Nicola J. Patron (she/her) is a Black British group leader at the Earlham Institute (Norwich, UK). Nicola established her group in 2016 where they work on plant molecular and synthetic biology.
Nicola’s plant science journey so far
From just her name, Nicola is motivated by her family’s history, “I am Nicola J. Patron. Patron is from my maternal lineage, which is Trinidadian and reminds me that I am descended from people who survived the Atlantic slave trade. The J is for my magnificent Aunty Joan who died too young. It reminds me of the sacrifices and hard work that my mother’s generation made for us to have a chance at better lives”.
Now an established group leader, Nicola’s journey hasn’t been straightforward. After completing her PhD and two postdocs in the UK and Canada, she took some time away from academia due to illness and relocating to Australia before working with industry for a couple of years. Although she didn’t have a career plan, Nicola’s journey has been “twisty with breaks in the road and that there have been extreme highs and lows”, but she reminds us that this can help us grow, “the good times certainly help me move onwards and upwards, but the bad times taught me resilience, self-reliance, which I have found to be just as valuable”.
In 2016 she returned to the UK and academia to start her research group. In her current role as a PI, on an ideal day, Nicola has the time to discuss data and future experiments with students and post-docs in her group as well as hopefully having time to read and spend time on manuscripts and grant proposals. Despite having lots to juggle, she finds the most value in “creating a productive and happy learning environment in which students and postdocs can enjoy doing cool experiments and gain the confidence and skills they need for successful careers” and she reflects on the enjoyment she gets from working with her group: “Every thesis and paper submitted from our group makes my heart swell with gratitude that I get to work with such brilliant and hardworking people”.
Whilst most of the time Nicola is happy and comfortable in her role, as many Black people and people of colour have experienced, not infrequently Nicola feels she is reminded that “it is unusual for someone who looks like me to be in my job and that people have limited expectations of Black women”. For example, “At a conference, a fellow scientist called security upon finding me in the AV room checking my talk. At other meetings, delegates have handed me their used coffee cups or, on one occasion, a cash tip, mistaking me for waitstaff or a restroom attendant”. She would like representation to get to a place where she is “able to do every aspect of my work without being reminded that my being there is unusual and that I might not belong”.
The importance of role models and mentors
When asked about who she sees as role models, there are many people that inspire Nicola. She gives a shout out to Prof. Beronda Montgomery and her work to understand what contributes to the success and growth of individuals, be they bacteria, plants, or graduate students. She strongly recommends Prof. Montgomery’s book, Lessons from Plants. She also highlights the “grace and strength of several outstanding scientists such as Profs Jennifer Nemhauser, Siobhan Brady and Terri Long who, as well as doing field-leading research, also make time for meaningful actions that positively influence science culture”. When thinking about Black role models in the UK, Nicola points out that unfortunately there are “very few Black people in positions of leadership in science”, but points to Dame Sharon White, David Olusoga OBE, and Candice Carty Williams as people beyond plant science whose achievements she has found inspirational.
Having good mentors is undoubtedly beneficial. While Nicola didn’t have any mentors until applying for tenure, she now “doesn’t know how she survived so long without!”. She explains that for her, a mentor “is someone who has experience of walking a similar path to the one that you are on and is willing to help you to be successful on your path…Because our identity, be that gender, colour, sexual orientation, or something else, can have such marked effects on our journeys, I think it is incredibly helpful to have a mentor that identifies similarly and is able to empathise with your experience of the world”. For Nicola, mentors can take many forms, whether it’s sharing knowledge and experience, sharing contacts, or simply cheering you on.
Having benefitted from being a mentee herself, Nicola recognises the importance of how she could help others and has received formal training on being a better mentor. Recognising how valuable this is, she believes that the role of mentoring is an important part of being a group leader and that it “should be a part of the standard training we receive when transitioning to being a PI”.
The future of plant science
Despite having faced difficulties “I had I supervisor who took a slow close-up 360 circumnavigation of my newly braided head as if it were a fairground curiosity. I also had a horrifically and overtly racist co-worker to which the workplace response was that I must certainly be over-sensitive, and that the success of the group was more important than my mental health or well-being. That experience left me physically and emotionally broken.” Nicola notes that things are better than they were 15-20 years ago and expresses her joy seeing that there are “outstanding Black people getting into positions of influence and leadership and many more brilliant young scientists coming into this field of study”.
While over recent years there has been more prominence on increasing EDI efforts, Nicola emphasises that she would like to see more focus on the direct support of Black scientists: “I would like to see a lot more time, effort and money spent targeted towards helping new and existing Black scientists to overcome structural barriers and be successful, and a lot less spent on data-collection and training opportunities for the majority population”.
There is now an understanding that there needs to be more of an effort to recruit a more diverse group of scientists, however, it is important to make changes so that everyone can thrive, rather than just supplying a boost to diversity ratings. Nicola makes an interesting comparison to the work many of us do as plant scientists in the lab, “just as we will optimise growth conditions to meet the needs of different plants, I would like to see more willingness to adjust spaces and structures to encourage diversity rather than expecting people from different backgrounds to themselves to fit into a system that dates from a bygone era”.
Whilst Nicola says if she could re-run time, she would have stood up for herself more in organisations where she was “denied the right to work in an environment free from discriminatory and racist behaviour”, she is now a more confident and wise person with an important reminder for up and coming Black plant scientists. “You deserve to be here. You are important. You can succeed. If anyone around you is making you feel the opposite, you can call me for help”.