PGR VOICES: Know your why: an International Women’s Day

After more than 15 years as a data scientist, I took the plunge and became a student again. I travelled all the way from the life that I had built for myself in Kenya and moved to Edinburgh to become a postgraduate researcher (PGR) at the Usher Institute in January 2024. Starting this program was not difficult, as I was joining a vibrant and impactful research community. The first weeks were all about understanding my research project and presenting that in a 10-week report, but it was at my first-year review in December 2024 that I had that moment where it all came together to make sense, and I felt a real ownership of my research. My PhD project is looking at how various aspects of a woman’s reproductive life course may lead to multimorbidity later in her life.

Winter hit me like a sledgehammer, despite considering myself quite the international woman, having lived in North America, Europe and Africa. But there is something about the sun’s late arrival and early vanishing. Even when it’s here, it's shine is somehow dimmed, and I found that during the early months of 2025, my energy mirrored the patterns of the sun. As the days turned towards March, I felt that things got intense rather than lighten. As the days got longer and brighter, I entered a period where I felt helpless and that everything was out of my control. This state of being threw me completely as it contravened the person I have always been. I’m a planner, but every PGR journey comes with periods of uncertainty where next steps are not in your control and your timelines have to shift. It left me questioning myself as a researcher and my choices as a woman. 

As serendipity would have it, six years ago I left myself a message that would get me through this season, and it was delivered to me by a lifelong friend who shared with me a podcast up on which she had stumbled, while out for a walk. In this podcast, I was interviewed by Impactpool for an episode that focused on International Women’s Day, particularly being a woman in STEM. And so, on 05 March 2025, three days before my birthday, while on the bus, I had one of the most powerful moments of my life. I had the biggest smile on my face and tears filled my eyes as I listened to a woman that I admire talking about being a woman in STEM. And that strong, sure, confident woman who was speaking to me, was me! She was so different from the woman who had boarded that bus six years later. 

In the podcast, I advised my future self thusly: