- Coming from academia, you're again, in one very specific mindset, right? And like, while you know that the government has all these facilities that are doing amazing things, and maybe we're more aware of them now, post pandemic, you don't understand the breadth of the research that's being done until you're in it. - Right. - And so it was just so valuable to go to, you know, seminars and hear about what was happening across the department and to be able to talk to people. Everyone was super friendly. If I said, oh, I'm, I'm interested in this, someone would sit down and have a conversation with me. So it was definitely a good environment to be a student. And as I mentioned with my robots, my experience has been that government labs tend to have pretty great resources. - Right. - And so to have access to those sort of tools so young is, it's just a great experience. - [Narrator] This is the ORISE Featurecast. Join host Michael Holtz for conversations with ORISE experts on STEM workforce development, scientific and technical reviews, and the evaluation of radiation exposure and environmental contamination. You'll also hear from ORISE research program participants and their mentors as they talk about their experiences and how they are helping shape the future of science. Welcome to the ORISE feature cast. - Welcome to the ORISE Featurecast. As ever I'm your host, Michael Holtz of the communications and Marketing Department at the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education. And I am talking today with Dr. Katie Wozniak, who is a post-doctoral fellow in the intelligence community at Los Alamos National Lab. Katie, welcome to the ORISE Featurecast. - Thank you so much for having me. - So, if you would, tell me a little bit about what you're doing now, but I know as we were just talking, you were a Rice Fellow in the Department of Energy. Talk about kinda just, I guess that progression, if you would. - Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's the, the culmination of the past decade. - Right? No time at all. Right. - So, we'll go way back to, I got my undergraduate degree from Duquesne University. I have a bachelor's in biochemistry. And while I was an undergrad at Duquesne, I got an email, you know, as undergrads do you get so many emails from the various departments saying, oh, do this internship, do that. And the one that really sparked my interest was one from ORISE. - Okay. - That said, you know, there is this opportunity at the CDC for an analytical chemistry fellowship as an intern over the summer and you know, click here to apply. And so I did just that, assuming. - Awesome. - Assuming I wasn't gonna get it. And I was thrilled to find out that I did and I got to spend what ended up being two summers at the CDC in Atlanta. - Awesome. - Yeah. - So what kinda work did you do for the CDC? - Yeah, so when I was down there, I worked in the division of Laboratory Sciences and specifically in the Tobacco and volatiles branch. - Oh, okay. - Which is a group that focuses on like everything, tobacco, you know, studying the effects of smoke on smokers and non-smokers, studying why people smoke. It's a really broad group. - So like the addiction process, the effects of secondhand smoke, the effects of firsthand smoke, all of those, all of those very weighty important topics that we're really still kind of trying to figure out and fight against. Right? - Yeah, absolutely. And I'm, you know, will admit that, I'm not really sure what they're doing now. - Right. - But I'm sure in the past 10 years they've done a lot of really great work. - I'm sure they have. Absolutely. And so now you're at Los Alamos. How do you make that, I guess, lead that that jump? - Yeah, so the work that I did at the CDC, that was like my first real experience doing research. - Okay. - And prior to going to the CDC, like most biology or biochem majors, I wanted to be a doctor. - Gotcha. - And so it was in doing that research at the CDC that I was like, ah, I really think I'm less of a people person and more of a research person. - Haha. - So I went on to get a PhD in molecular, cellular and developmental biology from the University of Pittsburgh. And it had nothing to do with smoke or analytical chemistry in the. - Right. - Reproduction in aquatic organisms. - Totally different. - Totally different. Yes. It was, you know, getting eggs outta frogs and sea urchins and zebra fish and it was a ton of fun. Yeah, I could go on for a really long time about that. But so went from there. And then I also found in graduate school that I really enjoyed teaching. - Okay. - And so I got a teaching minor, so I TA ed some classes and took some classes on like the pedagogy of teaching. And I also set up a postdoc at the University of Pittsburgh immediately after I graduated to independently teach. - Okay. Awesome. - So I, yeah, I got to design these classes where students, they had novel research experiences. So instead of like your standard cookbook, you know, put X and Y together. - Right. - It was like, what happened? Or you know, what bacteria are growing on sunflower pedals. - And how did you find them maybe? Yeah. - Yeah, exactly. So I really enjoyed that teaching experience. And then I did something a little unconventional, which was I took a year off. - Okay. - And so my husband and I had this grand plan of building an RV. So just let that sink in. - I can see where this is going. So yeah, so we had this 1986 Toyota pickup truck and we, you know, swapped the engine. I say we, cause I helped, we swapped the engine. - I love it. - And the transmission and the axles. And we very quickly realized that this was gonna be a huge project and we didn't necessarily wanna to devote years to this project. So we threw our rooftop tent on the truck at some point and just headed out west. - So it's not an RV, but we're making it work. - Exactly. We, I, I'm still living in a tent living outside, it's just less amenities. - Right. - So we did that and it was through that exploration that we just fell in love with the high desert of Colorado and Northern New Mexico. And so then we said, well, what can I do as a PhD biologist in Northern New Mexico? - And we can stay here and. - How, how do we stay here? Exactly. - Right. - And so, you know, I did some Googling and of course I'd learned about Los Alamo, Los National Lab and School, but I had never like, connected where it was and where I was. And so there were opportunities here. - Awesome. - Yeah. And so I actually did a first postdoc. So I applied for a program that they're called the Agile Bio Foundry, and they're a consortium of labs across the national lab, you know, sector and with academia. And they work with non-model microbes. So like, not your E. coli or like your bakers yeast. - Okay. - But, other bacteria and they harness their unique characteristics to make bio products. - Wow, okay. - Yeah. So again, you, you know, a, a theme of my career is I've kind of been everywhere. - Right. - And so in, in doing that research for two years, you know, I, I enjoyed learning about bio manufacturing in that field, but I didn't wanna stay there forever. And so, you know, also being at the lab, I learned more about it's, you know, mission and its commitment to national security. And through various connections I found a group here at the lab that focuses on chemical and biological threats. - Okay. - And so what I really liked about that is that I've always enjoyed science writing. - Okay. Gotcha. - And so not just doing the research, but like writing about it and making sure that my audience can understand. - And that's a key factor, right. In science writing is not just writing about it, but making sure your audience understands what you're writing about. - And I'm sure, you know, know anyone listening has read something that just, you know, sounds like a different language because it wasn't translated well. - Absolutely. - And so some, yeah. Something I'm passionate about is being able to not only do the science and understand it, but to be able to speak about it in such a way that people can understand. - Wonderful. - And so that's kind of what I'm doing now, taking various problems and writing about them on a level that our policy makers can understand. - That's great. And sounds like really both valuable but also important work in terms of the work that's being done. But translating it again so that policy makers and their staff members can understand what the heck it is, the work is that that is going on. Right? - Exactly. - So what kind of things, if I may ask if it's not two top secret, are you writing about what, what, what sorts of concepts are you talking about with policymakers? - One of our main sponsors is the Department of Energy. - Right. - And a project we're working on with them is looking at various bio technological advances. - Okay. - And my group is specifically looking at some that are in like the agricultural sector and asking questions about, you know, where do we see the, where, what is the state of various technologies, where do we see it going? And what sort of implications could that have? - Gotcha. Okay. Without getting too deep, cause I, I realize there, there are actually national security implications for exactly the work that you're doing, so I don't wanna dig too deeply, but it's, you know, it's important work that has to be translated so that lawmakers and policymakers can understand it. So it sounds to me like you play a, a pivotal role in that translation of here's the science, here's what this means. - Yeah. And I think, you know, having my, in my career, having done so many different branches of biology and chemistry, I'm like uniquely positioned to be able to understand more things or that's to say that I, I'm not so intimidated when someone says, okay, look up this totally new topic you've never thought about. - Right. - Yeah. You know, cause I have to take it all the information in, synthesize it in my own brain makes sense. And then be able to reiterate it to someone else. - Right. Absolutely. And again, that sort of fearlessness of like, I'm gonna be a doctor now, I'm gonna do this. No, I'm gonna. - Yeah. - Helps figure it out. Yeah. - Yeah. Absolutely. - So kinda rolling, rolling back a little bit to Katie high school middle school, have you always, has science always been something of an interest for you? Was that something you came to later? Talk about how young Katie Wozniak figures out what she's doing. - Yeah, I mean, young Katie was always interested in science. I was always good at math and science is never very interested in, you know, History or English or anything like that. And I guess I can say that when I was in, I guess I was a junior in high school, I came home one day and I said, Mom, I'm so bored I'm dropping out. And she, she didn't love that. - I can imagine. - And so we like immediately the next day had a meeting with the guidance counselor and said, what do we do here? You know, I was taking all of the AP classes. - Right. - But I was. - Just, how do we make her not bored? - Exactly. I, I was sitting in my classes, I literally had a coloring book that I took to class with me and then I'd get called on and I'd have the answer and that made my teacher. - Oh, I bet that made your peers really angry. - Yeah. So was it like, - Was it an anatomy coloring book or was it like? - Oh. - It was like a white dwarfs or something. So it turns out in the state of Pennsylvania all you need to, or at the time at least, I don't know if this is still true, all you need to graduate as a senior is an English class, A history class, and a gym class. - Seriously. Okay. - And so what we decided was that I was gonna double up on my gym classes. My junior year I took an online history class. - Okay. - And then I enrolled at Duquesne University and my Freshman English class was like a reverse AP credit, so it like counted back. - Okay. - Yeah. So I like moved into college before, actually, right. - Before you were moving into college. - Yeah. - I like that. Overachiever. - I, yeah. - But also not bored. Right? - No. Totally not bored. I was definitely challenged when I went to Duquesne and in all the classes I took there and it was a huge, you know, yeah. I mean as most people know, going from under or from high school to undergrad is a huge jump in what's expected of you and you cannot get away with coloring a class. - Right, right, right, right. And angering your peers at the same time. - Yeah, exactly. - So in terms of your experience at the CDC and you know, our ORISE mentor, our ORISE fellowships are mentored experiences, I have to imagine since you stayed for a couple of years and then you stuck with science, you had to have great mentors, you know, along the way to sort of guide your steps and, you know, keep you involved. Did that happen, I mean, it sounds like it even happened with your guidance counselor to say, okay, we need, we need to figure out a way to keep Katie in school from jumping ship. Right? - Absolutely. I've definitely had a lot of really great people in my corner along the way that, you know, my guidance counselor, as you mentioned, Mr. Angeleno, I even went back to visit him I think after I graduated with my bachelor's or my PhD to be like, look where I am. - That's awesome. - At the CDC I had two really great mentors, Ernest and Tanya. And I think what was really cool about that experience was, you know, I'd only seen research at, when I was an undergrad, from the undergraduate perspective of very stressed out professors and TAs and I'd never seen a government lab before. And so they really like took me under their wing to show me like, you know, this is how, this is how things are done here. I don't know, they, they, they were very kind in when I had a lot of questions, they always encouraged me to ask them the research that I did, so the division of laboratory sciences prior to my arrival had gotten a bunch of these very big, inexpensive robots. - Okay. - And so what the robots did was they conducted like laboratory assays that were traditionally done by technicians. And so the problem was they got these robots and they had to program them. - Oh. - Yeah. And so I had no programming experience, but my project for the summer was to program the robots. - And being fearless, Katie. - Yeah. And, and being fearless Katie, I was like, sure, let's do it. But I hear are my list of questions. - Right, right. - And so my mentors were great in just answering them, helping me troubleshoot things and just like, you know, just lifting me up and making me feel like, you know, I was doing a good job even if I was, felt like I was failing cuz I couldn't get a program to work. - Right, right. In your role today, and I guess even, you know, over the past decade as we, as we've talked about, have you had the opportunity then to mentor folks yourself, be be that mentor for other people? And what has that experience been like for you? - Yeah, absolutely. So as a graduate student, we had a slew of undergraduates come through the lab and they were, I mean, instrumental in my research because we would, you know, we'd have two or three on a given day in the lab. And like I said, I did research with aquatic organisms. And so when it was a day that the frogs were up in the lab, we'd have, there were just various chores you had to do to get your research done. You had to, you know, dissect the male frog and collect his testes. You had to squeeze the female frog and get her eggs. And so I got to, when we get, would get new undergrads in the lab, I would teach them step by step how to do these things. And it was really, you know, neat to see some of them stay in the lab for three or four years and go from, you know, just being able to do very small tasks to being able to ask questions and ask research questions that they could then test. - Right. - So yeah, it was definitely a very kind of full circle moment to be able to be the mentee and then become the mentor. - That's awesome. That's awesome. I love the, I love the visual of, of that sort of seeing the light bulb moment, you know, for those students that you're mentoring. Like. - Absolutely. - All of a sudden it sort of clicks in, oh, I get this. Yeah. - Yeah. And you know, even in like, you know, I teach them to do an assay and sometimes they'd come to me and say, well, why are we doing it this way? And I, I've actually found that this is better and do you have a reason? And sometimes the answer is yes, and sometimes the answer is no. Your way sounds a lot better. - Right. - So. - Which is really cool and it has to be encouraging. - Yeah. - And it sounds like you, you know, just in what you're explaining about your own experience, like you had that room sort of that runway to like, why are we doing it like this? Who do we do it this way? So not only did you have that experience, but you've seen other students, the people you've mentored kind of have that experience as well. So again, talking about that full circle. - Yeah, and I mean, especially when I was in graduate school too, I had a fantastic mentor and she, we had that same process and then I learned from her how to be a good mentor as well. So it's just, you know, you just have to stay open to learning and it's really beneficial. - Awesome. I know, I think I know the obvious answer to this question, but based on your experience as an ORISE Fellow, would you recommend the experience to others? And why would you recommend the experience? - Yeah, I would absolutely recommend the experience. I would, you know, I think first say if you get that email coming through your box and you say, oh, I'm never gonna get into this program, just apply. Like, if it doesn't work out, that's fine, but apply and, you know, especially apply if it's an opportunity at one of our national labs, I hadn't realized, I, I don't know, coming from academia, you're again in one very specific mindset. - Right. - And like, while you know that the government has all these facilities that are doing amazing things, and maybe we're more aware of them now post-pandemic, you don't understand the breadth of the research research that's being done until you're in it. - Right. - And so it was just so valuable to go to, you know, seminars and hear about what was happening across the department and to be able to talk to people. Everyone was super friendly. If I said, oh, I'm, I'm interested in this, someone would sit down and have a conversation with me. So it was definitely a good environment to be a student. And as I mentioned with my robots, my experience has been that government labs tend to have pretty great resources. - Right. - And so to have access to those sort of tools so young is, it's just a great experience. - Awesome. And I know, you know, science is a collaborative sport, right? You're not, you're not sitting alone, you know, in your own silo doing your thing. How is it from your experience working with other scientists who maybe aren't researching exactly what you're doing, but maybe you're in the same ballpark or your research feeds someone else's work and vice versa, you know, talk about that process a little bit. - Yeah, I, I mean I personally have had really great collaborative experiences both in graduate school and at, for example in, in graduate school. So at the University of Pittsburgh it we're kind of situated with a couple different universities around us. And so I was able to say, okay, I'm interested in studying reproduction and aquatic organisms. There's someone at CMU that has starfish and sea urchins and I was able to facilitate that. Or there's someone in the med school that has hydro tenia, which is very neat, look it up. So their eggs. And so those collaborations were awesome. And then here at LANL especially in my role now, you know, looking at these, you know, various projects I'm working on, I need specialists in these different fields. I can't possibly, you know, have expertise in all the things I'm writing about. - Sure. - So I have to be able to reach out to people and say, "Hey, you're an ecologist. Can you tell me more about this?" And. - And make it make sense for me and other people? - Yeah. Exactly. So we bring those sorts of people in as what we call subject matter experts. - Right. - To, you know, double check what I've written and say, do am I, you know, interpreting. - I ex yeah. I, yeah. - So I do some of that in, in my job here at or ORISE as well. And yeah, I love being able to like, am I saying this correctly? Am I, does this make sense? Is this how you would say that? You know. - Well, and you know, sometimes there's just a word or two that means something very different in a different field and you might throw it in and it could just totally throw off the whole meaning of what you're trying to say. - Abs. Yeah. I had a recent experience of that with, with that myself talking to an astrophysicist and like one word outta place or in addition, like changed the whole definition of what we were talking about. And she was like, no, you can't say that. Like, take this word off because it changes the definition of the thing I was writing about. And she was like, otherwise it's not, you know? So yeah, there's, I mean, word choice and, and all of that is really important. - And I think the one that just popped into my head, as you were saying that was the word significant. - Okay. - Right. So when you're writing a scientific paper, if you say these results are significant, you're probably adding some amount, you know, statistics behind that. And the sign has significance with some amount of uncertainty. - Right. - Whereas, you know, and just, if you're just reading a news article and it says, oh, that was a very significant something, they just mean important. They don't mean, it's like definitely right. - Right. Yes, exactly. Yeah. You're talking statistics or you're talking level of important and yeah, it ma it makes a difference, you know? Oh, writing. - It's definitely been a weird transition going from being at the bench every day to sitting in front of my computer every day and I'm figuring out how to, how to handle that. - But it's still sound, I mean, yes, it's a change, but it sounds like you've enjoy it nonetheless. - Absolutely. Yeah. It's more of like a, I need to stand up and like do 10 jumping jacks and then sit back. - I totally understand. Katie, last question for you. - What brings you joy? - Okay. - In any aspect of life, work, personal RV, whatever. - Many things in all those categories. But I think what comes to mind most is I just love being outside. - Yes. - So one of the reasons we decided to live in Northern New Mexico is just, it is gorgeous out here. I like, you know, don't wanna say this cause I do, I, I want people to move to Mexico, but I also don't. - Right. - I, it has everything. It was, it was never on the map for me growing up in Pennsylvania. Like hopefully I could have picked it out, but like. - Right. - I knew nothing. And we've got mountains, we've got deserts, we've got forests. Any type of adventure I could wanna go on, I can get to in an hour from my house here in Santa Fe. And I just absolutely love that. And I love, you know, the piece that comes with going on a nice hike or you know, going on a mountain bike and feeling, you know, all the adrenaline. I just love being outside. - Awesome. That sounds great. It sounds like a place I need to visit soon. - I can make you a list. - Absolutely. I love it. Katie Wozniak, thank you so much for spending this time with me today. I really appreciate it. I really appreciate getting to learn a little bit more about you and the work that you're doing as well as your I Rise experience. - Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. - Absolutely. Have a great rest of your day. - Thanks, you too. - [Narrator] Thank you for listening to the ORISE Featurecast. To learn more about the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, visit orise.orau.gov. Or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at @Reconnection. If you like the ORISE Featurecast, give us a review wherever you listen to podcasts. The Oak Ridge Institute for Science.