[Music]
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Smarty Art Brother podcast. I am the
Smarty Art Brother and yes I am still your podcast side piece. This is a very
special episode. In addition to be a very special episode it's also an
especially late episode but it's one that I felt like we needed to have. March is
Women's History Month obviously it's an important month for more reasons than
I as a man could ever try to explain but I thought this would be a good time not
only to just talk to a random woman but let's talk to a woman in the STEM field
it's an area where women are notoriously underrepresented and because I
didn't want to be just a random guy talking to an overly qualified woman
about women's issues to help avoid the risk of man explaining or me getting
canceled I invited back an old friend. she is the first member of our repeat guest
club and now she's here as let's go with co-hosts we'll say she's
here as co-host for today. Stephanie how are you welcome back I'm so glad to be
back the three p it's nothing like it you know I just feel so blessed thank you
well as always thank you for coming and trying to keep me in line I know it is a
tough job but I have faith in you I have faith so I'm gonna throw some numbers out
here real quick I don't want to dive too deep into it but in 2019 according to
the EEC just federal STEM workers 29% of them were women that was just out of
all federal STEM workers and then worldwide I say worldwide nationwide women
make up 51% of the population only about a third of STEM occupations so about
30% give or take those numbers are kind of lopsided and when you start talking
about women of color it gets even worse but we'll do a deeper dive on that one
I will say there is some bright news people in the STEM workforce between the
ages of 18 and 74 in 2011 only 32% were female 68% male well I want you all to know
that in 2021 that number jumped up to 35% yes yes yes yes yes progress yes
there are three points count I guess yeah exactly exactly so to kind of talk
about some of those numbers and some issues I wanted to invite an expert I've
known this woman for a couple of years through personal connections and now I'm
excited to get a chance to talk to her about her professional job Miss Latoya
would you tell the people who you be and what you do well thank you for
inviting me Sparley Art brother and hello Stephanie and all the listeners my
name is Latoya Simmons and I work as an emergency management specialist
done some federal work and some state work and also nonprofit work but an
emergency management my specialties infectious disease outbreaks that's my
favorite thing and I also specialized in responding and recovering from
natural disasters so infectious disease outbreaks so you have not been busy
over the last three four years right is your healing right
no no no I'm going to be being a come on I'm a chilling chilling chilling
so let's kind of dive in and talk about young Latoya for a little bit what's your
educational background so educational background I have a bachelor's in biology
from Kent State University I'm originally from Ohio so born and raised there
graduated from Kent State and then moved to Atlanta and there started working at a
tissue processing lab in Kinesa Georgia so basically the assessment human tissue
such as hearts and veins and arteries and did some networking and through that
networking was able to land a position at the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention otherwise known as CDC also worked for the US Surgeon General
and now I do some contract work okay okay and so you you majored in biology so
obviously you had an interest in this I'm guessing at a fairly young age when
did the science bug kind of bite you I don't remember when it beat me I just
remember my mom telling me stories when I was younger about how my grandma used
to like to go for walks and she would take me on walks with her and I would be
like what's that why is there a crack in sidewalk why is that flower yellow and
the other flower purple why is it gross green I don't understand why this guy's
blue can somebody tell me so I had all these questions and so I think I think the
young scientist in me was kind of developing then I just didn't know it was
called scientists I just was curious so yeah it started pretty young okay so
parents with young kids when your kid is asking a lot of questions they're not
trying to bother you you could be you know molding a future scientist that's
absolutely true my mom still jokes about it to this day and she was like well I'm
glad you put that part of your brain to some use because I think she's
tired of me asking why about everything and literally I entered a profession
where you know what I do every day ask why and then try to find out why so so
not to pair it sometimes even in knowing things that kids do is part of their
purposes we just got to somehow guide it it's really hard you know the children
really are a future and I'm glad someone would dare to teach you well and let
you lead the way that's right shout out to my grandma my mom for their patients
so you were at Kent State study and biology did you have anyone try to say hey
maybe you ought to go to another field or where there are people saying oh that's
good we need more women in science you know I would imagine around that time
there were probably some people who were thinking you want a major biology why
yeah I got a little of both but more of one and the other you probably one was
more but yes so there were some people who were really encouraging mostly books
who had already gone through the process and sort of understood what it took
and saw that I had what it took for example but then there were some others that
were quite discouraging one good thing though is my mom taught me this at a
really early age when folks try to discourage you try to learn whatever coping
mechanism that you can to take that negative energy and just transform it into
something positive and it is very difficult sometimes even in college but I was
able to do that and just turn it into motivation from myself so there were a lot
of naysayers a lot of little microaggressions and side comments there's a lot of
those some people were on bold enough to just come out and say things but you
know they sort of insinuated right and tried to wrap it into a compliment but it
really was backhanded those sort of things mm-hmm a slap in the face yes yeah yeah
so definitely I came across those but I tried to include in my tribe the people
who saw something in me people who I also saw something in and so that we could
encourage each other so my tribe became increasingly important to me in
college but in high school not so much in college for sure so when you think
about like the microaggressions and the naysayers merely out weighing the out
weighing but not like consuming your thoughts too much the folks that encouraged you
was there ever a moment where you felt stressed and I guess moving into when you
went beyond your bachelor's program because I would venture to say I don't I don't
know a smarty art brother could might have this a number quoted or piece of data
quoted about like there there may be a lot of women especially black women which
I don't know if you just straight out said this in the episode yet that would
study biology but maybe would not go to that next program and the specific path
you took so with with all that being said do you think of a time where it's
specifically like really shook you when there was someone being when those
microaggressions were coming into play because I even think with family sometimes
sounds like you had a great unit around you but pursuing something like that
instead of you know whatever quote unquote you know the typical path as far as
like family or whatever you know starting a family or whatever those
things maybe so on the professional educational side was there a moment where
it was too much pressure or from your family and in your circle as far as doing
more the traditional route yeah so we'll start with the academic side so while I
was in college there was a point I believe it was my second year where I thought
that I should not major in biology I should probably go into something easier
like psychology since I liked that or maybe explore fashion design since I love
designing clothes like costumes and things like that so there was a huge period
it was like a whole summer between my first and second year where I was trying to
decide should I still go on to science I didn't see a lot of people like me
brown or black I didn't see a lot of women it was mostly white male-dominated but
I just I actually had a sense I was gonna sell crazy about maybe fully
transparent and a series of dreams that actually led me to to maintain my my
path so that's academic and then what was interesting is I was able to talk to
another black woman in STEM who was taking the same classes as me and had the
same sort of trajectory she was like I don't know if I should become a doctor or
should become a psychologist I don't know what to do so we both kind of took this
journey together that part was really nice you know that we weren't journey alone
it was a unique journey but we weren't alone and it was unique in that the
program that we were involved in you came I think there's a lot of these
programs now but at the time this is a long time ago so I'm dating myself
there were only a few accelerated programs where you can get your
bachelor's in two years and then go on to medical school because at once upon
the time I thought I was gonna be a pediatrician if you within your first
academic year didn't have a certain GPA you got kicked out of the program and
so she and I had gotten kicked out of that program and we were like oh my
goodness how are we ever gonna become doctors like even possible right there is
so much pressure there she received a lot of pressure from her family she was
Nigerian or is Nigerian and so there's a culturally first generation you know
that's this it's a factor to consider right and then for myself for me I didn't
have any naysayers in my family but there are also that there were not that many
people who are encouraging so I'm from an orthesaint Ohio still milled-bell a lot
of folks grew up working on assembly lines or implants like for GE or a
factor to electric or for Ford or something like that a car company and so
there were not a lot of people that I could look up to in my family or in my
community to say well what have did you take you know or to just see someone who
just images of someone who looked like me to just use that as some sort of
encouragement and motivation to move forward so I didn't have a lot of
encouragement but I didn't have a lot of discouragement I wish that I would have
had more encouragement though but I can shout out to my mom because she was my
main cheerleader the whole way super consistent she believed in me when I
stopped believing in myself and she believed in me when others even in college
did not believe in me so shout out to her yeah I really want the music from
voice to men to play right now
yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
definitely appropriate the screen very next to that let's
do you really want to make that baseline I would appreciate that you are getting creative
oh no right right right right after and now the pop producer oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah oh don't let the science thing through you she's got that creative side too she's a multi-hype in it I think that's what they call it for sure and also voice the man I know you guys are listening because I wanted you all to work on a smartly out with the flame song so you know get these two ladies up you know work on that stem mix
you know you got a year to get it ready yeah yeah yeah have a ready for
when you the stem song they can work to anybody knows how to make beats you've already laid the groundwork
work it's all the bad is making itself the bad boy is somebody is gonna do that for real and we're gonna be mad out of me
I'm not gonna be mad I'm a little collaborative okay okay part of step music is still okay there's a science there is a science too with
okay all right I'll allow you to share all that that was that was beautiful that touched me since you didn't have a lot of people within your family
to look up to professionally as far as the stem thing were there any others I mean I know like I was a journalism student and I know a lot of the women
in my class they looked up to Pam Oliver rob robbing robbers those kind of women professionally and try to take some cues for them
were there any women in stem fields that you may have read some of their work or just seen them during interviews and thought okay I need to keep up with them
sadly no but you know what I think that was a result of lack of internet access and social media I'm old so social media wasn't a thing right to be able to just get
down Google and sort of bookness and things so for me once I got to college one of the classes that I took that was a non major class was black history right so I
African American history or diaspora history right and so in that class I actually learned more about myself as a woman as a
multicultural woman specifically a black woman that I never thought I would learn in college I just once college
feeling like like I know who I am right but this class actually helped me to think from different perspectives one of the most profound
perspectives that my professor Dr. Frandt or see who just recently passed away a few months ago from Kent State University this extreme like giant
and in Pan African history it can't stay and globally but I took one of his courses and one of the most profound things that he taught us
was about black imagery and the importance of black imagery right so he went through some exercises in his course and I'd only read about also watch videos and the
difference of how people with brown skin were perceived versus people with European or like more white skin were perceived and I'd never looked at
entertainment or like viewed the things that I like to grow up watching in the movies that were my favorite I never looked at those images from those
perspectives before seeing how we were perceived I think a lot more people are growing up conscious of that now but at that time I had not grown up that way so my answer to not having someone to look up to an
instimp build was to actually once I graduated from college to move to Atlanta because I said if I can't see images that I like to on TV at the time or
social media wasn't that big of a deal it was just kind of up and coming but if I couldn't see images like that I was going to place myself in a geographic location where I could see those images and even if I couldn't become exactly like the people that I was looking up to at least I could be around their energy or see how they move and how they overcame obstacles and celebrated their wins so that I could try to model myself as a person after those types of actions.
So that was my answer to it move to geographic location where I can surround myself and immerse myself in that type of culture.
A great example of making something happen like okay I don't have this where I'm at let me build somewhere where I can find it.
Yep with $500 in a rental car that's what I did.
Wow.
In Atlanta that's impressive.
You mentioned that you had someone at school with you where y'all kind of took that walk together.
Yeah.
It's not uncommon for people to major in one thing and then they just end up in a job in an entirely separate field.
Do you know some women who maybe they started out in STEM and then they just said I'm out either because of how they were being treated or just the lack of diversity and equal pay.
I'm sure some women have been run away from the field.
Yeah.
There are a few that I know of in my life either that I went to school with or once I got into the professional sort of government slash corporate world that definitely happened with.
But for the most part the group that the crew that I kind of stayed close to they did not change they may have shifted majors.
For example like went from one scientific major to another scientific major that they thought would fit them better.
So for example someone who started off in biology might have ended up in mathematics like one of my friends did or someone who started off again is like a general science major may have decided that they wanted to go into epidemiology which is you know studying outbreaks and populations and how you know diseases affect populations.
So the folks that I knew did become creative about saying you know what even though this one particular area may not fit me well or this one particular group is not treating me well.
There are other options let me try to be creative about my options.
So there's a little bit of both to answer your question.
So some that decided to shy away and then others who stayed the course or who stayed the course and shifted slightly to honor who they truly are and the way that they know they deserve to be treated.
I like it. I like it.
And I was doing that because I wanted to follow up this like Stephanie said I got a few other stats.
Those were kind of jumped out out at me and I think it proved something that black people have been saying for a while nearly two thirds of women working in STEM jobs in 2021.
They had at least a bachelor's degree compared to less than half of the men in STEM jobs.
And I know for years black people and especially black women have always said we have to work twice as hard to get the same thing.
So you know and I'm hey I'm sure some of these men have other qualifications but you see this you see this huge disparity and you kind of have to wonder what what are the causes of it because I'm sure it's not just any one thing.
I think one of the main factors is the fact that a lot of these different industries or areas of study have been honestly run by older white males for so long that it's that type of mindset and even the look of the person is sort of woven into the fabric of different businesses, different agencies and what have you.
So I think that's a main contributing factor also what is reflected in society is often reflected in specific areas of life too right so if in society we see you know certain demographic running things chances are.
And a microcosm of that demographic so just in if we just take the if we look at all of the world and all of every profession that you could be in and then just specifically look at science you will see that that same type of dynamic is reflected.
So I don't know that there's one specific thing or contributing factor that can speak to that huge disparity but definitely equity and equality in race and gender are contributing factors at least that I've seen.
So with with the experience you described and just the stat that Chanin mentioned I can't say right.
Yeah yeah yeah it's no secret. Yeah identities I don't know but yeah with all that to consider once you move beyond the fact that you're working harder than others just by what your qualifications have to be and what I'm hearing you described is like a good old boy network that you know.
Yes.
I'm hiring that whole system exists so once you get there and you're working at CDC the other types of work that you've done you know I'm sure that prominent roles and companies and corporations what would you say not even just speaking for yourself but colleagues friend that you mentioned what would you say the experience is that also is that distinction of this is what happens when you are woman and stem and dealing with those the previous things we mentioned once you're actually there.
What are the challenges what are the advantages that you might have how describe that.
So one challenge that I would describe that I think a number of my colleagues and I personally have experienced is a lot of times when you start entering these different fields of STEM and you know it is in cases maldominated specifically white maldominated many of the folks are so used to sing that demographic run things that when they see
a brown of black people come in or specifically in my case of black woman then they will assume that you were the help.
Mm-hmm.
I cannot tell y'all how many times I've been asked to go make copies to go grab coffee for someone.
So I would try to dress in a certain way that would distinguish myself but then some people so so that they wouldn't ask me to for example to clean their conference room or to go grab food you know yeah it's a thing.
This is not the 1950s you've made references to you know hey the internet was kind of new back in your day but it wasn't you know we're not talking.
And these decades ago.
No we're not these are this is a recent example in my life but then it's also happened probably over the past 15 years multiple times.
So and not just to me like I said to also my colleagues as well and good friends and so that's something that I think chaining the stat that you gave earlier about
how women are gaining more of a presence and still feel the more we're seeing and then we're seeing with certain titles other to me titles aren't the most important thing but to some people they are.
But if we're seeing in certain roles that becomes normalized and so my hope is to continue forging these past for those generations that are coming up under us so that this is a story that they will never have to tell.
They'll just be like no I was accepted in that arena I was accepted in conference calls or you know on zoom calls or in person meetings no one ever questioned anything right that is my hope at least to overcome that and some other hurdles as well.
But yes that's definitely one of the challenges being the stick in for the help.
I have the question did you make the coffee and did you spit in it?
I did not make it coffee.
I don't even drink coffee so I don't even know how to make it but like I didn't get it right from facts but yeah I didn't go get the coffee I did explain that that was not my role in a kind of professional way.
I did it bothering me absolutely but you know overcoming is a thing so that's what I do.
Did you make the conference room more messy after being asked?
I might own some papers around.
I did I did throw things I try to keep it you know.
Right and G.
You're a good person.
Yes but I'm hearing.
Yeah now if someone could take a peek into my mind and see what I was really thinking or how I actually pictured that room or that person or that coffee.
You know I might catch me on some of you.
Right.
So yes, the thing is depressed my mind.
I'm still human.
I got feelings.
That's a good thickness.
That is real.
Let's go to a good topic real quick.
Before you start having flashbacks on us.
I know.
I said a slap that doctor.
Tell us about some of your work experiences at the CDC.
Like I mentioned I'm sure you know you probably weren't too busy in those early years but what kind of things specifically where you working on there and now.
Okay so going to answer your question sort of going back to college.
I thought it was going to be a pediatrician so a kid doctor right.
That did not work out for me.
I was just like I lost a lot of weight.
I couldn't eat and I was just sad all the time.
But didn't know that that's what it was.
That's a key moment for me.
Maybe reflect that later to talk about mental health.
But yeah so I thought I was going to go into med school so I was like shoot up.
I don't know what I want to be when I grow up because I thought I knew what I wanted to be.
And I can't get there.
So my question to myself became like what do you do when your plan doesn't work out when plan A doesn't work out.
Like how do you come up with a plan B?
So my plan B was okay so what was I good at in school?
Randomly, randomly.
I was really good with working with children.
So teaching, I love teaching, I love designing clothes and kind of making things so I was super crafty.
And then randomly I was really good at dissecting in college.
So I thought well maybe I'll do something in one of those areas.
I just started applying for jobs in all of those areas to try to cast my net wide to see what I could pull back.
And ended up applying for the job I told you about in Atlanta.
Well outside of Atlanta in Kinesa.
And I was like they're asking for someone to dissect human tissues.
I'll apply, right?
I never dissect the human stuff only animals before but I'll apply.
And then how I ended up working in a lab.
I was like I have lab experience, I'm good at dissecting.
I knew that was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life but I didn't know what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
I was just like this stuff I could do in the interim, cool pay the bills, cool.
So I did that actually did it really really well.
Top surgeons had an implant, you know processed pieces of human tissue into humans to save their lives or extend their lives and make their quality of life better.
I was really proud of that work.
However, it was exhausting.
They did not pay us what we were worth.
And it was really, really difficult to move up in that particular company.
Especially if you were not of a certain gender or race and ethnicity, right?
And so I was like, okay, so now what do I do?
Hmm, networking.
Let me try this.
So there was a young lady who worked there at the lab with me.
She ended up getting a job at CDC and I was like, girl, this is.
If you know any openings, I'm not sure what they are any openings just let me know, right?
And so she was like, okay, you know, a lot of times you'll say that to people and they'll be like, sure, sure.
And then they forget about you.
She actually did not forget, cyst and that forget.
So when the job opened up in her and the team that she was serving on, she sent me the application for the link for the application.
I was terrified y'all to apply.
Because I was like, I don't know what I want to do. I thought I was going to be a doctor.
This is not being a doctor.
You know, if I got this job at CDC doing survey, it's work.
So I was like, I don't even know how to do surveillance. I don't have any public.
So I had all these thoughts talking myself out of applying to this job that I knew I could probably do.
But I was afraid I was afraid of imposter syndrome.
What we now call imposter syndrome, right?
I was afraid of somebody finding out that maybe I was in a smarter as accomplished as I would have liked to have been.
Or should have been, right?
So literally the job application say was do it Thursday at midnight.
I submitted it at 11.59.
Like literally because I was so afraid.
I actually wasn't going to do it, but I talked to myself into it.
So that's how I ended up getting at CDC.
So we did national survey lands for foodborne diseases, which means that we looked at the nation.
So if anybody, you know, had food poisoning or something and there was a bunch of people that had food poisoning all at the same time.
Well, that might be what we call a cluster or an outbreak, but we have to try to determine what caused those people to get sick.
So the epidemiologist or those that study like population and how diseases affect population.
They did their investigation side of it.
But as data analyst and surveillance persons, our job was to collect the data to figure out if there is any outbreak that was identified, then we would send that over to the at ease.
So I was like, so scat I was like, I don't know, do this. I've never done this before.
So test Monday time.
I got interviewed. It was five, it was down to five people.
There was two people with master's degrees.
I had a bachelor's degree and there were two people with PhDs and y'all they chose me.
And when I asked them, why did you choose me over these people who have like all this academic, you know, affluence, if you will.
And you know that supervisor said because when we did the group interview, we liked your personality.
Your personality was one that we thought we'd get along with the entire team.
We already knew that you at work hard because everyone who applied here or most people are hard workers.
So what distinguished you is your ability to get along well with others.
So I was like, what?
So yeah, so I ended up working at CDC and national surveillance, even though that's not what I went to school for,
but my biology degree and that sort of science background and even the laboratory experience that I had actually helped out quite a bit in that interview.
And through the job.
It pays to be nice every now and then. Good.
Yeah, just a little nicer in the interview.
You never know what, what certainly is going to make you stand out.
So for me, I'll let know how to do.
I could be nice. Okay.
I don't have all these publications and a high GPA like all these other people.
I don't have a PhD. I still only have a bachelor's. I don't even have a master's or PhD at this point in my career.
But even then I was like, all I can do is operate on what I know how to do best, which is be myself.
And they liked it, right?
So I encourage anyone who's listening to do the same thing and those who don't like you and jobs that you don't get because of your personality.
It's not a rejection.
It's just a redirection telling you that's not right.
So there was so many job.
I was about to say that's got to be.
I was about to say that's got to be the phrase for the show like you really you giving us that.
I'm low right now.
Next one is a direction like a direction.
I thought it was rejection, right?
Because I had applied to so many jobs to be a daycare teacher.
They rejected me.
I applied to work at freaking CBS.
They told me I was overqualified.
I had to be a dancer.
It's true.
I'm all receipts.
I applied to all kinds of positions and I felt like I was rejected.
Now hindsight is 2020, right?
Everything always looks more clear when you can look back and assess.
But now I see that I wasn't really rejected for those jobs.
I was being positioned to work at some a place that was never even on my radar because I thought I wasn't good enough.
Yes, I didn't become the doctor. I thought I was going to be and I did I still use my degree to try to be creative about that.
But I did get to redirect it from dissecting human hearts and veins to then working behind a computer looking at DNA samples all day to do surveillance.
But it was still a very cool, very cool experience.
I like it.
I got you were talking about your plan B, which you were going to do after you didn't pass the MCAT.
It sounds like you had three options.
You could have gone and been a teacher.
Obviously you could have done something in fashion design.
Or you could have been a serial killer because of all the experience you had dissecting humans.
I don't say yeah, I was a little creeped out by the human tissue thing.
A lot of people are it's kind of gross.
It's kind of gross thing.
But it's a person.
It does.
You didn't so we didn't have to see the whole body just the actual.
Yeah, no judgment zone here.
It's okay.
The nerd in me was like I'm helping people.
I can do something science.
And the words.
So you've obviously had a good support system again like we mentioned in school and professionally.
Are you doing any kind of mentoring or working with other groups to try and bring people in?
Yeah.
So I have a mentee in the Atlanta Georgia area.
I also have a mentee in Frankfurt, Kentucky, which is where I did a lot of COVID work at.
And I have a partnership with a really, really awesome group called careergirls.org.
I'm not a partner in there, but I was one of the initial contributors to their sort of initiative and the building of their website and trying to create content to put on their website.
So careergirls.org is awesome.
They started out in Atlanta just trying to influence young girls and young women to get into STEM.
But they blew up so much their international now, which is awesome.
So it's a really cool website.
You can go on.
It doesn't matter what your gender is, but it was initially started to encourage women and girls to get into the STEM field.
And then the first thing that you can do is to get into STEM career that you're interested in.
And literally it will pull up a professional who's been interviewed.
And you can listen to them, talk about their profession.
Yeah, super, super.
I love it.
And I'm always constantly asking people if they have scientific questions about career to go on there.
And even more specifically, there's some women of color, brown and black and yellow.
It's beautiful, beautiful website.
Lots of incredible women all coming from a variety of perspectives, but all in STEM.
That's great.
One thing that comes out mind for me when you talk about this site and just folks being able to ask those questions for me, someone who is not that is not my expertise.
I did dissect a frog once, don't be too impressed, but I feel, but I think some of the barriers when you talk about mentoring and encouraging more women to pursue this, they may not understand what kind of career paths are included.
Understand.
I think we think doctors, we think the laboratory thing, but are there some career fields that you can mention that might surprise us that that's a STEM field you may not have known.
Sure, that's actually a great question because for me, I had this same exact question once I graduated from college and didn't pass the M-KET, I thought the only way that I could contribute to helping people in terms of health was if I became a doctor or a nurse.
And if the doctor was the highest pay, you've been listening.
That's what I'm doing, right?
I didn't work out.
But I didn't even know what public health was until I got into the field. Public health is just the study of populations, right?
So the population could be any size, it could be a classroom size, it could be your home, it could be a whole state, a whole country, or the whole world as in COVID.
So I didn't realize that you could look at the public's health from that broad lens, I thought you could only look at health from a small lens or not small, but a specific lens and that's through the lens of a doctor or a nurse or some sort of scientific researcher.
So for me, I kind of fell into public health and once I fell into that, it really did open up my eyes to other professions in science because I started meeting other women who were also in science and just as accomplished and just as successful.
And even financially successful as the doctors that I had looked up to or aspired to be.
So this kind of circles back around to Channing or the Smarty Art Brothers question.
I forgot to answer your, the second part of your question, which is what am I doing now, which is emergency, the end of the day.
So I started off dissecting tissue, then I worked in outbreak investigations with surveillance and trying to figure out what was making people sick and asking why a thousand times and get paid for it.
And now I decided to go on to the emergency response and recovery side of things.
So whenever there's a huge emergency, I didn't know that there were people who work behind the scenes to actually fix the situation.
You always think of first responders like your police officers, your firefighters, your aunties, but there are other folks who actually work behind the scenes to make sure that we're all safe at night from a health standpoint and to make sure that health events or negative health events could be done.
And negative health events could be prevented, right?
So I learned that not only could I do surveillance is another thing in the STEM field, so a public health surveillance, if you will, which is just basically kind of like what detectives do.
Like a criminal detective, they use surveillance, they are looking for a criminal, they're looking for behavior patterns.
They're looking at activities and who's associated with who.
So in terms of for diseases and public health surveillance, it's the same thing. You're just doing it for things you can't see, little tiny microscopic organisms, germs, or what have you.
Otherwise known as pathogen. So I didn't know that was the thing you could do.
But once I found out you could do it, I was like, I like this, this is cool.
So the emergency management side I also learned about, which is you use that scientific information, but also some practical information in terms of like how things should operate or what's the normal structure and function of a city, for example.
And then when that city undergoes a hurricane or tornado or flooding or a chemical spill, it train with all these different things.
What happens behind scene, there are not a lot of women emergency managers, but that group is growing on property, and probably be one of the African American ones.
But we can make those decisions too. We understand our community. So if you like your community or understand how it kind of works overall, if you like helping people and solving problems, right.
If you're good at problem solving games or you want to apply that to real life, that's basically what emergency managers come in and do. They come in and some of us like to say emergency management is like the insurance policy for big, big large events.
So you kind of, you know, don't necessarily have insurance, but you kind of assess the situation and try to get people back into their homes, get them out of harm's way, sort of be a superhero.
So there's a scientific part of that, but then there's also a practical side of that too. So all that to say, that's just my career path, but there are so many different things underneath the umbrella of STEM.
I have a friend who is an epidemiologist at CDC in HIV. So her job is to definitely look, do national surveillance, but specific to HIV.
So look to see what's going on in the United States regarding HIV and then crunch all those complex numbers and use algorithms and may I sometimes and create reports to send up not only to the director of the agency, but also to the White House.
So who knew? I'm sure she didn't think when she was grown up. You know, I'm going to send reports to the White House when I get older and they're going to have to ask me questions, mathematical questions about what's going on in our nation.
So yeah, there's all kinds of things you can teach within the sciences, host podcasts like this one to educate other people on this.
Love the educational piece. Yeah. So there's all kinds.
I think that's a good thing to realize how broad something is versus like how narrow it is because it always just may feel daunting to folks to think, oh my gosh, if I can't be a doctor, I can't do this.
I spoke to the rare circumstances as far as being a woman in the emergency management is at the right time in that field. It seems that you experience more than once being one of very few or maybe the only one.
So you kind of briefly slightly mentioned some of the the mental health like maintenance and what you've gone through in your path, you know, we know there are recent reports of women who have climbed the ladder and been kind of that one of few in their field or in a particular workplace.
And sometimes the pressures can be overwhelming. So for you, if you want to touch on kind of a period that you went through with your mental health challenges and what you would say to someone, you know, striving for the top and what it takes to like keep your mental health maintained through all of that basically.
Yeah, that's a great question. And I think from myself to enter the first part of your question, the biggest struggle that I had was probably in 2023. So not very long ago, quite recent into 22 beginning of 2023 and all through 2023.
I'd worked in emergency response. So life and death situations for a total of about 15 years. That is not normal for a human, right? We're not wired to be an emergency and survival mode for that many years consecutively.
So once COVID happened to Smarty Art Brothers point, I got really, really busy like most folks in public health. I think that was based on statistics. I don't know the exact numbers, but I think that was the highest mass exodus from public health that had ever been seen in the history of our country.
And not only in public health, I'm pretty sure the medical field, which is kind of overlaps, but medical field is more clinical like actually taking care of individual patients, whereas public health is looking at the whole population like big picture was going on, you know, but even those in clinical health like the nurses and the doctors, radiologists, people running lab tests, folks were getting burned out. And I was no exception.
So for me, I had to kind of have a come to Jesus moment with, you know, if you will with myself to ask myself years ago, which way you said you didn't know what you want to be when you grow up. Do you know the answer to that question now? And I still didn't know the answer.
I spiraled down into depression because I was like, if I'm not investigating outbreaks and under extreme amounts of stress every day, every 24 or 7, I don't know how to exist. I don't know how to value myself outside of that. Like where's my value?
So I went on this journey and I encourage others to do the same if you have time or the desire if this is resonating with you go on that journey and really dig deep inside and start pulling back the layers like, okay, on the surface for me, my surface level was I'm Latoya, I work in a STEM field, I work in emergency management outbreak response. I'm really good at that. Okay, that's nice.
But if I pill that layer back, what else is there to define who I am? And as I pill back layers and actually hired a therapist to help me do this in a safe way, what I got down to the bottom of was that little girl that we talked about at the very beginning of this conversation.
The five year old me that asked all the questions that was creative and inquisitive, but really fun and happy. So I got back to her and I'm still on this journey with this five year old version of myself and all versions of myself, all versions of myself at all ages asking them who are they?
Because we get involved in the STEM fields, or we get involved in our careers and in school and we start defining our self based off of the expectations of society or the expectations of our family, what they think we should be or what careers make a lot of money.
And for me, the money thing became less and less important. Like, we needed to survive, but my mental health was more important than the money that I was making.
So I was journeyed to get back to the five year old me and ask her, like, who did you come to this earth to be? I realized that my definition of success started changing.
My definition of success was no longer to be married, to have two children, to buy property, and to get a really high paying job, like hopefully six figures with a really nice high level title.
That is success or to get multiple degrees, things like that. That is success or that's how the American dream or what I like to call the American nightmare is.
So like marketed to us, right? So now that I know that that dream is a nightmare, at least for me, it's a dream for some, but for me it was a nightmare.
I had to use the tools that I learned regarding caring for my mental health to transform that nightmare into something that was a dream for me, something that was something to live for essentially, right?
So I changed my definition of success and what that looks like. I'm still in the process of changing that.
I'm like, what some people call shadow work and if you like to definitely Google that and look into that and see see that something that you're interested in maybe find someone who could help walk you through it because it's a tough process, whether it's somebody that you pay as a therapist or a social worker or a friend that you trust or an adult that's been through some things and you respect their walk in their life.
I think for me mental health has been, my mental health has been trying to find my balance by getting back to the core who I am and not who society told me I should be.
They told me that I should be the help and there's nothing wrong with being the help. But if I know I was called for something different, then I need to go towards that direction, even if there's a lot of adversity in that path.
I think I need to be getting a hold of my mental health, allowing that to help me define who I am and really, really walking strong in that definition as it pertains to success.
Thank you for sharing that.
Too often, particularly in our community, mental health is kind of taboo is not something that people want to talk about.
Thank you for sharing that and for anybody who's listening who might be interested. If you go back to episode five, we had a great interview with a licensed counselor, Charlnell Jackson, a bottom mental health in the black community.
So I encourage you all to go back and listen to that one.
There's even some resources and tips on what you can do.
Awesome. That's awesome. I love that how as society is changing, we're having even in the black community, a more open conversation about mental health.
I like to think of it as like before grown up folks would say, "Oh, you go see it, they're basically crazy, right? I am crazy. I just get a pride about it.
Just ask your grandma to pray for you about it, right? But now the conversation is opening up and changing to where for me, going to see a doctor if I'm sick is what I do.
If I got a broken bone, I'm going to go see a bone specialist, right? If my mind is sick and not feeling well, just has its own version of a cold, what do I do?
Do I just leave it or do I go seek a specialist? Maybe I might not have to see the specialist, just like I don't have to see the bone doctor specialist for my entire life.
Before that moment or for that season, how do I treat the cold in my mind? And I think of a therapist.
There's a lot of young women out there who are interested in STEM or at least may think they're interested in STEM.
What kind of advice would you give to these expiring youngsters, based off of what you've learned and what you've experienced?
I honestly want to say be true to yourself because if you're true to who you are and what your desires are and what you're naturally just drawn to,
you won't have to go through that journey like me and kind of have to peel back all those unknowers to get back to the five-year-old you. You will always be in touch with that original version of you.
So really be true to yourself, honor what it is that you want to do.
Now if you think that thing that you want to do is not going to make a lot of money or may come with its challenges, that's okay.
Just try to be creative about it.
So for me, I thought the only way that I could help people was through being a doctor. But really, now I'm helping people through public health and also through emergency management.
So still helping, still honoring that part of myself that loves science, just expressing science in a different way than a clinical way like a doctor or a nurse would.
So definitely my advice is to be true to who you are.
There's something that you like or something that you think makes you weird, that's probably why you were born. It's probably your purpose in life.
So honor that by exploring it more, seeking education in it, whether it's formal education, like in college, or informal education, like I don't know watching some YouTube videos or talking to your friend about certification or something like that.
But yes, so if you're interested in STEM, I would encourage you to explore as many aspects as possible. The internet is vast and it's wide. And sometimes it's about knowing the search terms.
So if you don't know all the search terms, it's okay or things to put into Google, it's okay. Start with what you know. And then see what those searches bring up.
Also AI is a huge thing. So even using chat GPT or any of the tools on there, any other AI tools to kind of explore careers, I think is going to be super helpful.
So I encourage you to cast your net wide. And then if you don't know what you want to do and then try to see what that net brings back and talk to people, interview people, be open to communication.
But if you do know what you want to do, that I think is also awesome. If you know what you want to do in STEM, so make sure that you're talking to people that are communicating with people, whether it be on LinkedIn or social media, what have you that have similar past to what you want to follow and ask a lot of questions.
So you might find out that that path you want to take is not actually as cool as you got was or you might find out that that path that you want to take is exactly an alignment with who you are.
So be curious. Ask questions, talk to people, even when it's harder, weird. And then I think that will help you find to your path in STEM even more.
Just giving all the tips and tricks and just, you know, we're going to have to we're going to have to pay a fee.
So we've talked a lot about your professional life and you've given some really good advice up and coming STEM people. But I also know you get an interesting hobby outside of work.
And you and I met at a convention and you were addressed as a cosher if I remember correctly, how that come about.
Well, there's this little thing called cosplay. It's an emerging of two words costume in play. I think a lot of people are becoming increasingly.
I think a lot of people are becoming increasingly familiar with cosplay. But yeah, so there's different conventions that go on across the country, across the world.
Actually, different countries have their own conventions where they talk about cosplay and video gaming and comic books and collectors items and all kinds of things.
But yes, I dressed up as a cosher one year at a huge convention in Atlanta called drag and gun. And that's where I met Smarty Art Brother at. Yeah, I was walking around with my little casha queen of the damn shout out to Alia, her costume that's before in the film.
Yeah.
And I was like, I'm just talking to you. It's given Millennial vibes to be honest. Right. Definitely Millennial vibes. Again, she truly is a multi-hypnid. She's done some amazing cosplays.
There's a lighthearted segment on the Smarty Art Brother show that gives you another opportunity to make some suggestions and keep us on the right track in our lives.
Okay, okay. I'm interested in this segment. It is, you know, it's a lot of lead in.
And it's the time to like get on a soap box about a book about a show about like, you know, it may be a controversial opinion. So, you share what we should be getting into these days.
And it's just an example. I mean, Smarty Art Brother, please expound, but you have the spectrum things that you could be suggesting that we just may not be up on game about.
Right. Or, you know, it could be something even less. Well, I mean, you might just want to tell Boris Coles, don't give you a holla. You know, shoot the shot.
Here and now. Okay. But you know, but no, if you got a movie or a book, go wild. The floor is yours.
Well, I got a series I'd like to talk about. Smarty Art Brother, you might be familiar with said series. Some of the listeners, when you, I don't know when you're going to listen to this, but when you do, you may also be familiar with this.
I'm kind of a nerd, if you guys haven't figured it out. And, you know, it started that way when I was a young kid.
What got me to become the biggest nerd, I think outside of just the sciences was X-Men. Yep. I said it. X-Men, comic books, X-Men, animated series.
And so right now my obsession is X-Men 97 on Disney Plus. Like, it just encompasses so much is animation. It's entertainment. It's cool fight scenes. It's like epic one liners.
It's social justice.
Being wrapped up into like these fantasy worlds of people with superpowers that I wish I had. But yeah, they're writing.
And X-Men 97 is everything. So I don't know if anybody is interested, a log in Disney plus or your friends log in or something and definitely check out X-Men 97.
It's a cartoon, yes, but even adults can watch it.
In case someone from Disney is listening, I would just like to say that the Smarty Art Brother podcast does not condone sharing Disney Plus password.
So please send all your season to sis letters. Definitely.
Ladies, this has been so much fun. Latoya, thank you very much for sharing your professional and personal stories.
And we got to have you back on here to dive deeper into your cosplay and other hobbies and maybe the Atlanta dating scene. Maybe we'll see how that goes.
Yeah, we can talk about it.
It is worth guessing.
Yeah, trust me, understand.
Yeah, just come up with fake names for people. I don't want to get anybody in trouble.
I guess stories.
Atlanta dating.
For instance, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, it seems to be a good nickname. So that you go.
In 50 episodes.
And Stephanie, thank you for coming in and being a part of this.
Like I said, I know the stem in the nerdy thing wasn't your scene, but I knew you could contribute to it and your new skills.
You're still right there. I feel like I could drop you in at the New York Times with a Washington Post.
And you just hit the ground running.
Life, I'm about that life. I'm still, you know, still on the thing. So.
Oh, yeah, you got a foot in the game still. I know.
I'm. Yeah, I'm sending you to go interview a Trump.
You can get you can get the truth out of him. You can get the truth out of it on that one.
For the shot worth the shot.
Well, again, thank you both ladies and listeners. Thank you for joining us.
Happy belated women's history month to all the ladies out there.
Thank you for joining us. I hope you all learn something today.
Oh, before we go, Latoya, if people want to get in touch with you, what's the best way to do it?
I think the best way for me is Instagram. I'm on there a lot doing my cosplay thing.
So many mom there is royalty cosplay. Oh, one word. It's my egg.
So yeah, hit me up on there about cosplay stuff, even about STEM stuff.
Or if you just see somebody to talk to about ideas off of talk about mental health and things like that.
Also talk about cosplay as a mental health outlet a lot.
So we can even talk about that.
So yeah, hit me up at royalty cosplay on IG.
And we'll be sure to put that in the show notes for you.
And Stephanie, for your, your legion of followers, how can they reach you?
Right. I'm out there. I'm outside.
So you can reach me at at bonafide staffs to EPH on Instagram.
And yeah, let's discuss all the things.
You know, I'm the, I'm the Jill of all trade type of topic.
So know a little bit about a lot of things.
I am the smartie art brother. And yes, I'm still your podcast sidepiece.
[Music]
(dramatic music)