Dr. Shawna Reed, Principal Investigator and Assistant Professor of Biomedical Sciences, Quinnipiac University
(Renee, Alex, Isa, Shawna, Oveen, Vince, Emily, Genna)
https://www.qu.edu/faculty-and-staff/shawna-reed-phd/
Follow her on X and BluSky: https://twitter.com/profpathogen1 and https://bsky.app/profile/profpathogen.bsky.social
Could you share insights into your current research focus?
I’m interested in the molecular interactions between intracellular bacteria and their host cells (usually mammalian, but sometimes arthropod). I fell in love with the elegance and specificity of microbial pathogenesis in my first-ever research experience with Alison McBride at NIH, studying papillomaviruses. In graduate school I discovered intracellular bacteria with their suite of secretion systems and the proteins they inject into cells to survive and thrive within. I’ve been in the “Rickettsiology” field since then, first investigating Rickettsia parkeri pathogenesis and then moving to Coxiella burnettii in my post-doc research.
In my own lab, I am interested in the cell biology of Coxiella effector proteins. My Master’s students and I have been focusing on one protein in particular that seems to interact with recycling endosomes. Alongside undergraduate students in class and lab we are exploring methods in bioinformatics, protein expression and cell biology with the goal of expressing a full library of Coxiella effectors in mammalian cells. I’ve also become interested in the cellular and developmental peculiarities of Coxiella and how bacterial genes are regulated during infection, which is great because I can do experiments with E. coli. Working on a limited budget and with mostly undergraduates challenges us to focus on building methods and producing preliminary results that can be pursued by collaborators and colleagues.
What obstacles did you face as a New PI and how did you tackle them?
The most challenging obstacles I’ve faced are structural limitations; my capacity as a parent, professor, and person with ADHD; the small budget and startup available at a primarily undergraduate and non-R1/R2 institution; and the time constraints of research with a workload expectation of 70% teaching, 15% service and 15% research. The most universal obstacle I’ve faced is learning to manage trainees, colleagues, and myself.
Addressing budget challenges has been the most fun when I’m finding materials from resellers or donations from industry, learning to fix or calibrate equipment, or figuring out how to do experiments on a budget. It’s been the least fun struggling to find any small grants to fund my work, or being unable to complete a set of experiments when we couldn’t afford to buy a reagent or synthesize a tricky clone.
I was formally diagnosed with ADHD 2 years into my faculty position, when I suddenly found myself unable to complete some simple tasks because of the task-switching and social demands of professor-ing. Addressing my ableist expectations of my own achievement and learning to accept my own capacity for work is an ongoing challenge. Surprisingly, the diagnosis and treatment have helped me develop as a mentor and parent, because my expectations for myself and others are slowly becoming more reasonable and realistic. I regret spending so many years of my life feeling terrible about myself every day and relying on emotionally and mentally unhealthy habits and cycles to be productive.
Managing trainees is always a work in progress. I was lucky to do some mentoring training in graduate school and work with undergraduates as a post-doc, but the experience is totally different when you are suddenly the “professor” in the room. I strive for a lot of humility as a manager, and I’ve learned that I must be more clear, explicit and structured in my expectations in order to help my trainees reach their goals. I am intrinsically disordered and generally flexible, but I learned to have more 1-1 meetings, timesheets, goals, and details in electronic notebooks than I might naturally, because it helps students to learn and progress and keeps my expectations reasonable. Attending graduations with students I’ve mentored for 4 years and watching mentees get jobs and graduate admissions is without a doubt the most rewarding part of my career as a scientist to date.
How do you balance the demands of teaching, research, and administration in your role as a principal investigator?
Does everyone just answer “uh… I don’t.”??? In weeks or semesters when I’ve had more balance, it’s because I’ve made a choice to set part of my workload aside. Last summer, I did not take any summer students and took the space to think and write about my work, spend time with my children and family, attend conferences without presenting, and organize myself for teaching and admin work. I also work hard to make teaching and grading more efficient. I fail most of the time at correctly estimating the time it takes to do service and admin work, but I do try to take on service that supports my goals of facilitating undergraduate research and improving inclusive training and teaching at my university.
As a New PI, what’s your superpower?
My superpower is appreciating the talents, quirks, and strengths of my colleagues, scientific buddies, and trainees, and I’ve been told that means I can give supportive and caring advice on NPIS and in real life as well. I’m sure I’ve made many mistakes, but in a nomination one of my students called me a “Rock Star Mentor” and I hope I can live up to that more than 50% of the time.
What mantra keeps you motivated during the ups and downs of academic life?
Whatever I have done today, it is enough.
What is the one piece of advice you would give to your past self, on the day 1 of this job?
Learn to say no and temper your expectations of yourself and others, because doing fewer things well is better than doing many things and becoming overwhelmed and unreliable.
Bonus Question
What’s the coolest factoid about microbes and their relation to cell biology that I never knew I needed to hear/know?
I studied actin-based motility in graduate school and it’s still one of the most beautiful microscopic phenomena I’ve ever seen. We know this motility contributes to virulence and spread within a host for some species of bacteria, but almost all intracellular pathogens interact with actin using at least one protein and many don’t move with “tails”. This means interactions with actin are maintained as critical for survival of pathogens, but we don’t know why YET. While pathogens helped us make discoveries about many critical cellular pathways – phagocytosis, autophagy, motility, apoptosis, membrane trafficking – there is so much left to reveal!