Dr. Yumeng Hao, PhD in Molecular Biology | Technology Innovation Lead, Platform Team at Flagship Labs 70, Inc

In this episode, we discuss what inspired Yumeng to pursue her PhD in molecular biology, the different resources that supported her career development during her postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Biophysics at Johns Hopkins, the challenges she faced as an international student, and the importance of building support networks and mentoring relationships.

Hosted by Brooklyn Arroyo

To connect with Yumeng and to learn more about her story, visit her page on the PHutures #100AlumniVoices Project website.

Transcript

Brooklyn Arroyo

Hello, I am co-host Brooklyn Arroyo and this is the 100 Alumni Voices Podcast stories that inspire where we explore the personal and professional journeys of a diverse group of 100 doctoral alumni or postdoctoral fellows from Johns Hopkins University. Today we're joined by Yumeng Hao, PhD in molecular biology. Hello and good morning. How are you today?

Yumeng Hao

I'm doing great. How are you? 

Brooklyn Arroyo

I'm doing great as well. Almost final season at this point when we're recording for me. But I'm just going to have you introduce yourself a little bit to talk about your experience within your PhD and your postdoctoral experience and a little bit of where you are now.

Yumeng Hao

Yeah, yeah, totally thanks Brooklyn. So, as Brooklyn mentioned, my name is Yumeng Hao, and I did my PhD in molecular biology actually from University of Colorado School of Medicine and after that I moved to Hopkins to do postdoctoral work in Department of Biophysics and Professor Salton's lab. And after my postdoc I'm currently working in industry, actually working at one of the early startups by Flagship Pioneering. We recently just got our name, so we're around about sciences and I'm the technology innovation lead for the platform team.

Brooklyn Arroyo

Wow congrats to you, that's amazing. So just to start I guess from the beginning relatively what led you to pursue your PhD in molecular biology and was that always what you wanted to pursue?

Yumeng Hao

Yes and no. So, I mean for molecular biologists you know just totally due to interest. Actually, when I grow up I didn't, you know, want to be a scientist or something. I do want to be a writer and I'm actually more interested in literature than science, and what push me into science was actually 2003 the SARS outbreak in Beijing. That's where I realized you know, the science can truly change people's life and make changes. So that's where I can like make the life decision. You know, like, on the molecular biology, but more likely interest in RNA and viruses because due to SARS.

Brooklyn Arroyo

Well, I think that's a pretty beautiful thing, being influenced in a way that something you're passionate about and finding your way in that sense. So, career wise and now you're talking about something that I think is really exciting within your career. Is that always the direction you thought you were going to go within your PhD?

Yumeng Hao

Kind of like I do feel like from a career development perspective we make plans, but we also have to embrace kind of like quick turns or you know other opportunities as well. Like joining the PhD, always what motivates me or what I'm passionate about is, uh, doing science, so that's where I after PhD I was like, I really want to do a postdoc because I always planned my career to be a professor. Having my own lab, I have my own team and pursuing some of the great scientific knowledge or answer some of the amazing scientific questions and then my I was always kind of like plan my query in that way. Well, suddenly it was the COVID outbreak. And was hiring freeze, so that's where I start to kind of reevaluate my career a little bit by you know what really I'm passionate about? What matters to me the most and what are the opportunities that may not seems obvious at that time, but can let me do the same thing, so that's where you know when the when the kind of like a recruiter reach me out at the from flagship and talk to me about this like really early start up that have less than five people you know. Like kind of talk about their what their, what they're doing is just really aligning with my interest and my expertise quite well, and that's where I was like, well, why not? I, you know, give it a, give it a try and I might like it and to be honest after 1 1/2 years I truly love it.

Brooklyn Arroyo

So, 1 1/2 years. So, you have been there for a good chunk of time now and really were able to experience the pandemic within that transition period of your career in academia, and I think this has come up in other episodes as well, but COVID-19 really impacted everyone and in some way shape or form and in many ways was a critical point for academia and careers. We a lot of us asked what do we actually want to do with our lives? What is it we want to study? So, when it comes to approaching decisions about your career and you talked about just being approached by someone, what factors did you consider in evaluating is this the direction I want to go? Is this something that I should give up?

Yumeng Hao

I think you know what I have taken into consideration is, truly, you know, what motivates me, what passions me, what are the absolute things that I cannot you know live without versus some of the other things that may not seems obvious but can work towards the goal. So actually, you know, I really want to shout out to the PHutures program, and also you know that during the pandemic actually attend every single you know career development sessions that Roshni, uh held, and that's where I feel like that opens my eyes quite a bit, you know. What are other career options there are and also what are we not making the decision because we don't know it enough, you know, like all of them, and sometimes we're like, oh, you know, the industry is totally a different world. We just should be professor blah blah. But then we should not have our minds closed, but we're scientists. We should explore what the things you know like well what are other things that are out there? Are they really what we initially thought? So, I pretty much like, you know going to the info sessions or going to the career development sessions to gather information to talk to people that work in the field to kind of like almost correct, some of my presumptions about the field. I think that is what you know, kind of like made me change my mind or you know, like literally, just like I want to take some risks, I want to see what is out there.

Brooklyn Arroyo

Definitely, and I think PHutures is definitely a great program like you're saying to opening our eyes a little bit. I think within academia and almost as you get higher and higher and deeper into academia, it seems completely linear when there's so many more things out there and we don't just have you know one option or you become a professor. So, jumping into your career, did you face any obstacles? And I would assume that having almost a brand-new startup and working among that you faced some obstacles within that.

Yumeng Hao

Yeah, I do. Actually, I do want to, you know, bring some obstacles when I was looking for a job too so. One thing I do want to point out is I am international, so one of my advice or you know things to given to international, either grad student or postdoc is especially in biotech or industry, the immigration or the visa will be something that kind of blocks, you know, just, uh, give people a rough number. Uh, although I was approached by a recruiter, I did apply, you know, on LinkedIn about like 40 jobs and I got 20 interviews and majority of them when they hear I'm international, they're just like, oh no I have to pass you, on not like anything related to your ability, but it's really the immigration status, so that's where you know, kind of like the first obstacle. So, I mean, like, I guess my suggestion to give to you, you know fellow postdocs or grad student, especially other international, not international, just never get discouraged by people turning you down. It's just it's just common of the process. But if you commit it to the process, and if you keep your eyes open, there's always something that's going to pan out. In fact, after the 20 interviews actually got like 5 offers. Despite that they need to sponsor me for Visa. So that's you know, kind of like back to my point, you know, just don't give up. Don't get discouraged because one or two jobs turn you down. It's a process. They just—and not to sugar coat it. It sucks, but at the very end you're going to land on your job if you try hard enough. I guess another obstacle, I mean like with if you're mentioning like within the job, at least for small startup, the transition from academia to industry is not that hard for me. Actually, that's where I feel like I'm extremely fortunate to kind of have great mentors or managers that help me do this. A lot of these transitions coming from, you know from design experiment or proposing projects. We more on the fast track or on the fast turnover rate. What I mean by that is you no longer think about science in years. You think about science in what I can achieve in the three months, six months. How many people do I need to budget to work on this project? So, all of this is a transition, but I think you know with that I highly recommend people stepping into the career, especially as a brand-new career looking for mentors, looking for managers, looking for support that either in your network or that out of your network that can support you through this.

Brooklyn Arroyo

Definitely mentorship is a big part of career development and academia and I would just like to highlight a little bit more and dive into your first point of your first obstacle, and I think that that's a really important thing to talk about for all students, but especially students on the international level because that is, that a barrier within citizenship, and so did you feel like you faced any emotional or mental toll in that experience and really, how did you work around it? We push through and we say, oh, we have to stick with our process, but really, how did you go about it?

Yumeng Hao

I think you know something I feel like you know grad student and postdoc pretty summarized way is, you know, mental resilience. Like our experiment, most of the time doesn't work. You know we're still pushing through because we have the final goal. We were curious about it. I think for that I mean, I'm glad you acknowledge it, it really sucks. You know, like they're moments, you know, I'll be like, well, I've tried this much, how can they just not? You know, none of them point out or something, but I think you know during this whole process is what's your final goal, you know, keep the final goal in mind, but also for me would benefit me is just preparation, not only like when I prep during the, you know, during the interview session or during the job. I think this application session is years of preparation, you know? Before what kind of techniques that I never thought that will stand out that actually did stand out, so I guess one thing you know to grad student or postdoc is never limit yourself technically either. Don't say oh, it's not what I need for my project, so I'm not going to learn it. So, one thing they actually did really like, I'm a wet lab biologist, so during postdoc actually I was working on a next generation sequencing project which in order to analyze my data actually have to learn coding which I was, it’s not an easy task but I was like, well, it's necessary. You know I have to learn this to analyze my data. So, I just did it and that's where later on for that project, I analyzed my data but I never realized this is actually extremely beneficial, like not only in the interview but also in current work when I'm communicating with the informatic team, when communicating with people across different sessions or different you know, cross functional teams. I know exactly how I communicate with them. So what I'm trying to say is, you know either careerwise or non-careerwise never turn down the opportunity that will benefit you in the long run. You know never say oh I'm not going to make LinkedIn connections because I'm not going to look for job in the next one or two years because all of those information you never know you know what kind of information will benefit you, what kind of connections will you know benefit you. I mean, recently I connect with someone we start to organizing this like Ted talks. Uh, she and I are actually—when I was grad student, she was in our neighboring labs. So, you actually never know, you know, when the opportunity will show up when the connection will matter. So, I guess we'll just, you know, treat all opportunity equally and trying to expand your horizon and your network. Not in like a last-minute way, but along your whole career.

Brooklyn Arroyo

Right, constantly expansive and always looking for that next thing that you can learn from. Definitely, so within mentorship I've heard about this several times and I think that it's really important for professionally, but also just in life, to have those connections. So, what have been some of the most influential mentors within your academic or professional career?

Yumeng Hao

Hmm, I do really kind of like shout out to some of my old friends actually. So, two of them are Marissa and Megan. Those are actually my school lab mate, and that's where you know, like we, we still keep in touch today, but uh, actually, one thing I do want to highlight out is we start to have this supporting group or kind of yeah, this supporting group start from COVID-19 when we actually feel like we're more isolated. We want to get reconnected, so, uh, since the pandemic we set up this routine schedule. So, it’s all girls you know we call ourselves RA power Lady three. We have this like biweekly group that in the beginning we just really like talk about science. We present our research or we talk through, you know life changes. I definitely did you know ask them for support. I was like oh my visa is, you know, like it's really stressful and all of them is, you know, it's just like friends chatting with each other, uh, supporting each other through tough time and that we still kept going today. Actually, this is story we're actually featured on one of the called Spotlight article by American Society of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and what we're trying to advise others is this kind of like women support group is actually extremely beneficial for either, you know like life or career development. And I highly recommend you know anyone who listen this you know, think about like who you can talk to and set up routine kind of like meetings or where you can talk about science where you can talk about life. Just that sort of, uh, connection that you can make and then you know I mentioned, like with, uh, career development or career search stage, you know, Roshni really is, you, know, a rock star that helped me a lot, like going through mock interviews, going through my CV, going through my, you know, cover letter is—I till today really appreciate and I highly recommend people at Hopkins to explore the resource that PHutures has because it's, I thought it's extremely valuable. And then yeah, after work I just have luckily enough, you know really supportive managers who I, who I call them as mentors, who I create a kind of like a safe space for me to speak up not only on research, but the question they asked me is, like you know, what are you thinking in your next step of your career? Are you receiving all of the support? Are you happy? You know, for those questions I feel like I've never been paying that much attention, you know, yeah, you know academia, but I think a well-structured career ladder or well-structured career path and resource supporting that definitely helped me.

Brooklyn Arroyo

Yeah, and mentorship is such a big part of everything. I really want to know more about the group that you developed though, because I think that that's amazing, especially in you know the height of the pandemic all of us were in different forms of isolation and along with STEM in general, I feel like a lot of times we're in the lab and we're very absorbed in what we're doing and can sometimes be isolating in that own sense. So, what all went into creating this group, was it sort of like a snowball like it didn't intentionally develop or did you come together and say let's start meeting?

Yumeng Hao

Kind of a little bit of both. I think for you know, for science part, at least, when you, as you mentioned, you know in the STEM lab, you kind of like isolating in your own group. One thing I'm always curious is like I might being blind spotted, am I missing some question that I just because I'm too involved in my project and I no longer see it? And also same as the you know the lab because they're exposed to my project so much so they stop seeing it, you know. So that's why I was like hey, because this group we always even back in grad school helping each other. We go through each other’s like a like a proposals kind of like a job application, presentations, or going to conference presentations. So, I feel like we can create a good foundation that it's a safe place. We can start, you know, criticizing or giving others you know, constructive suggestions and we don't feel like being, you know, offended or something, or just like kind of like a have a safe net there. And then during pandemic or just like we just feel so isolated we're doing science and writing, writing either thesis or papers. And that's where I was like, hey, you know why don't we try this? And some of the time is not really about science. We do journal, uh, you know, we do career development which is or sometimes we're just chit chat, but they we do make it a mainly scientific form that, uh, people do you know prepare slides and like really presentations, which is quite amazing. You know, in a way that, but I think the bottom line is, you know ways you can create this group with a few friends that you absolutely trust and they absolutely support you. I think that's also another thing is it's just commit it, you know, all of us are busy, but we still, you know, till today meet biweekly present data, make slides, and because we're committed in each other's career.

Brooklyn Arroyo

Definitely, and that that sense of friendship and connection is just amazing for anyone in all walks of life. So, I feel like it's important for me to ask because I think some people will think about the competitive nature of STEM and academia in general that can sometimes happen, especially for places like for Hopkins, you know post-doctoral or doctoral or any level of Hopkins. How do you go about cultivating relationships with people in an academic setting that can sometimes be really competitive?

Yumeng Hao

I think the competitive part is definitely you know, one part of academic. You know what you want to publish the great paper you want to, you know, explore science to the nitty gritty detail that no one have thought about. But one thing I thought about that is critical not only for academia, but also for, you know, that's what I'm trying to tell my team as well is that ego should never block science. If you're proposing something you know, if we don't have the freedom to criticize, then we don't have the freedom to praise. So, we don't have the meaning to praise, I mean the—if you're proposing something or if you bring something you know, bring the results or some at the table, you have to be OK of people putting in their time and their thoughts on criticizing your project. I mean, like ego never helps science you know, and ego should never ideally, you know exist in some of these like supporting yeah.

Brooklyn Arroyo

Definitely, I think that's amazing. I'm going to steal that and quote you all the time now. Ego should never block science, because that is, I think, a really important lesson that unfortunately not all scientists learn, but I do think that it that's amazing nonetheless. So, within your career or within your post-doctoral experience, were there any surprises that you faced or things that came up that you didn't necessarily think were going to exist within that setting?

Yumeng Hao

Like a good surprise or…?

Brooklyn Arroyo

Good and bad.

Yumeng Hao

So, I guess I mean like one thing, uh, I thought about a good surprise and I do think this is what happens. Another thing I'm really fortunate at Hopkins is so when I come into Hopkins, you know, as I said, always kind of position myself into a professor and one passion with me is always I love teaching. I do want to have more opportunity of teaching. So that's where actually went through the Teaching Academy, which is also another amazing resource at Hopkins, which I was like people should really, you know, use this resource where I finished the whole training session. I actually did two sessions of what we call the SOUL class so kind of like a small one credit course which I talk about CRISPR and that's where lead me to when the postdoc Deans postdoctoral teaching fellowship where I developed my own course. It was a three credit two session course talking about RNA world, which is absolutely something I'm passionate about, and that's why also, you know, like I was I was preparing this to be in person and then when actually teaching that it was kind of like it's a hybrid. Well, not even hybrid. It's an online course so I have to teach them via zoom, which is of course a new challenge. It's my first time teaching it, and of course my first time teaching. OK, OK great, but I think you know the students actually have pretty good feedback, which I'm still feel a lot of heartwarming comments they send me and I think that is, you know a great surprise. I came to Hopkins and I do believe all those trainings at you know, teaching, even though I no longer teach at my current job, but I do see some components of it. I do present our R&D report to upper management. What I mean by that is our CEO on a regular basis, so be able to think through what's the final goal. Kind of like what's the final goal and backtrack on how to design the presentation in the short term or in the time limited fashion, and also just do it in a methodical and coherent way really helps. I think you know, regardless of what career, I highly recommend people to, you know, take some sort of communication classes that will benefit you absolutely in the long term.

Brooklyn Arroyo

Definitely, definitely, and kind of backtracking to a point you made before just the constant expansive nature of being successful. Always trying to find where can I learn? What am I not the best at right now? How can I get better so in what ways? But aside from what we've already talked about, did your graduate or postdoctoral experience educate you for the job that you have now?

Yumeng Hao

Uh, I think it's thinking, uh, critically thinking, critical thinking, you know, uh, now it's I feel like now when I'm designing experiments. Actually, what I like to call it a higher standard because the time is budgeted here now and if we don't have the time budget of course you can plan experiment that can finish in two years, but then as a startup, actually, this is not the privilege we have to get definite yes or no answers within three to six. That's where it kind of require a lot of thoughts behind it, you know. A lot of strategic planning on how if we want to achieve the final goal, how can we backtrack? What kind of resource do we need and what kind of team do I need to assemble in order to achieve that in three to six months? I think all of this is the experience I get from doing day-to-day work in in the lab. From doing, you know, from having a rough understanding of how to communicate, for example with spell informatic labs, how long each experiment will take, and also, some experience on how to train people on new job or new experiment. I think all of this are highly, you know, I'm grateful for my PhD work and also my postdoc training at Hopkins, where I have a lot of opportunity to go through this in methodical way. In this case, now I have the expertise and also, I have the information of how long each thing will take, and so far, with all of the you know, with all of the project I proposed. Actually, all of the deadlines and milestones have been met and we're generating new patent and new IP associated with it, which is, I thought it was pretty satisfying.

Brooklyn Arroyo

Yeah, that's amazing. I feel like you were unbelievably successful, so there was obviously some good things going on within your graduate and postdoctoral experience. So, what is the next phase for you, career wise?

Yumeng Hao

Uh, yeah, we definitely. So, my manager and I were actually talking about it. So I was hired as a senior scientist where I didn't have my didn't have my team and I was just kind of like an individual contributor. Since this May, I actually got promoted to the technology innovation. Yeah, we're definitely have more responsibilities. I have 3 FTE that is, uh, you know, directly reporting to me. I'm leading three projects possibly, you know, like oversee just the whole are in the efforts. I think that is something I probably going to continue to grow as the kind of as a as the platform lead. Another thing I do I really appreciate, the manager exposed me to is I start to also do consulting for some of the other companies as well to kind of like get on the central stage. What does it make to start a start-up? What are the processes or the hidden things kind of like start to learn the whole process? I think some of them are, I'm quite I'm quite, uh, getting into the environment because I'm working at a small startup, but a lot of them actually have no idea, you know what how to build a company from ground up within a year. I thought that was quite amazing, you know, exposure and also kind of like present our R&D effort to not only our CEO but also the flagship ecosystem upper management to get their feedback. Also, you know get a lot of feedback from the other companies. Yeah, so I think that is extremely valuable experience for me. So, careerwise I do want to expand. I think that's where what passions me about is doing science and doing it in a team setting. You know we fail together, we succeed together, we work together. We learn together. That is what passion me about.

Brooklyn Arroyo

And congratulations to you on your promotion. And so for our last question, just to wrap up this episode and we're asking all other interviewees as well, what inspires you right now?

Yumeng Hao

Uh, what inspires me is, uh, kind of like bring my expertise in a fast-changing startup environment. And as I mentioned, is you know not only doing science, but doing it with the team. One thing I do think about I bring more is we're doing science in a collaborative manner so you don't have to be a hero. Uh, do everything yourself, uh, you do the things that we're really good at and you coordinate other people to do the things they are good at. So, the science is actually doing in a faster and efficient way, I think what inspire me is, you know, asking some of the questions that we never know. The same is from a scientific part, is still like postdoc or grad student, but from a working environment. Part is definitely more collaborative. We have more support, uh, from you know, bioinformatic team from like other cross functional team as well. So also, the whole team working towards a goal. I think that is where our team is diverse. It's collaborative and is open line of communication. I really cannot ask more as a dream team right now, and I think that's what inspire me and also making make it to work working towards a bigger goal career wise. You know, have a sense of career development in the short term or long term, I think that's also motivates me quite a bit.

Brooklyn Arroyo

And having those dream teams and all of that connection. That's extremely inspiring. So, thank you for coming today, and I was really honored to be able to interview you, and I feel like we had a great discussion. I learned so much. Ego does not benefit science. I'm taking that with me forever. Thank you so much for coming today.

Yumeng Hao

Yeah, and thank you so much for having the opportunity to talk with you and inviting me on this 100 Alumni Voices podcast.