A scientist doesn’t have to be published to be a scientist.
We don’t have to wear tweed jackets and glasses, sit in wing-backed chairs and
drink port wine. We may often be overly dedicated to our work, but we may just
as frequently be out at dinner with friends. We don’t need PhDs or glamorous
university funding. More often than not, a scientist will be completely,
wonderfully, extraordinarily ordinary.
Melissa Willits does not have her PhD, and she’s grateful
for it. She was raised by a dentist father and a seamstress mother in Tupelo,
Mississippi with a fairly ordinary life. She went to her respected but standard
state university with the intention of going on to medical school, but was
sidetracked by the sudden and unexpected discovery that she was very good at
microbiology, so she went with it. She began to learn Spanish as a second
language along the way, and says her pathogenic microbiology class changed her
life.
Upon entering the workforce after graduation, Melissa very
quickly figured out that to be a woman in her field, or maybe even a woman at
all, took a little extra work and very thick skin. Her first job, a
microbiologist at an un-air-conditioned chicken processing factory, had her
harassed by the men operating the plant, and even had her sexually assaulted by
an old mechanic. Her search for bigger things quickly brought her back to
university life to seek her Master’s degree in Food Science. After a setback or
two—including a lucrative job with Dole and a plane crash—she made it to the
end with a degree in hand. She also met and married her soulmate, whom she
credits for her survival and success in graduate school. In response to the
current social norm of postponing “family life” until a satisfactory “career
life” goal has been met, she says, “It’s not that clinical. When you’re ready
and fall in love, you get married. Life doesn’t stop. Young women these days
want to compartmentalize and it doesn’t have to be that way.”
The rest of her career followed what feels like a fairly
typical, albeit somewhat flashy at times, “real world” experience. She opted
for what she feels was a more applied use of her knowledge and skills as a
scientist than what she believed a career in academia could have offered her. Her
jobs involved quality assurance and pathogenic testing for global food
manufacturing companies, development of new formulas and systems for making
said food, and becoming the go-to person for salmonella contamination and
remediation from New Jersey to Bangkok. She was personally involved in the
remediation of every significant pathogenic food contamination scare in the
late 90’s and 2000’s, and many of her safety protocols and employee training
programs are still in effect globally.
Melissa traveled all over the world and was a pretty
high-powered woman, and her work-life balance suffered for it. Her husband was
extremely understanding and willingly followed her career around the continent
whenever needed. Some of this strain she attributes to the pressure from the
corporate world as well as pressure from being a woman. She developed a thick
skin and a loud voice to rival that of any plant operator or corporate manager
that she had to work with. Regardless of whether you choose to be a scientist
in academia, in government, or in the private sector, Melissa offers advice to
any woman seeking to bridge the gender divide and hold their own with the work
force: “It’s not about justice. There isn’t any. It’s about being effective. Cover
your bases. Make noise even when people don’t like it…[and] always show
strength—not cockiness, show confidence. It drives a lot of men crazy; they
think it’s arrogant.”
I think it is hard to forget the stereotype that a scientist
is only found in a university office surrounded by books and laboratory
equipment. More often than not I think scientists are found in the everyday
places, working more for the benefit of the masses than prestige. This is why I
chose to showcase Melissa as a woman in biology; the discoveries she has made
in her career may have been behind closed doors (and ended up in the ice cream
in your freezers), but in an ordinary way, she has had a substantial impact on
the daily health and safety of people all over the world, which I think is
pretty extraordinary.
By: Rikki Lucas
