Dr. Shiva Razavi, PhD in Biomedical Engineering | Postdoctoral Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

In this episode, we discuss Shiva’s unconventional path from working in the automotive industry to pursuing her PhD in biomedical engineering, the different ways she has sought out work experiences to gain the skills necessary for her future academic and professional goals, and her advice for staying true to yourself and to your ambitions when it comes to planning for your career.

Hosted by Michael Wilkinson

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

Transcript

Michael Wilkinson

Hello everyone, I'm co-host Michael Wilkinson 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 from Johns Hopkins University. Today we're joined by Shiva Razavi. She received her PhD in biomedical Engineering in 2018 from Johns Hopkins University and is now a postdoctoral fellow at MIT. Shiva, thanks for joining us today.

Shiva Razavi

Of course, thanks for having me.

Michael Wilkinson

So, kind of to start off, I looked at your LinkedIn a little bit and I saw that you were actually a postdoc at Hopkins for a little bit before starting your postdoc at MIT. So why? What was that kind of transition period like? Why did you originally just decide to do your postdoc for a little bit at Hopkins before you kind of started a postdoc at MIT? And like, how did that transition happen?

Shiva Razavi

Yeah. So, just right before I defended my PhD, one of the experiments that I thought it's not going to work out ended up working and I was really excited about it. But you know, I had already, you know, planned to defend my PhD, move on, and at the same time, I just couldn't let go of this piece of data that we had gotten, so that's why I basically decided to stay for a few more months in Doctor Inuus lab to be able to kind of like wrap up that story. So it was, I think like five or six months that I was basically doing this transition postdoc before moving on to the you know more permanent postdoc.

Michael Wilkinson

Now, was this postdoc at MIT something you had kind of secured a little while before you graduated, so you knew, like, oh, I'm going to go to MIT, like, once I defended and it just, you just kind of delayed that? Or was that something that you had delayed and kind of in that delay period you were then looking for postdoc positions and MIT is where you ended up?

Shiva Razavi

It was already planned and basically, we had a start date of October. So, I did reach out to the perspective advisor at MIT and I told him that, you know this, I have this piece of data. Can I start even a little bit later in your lab? And he was very accommodating. He said you know, you're on a grant. Why didn't you just come up here in October? And if you wanna dedicate 50% of your time to wrapping up what you have been doing, that you're excited about, I'm open to it. So basically, I have to do a little bit of negotiation with the the post-doctoral lab at MIT.

Michael Wilkinson

That makes a lot of sense. So, speaking of moving positions, I saw that you also had quite a lot of like transitions in your pre-Hopkins years. So, and you can correct me if any of this is wrong, you went from working at Bosch, then you were a research assistant at Harvard Medical School, and then it seems like your PI's moved to California and you were there for another year and then you came to Hopkins. So, there's a lot of quick transitions back-to-back to back. What were those early years during all that kind of transition like and what eventually had you land at Hopkins?

Shiva Razavi

So, there are also other transitions that I haven't mentioned on LinkedIn and basically my entire academic journey started from Iran. I was in a I was born in a religious minority family. I was not allowed to go to university in Iran. So, my education actually started with this underground university in Iran, where I was studying civil engineering. I wanted to do engineering. There was only civil engineering and computer science. So, I started with civil engineering. After two semesters, I moved to basically, I decided to leave Iran and then I ended up in the US after six or seven months. So, I started with mechanical engineering at University of Illinois. You know, it's in Midwest and it was very standard that a lot of the, you know, graduates of University of Illinois would end up working in automotive industry. That is pretty vibrant in the Midwest area. So that's kind of what I did. You know, I went and worked for Bosch. It was wash braking systems where we were making car brakes. And so that's basically where I made decisions to kind of gear my career towards biomedicine. At Bosch I ended up working in an R&D division, research and development division for a few months, and I thought I'm really enjoying the research aspects of what I was doing. You know, just going back to the textbooks, going to the literature to see, you know, how we could come up with, you know, models for brake pads. And the more I was reading literature, the more I learned about how some of the modeling that they do on heart tissue that is viscoelastic can apply to the brake pads that are also viscoelastic. So, I had no idea that you could kind of merge biology and engineering in that sense. I was super excited about it and I also felt, you know, mechanical engineering as a discipline is very established. I'm not sure whether yeah, so it's very established. So, I thought like you can never, like, make a revolutionary car brake. So, but, but you know, biology was more exciting because there are a lot of questions that are unknown. So that experience basically helped me understand that I want to do a PhD because I like research and I also want to kind of like get into biology. And of course, I didn't have any knowledge of biology, so I applied to work as a research assistant in a biology lab immunology lab at Harvard Medical School. And I kind of got lucky with that because there were two PIs at a time who were, one of them was a mathematician turned by physician, and then another, also like a biophysics professor, they were kind of interested in the fact that, you know, to, to mentor me, going through that transition. But they told me that you have to make it really clear because you don't know anything about biology. It takes some time to train you, so you have to come to work with us for at least two years. This is not a nine to five job. It's a biology lab. And then they also told me that their lab is moving from Boston to San Diego. So, within a year, I have to move with them and that's why I basically was in Boston for a while, went to San Diego and then, you know, John Hopkins for my PhD.

Michael Wilkinson

So, you know you're working at Bosch. You don't have any really biology experience yet. You you apply to be a research assistant at Harvard, which is quite a, which is quite a big step. Was that intimidating at all? And I guess like what made you want to shoot so high right away for like Harvard Medical School, which is such a well-established, you know, university, having not had a lot of background in the thing that you were applying for?

Shiva Razavi

So, for me, it was I was knocking on a lot of doors. It wasn't that I said let me go to Harvard. I was watching documentaries about epigenetics, about what is DNA, what is protein, you know, some of these phrases that sounded so exciting to me, but I didn't know so much about it. So, I kind of knew I want to get into the realm of biology that is on a molecular DNA protein level. And then I basically went to different professors at University of Illinois, and I started talking to them. I started talking to agricultural engineering departments about how they want to use biology to be able to, you know, engineer, new crops, new, basically sources for fuel. So, I was in discussion with them about what are my opportunities at University of Illinois and at the same time, I suddenly saw an ad, I think it was on New York Times, about this lab that was basically hiring for those who might be interested to go and, you know, do research in the lab, especially those who aspire, you know, to further go and do a PhD. So, I applied and I honestly didn't even think they were going to get back to me and they were only interested in candidates who were from the Boston area. I told them, you know, I will come with my own money. Just give me an interview and I think they liked that. They liked that I they they thought I'm really eager. So, they said oh, you know, we have nothing to lose. OK come on up. And the interview, honestly was intimidating because I it was long. It was, I think 5-6 hours of interview talking to different postdocs

Michael Wilkinson

Oh wow.

Shiva Razavi

PhD students, the professors, and I did not really understand what they were working on. All the projects like I did not have the grasp of biology to be able to understand. So, I was overwhelmed. And I wasn't even sure whether I'm gonna go for it, but I decided, you know, there is nothing to lose and I like the culture. I like the people I talked to. I felt I like the warmth of the lab. So, I went for it and had to basically overcome for my lack of knowledge by just reading a lot. You know, reading textbooks and the two PIs I was working for Doctor Patrick Hogan and On General were amazingly supportive and it would end up being a great experience, actually a life changing experience, I would say.

Michael Wilkinson

That's incredible. So, you've mentioned that you know in this time you went knocking on a bunch of doors and exploring a bunch of different opportunities. Did you have, maybe not, but did you have a similar experience then from your transition from PhD to postdoc? Or was it, you know, I think typically people have more connections to the labs they want to do postdocs with, like through their PI, so maybe not as much of knocking on doors, but I'm curious just for you, how is that then the process and the rigor of that process versus the kind of intense process you went through to even get to your PhD position in the first place?

Shiva Razavi

I think relatively speaking PhD to postdoc was more straightforward because it was a very standard career path. You know, a lot of PhDs decide to do a postdoc and also for my postdoc, I kind of decided to continue on within the same synthetic biology field. That is what I was working on during my PhD. Of course, on it with with a different angle. So, I was familiar with the community. I was already going to conferences, you know, synthetic biology conferences during my PhD. So, I was already engaged with the community. So, it was not as I would say, challenging or as kind of unconventional.

Michael Wilkinson

So, what are your what are your plans post postdoc? Do you see yourself going into industry? Do you see yourself going in academia? And what's kind of driving you toward one choice or another?

Shiva Razavi

I'm definitely more interested in an academic path because I definitely, you know, enjoy research a lot, the problem-solving aspects of it, the design aspects of it. But at the same time, I really like teaching, mentoring. I know a lot of people in academia don't like writing and what I hear is that it requires a lot of writing. But I enjoy writing. So, I feel there are aspects of this academic career that I feel they suit my personality, but it's just a matter of, you know, whether I can land that academic job, you know. Also, very competitive market, so I'm going to try for it. And basically, after academia, my second top choice is working in biotech. So, but yeah.

Michael Wilkinson

No, go ahead. 

Shiva Razavi

No, but definitely, I'm shooting for an academic career.

Michael Wilkinson

Gotcha. So, was that some was that pathway that you knew you wanted to go into academia, was that something that developed—cause you would come from industry, so is that something that developed kind of in that transition from industry to your PhD? Was that something that developed during your PhD? Like when did that kind of drive to go more toward academia, like first start to develop?

Shiva Razavi

I think once I switched from industry to the PhD program, I went to it thinking I want to do academia and it further got reinforced during my PhD because, you know, I had the opportunity to, for example mentor, you know, contribute to grant writing, put fellowship applications together, put you know grant proposals together. So, these are kind of what's a faculty has to do on a daily basis. So, I basically thought that I'm enjoying that aspect of it and it further got reinforced during my PhD. And I can say the postdoc experience has been also further reinforcing. So, I I I really hope I can, you know, stick on that track.

Michael Wilkinson

So, you you mentioned that you know if the for a lot of reasons, if the Academia route doesn't work out, you'd want to go into the biotech industry. How has it been kind of looking for jobs in that industry? I know like academia in a way is sometimes more straightforward path than industry, because there's just so much out there. So how is that kind of looking at your potential futures in the biotech industry? How's that been going?

Shiva Razavi

So, I have not really explored the biotech industry, so I try to kind of keep an open eye, and especially this whole big Boston Cambridge area is very entrepreneurial. There's so many startups. And so, the conversation is ongoing with different startups, with different companies that might be interested in some of the technologies that we are developing in the lab. So, try to keep an keep an open eye, to to be engaged, to do network, but I'm not I can't say I've officially thought about any, you know, companies or have thought about that career with so much granularity given my heart and my soul is still, you know, in the academic track.

Michael Wilkinson

That makes a lot of sense. So, you've been at MIT for, I think it was about four, 4 1/2 years now, which depending on the field, is either partway through the postdoc, like in neuroscience, I know they have like 7-10 year postdocs or it's like double the standard length of like 2 to 3. So how much longer do you feel like you have in your postdoc? And how do you feel about the length of time that you've been in your postdoc currently for?

Shiva Razavi

So, I am getting to the job market this year. 

Michael Wilkinson

Awesome.

Shiva Razavi

So, yeah. And I also went through a transition during my postdoc. So, in the current lab where I'm working at, I've been here for about two years, so it's only two years that I'm working on this project that is, you know, developing. And so, I think in terms of the number of years, it has been pretty standard given video experimental cell biology work and especially the first lab where I was working, we were doing more organoid work, stem cell biology, you know, each experiment takes a couple of months. So, in in the experimental side of biology, this length is relatively standard, I would say. And then I will get into the job market and just see, you know hopefully you know within a year or so I can basically sort out what will be the more permanent career. 

Michael Wilkinson

So that's interesting. So, you actually switched labs during your postdoc. What was the rationale behind that? Just like different diversity of labs, different projects not working out? Like, why, why, why switch kind of while you're already at a university for a postdoc?

Shiva Razavi

So, it was to some extent funding and basically the once COVID happened that issue with funding got further exacerbated. And so, it was a situation where you know and it was a very postdoc focused lab that you know we were getting money from different companies or developers, like exploratory grants. And so, with these exploratory grants, the projects are exciting, but sometimes the funding is not as secure as an NIH grant that goes for five years, so it was a situation where, because of lack of funding, several of the postdocs had to switch to other labs, some left for academia, and I decided to, you know, switch labs.

Michael Wilkinson

That makes a lot of sense. So, I can imagine because I know it's the same for postdocs and PhD students here, one of the questions that often comes up is like this balance of your work and your life. You even kind of mentioned before when you're starting your research assistantship of like, this isn't a normal 9 to 5, right? This is a biology job. We do a lot of outside stuff. I work with animals and it's very much similar of, you know, I come in on the weekends to take care of the animals and the animals don't work nine to five, right. So, being in those kind of not in the animal space, being in in these kind of spaces for you, how have you been doing with managing your work life balance? What are some ways that you've managed to do it successfully if you have been managing to do it successfully? And just kind of like the strategies that you try to use to the best of your ability?

Shiva Razavi

So, I feel to say you know, balancing work life, it might be a little bit too ambitious. You know, we try to basically pay attention to both, but as you said, once you have to come to the lab over the weekend or at night to take care of your cells, there's no way to balance that. You have to compromise on aspects of your, you know, personal life to be able to do that. So, and I think what helps with it is to just have a schedule you know, you just know what the constraints of your job is, and you try to develop a schedule around that. But definitely you have to compromise on aspects of your life. I feel like you can't have it all. And then the other thing is of course, like partnering with others in the lab, who you know, you can basically share the work with. So that kind of lifts up some of the pressure, you know, like some of the rigor of the unconventional hours off. But it is a work in progress. I feel having a schedule, having a good rhythm is basically the key to maintaining both the workflow and the mental sanity. So.

Michael Wilkinson

A lot of sense. So, you’ve been in a couple of different fields. Then I think you know you kind of talked about all the different ways that you you shifted from different thing to different thing and been successful in doing so. So, you know what is the most important kind of lessons that you've learned just throughout your career on like how to succeed and just whatever position that you're in and enjoy whatever position that you're in?

Shiva Razavi

Yeah, I think so, for me, the career I've had has been unconventional. You know, there was nobody in my ecosystem that had a PhD once, you know I was like trying to sort out my career path, so I kind of had to learn, sometimes fail, and then you know, make the decision for the next step. So, I felt a lot of times, you know, once you talk to people, you get kind of the conflicting advice. For example, I remember once applying for postdocs, some of the professors were telling me apply for as many labs as you possibly can. That's a great opportunity for you to go visit different labs, engage, network and then there are also professors who were telling me to just target few labs. Send like three or four, really well-written applications for the labs that you really care about. And I think both advices are great, but one suits my personality more than the other. They're, you know, I I might want to spend more time catering my application and really like I might have my heart in a particular research than somebody who wants to go and you know further explore during postdoc. So, the message I'm trying to get across is that there's a lot of advice, there is a lot of good advice, but at the end of the day it matters what is really, you know, true for you. What really suits your personality the most. And I think once you adhere to that and you know we kind of like know ourselves or we get to learn ourselves as time goes by. So, I feel it's important to just make sure to stay true to our personality, true to our true you know, ambitions, desires, once this comes to research where we see each other, you know, five years, 10 years from now. So that's the lesson that I think has been the most important, you know, for myself.

Michael Wilkinson

I think it's a very wonderful kind of sentiment and a very wonderful piece of advice for folks to take with them as they're kind of figuring out their own transitions toward toward this end of PhD and even for those who are postdocs now. So, we're running close on time, so I'll ask kind of one last wrap-up question. I think your story has certainly been very inspiring from talking about kind of how you started, how you got to the US and everything like that, but I'm curious kind of on your end, you know what inspires you now in either in your day-to-day, in what you do in your work, or just kind of life in general? What are what are the things that inspire you?

Shiva Razavi

I think I didn't talk about this, but the thing that has been extremely, I think like life changing for me was during my PhD time at Hopkins, where I was involved with some of the student associations. So, I got to work closely with some of the or interact with some of their professors and I think the different professors, not necessarily on the science related projects, on different aspects of life. You know once it comes to, you know, doing things that is better for the student life. I think I'm very much inspired by professors or anybody who uses their credibility and currency to do work where can enhance you know, the human life, student life. And once we talk about that, definitely I have great role models in that regard at Hopkins. But I can say what is really in my mind right now are actually the people in Iran who are extremely creative. They have some of the most creative solutions. They're extremely resilient. These are again elements of, you know, successful, you know, I would say research venture and they are in it for a good flight to demand for better life for human dignity, which is what we aspire to accomplish with our research in biomedical realm. So, I think I have a lot of admiration for the women, men, children in Iran and also a lot of admiration for many people outside of Iran who are invested and who are trying to help this cause.

Michael Wilkinson

That was beautiful. Thank you so much for doing the podcast with us. It was really a pleasure to talk with you and kind of hear your story and see where you are now and I'm I'm very curious to see where you'll end up. I hope you get that professorship. Finger crossed. Knock on wood, all the above. But yeah, it was an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much.

Shiva Razavi

Thank you.

Michael Wilkinson

For talking with me today.

Shiva Razavi

Of course. Thank you, Michael. Thanks for having me.