IUB Women Rising has launched a new Woman of the Month series. The series will contain *interviews which highlight inspirational women faculty and staff members within the Indiana University community. These women have had a positive influence on campus by empowering others to excel in their chosen field. October’s Woman of the Month is Sharlene D. Newman, STEM champion extraordinaire!
Associate Vice Provost, Undergraduate Education; Director, Program in Neuroscience
Academic level acquired (I.E. college attended, degree earned): B.E. Electrical Engineering and Mathematics, Vanderbilt; MS & PhD Biomedical Engineering, University of Alabama at Birmingham
What is your position here at IU? Professor, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences; Associate Vice Provost, Undergraduate Education; Director, Program in Neuroscience
What kind of career exploration have you done to figure out more about yourself and how you want(ed) to work in the world? As an undergraduate I interned with Alabama Power Company at a nuclear power plant. While aspects of the job were interesting, I was a bit bored. I took a project-based class in robotics my senior year. I really enjoyed research and problem-solving and decided that I would go to graduate school. While in graduate school I discovered the brain and magnetic resonance imaging and that was it for me. After grad school I completed postdoctoral training in cognitive neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon University in their psychology department.
What influenced you to choose your field? I chose neuroscience because of all of the open questions and because the questions captured my imagination.
Were there any resources in your collegiate years to help guide you? I had some really good professors and a cohort of students that supported me. As an African American woman in a male dominated field like engineering and in at an institution that had very few people who looked like me it was extremely important that we all supported each other. The black engineers took classes together and studied together and helped each other make it through the program. The advisor for our chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers was instrumental in setting up expectations and developing a sense of community and collaboration.
What have you experienced as a woman in the working world, that you perceived as being related to your gender identity? How did you navigate that? I am always fascinated by this (and similar) questions. It is fascinating because I can’t really tell you what it is like to be a woman in the working world or in STEM. I can tell you about my experience being a black woman. But that is typically not what I’m being asked and I do think that it is important to acknowledge that not all women have the same experiences in the working world or in STEM. As a black woman I sit at the intersection of race and gender. My experience of sitting in that intersection is that I’m not fully a woman or black. For example, as a country we just celebrated the 19th amendment and the granting of women’s right to vote. But all women didn’t get the right to vote. My great grandmother couldn’t vote. So did women get the right? Wasn’t she a woman? On the issue of race there is a great deal of discussion regarding black boys but black girls are ignored (see Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood). Well maybe not ignored because based on the study by the Center on Poverty and Inequality at Georgetown Law black girls get a great deal of attention when it comes to disciplinary action in school.
But to your question of my experience as a (black) woman, it is isolating and lonely at times. It requires you to develop your own community outside of work to ensure that you have the emotional support you will need. It requires you to be self-sufficient. It requires you to develop thick skin. And it requires that you understand the rules of the game.
What’s something you do in your spare time that supplements your career growth or your personal growth as an individual? I like to spend my spare time with my family and close friends. I enjoy traveling and learning about other cultures. It took me a long time to understand the importance of taking a vacation. Taking a break. But it is the best thing that I do for myself. As I have gotten older mental, physical and spiritual health are even more important to me and it is essential for my career.
Any advice for collegiate women currently working to achieve their goals? My advice for young women is to learn how to trust yourself. We all have imposter syndrome at times but trust that you know what is best for you. Trust that you are smart enough and good enough to do anything and that you can do anything if you are willing to work for it.
What do you know now that you wish you had known when you started working after college? There are some things that I can’t put in writing. Sorry. But one thing that I wish I had known before I started is the importance of taking the time to take care of yourself. You have to make sure that you are healthy.
*Interview conducted by IUB Women Rising Ambassadors, Vanessa Bozzo and Renee Palmerone. The views and opinions conveyed in the interview answers are those of the interviewee and may or may not align with IUB Women Rising and the IU Career Development Center or the Trustees of Indiana University.