Tracy Langkilde: Celebrating women in science, this month and every month

By Tracy Langkilde, Verne M. Willaman Dean

Editor’s note: This space is dedicated to college updates and perspectives on higher education trends from Tracy Langkilde , Verne M. Willaman Dean of the Penn State Eberly College of Science. Langkilde was named dean in October 2020, after joining the Penn State faculty as an assistant professor in the Department of Biology in 2007 and becoming head of the department in 2016.

It was wonderful to watch 美国宾夕法尼亚州立大学 President Neeli Bendapudi share her thoughts about growing opportunities and continuing challenges for women leaders in higher education in an interview on “CBS News Live” earlier this month. She shared that while it is positive to see progress in the number of women leaders — a quarter of the world’s top 200 universities are now led by women — there’s still a long way to go.

She added that “without question, when you look at enrollments, women far outpace men and have done so for a while. I’m hoping that we can build the career ladder so that more women actually do ascend to the highest levels of higher education.”

Shortly after watching President Bendapudi’s interview, I was honored to share my journey of becoming the Eberly College of Science’s first female dean with Gameday Couture, an athletics apparel company and one of the University’s licensing partners, which just launched a "Gamechangers" series throughout the course of this Women’s History Month, aiming to highlight and celebrate the achievements of notable and influential women across various fields and industries.

As I shared in my profile: I am very fortunate to have had people that encouraged me to pursue my passion and saw in me what I couldn’t see in myself. I’m proud of the amazing members of our college who have contributed to moving the needle at Penn State. I am dedicated to using my privilege to create a diverse and equitable community in the college.

Along those lines, I want to recognize some wonderful members of our college community who I’ve recently read about or had the opportunity to meet with.

Impactful student voices

I am so proud of our students’ achievements and am inspired by their unique stories about how they pursue their passions.

Fourth-year undergraduate students Ewa Solotan and Alexandria McKenna recently gave us a peek into their lives as students, sharing their out-of-classroom and undergraduate research experiences, respectively, via social media videos, with the Penn State community.

Graduate students Quynh Nhu Le and Unnati Akhouri inspired future scientists last month by sharing their science journeys with middle and high school students as part of our college’s yearly ENVISION: STEM Career Day Supporting Young Women. You can read more about their stories on our website and watch a short video reel of their talk.

Achieving women in science

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to celebrate alongside Melanie McReynolds, PhD and Vivian Valenty, Ph.D. , who were awarded the Penn State Graduate School’s 2024 Early Career Recognition and 2024 Lifetime Achievement awards, respectively.

In addition to being a 2017 graduate alumna in biochemistry, microbiology, and molecular biology, Melanie is the Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Early Chair in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in our college. She was recently featured in a Howard Hughes Medical Institute video series, sharing that “if I could go back in time and give my younger self a message, it would be to trust the process, to believe in your purpose and to know that you're worthy to be in every room."

Vivian is a 1971 graduate alumna in chemistry and president and founder of the company VB Cosmetics. I recently came across this wonderful “Today Show” feature interview showcasing her impressive entrepreneurial story (start at the 1:54 mark). She identifies challenges and sets out to create solutions. Her company supports the education of young women and our environment, planting more than 250,000 trees.

Alumnae advice

And finally, I recently had the opportunity to moderate a panel of women in science, all of whom graduated from or are enrolled in our college. We discussed what they wish they had known when they started out in science, what advantages they have had as women in science, challenges they’ve faced and overcome, lessons learned along the way, and the role that mentors have played in their careers.

A few takeaways, comments and pieces of advice that I gleaned from this conversation:

• Learn how to learn. My field was growing so rapidly, every job that you went into was something new. They all had similar building blocks, but you had to learn different nouns and verbs. Learning how to learn and then how to communicate that. Penn State gave me the building blocks of computer science. Those building blocks lasted my whole career. They gave me a great adventure.
• Be confident in your knowledge. I had such a strong science background coming from Penn State. I didn’t realize it until I went to medical school. I was around people who went to Harvard and all these big-name schools. I didn’t feel like I fit, but I knew I did because Penn State prepared me.
• Be curious. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do with my life and career. When I had my first manager, they asked what I wanted to be in 10 to 15 years. You don’t have to know, but just stay curious and keep learning. Take advantage of opportunities as they show up.
• Communicate, listen, and know how money works. Being a woman working in the 1970s, I was usually the only woman and I had to find my voice. I had to learn how to not be ignored. Learn how to communicate with people, how to communicate with other cultures, how to talk to clients and your peers; talk up, talk down. And listen. The listening is so important. Also, learn how money works; a company can do what money allows it to do.
• Lead with empathy. Being a surgeon, it’s still a man’s world, but as a woman, I think out of the box. Medicine is not black and white; it’s gray. Empathy and understanding drive patient care. It’s individualized medicine. Not everyone thinks like that. It’s the mind, soul, and spirit. The whole life-work balance. We are talking about it now after COVID.
• Find a mentor. I didn’t have a mentor for a long time. Down the road, I always insisted that all of my teammates and staff all had a mentor. The mentor will give you thinking points, and you need to take those and run with them. I wish I would have taken a mentor earlier.
• Find multiple mentors. I feel very lucky. I gravitated toward mentors who would facilitate my journey and learning in many different things. You can’t expect one mentor to be able to cater to all your different needs, identities, and interests, so it’s important to have several who can talk to different aspects.
• Progress and more work to come. I want to thank the incredible women who came before me, as I’m rarely the only woman in the room, but often I’m still the only woman in leadership.

The panelists, who all have unique and amazing career journeys, included these alumnae:

• Katie Barrett, who was in the first undergraduate graduating class in computer science from Penn State in 1968. Her last position prior to retiring was as manager of WebSphere's SWAT team global customers.
• Alenka Hafner , a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in plant biology and a J. Lloyd Huck Graduate Fellow.
• Paula Hietpas, Ph.D. , who earned her Ph.D. in chemistry from Penn State. Paula is the associate vice president of research and development for Agilent Technologies, Chemistries and Supplies Division.
• Abralena Wilson, who graduated with a B.S. in biology in 2001 from Penn State. She practices acute care surgery in Long Island, New York, in a private group, practicing in Nassau County.

These are just a few of the many, many individuals who contribute to learning, research, and society in meaningful ways and make me proud to lead this college. I will continue to celebrate you all not only this month, but throughout the year.

?