By: Caitlyn A. Hall April 17th, 2020
Caitlyn Hall just recently published an article on the website “Science“, that talks about her research on earthquake hazard mitigation technology. She was so excited and motivated because she knew her research could save tons of lives and also an immense amount of money. “My advisor and I truly felt as though we were about to deliver a technological breakthrough”. The excitement and confidence came to a halt when the representatives of a state agency expressed to them that coming out with new technology has too many risks and will take too long.
This was very discouraging for Caitlyn especially because she knew she had a huge passion for helping people, and she really wanted to make a difference. She kept working on her project and tried to make it more realistic and speed up the process, but her Ph.D. committee couldn’t see her end goal anymore. “One committee member went so far as to tell me that if I went in that direction, I would be wasting my time”.
Caitlyn now had thoughts of quitting and just stopping the project all together. It was hard for her to stay motivated when she didn’t have much support. But she came to the realization of how many years she had put into schooling, not to just give up.
“One day, it occurred to me that research might not be the only way I could make a difference”. Caitlyn began thinking of different things she could get involved in that would still overall help her to accomplish her goals. She attended a workshop in Washington, D.C., where she met other graduate students and postdocs struggling with the same things she was, which was very refreshing. She reevaluated and went back to Arizona.
In Arizona she started a “statewide science policy network with the goal of helping early-career scientists engage with policymakers and the general public”. She organized a “Science Day” at Arizona State Capitol which brought in a large amount of people including state politicians and early-career scientists. Being the motivated student that she was, Caitlyn reached out and explained that she wanted to do more to address the important issues happening in Arizona further than just talking to representatives. “Later, the congress-person reached out and agreed to partner with our network to bring more scientific expertise into decision-making”. After that, meetings with lawmakers started happening regularly which has continued to online since COVID-19. They also submitted briefs, and testified to committees.
Because of the network, Caitlyn now has a huge role, that has brought her the satisfaction of helping others and overall accomplishing her goals. She says she is still pursuing her Ph.D. research and hopes it will be able to help people in the future, but she has realized that you can make impacts in lots of different ways.
Since she has “stepped out of her academia”, she has met lots of new people in many different areas of work. The connections she’s made now, will forever help her in the future.
Even though Caitlyn started grad school super motivated with her ideas and project, she said, “I learned that my academic research by itself wouldn’t satisfy my eagerness to make a difference in the world”. It was a struggle for her to come to that conclusion, but she is very grateful since it opened her up to new opportunities. “Now, I’m back to feeling proud of all of the work that I do”.