Dr. Sharon M. Loverde is a professor in the Department of Chemistry at the College of Staten Island, The City University of New York (CUNY). She earned her undergraduate degree in Physics from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and her doctoral degree in Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University. Dr. Loverde is also a co-PI (Principal Investigator) at CUNY’s NSF Research Traineeship Program NanoBioNYC. She has received multiple awards, has written two book chapters and over thirty journal articles, and has over a thousand citations to her name. She uses all-atomistic and coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the properties of soft and biological materials.
I had the pleasure of interviewing her recently about her cutting-edge investigations and her achievements in a field mostly dominated by men.
Congratulations to you and your research group for participating in the Biophysical Society 68th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia this past February. Please tell us about your experience at the meeting.
Thank you. The meeting was great, and I was able to meet and get in touch with some old colleagues and mentors. I hadn’t attended a meeting in a while as I had gotten sick, so being there felt great.
Also, I encouraged all my group members to apply for travel awards: Abhik Ghosh Moulick, a Postdoctoral fellow in my lab, received the CUNY Postdoctoral Travel Award. My graduate students, Augustine Chimezie Onyema and Rutika Patel received the CUNY Amie James Science Travel Award and the Biophysical Society Travel Award respectively. Five people from my lab attended the meeting, so this support was helpful.
Please tell us more about your research. What motivated you to investigate the properties of soft and biological materials using molecular dynamics simulations?
I started working on soft materials using computational and theoretical methods during my PhD years at Northwestern University. My PhD is actually in materials science, not in chemistry. My research advisor collaborates with a lot of experimental groups working on peptide systems and peptide selfassembly. So, when I started my independent research, I collaborated with some people I already knew at Northwestern.
The main motivation was that they were experimental collaborators: I enjoyed working with them because I found it more exciting. One of my first collaboratively funded projects as an independent PI [principal investigator] was with Dr. Honggang Cui (a friend of a friend from my PhD program) at the Johns Hopkins University. I wrote the computational component, and we got funding. I wrote another grant with him, and we received NIH [National Institutes of Health] funding. So, my original work in the lab was, I guess, purely motivated by collaboration. Networking always helps. I was really lucky to be in a supportive environment during my PhD years. My advisor was very involved in collaborative projects. So, I think that affected me in a good way.
Why did you choose computational chemistry? What challenges did you face during your education and career as part of a field dominated by men?
Even though I was studying materials science, I was very lucky to have a woman adviser for my PhD — Dr. Monica Olvera de la Cruz at Northwestern. At that time, she was younger and had a smaller research group; now she is in the National Academy of Sciences and is a very successful researcher. She is also Hispanic, part of a minority group, and hence, I think she has had more challenges than me. My professor has a family too, and I saw a lot of challenges she has had as a result of that. I think witnessing that prepared me for the same.
Seeing her group grow showed me that a woman PI can be successful. Making it in academia is very challenging, and I was lucky to find good mentors. There were other women PhD students in my group during my doctoral work, so I did not feel out of place.
Majoring in physics as an undergraduate student was actually more challenging than my PhD days because there were only two other women who were physics majors.
What would your advice be for girls and young women who wish to pursue research in a challenging field?
Find good mentors and establish a network with other women PhD students! It is very important that you do not feel isolated and that you have a strong support system.
Did you know at an early age what you wanted to do? When did you decide to become a scientist?
I really didn’t! As a student, I was interested in writing and literature, as well as in mathematics and science. In retrospect, that has helped me because there are so many other skills that you need to be successful in academia: skills in writing, preparing a manuscript, communicating your results, and presenting. So, my interest in writing and literature, and in being more well-rounded, helped me later. These additional skills can help you be successful as a scientist. I did not narrow my path until much later.
Tell us about your career path: Did it go as planned? What were your struggles? What did you learn from them? What would you do differently if you could?
One of my biggest initial struggles was that I originally chose an experimental PhD mentor who was inexperienced. So, about a year and a half into my doctoral work, I ended up switching. I learned that if you do not have a mature and supportive advisor, this can make your life miserable. So, I have really tried as an advisor myself to be supportive of my graduate students because of my past experience in an unsupportive environment. It is important to choose not only a project that you like but also someone who is going to support you.
If I were going back, I would also consider industry as a potential path, because so many of my friends have ended up in the industry, and they’ve been very successful and happy.
Tell us a little more about CUNY’s NanoBioNYC interdisciplinary PhD training program. What are the future goals and plans for the program and yourself?
It is an NSF [National Science Foundation]-funded, PhD training program for students across CUNY colleges and disciplines. It offers students the computational skills that they may need to succeed as graduate students [from the computational perspective]. My role in the program is to represent the computational faculty. We recently did a Python workshop at CUNY College of Staten Island.
My students, Augustine Chimezie Onyema and Tania Rajpersaud helped introduce students to the CUNY highperformance computing center. We may be doing additional workshops in the future.
Are you a member of AWIS or other professional associations? How have they benefited you?
I am a member of the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the Biophysical Society. Being a member [of such groups] helps with networking, which is essential. During Covid, I helped organize the regional ACS Middle Atlantic Regional Meeting. It was really beneficial because I contacted other professors working in similar areas in the region. Also, in the past, I have organized several ACS symposia in polymer engineering because I have a background in polymers. This spring, I am co-organizing a computational chemistry conference to be held in France, which is helping me network with the other co-organizers in the field. When you write grants and papers, you need to get them reviewed — networking helps in that way also.
What is the best advice you have ever received? Is there anything else you would like our readers to know?
It is important to stay in touch with people who accompany you on your PhD journey.
You also have to find what makes you happy and what makes you excited about science.
I would like to add that as a woman scientist, I ended up with a partner who is very supportive and who also happens to be in science. I think it is important to find a partner who supports you and your goals. It is also easier if you have family who support you. I don’t have family very close by, but many times my parents, and my in-laws (who live in another country), have come in and helped us. Now I am living in a community where I have friends who can help me balance my family and work life. The balance is so important. Lastly, the chemistry department faculty at the College of Staten Island, and particularly my department head, Dr. Hu, have been very supportive. Finding colleagues who support you and your scientific goals is so important.
Krishnakoli Adhikary is a PhD candidate in Molecular Biophysics (Chemistry) at the City University of New York. She is a volunteer science communicator and writer. She loves singing, dancing, painting, cooking, swimming, and yoga. She spends her spare time traveling and hiking or cuddling cats in local cat cafés. Connect with her on LinkedIn.
This article was originally published in AWIS Magazine. Join AWIS to access the full issue of AWIS Magazine and more member benefits.