By Madeleine Nakamura
Originally published in the spring 2024 issue of Scripps magazine
For Tessa Solomon-Lane, assistant professor of neuroscience, her early-career realization that she could go into scientific research was like 鈥渁 light bulb going off.鈥� Her lifelong interest in science and education led her toward her current position in the Department of Natural Sciences as the head of her own behavioral neuroendocrinology lab, the Solomon-Lane Lab.
鈥淭here are stories of me as a kid going to the doctor and not letting them draw blood unless they put a sample on a slide for the tiny toy microscope I brought,鈥� she recounts. 鈥淭eaching has also been a part of my history for as long as I can remember; my first foray into education was working with four- and five-year-olds when I was 10. When I studied abroad in college, I had the opportunity to participate in research for the first time, and it was like an amazing door had been opened. I was drawn to the idea that I could professionally engage in the process of discovery鈥攚orking collaboratively to think about new questions in new, creative ways.鈥�
Now, Solomon-Lane seeks to build an inclusive research environment where student researchers can make their own unique contributions to science. In January 2024, she was awarded a $929,414 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant by the National Science Foundation, which will fund research projects and students continuing the Solomon-Lane Lab鈥檚 work studying Burton鈥檚 mouthbrooders, a highly social species of fish.
To learn more about her methods as an educator and how her lab functions, Scripps鈥� Office of Marketing and Communications sat down with her in her office鈥攁 space filled with fish-themed gifts from students, many handmade鈥攆or an interview.
What do you prioritize most in your teaching and mentorship of students in the Solomon-Lane Lab?
I prioritize centering students as active participants in their learning. My goal is to find out what鈥檚 most important to them and what drives them. Together, we can figure out how to integrate those strengths and motivations with the process of building a strong scientific foundation for that student.
Over the course of their time in the lab, students develop skills and techniques that are highly transferable. They learn how to work with data and engage in science communication, and they have different opportunities to practice leadership as well as serve as a team member. They collect hormone samples, learn how to microdissect, measure gene expression, and practice data visualization and analysis. When we publish the lab鈥檚 work, students are coauthors on those papers. As they move forward in their careers, wherever that takes them鈥攚hether they stay in science or not鈥攖hey retain the tools to keep learning new information, evaluating that information, and figuring out how to apply it.
Why did you decide to center your research on neurobiology?
I’ve always been interested in social behavior. Humans are a highly social species; the connections we make with others are extraordinarily important in terms of personal discovery and fulfillment, to the extent that those connections can even influence our health. People who have stronger social connections even tend to get better from illnesses faster and live longer.
When I worked with four- and five-year-olds, I remember being impressed by how variable the kids were in terms of their social development. Some could navigate social landscapes with ease, but others had more difficulty navigating these complex social environments. We see the same variability in adults. Later in my career, I became interested in what it is biologically that regulates these differences between individuals. That led me to studying the brain with animal models.
How does the Solomon-Lane Lab function? What is its primary research mission?
The overarching goal for the lab is to research how personality develops as a result of what individuals experience during their early development. Across the animal kingdom, early life is a powerful influence on individuals whether you’re a fish, a person, or a mouse. When people talk about who we are, many of us talk about our past; we talk about how we grew up鈥攖he places we’ve been, the things we’ve learned. At the lab, we aren鈥檛 just looking at individual variation. We also want to know when that variation begins and which specific factors cause it.
Students are a central, crucial part of the work, and the lab couldn鈥檛 function without them. It鈥檚 a highly collaborative environment. Typically, when students join, they鈥檒l start on a project that’s already in progress, and when they leave, they鈥檒l often leave behind a project they鈥檝e started. There are major experiments the lab has conducted that multiple rounds of students have contributed to, which creates a powerful sense of community even across class years.
Why is it crucial to increase equity and diversity in the sciences?
It鈥檚 imperative that all our students have the opportunity to grow and learn to their greatest potential. That means establishing environments that are inclusive. On a fundamental level, academic institutions and the STEM world have excluded people based on their identities鈥攂oth historically and in the present, and both intentionally and indirectly. I don鈥檛 think of diversity and inclusion as outcome-driven or based on capitalist priorities; it鈥檚 a matter of justice to actively challenge exclusion. Science is about discovery and generating knowledge, and we need creative thinkers from different backgrounds collaborating together on the grand challenges facing the world.
Because students in our lab experience an inclusive research environment as they鈥檙e gaining skills and contributing to science, they鈥檒l know what sorts of attitudes to look for in their postgraduate lives as they continue their careers.
How does an interdisciplinary approach to research benefit students and improve the research process?
We鈥檝e had student researchers from a number of academic backgrounds; most are in neuroscience and biology, but we’ve also had students with dual majors or minors in literature, history, and film. Why not bring those brains to bear on these challenges? The reciprocal, dynamic interactions with students in such an interdisciplinary environment have generated some of our best ideas. Some of the most innovative discoveries in any field, including the sciences, build on the knowledge and skills of multiple disciplines. Because of the liberal arts environment provided by The Claremont Colleges, our students have liberal arts training they can utilize during their research.
That training is a significant asset. For instance, when working with animal models like the fish we study, scientists must strive to be objective when assessing the animals鈥� behavior. Even though people in the sciences may sometimes believe that science is a totally objective process, humans are still the ones conducting research, and that makes it impossible to remove all subjectivity. Accordingly, we need to be aware of biases we may be carrying around with us that can impact assumptions we make about the animals. Because students begin with a well-developed awareness of these factors and how they function, they鈥檙e more able to monitor their own assumptions when recording the behaviors of the fish.
Many of my lab students go into health-related fields after graduating, which is another reason I prioritize a multidimensional, interdisciplinary approach. In healthcare, it鈥檚 vital to avoid reducing patients to any single aspect. Recently, I was proud to coauthor a paper with a group of researchers from other institutions about how to study sex beyond the binary. We know that sex is not binary, and it can be complicated to account for the many variables that factor into it. From that example, we can see how it鈥檚 important to encourage an attitude toward science that celebrates the complexity and richness of any given thing, and I hope that practice in our lab has an influence beyond the fish we study.