Marcia Pescador Jimenez, PhD is currently a postdoc in Epidemiology at Harvard, and will be transitioning to assistant professor at Boston University. Her research focuses on spatial determinants of health through the lifecourse. Marcia is originally from Mexico City, and talks about challenges of writing in English and negotiating a job offer in the US. She tells me how she puts together cold emails to other researchers to ask for help, despite her imposter syndrome. We laugh a lot in this episode, including about confusion over honeydew vs. Mountain Dew, Jane the Virgin on loop, scented candles, high-waisted pants, and more!
Marcia Pescador Jimenez, PhD is currently a postdoc in Epidemiology at Harvard, and will be transitioning to assistant professor at Boston University. Her research focuses on spatial determinants of health through the lifecourse. Marcia is originally from Mexico City, and talks about challenges of writing in English and negotiating a job offer in the US. She tells me how she puts together cold emails to other researchers to ask for help, despite her imposter syndrome. We laugh a lot in this episode, including about confusion over honeydew vs. Mountain Dew, Jane the Virgin on loop, scented candles, high-waisted pants, and more!
Marcia Jimenez:
I remember one email that you sent me, maybe you started with, "Dude, I need to do some..." I loved that you called me dude. It was like, "We're friends." Nobody calls me dude. I'm like, "Oh my God. She called me dude."
Lisa Bodnar:
I love calling people dude.
Marcia Jimenez:
I love it too.
Lisa Bodnar:
I think I wrote you and I was like, "Dude, my day is fucked. We need to reschedule this."
Marcia Jimenez:
I was so happy Lisa. I think that email made my day.
Lisa Bodnar:
Hello Shiny Epi People. I'm Lisa Bodnar. So happy that you're here. Welcome to the show. As a reminder, you can find us on Twitter and Instagram @ShinyEpiPeople. And if you would like to support the show financially, the show is at Patreon at patreon.com/shinyepipeople. And if you don't want to support the show via Patreon, totally cool with me. Please share the show with your friends. That's actually really, really helpful. Today, I am speaking with Marcia Pescador Jimenez. Sorry, my Spanish accent is really bad. Marcia is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in the department of epidemiology. She's an incoming assistant professor in epidemiology at Boston University. She received her PhD at Brown and her research focuses on addressing the influence of spatial determinants of health throughout the life course. She's interested in access to green space on cardiovascular health, cognitive decline, and health disparities.
Lisa Bodnar:
Marcia is originally from Mexico City. And in this chat, she tells me about her move to the US, including challenges in writing and speaking about her research in English and negotiating a job offer in the US. Marcia talks about how much guidance and mentorship she has received throughout her career and how some of that has come from sending cold emails to researchers to ask for help. So we break down what is in some of those emails as a framework for others who may not know how to write one of these. Marcia is simply delightful, which you can tell from the very first words out of her mouth to me. I hope you enjoy this chat.
Lisa Bodnar:
Hey Marcia!
Marcia Jimenez:
Hi Lisa! Can you tell my excitement?
Lisa Bodnar:
Yes, I can. Well, I could tell through your emails. Your emails were like, "Woohoo! I can't wait."
Marcia Jimenez:
I know and I'm so excited about it. I'm sweating because of nervousness, I think this is worse the dissertation process I think.
Lisa Bodnar:
No. I loved that you were so enthusiastic. I thought that was amazing.
Marcia Jimenez:
Thank you for inviting me. This is my girls' night out although it's 3:00 PM.
Lisa Bodnar:
I know. That's super fun. So when did you come to the US from Mexico?
Marcia Jimenez:
First I actually lived in Belgium. I lived there for a couple of years, because I went to study a master's in Belgium and I met my husband in Belgium actually. So we were both at a salsa bar at the right moment at the right time. We met, we fall in love and I came here because of him basically, because I never liked the US. I don't think I told people... So, I don't know, growing up in Mexico, it's weird. It's like it just depends so much On the US for everything. Financially, politically it's just so dependent. So you grow up with this sense of being liberated from this. We don't want to do anything with the US.
Marcia Jimenez:
And then I fall in love with an American guy. It's like, "Shit!" The first year I moved here, what was it? 2010. And the first year was actually a bit harsh because I still had this mentality of, "I don't really want to be here. What am I doing here?" But then I started meeting people and I was very impressed with how nice they were to me. I just really like it now. I'm very, very happy. I think that this country has so much to offer.
Lisa Bodnar:
What do you miss about living in Mexico?
Marcia Jimenez:
Family. Yeah, that's the worst part.
Lisa Bodnar:
Your family.
Marcia Jimenez:
Yeah. One of the things that I wanted to talk about, especially having little children...
Lisa Bodnar:
How old are they?
Marcia Jimenez:
So I have a four year old and a one year old. Yeah. I think that has been the hardest in terms of everything, in terms of my mom not being able to play with them. But also, me not being able to just say, "Mom, here are the girls. I need a break. Bye." My husband and I are, are pretty much on our own. So, that has been a weird part of life. Raising kids without family around.
Lisa Bodnar:
Aside from your family, what do you miss about being in Mexico?
Marcia Jimenez:
People are really, they love to party. It's almost part of the culture. I remember living there, you would party starting Friday until Sunday. But it's also because people are so tired and so stressed. Now I can see it, because a lot of people have not just one job but two or even three jobs because they cannot afford to have only one. So, by the end of the week, they're exhausted. They just want to forget about everything. So you start drinking, you start dancing.
Lisa Bodnar:
It sounds super fun.
Marcia Jimenez:
Yeah, it's fun. So, I remember like a baptism, it would start at noon. It would finish at 3:00 AM with grandpa on the floor.
Lisa Bodnar:
That's awesome.
Marcia Jimenez:
Yeah.
Lisa Bodnar:
I imagine it's the case where no one is self-conscious about what they look like dancing.
Marcia Jimenez:
Oh, no, no, no. They love to dance. It's just so cool and they dance like they don't care, but everyone, I'm telling you that grandma, grandpa, uncles, everybody's just dancing. It gets very dramatic too. People start fighting around 1:00 AM.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah.
Marcia Jimenez:
But I think it's always a part of the culture. I don't know. It's just all very exciting.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah. You mentioned this to me before we talked that you have to explain your research in another language. Can you talk some about this?
Marcia Jimenez:
So it's, I think, one of the things that I've had more trouble with is explaining myself in English. And it's also when I talk and also when I write a paper or even emails. It's so hard for me, even though I've been here for 10 years. People don't talk about this enough, being able to explain your research and explain it clearly in your own language is hard enough. In another language it's even worse. You cannot find the words or... I go to thesaurus looking for synonyms so many times.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do that. English is my first language and I still do it. No, but I understand what you're saying.
Marcia Jimenez:
Yeah. It's just so hard, Lisa. I don't know. It's been one of the hardest things that I've had to do when studying abroad. It started in Belgium. When I moved to Belgium, my master's was in English. And it's funny, I never thought about it, but when you study in another language, you really have to focus to learn something. When it's your own language, you can just doze off a little bit, or even sleep. The words will still enter you somehow, right?
Lisa Bodnar:
Right, yeah.
Marcia Jimenez:
But if it's another language, you really have to focus. It's weird, but otherwise it's like the class never happened and you never learned anything. So, yeah.
Lisa Bodnar:
Do you feel like writing in English, it ends up taking you a really long time to produce something?
Marcia Jimenez:
Yeah. Writing is one of the hardest things that I have to do in this career. And my background was very much focused on statistics and numbers and I was like, "I can do anything." And then, "Okay, write an abstract and tell me why your research is important." I was like, "No, no, no. I don't want to do that." Selling your research it's just so difficult. So at the beginning, what I would do is I would pick a couple of papers that I liked and then try to copy the pattern of the writing.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yes. Yes, yes.
Marcia Jimenez:
It's hard to do it too. It's really recently that I've started writing on my own with my own words. Just without seeing anything, without copying everything. It's been 10 years, Lisa, that I've been here and just really in the last couple of months, I've started actually writing on my own.
Marcia Jimenez:
I think imposter syndrome was very important to me because I didn't know it existed until late in the game. It kind of validated what I was feeling. Even my husband made fun of me, which now that I think of it, it's a mean thing to do. But I remember telling him, "I think they're going to find out that I'm not as good as they thought I was." I remember saying those words, Lisa, and this is why I say that it's mean because he would say, "You think they found out already?" But I didn't know there was that thing. And the same words that I told myself, those were the exact same words of imposter syndrome.
Marcia Jimenez:
So I was like, "Ah, that's what I've been feeling my whole life, almost." It made me feel better in a way to know that it was a thing and it was not me. In academia when people talked about the research or what they did, they sounded all so confident to me and I felt like this tiny person. So, when I heard that people felt that way, it helped me so much. It's like, "Ah."
Lisa Bodnar:
It's so much a thing that we have a name for it, right?
Marcia Jimenez:
Exactly. Yeah.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah. That enough people feel like this that someone gave it a syndrome. Called it a syndrome. How lucky we are.
Marcia Jimenez:
I remember my mentor from the postdoc he was writing an [inaudible 00:11:48] and he asked for my opinion on his grammar. Okay, what? Really? Yeah. I was like, "You really want my... I know nothing! Why are you making... Are you faking this? Are you just trying to make..." I mean, right now, I know that he was genuinely interested in my opinion. And maybe I did have something to say about it.
Lisa Bodnar:
I don't know that I've talked to anyone yet, who is on a K99/R00. Could you just talk a little bit about it? Why you felt like that was... Or just to explain to people what the mechanism is and then why you felt like it was the right thing to try instead of going a different route?
Marcia Jimenez:
Yeah, for sure. So I think one of the reasons why I applied for a K, and the timing of applying, I think that's important too. Well, it's because it was really an advice that someone gave me. "Apply for a K on the first year of your postdoc." Yeah. So briefly a K is a mechanism through the NIH, the National Institutes of Health that funds your research, depending on what type of K. It can be for up to five years. In my case the K99/R00, it's kind of a two-stage mechanism. So the K99 part gives you funding for up to two years on your postdoc. And then as you transition to a faculty position, the funding continuous through the R00 for three more years. So in total you have up to five years of funding.
Marcia Jimenez:
Applying during the first year of the postdoc was key because if you don't get it or you have to resubmit by the time you have to resubmit, I think you're up to the end of your second year. And you're probably run out of funding before the K99 kicks in. So if you apply too late, then you're in this weird position where you have no funding and you're waiting to hear back from your K. This is also what I wanted to talk to you about, about kindness in academia. I've talked to so many people that gave me such good advice without even knowing me.
Marcia Jimenez:
I haven't met these people, I've only emailed them. I had these 15 minute phone call with someone that I've never met and they just tell me whatever they think will help me. And they are really changing my life with a 15 minute phone call.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah.
Marcia Jimenez:
I'm just so thankful for people to be that nice and be willing to share their experience and tell you what works, what hasn't worked. So I think that's just wonderful and I know that I wouldn't be where I am without them.
Lisa Bodnar:
That's awesome. How were you connected with them?
Marcia Jimenez:
Yeah. Yeah. One ways is definitely through mentors that tell me, they connect me through email. They introduced me, "This is Marcia, this is Lola." Another is actually me just sending emails like, "Hi, I'm Marcia. I'm interested in this. I know you're interested in this too. Do you have five minutes to talk?" I've been doing that since even before I started my PhD and people answer. They are so willing to talk to you and give you 30 minutes, 15 minutes, an hour of their time. And I've made so many collaborations just through sending an email without CC-ing anyone. It's just really me a student writing them.
Lisa Bodnar:
In addition to kindness, which is what you were talking about before, I think it also has something to do with you and your approach to those emails. Could you talk for a minute about what you maybe do in those emails that... Because I think that they have to convey a sense of confidence and accomplishment, respect. What do you think about those emails? You don't know these people, you haven't CC'd anyone, why they respond?
Marcia Jimenez:
I never thought about that really. The way I write those emails, it is with a lot of respect. I start like, "Dear doctor, blah, blah, blah. Thank you very much for your time." So I don't think I show a lot of confidence. I'd never show a lot of confidence since I'm not sure about that part.
Lisa Bodnar:
Well, I think just sending an email like that, cold, suggests some level of confidence.
Marcia Jimenez:
Well, a friend of mine, I remember this because of her, I remember when I was still in Mexico and I was applying to grad school outside of Mexico, I was terrified of writing emails to professors outside. And she said, "What's the worst that can happen? The no is already there. If you don't write it, you have your answer."
Lisa Bodnar:
No, I love that.
Marcia Jimenez:
Yeah. So I think that stuck in my mind and it's totally true. If I don't write, nothing is going to happen, if I write, the worst thing that can happen is that they are not going to answer and that's fine. But that's why I sent not one email, but maybe five or six, because one of those is going to end up in something good. So I think that's where the confidence comes from. And then I always attach my CV. I don't know if that's also...
Lisa Bodnar:
Yes. That's critical.
Marcia Jimenez:
I mention my position, I mention what I am working on. I also try not to make it too long, because otherwise they're not going to read it. I also say, "What do I want to talk about?" Something specific, if it's an advice for a K, I would say, "I'm writing a K, would love to hear about your experience." And the last... See, I do have a pattern. I didn't even realize I had this pattern.
Lisa Bodnar:
I know.
Marcia Jimenez:
Yeah. The other part is that I mention the time that would work. I don't leave it like, "Whenever you can talk," I say sometime in the next week, or if I really push it and I really need an answer I mention a specific day like, "Next week, these days could work for me. Thank you very much in advance."
Lisa Bodnar:
And so has the worst thing that's happened, just not a response?
Marcia Jimenez:
Right, yeah. Honestly, because nobody has replied, "You are a waste of time," or "I don't have time."
Lisa Bodnar:
Like, "LOL, LOL, LOL." Nobody's doing that.
Marcia Jimenez:
No.
Lisa Bodnar:
And I also want to add as someone who has gotten those emails and had really the very best intentions of replying that it's often not about the person in the email. I'm so overwhelmed, I can't get to all of these things. I feel like also persistence is very important and that if I didn't hear from someone, I was like, "I'm going to reach back out in a month." And when I get those emails, I'm like, "They're committed to this," right? This wasn't just like they fired off this email to 30 people.
Marcia Jimenez:
Yeah. Sometimes when people don't reply and I really want to talk to them, I send another email like nothing had ever happened. You never ignored me, that did not happen. I agree with you completely. I don't feel personally offended. I know people are super busy if they didn't reply. And then maybe we meet in a conference, before when it was in person. I would go ask a question and make a connection somehow. So I would try other ways to connect with that person.
Marcia Jimenez:
One thing that I wanted to talk about, being a non-American and going through job offer and that kind of stuff. Because we don't really know what we should look for in a job offer or in a contract. I am very, very grateful for my mentors because I remember when I got the job offer, I sat with them for one hour, going through each point in the letter. I don't know how to deal with that. I've never had a job offer from an institution in the United States. Yeah. And there were even terms that I hadn't heard me in my life, like fringe.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yes.
Marcia Jimenez:
What is that?
Lisa Bodnar:
Yes.
Marcia Jimenez:
One thing that I'm not sure if I explained clearly is how important it is to reach out to people, not to one or two. I reached out to so many people and everybody was helpful in different ways that among them, I created 100. This person gave me 1% of the information, that's 10, that's five.
Lisa Bodnar:
When you get mentoring, sometimes it can be from one person, but it often feels like research to me.
Marcia Jimenez:
Right.
Lisa Bodnar:
I'm going to gather information from a whole bunch of different people and then take all their answers and I want to look at them together and then figure out what's fit for me.
Marcia Jimenez:
Exactly. Because some people might, like I remember the first person that I reached out about this transitioning that I was going through, the advice that I got was, "Don't deal with this anymore. You're in a good spot, stop it right there." But I was like, "I think there's more to it being here." So I talked to more people and it ended up being such a great thing for me that if I had stopped at that first step, it would have been so different.
Lisa Bodnar:
You have to trust your instincts and know, "Okay, I'm going to ask one more person." And this isn't me just being obsessive. I mean, maybe 50% of it...
Marcia Jimenez:
Maybe it's 75.
Lisa Bodnar:
Right. But it's not 100%.
Marcia Jimenez:
Exactly.
Lisa Bodnar:
I know enough to say, "I'm going to do a little bit more digging into this."
Lisa Bodnar:
Marcia, what makes you laugh no matter what?
Marcia Jimenez:
My daughter is in this farting phase and the little one is starting to catch up. So at some point the four year old will say, "Oh, I farted," and the little one would start making noise...
Lisa Bodnar:
Do you have something that you're embarrassed to admit that you like?
Marcia Jimenez:
Sorry, I'm watching on a loop, have you heard of Jane The Virgin?
Lisa Bodnar:
Yes.
Marcia Jimenez:
Oh my God, I love it so much and...
Lisa Bodnar:
But why are you embarrassed that you like it?
Marcia Jimenez:
Because it's too obvious that I would like it. It's a Latina leading in the...
Lisa Bodnar:
That's right.
Marcia Jimenez:
She's kind of a nerd. She has a baby. It's like me.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah, yeah. Who are you cheering for her to get a relationship with?
Marcia Jimenez:
I was actually cheering for Michael. I never-
Lisa Bodnar:
Were you?
Marcia Jimenez:
Yeah.
Lisa Bodnar:
And then he died in the end, right?
Marcia Jimenez:
No, he died and then he..I can’t believe I’m going to say this. They erased his memory, so he couldn't remember how he loved Jane. Anyway...
Lisa Bodnar:
I love that. I love that so much. What's something you always procrastinate on?
Marcia Jimenez:
Oh, emails. Emails.
Lisa Bodnar:
You were not particularly responsive to my emails.
Marcia Jimenez:
Oh my God.
Lisa Bodnar:
I mean you were, but it always took a while and I was like, "She must not be an emailer." I knew.
Marcia Jimenez:
I actually draft the email and I don't send it because I'm not sure it's good. Okay, so if I'm being completely honest, I think the first time that you wrote me, I was so excited. I replied immediately. I mean, I started writing immediately and I was like, "Lisa, this would be great. I'm so excited." And I was like, "Okay, I'm going to cool down, I'm going to take it easy." I went for a walk, I slept on it. So, it's not that I actually haven't written the response. And then I edited. So, that's what happened behind the scenes of my replying to Lisa Bodnar.
Lisa Bodnar:
What's your most dreaded household chore?
Marcia Jimenez:
The bathroom, cleaning the bathroom. I had to do that since I lived with my brothers, cleaning-
Lisa Bodnar:
Oh!
Marcia Jimenez:
I know.
Lisa Bodnar:
Boys are so fucking disgusting in the bathroom.
Marcia Jimenez:
I know. I know.
Lisa Bodnar:
Oh, hold on one second.
Marcia Jimenez:
Yeah.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yes, Cole.
Cole:
I'm back.
Lisa Bodnar:
Okay.
Cole:
Ah, yeah. I'm fine.
Lisa Bodnar:
Okay.
Lisa Bodnar:
Right as I'm saying to you, boys are so disgusting in the bathroom.
Marcia Jimenez:
I know. I know.
Lisa Bodnar:
What's your favorite thing to do in the summer?
Marcia Jimenez:
I blend [foreign language 00:25:56] with... Why am I speaking to you in Spanish?
Lisa Bodnar:
I like it. I don't know, but keep going.
Marcia Jimenez:
I don't know why I did that. Watermelon.
Lisa Bodnar:
Okay.
Marcia Jimenez:
It's not like a juice, we call it watermelon water. That's the loose translation.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah. Okay.
Marcia Jimenez:
Yeah. So that with ice in a hot summer day, it's the best thing.
Lisa Bodnar:
And what's your favorite thing to do in the winter?
Marcia Jimenez:
We went for the first time ever sledding with the girls. I've never done that before. I don't really know how you fall down sledding, but I did. My feet were up in the air, but I cried laughing. I don't think I've cried laughing in years. It was so much fun.
Lisa Bodnar:
Oh, I love that.
Marcia Jimenez:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I loved it. I want to go every day sledding. It was so much fun.
Lisa Bodnar:
I'm going to say a list of things and you're going to say yes or no.
Marcia Jimenez:
Okay.
Lisa Bodnar:
Scented candles.
Marcia Jimenez:
No.
Lisa Bodnar:
And the face you made was really... You were very serious about that. Okay.
Marcia Jimenez:
Yeah.
Lisa Bodnar:
Kardashians.
Marcia Jimenez:
No.
Lisa Bodnar:
Honeydew.
Marcia Jimenez:
What is that? Oh, the soda.
Lisa Bodnar:
It's like a green melon. No, no. That's Mountain Dew.
Marcia Jimenez:
Are they related?
Lisa Bodnar:
No.
Marcia Jimenez:
So what is honeydew? It's a melon?
Lisa Bodnar:
So, honeydew is a green melon.
Marcia Jimenez:
I love that. Yeah. Yeah, we actually have one. Yeah. Sorry. Yes, yes.
Lisa Bodnar:
No. Okay. Oh, that makes me so happy. Roller coasters.
Marcia Jimenez:
Yes. Yes.
Lisa Bodnar:
Yeah?
Marcia Jimenez:
I love that. Yeah.
Lisa Bodnar:
High waisted pants.
Marcia Jimenez:
Oh, I love them. Yes. So good.
Lisa Bodnar:
Really? Why do you love them?
Marcia Jimenez:
It's so comfy. It's like pregnancy, right? That's my association. I can't just put my belly out there. I don't know...
Lisa Bodnar:
Okay. Instant coffee.
Marcia Jimenez:
No, no, no. I'm a big coffee drinker and, no.
Lisa Bodnar:
Flip-flops.
Marcia Jimenez:
Yes.
Lisa Bodnar:
Salsa in a jar.
Marcia Jimenez:
Yeah.
Lisa Bodnar:
Oh, okay.
Marcia Jimenez:
I know. I'm actually not a very good Mexican in that sense. I actually don't eat chilis, so...
Lisa Bodnar:
Okay. Talking to strangers in an elevator.
Marcia Jimenez:
Yes.
Lisa Bodnar:
Talking to strangers in a full elevator when no one else is talking.
Marcia Jimenez:
No, no, no. That's too much. That's pushing it.
Lisa Bodnar:
Okay. What about talking to a friend in a full elevator when no one else is talking?
Marcia Jimenez:
No. Yeah.
Lisa Bodnar:
Okay. Marcia, this was so much fun.
Marcia Jimenez:
I loved this. Thank you so much.
Marcia Jimenez:
Yeah. I loved that and I hope to meet you in person. I think I'm just going to straight hug you. I hope you don't mind that I'm going to just hug you.
Lisa Bodnar:
It's going to be lovely.