After reading this amazing story of a neuroscience professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center who is speaking out about harassment in science and other STEM fields, I realized just how little I’ve spoken up about harassment that I have witnessed or received as a female scientist and engineer. Thank you for modeling the actions of responsible scientists, Professor BethAnn McLaughlin.

What I most value about her work, from my brief glimpse provided by Science Magazine, is that Professor McLaughlin holds harassers accountable for their detriment to science. Her key point: harassers are not just destroying others’ careers and spirits, they are sabotaging their research fields. Now funding agencies are taking notice, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF), two of the largest funding agencies of biological sciences research in academia. The NIH and NSF are defining their expectations that grant funds (taxpayer dollars) not be used to pay for the time and space it takes to house a harasser within groping distance of other researchers and academics.

Setting standards as the NIH and NSF have done is important, but it’s not enough. As a tax-paying U.S. citizen, I want the expectations of the funding organizations to be even higher for the institutions receiving those funds. Research institutions and universities must set, communicate, and maintain clear standards of behavior for all roles defined by the institution, so that it’s clear to all members of the group what the mission of the group is and how each role works together to fulfill the mission.

Of the various science and engineering experiences I have had so far in my career, I’ve met a lot of people passionate about their field of study. I have also met a lot of people who are hard workers. These two traits often overlap, but not always. I once had a boss who was quite passionate about his field of study but was a lousy member of the academic community. That experience cost me too much in time, mental health, career prospects, and productivity. What I learned scientifically and professionally during that time was not worth the heartache associated with working in an abusive environment.

This experience happened while I was an undergraduate student at another university. I had wanted to spend a summer in a different state, so I applied to an NSF-funded program hosted by a large university and was excited when I found out I was accepted and had been assigned to a specific lab. But as the summer got closer, I began to feel a little uncomfortable that the program wasn’t better organized. It wasn’t always clear who was in charge and what administrative support would be available to us as we joined our new labs and made our way through an unknown university system.

When I finally got there and made my way to the advisor’s office for my assigned lab, I was confused to discover that I would actually be reporting to someone else I didn’t know at all, a postdoc in the same lab. I didn’t know any better and was complacent as the advisor escorted me to this new, de facto boss who was an immigrant from another country with strong cultural differences compared to the general culture of the United States. There was a mismatch of expectations between myself and my de facto boss that made the program a horrible experience for me. I thought I was signing onto a 10-week long intensive research-and-writing program; he thought he was getting an indentured servant for 7 years.

The lab seemed normal at first, except for the unexpected arrangement of reporting to this random postdoc rather than the listed advisor for the lab. I wasn’t yet used to how hierarchical the academic environment can be; my regular research experience at my undergraduate institution was professional and involved being in regular contact with the direct advisor of the lab. At this internship, however, I found myself alternating between working at a desk station set up for me in the main lab and the postdoc’s office, which was on another floor and only shared with one officemate who was hardly in the office.

The postdoc started isolating me almost immediately, though I didn’t realize it at first. He dismissed the undergraduate journal article which was supposed to be my main deliverable at the end of the program and my main project throughout the program. He directed me to work on his manuscript instead, saying that we could quickly write a trimmed-down version at the end of the 10 weeks to satisfy the requirement for my own program.

At first I didn’t think much of his priority realignment. I went about my day dutifully, learning the scientific and design concepts behind the engineering project. I read journal articles, learned a new software system, designed engineering devices, and carried out experiments. Sometimes the postdoc would mentor me or be friendly. But other times he would just watch me work, or grab another student and stand behind me together, watching and talking about me in another language as if I were a zoo animal.

About 6 weeks into the program, I began to get pretty nervous about my paper, having spent all my time on my boss’s manuscript. He noticed my anxiety and asked me to talk to him in his office. But when I got there, he started holding my hand and laughing at me when I told him to stop or tried to remove it. He escalated his behavior, groping my chest, blocking my exit out the door when I tried to leave or escape, and assailing me like an octopus with slimy tentacles when I tried to continue my work. I felt disgusted and violated. I also felt trapped, wondering how I could make him stop.

He would laugh sadistically at my distress and tears, ignore me when I told him to stop touching me, and make fun of me when I got mad at his abuse. I started avoiding his office, preferring the safety of the communal lab environment downstairs. But he followed me down there, sitting near me and making creepy sexual references as I tried to concentrate on my work. He was unconcerned with my dissent and lack of interest in him. I felt terrified that words like “no,” “stop,” or “leave me alone” meant nothing to him. He would get mad at me for not initiating my own abuse, or for insisting on working in the main lab, or for crying. The strength of his internal delusions became clear after awhile, as he insisted that he would “never hurt me” while watching me cry, or when he said sadistically, “I don’t think you would ever report me to anyone.” He had no concept of me as a separate human being with a voice that mattered, a person who had joined a lab to do scientific research. It was extremely frustrating and I didn’t know how to make it stop, since talking to him and telling him to stop wasn’t working. Eventually I stopped putting up a fight and telling him “no,” because it wasn’t working and it was too scary for me to continue acknowledging that my words meant nothing to him.

I did end up reporting him to the police years later, as well as to his wife. But what I really needed and didn’t have during that 10 week summer program was knowledge of the resources available at that school to people like me. I wasn’t a regular undergraduate student there and so I didn’t know whether the services of the university were available to someone like me. I also wasn’t sure who to talk to or how my situation would be dealt with. I was scared that all the hard work I had put into his manuscript for the past several weeks would be lost, that I would get kicked out of the lab with nothing to show for all my time, effort, and competence. The program I had joined hadn’t explained what campus resources were available to us, nor how to deal with sexual harassment and assault.

Nor did it cover how to deal with a boss who is emotionally abusive, independent of sexual harassment. My boss would regularly make me feel guilty about not taking time off my education or career to help care for my ailing grandpa (who was already being cared for). He invited me to his family’s apartment for dinner and then badgered me every day after to let him come see the dorms where the students from our program were housed, telling me I was a really inhospitable person to come to dinner at his apartment and then not let him visit mine. He kept talking inappropriately even when he wasn’t guilt-tripping me. It happened mostly in his office but even in the communal lab. He made all sorts of disgusting comments about his sex life with his wife, graphic things that made me worry he had raped her or that he was a pedophile (or both). He was unconcerned by my discomfort and would keep criticizing my boundaries and perspective, telling me “you think you’re always right,” as if he couldn’t quite grasp that I was the authority and guard of my own body.

I finished the program but felt horrible afterward. I went back to my undergraduate university in a state of deep depression and humiliation, and I started losing weight. He kept calling me, requesting more help with his manuscript. I ended up writing most of the manuscript. I had expected he would edit it and make it more professional, but when it got published, I was surprised to see that it contained mostly my wording – he hadn’t done much on it at all. Even worse, the figures he had complained so righteously about remained in the final publication.

While conducting experiments, I had needed a high-precision ruler and he had refused to order one. In a time crunch, I resorted to printing a ruler scale on the lab printer and using it to track distances in the experiment. The precision of the ruler was obviously somewhat low given that I used a standard-issue printer, but it was high enough to provide suitable accuracy for observing the scale of movement present in the experiment. I kept hoping that he would break down and order the ruler from whatever lab supply site he generally used, but he insisted on sitting around and complaining about me instead, so the final publication featured photographs in which the paper ruler was prominent.

Even after I stopped working in that lab, he would continue to contact me and request that I continue writing the paper, even though I had just worked in the lab as an undergraduate without much formal training. He kept contacting me for almost three years after I left the lab, each time badgering me with requests and long diatribes about his feelings that made me feel guilty and ashamed for wanting to move on with my life and maintain my boundaries. It took me years of therapy to regain my sense of self and the sense of safety required for me to be capable of expressing emotions.

Years later, I can look back and take stock of the situation I was placed in by deciding to participate in a federally-funded program that did not have adequate administrative oversight. My experience damaged my ability to contribute to the field of science and my trust in academia. It dissuaded me from following my intended trajectory after university. And it would have been far less likely to happen had the program made its expectations clearer for all participants: students, advisors, mentors, and administrators.

Inspired by the #MeToo movement, I recently decided to give feedback both to the program and to the funding organization. I think this is what will ultimately help us move through the #MeToo pipeline constructively: giving feedback to organizations and funders is the next step in shining light on the structural issues inherent in academia and STEM that allow abuse to flourish in those environments. Once the structural issues are exposed, the responsible parties can work to hold themselves accountable and create a stronger foundation to allow us to pursue what we are ultimately there for, be it STEM, academia generally, or some other calling.