So, let's listen and enjoy. 

Hi everyone, welcome back to the show. We love science. Our guest today is Dr. Latasha Wright, who is the co-founder and executive scientific officer at BioBus, a nonprofit organization that helps K to2 and college students discover, explore, and pursue science. We learned all about her work in the last episode and had so much fun. So, if you missed it, just hit the link in the show notes. So, Latasha, we're going to jump into the journey segment of our conversation. And this is kind of, you know, how you take us down the road of where things started for you in grad school or even before grad school to where you are now as the executive scientific officer at BioBus. So, let's jump right in. Did you have a science spark or any science wow moments growing up? Like what was it that really drove your curiosity as a kid to want you to pursue science as a career now?

Yes. So, I'm originally from Mississippi and I was the youngest of five kids. Um, I had four older brothers and my mom was a stay-at-home mom and my dad was a long shoreman. Um, long shoreman for people don't know what that is, it's like a dock worker.

Okay.

And so my mom was very into education and we read books all the time. And my dad, every time I came home from school, he would be like, "Did you learn anything new today?" And I would be like, you know, then I would have to tell him what I learned new today, blah blah blah. And then when I became a teenager, I was like, "There's nothing new under the sun. fun had to had to put on a little Shakespeare on the computer like a as you can see I was a little smart Alec when I was a teenager. Um but then I in high school I got this really great science teacher Mr. Pley and he really made science uh hands-on for me and really he indulged me to do a lot of crazy things things you can do in Mississippi. You can't do in New York.

Oh,

yeah. We make gasoline bubbles, set them on fire.

Oh, Lord.

We had explosions. We had We mix things together. I love blowing things up and I love fire. And all of those things. And so I was like, "Yeah, I'm doing this for a living." So I became a chemistry major in college. I went to Tougaloo College in Mississippi. It's the H.B.CU. So, I majored in chemistry there. And during our first week in college during orientation week, I went to the science center. And I was like, "Oh, what's happening here?" And they were like, "Oh, are you going to be starting?" And I was like, "Yeah." And then I was just kind of talked about how much I love science. And they were like, "Oh, well, you should apply to this scholarship." And I was like, "Okay." And it ended up being the Mark scholarship. And that was that's minority access to research careers.

And they asked me, you know, to get everything in even though I was past the deadline. I I saw my teachers from high school to get my stuff in and they did. They were like impressed at how fast Mr. Pley acted all this stuff

and then they asked me in the interview they were like do you want to do a PhD or MD and I knew that I did not want to do medical school but I didn't know what PhD was and so I was like PhD

the confidence oh my god

I started the confidence cuz I didn't know what PhD was and I said PhD of course Yeah.

Oh my goodness.

So, I ended up getting the scholarship and it was like two, it was interesting cuz two freshmen out of the whole school got it and me and this other girl.

Oh, wow.

Wonderful.

Congratulations.

Then I looked up what PhD meant and I was like research. I was like, "Oh, okay." Cuz you know, when I was coming into school, I wanted to do engineering and chemical engineering because I'm from the south and we have a lot of, you know, BPs and Chevrons and I do a lot of engineers. I didn't know any PhDs. I just knew engineers and I was like, "Oh, you know, I want to be an engineer." Cuz that life was like looking like the good life for me. And I was like, "Ah, I could be an engineer." Then I started doing, you know, but now now that I have this, you know, the scholarship, they're like teaching me how to do science. So, we're doing pipetting. And I was like, "Oh, this is fun." And then I got a um I went to the NIH after my freshman year and I fell in love with science.

Nice. I had a really great a really great advisor and he just kind of taught me how to do tissue culture. He taught me how to run jails and then I was like, "You're letting me." And he was like, "All right, go do it." And I was like,

I was just so excited. It was like I almost felt like it was like I was doing secret mission and only I was learning things and then I had to tell the world about this

and I like they needed me to tell them how great it was and I was like I can do this, you know. And I felt like that was what science was. It's like you're f find any of these answers that everybody's been thinking about and then you were sharing it and everybody's like whoa and you're like yeah I got that you know and that was like how I thought science was now I look back it's kind of crazy but yeah it just like it is that and that just had that spark of loving discovery and gave me that spark of like independence of being able to really think about my own question and going and trying to figure it out and then telling people about it. I love that aspect

hearing about your journey has been just like really incredible, especially about how your sort of ideas of what you wanted to do as a career changed from originally being a chemical engineer because that's kind of what you were exposed to to then kind of being like, "Oh, no, I'm going to do a PhD even though you didn't know what a PhD was, which is a little bit of a risk." But honestly, we have had, you know, like several guests on this show where that's kind of how they end up doing PhDs is they just, you know, kind of find out about it by chance and then it ends up being like, you know, a cool thing for them.

I think that the reason why I wanted to do chemical engineering was because I knew engineers and I never had met a PhD before. I went into college and so I think that is one of the powers of bio is like second graders are meeting PhDs

and like understand what PhDs are. Like I think that I didn't know I think I would have been interested in research if I had have known that it was an option

and so like I think it's like exposure is important and like I was exposed to a bunch of engineers cuz a lot of people that I knew were either engineers or you know engineer adjacent.

Yeah. Yeah.

And so I went to NIH for two years and then I went to Hopkins after that and during that time I met Joel Oenheim who was the senior associate dean of NYU at that time and so he came to Tougaloo to recruit to make sure people know about grad school and stuff like that. So he came down to Tugaloo and we did a little roleplaying thing where he was the, you know, student and I was the teacher and he was like, you know, did everything you're not supposed to do in an interview and I was just kind of tearing him down and stuff. Like this is really you're really funny. I was like a you know he was like let's keep in touch. And I was like okay. And so we kept in touch and I would see him cuz Mark had these like abberams. It's abberams now. Um so it was different back in my day or something probably these abberams and so we would go and present and I would see him there and I remember when I was applying to grad school I saw him and he was like you're applying to grad school. I was like yeah he was like you apply to NYU. I was like no. I was like I don't want to live in New York. He was like well okay well what if I wave the application fee when you apply? I was like, "Maybe." And he was like, "Okay, let me give you an application and fly and give you wave the fee." And I was like, "Okay." And I remember thinking, "Okay, I'll just apply because it's free, whatever."

Yeah.

Cuz at that time, I really had my heart set on Berkeley or Emory.

And so, um, then I was like, "Okay." And so I applied. And then, of course, then when I started to do interviews for grad school, I think NYU was the interview, like the third interview that I went to. And And as soon as I landed, I was like, "Okay, I'm here. This is me." And when I went through the interview process, it was like no microaggressions. I was like, "Wait, where are the microaggressions end up in this joint?"

And it was just so welcoming and I really enjoyed everything. Every person here like when I when I interviewed, it just felt like natural that I was there. And then like after that weekend, he called me and he was like, "Everybody loved you." He was like, like you should accept. Are you going to accept? And I was like, uh, I still have Berkeley. I still have. He was like, just cancel those. I need you to go ahead and cancel those interviews. I need you to cancel that. And I was like, but I had those interview. He was like, no, I need you just to call him and tell him no. And I was like, all right, let me let me let you know. And so I went to the Berkeley interview. I didn't like it at all. He called me back. He was like, right, Berkeley suck, right? Right. Right. Right. I was like, like, "Okay, look, I'm so When you going to cancel those things though, for real?" And I was like, "Okay, I'm canceling everything else. I'm going to take NYU." Um,

you did the hardcore press.

Wow.

Which is, you know, you got to do the hardcore press, you know.

Yeah.

And so I came to NYU and it was a great experience. I got my PhD here. Um, and then I went back to Hopkins for my postdoc because I really wanted to do like more site stuff. Um, and I love the work, but I hate impossible.

New York, like back in the day with the Chinatown bus was $20. Yeah.

You know,

I remember that.

Yeah. You might be taking your life in your hands, but it still was $20. So, I was like in New York every weekend. And my friend's husband said,

"Okay,

okay, honey. You need to find your life in Baltimore. Don't go back to New York."

In Baltimore for a while, and then I was like, "I want to move back to New York. So I moved back to New York.

Okay.

And I found a place at Cornell to do another postdoc. And then I was like at that point I was thinking do I really want to stay in academia? I was just starting to think like okay I got to figure out what I'm going to do next you know and I was really into yoga at that time and my yoga instructor was like oh you're a scientist. My friend's a scientist you guys should meet. And then she introduced me to Ben and then like hey

I got this bus. We doing this thing bro. And I was like

awesome. Wow.

And so that's the way we connected through yoga uh through our yoga teacher.

And so then we connected cuz we would have never met any other way.

True. Yeah.

Yeah. And it was just like once you do the bus, I think you see the power of, you know, kids like seeing something simple under a microscope, but you think it's simple, even like a bug or a bee, and you're like seeing like a young person's eyes, seeing it through eyes. You're like, they're like, "This is cool." You're like, "Yo, this is Cool. You know, cuz like sometimes a lab being in the lab and then I was a molecular biologist so I piped one clear liquid into another clear liquid. That was my job.

We are immersed. I think like Shekerah and I were just like

So you mentioned you know meeting Ben through yoga. Um was there a lot of convincing in him being like so BioBus or you were just like like with the PhD you're just like yeah. That's that one.

Yeah. As you could kind of tell, I'm a I'm pretty much like a let's do this kind of person. I'm a yes and person.

And so I kind of like Oh yeah. Cuz I like when he called me to like hire me to like he was like, "Okay, I had this whole speech." He had this whole speech planned and he like, "Latasha, I was wondering if you would like to work for me." I was like, "Yeah." He's like, "No, wait. I got a speech." And I'm like, "No, let me finish.

No, but I have a speech that I worked on for a day and I was like, I don't want to hear the speech from. He was like, no. He was like, but I really I was like, listen, I don't got time. I was like, yeah, the answer is yes. He's like, but I really want to. And I was like, no, I'm not not doing that. We're not doing this.

Oh my goodness. Ruthless Latasha, right? Right. That's for sure.

I love that though.

I was like, I'll give you I'll give you six months 15 years later.

Yeah. Look at that. It's honestly I'll say it again. The confidence like really really.

Yeah. Slightly delusional. That's me.

So, you mentioned um you know the influential mentors that you had along the way from the time when you were kind of know, in um high school and having a really cool um high school teacher um to even I would say, you know, when you were kind of doing your applications with this like NYU connection, what other influential mentors along the way really helped you to kind of like pave the road to BioBus?

Yeah, I think the first one was definitely my parents, right? My mom and dad were important.

Um so I think that I want to give that to them first. Um

and I think that that was really important. Um, and I also had a really great eighth grade teacher who um I don't know I know where um Dr. Pley is

but but I don't know her where she is. Um but it was really good. She was a good she was really good teacher

and um I think we had a very very strong and like kind of like fearless leader kind of

I would call her the lead avenger. Uh was like, "I'm going to get my kids into the best uh the best summer research program there can be." And she was like, she strong places like NYU and Harvard to come down to Mississippi to recruit.

Wow.

Yeah. You know, so it's that was, you know, she was a little little Indian woman that was very much like, you know, powerful and she was like, "Come down here, take our kids." And she, yeah, she made these real collaborations happen for her students and stuff. like that. So that was great. I I loved her. Dr. Marotra was her name.

And so yeah and of course I think you know both my postdoc mentor Ronald Star he was really great and uh he helped me to really think about not only like science is important but also like thinking about work life balance because like during that postdoc my mom got really sick and like um and I was like oh

you know um like she got diagnosed with cancer and I was like

goodness And like you know scientists were like oh my postdoc and things were starting to make some advances in what I was doing and I was like oh do I want to you know stop what I'm doing here and he was like I'll take over your experiments

he was like take a leave of absence

go take care of your family that's important and like I was it was like first time where I was like oh he's like oh you got really is your family that's important and like that's the thing that now like I make sure that the people I work with you know like I understand that family is important and it should be the first your first priority and I I that from that I do that I make sure that everybody knows that and everybody who works with us our work is important but your family is more important

so and I learned that from him.

Yeah that's really really beautiful. So considering your journey Latasha what advice would you give your younger self uh We're not ready. Are we ready for this advice?

I think don't take yourself so seriously and keep believing like always keep being a little bit delusional cuz I think that that helps you to you know that helps you to think oh what is possible you know cuz like you know I when I told my mom and dad I was given my PhD work and you know not pursuing that to go work on a take a pay cut. and go work on a uh a 1974 transit bus. They were like, "You going to be a bus driver?" And I was like, "No, I'm taking it.

You know, it just, you know, yeah, believe in yourself and you don't know where things are going to end." You know, I would never guess that we are where we are now, where we started, you know, like you just, you know, just be ready for the journey. It's going to be good.

Yeah.

Yeah. I really like that. I really like that.

I love it. Be a little delusional.

Be all the possibilities. Fly in the sky. Don't pay so much attention to all the negatives, right? All the possible things that could go wrong because if something's going to go wrong, it's going to go wrong. But don't focus on that, right?

It's true.

Yeah. I love it.

Yeah.

So, what's next for you and for BioBus? We're excited.

Yeah. Yeah. So, we are now expanding in the Bronx, which I love because I'm I live in the Bronx now. And so, I'm really excited about like where the new base is going to be. And that's going to be like trying to figure out where that is. And so, that's a new thing that's really on the horizon. I'm really figuring out how we're incorporating ourselves in the Bronx. And I'm really excited about the possibilities. Are we going to do more? I'm trying to get it, of course, by my house cuz, you know, stuff like that, but or is it, you know, going to be somewhere else? like what does it look like? I'm excited to see like what's what's the manifestation. So like our Brooks Community Lab is coming. That's that's what I'm excited about.

Awesome. I love that manifestation. I feel like that's the word for like this episode.

Honestly love that.

Thank you so much for telling us that story. You are an excellent storyteller, madame.

100%.

Yes, 100%. So, our final segment is our fun way to end the conversation and also a way to give a view of our guests outside of what you do for your work. And we call it lifelines.

We're getting better.

So, Latasha, please share with us what brings light and enjoyment to your life outside of your work.

Uh, storytelling. Yes, I see it.

Yes. Yes. So, storytelling is something I really enjoy. I'm on the I'm on the board of this wonderful organization called Story Collider. Um, and

Yes, girl.

Yes. So, yeah. So, I'm really active in that and I help them every January so far in the last three years I've been helping them to, you know, teach classes about storytelling to people at Mount Si and then we produce a a show um And that's going to be a caveat if you want to come on March 18th at 7:30.

So yeah, and so it's about like having helping scientists to tell real stories about their life. And so it's about bringing giving a human face to scientists and also a human aspect to science. So there you go. That's why that's what I love.

I love it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Wonderful. So thanks again so much Latasha for coming on to share your story with us. BioBus is incredibly inspiring and so fun and creative and as I said, you are an incredible storyteller. So, we had a lot of fun interacting with you today.

Yes. So, we look forward to following up with you in the future. We would love to hear about, you know, the new community base that you guys have coming up. So, we look forward to following up with you to hear about the next phase in your journey.

Thank you.

And so, once again, And listeners, you can reach Latasha by LinkedIn, email, and you can also visit the website at BioBus.org to book the bus, the book the bio bus for your school. And we'll be sure to include all of those links in the show notes so you guys can find it. 

And on that note, we'd like to thank our listeners for supporting the podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please, please, please leave us a review on your favorite podcasting app. Reviews help us by increasing visibility for the show. And as always, you can reach out to us at lovescienceodcast@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you. Until next time. Bye everybody.

There's nothing new under the sun.