Adam Levy: 00:09
Hello, I’m Adam Levy and this is Working Scientist, a Nature Careers podcast. Today we’re looking at the infamous two body problem
This six-episode series is breaking down each and every aspect of moving labs. Last week, we discussed some crucial things to watch out for when choosing a new location for your research career.
And still to come in the series we're looking at everything from changing disciplines when changing labs, to adapting to a new lab in the age of COVID.
But today in this series’s second episode, we're looking at what happens when you're juggling the personal and the professional.
To be specific, we’re looking at the challenges of moving labs and maintaining a relationship, the so-called two body problem.
This tongue-in-cheek name references a classic mechanics conundrum. Solving the two body problem, the relationship version of it not the mechanics version of it, is a real challenge.
The difficulties facing a typical academic career, or indeed a typical romantic relationship, are multiplied when you have to move to a new city, perhaps to a different country, where both of you need to be earning a salary to survive.
These challenges can be particularly severe right now, while many economies grapple with high inflation, raising the costs of food, fuel and transport.
You may remember that last week I spoke with Joanne Kamens, who works at the Impact Seat based in Boston, Massachusetts. She’s a diversity, equity and inclusion consultant.
And so I was keen to ask her for her perspectives on the two-body problem.
Joanne Kamens: 02:01
To be honest about this, I think you want to choose an area where there are many career choices in science, and not just one party in town, if you know what I mean. Then that will allow you, you know, both of the partners, to hopefully land somewhere that is enriching and satisfying to use their science in that career.
I will say from a, you know, inclusion of women perspective, you know, a huge percentage of the time in a couple where there is a woman and a man, and it’s the woman who takes the step back in her career.
So it’s really important with your partner that you articulate and commit together that both of your careers are important. And that you will take turns in, you know, who gets the advantage in this move, in this choice.
Adam Levy: 02:51
Of course, every couple and every career is different. And what works in one context won't necessarily work in others.
I wanted to speak to academics who have grappled with the two-body problem to see the solutions that they were able to come up with.
First up are Danish couple Mette Bendixen and Lars Iversen. Mette is in the geography department at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, while Lars is in the department of biology at the same institution, and together they have a young son.
But they didn’t start their careers in Canada. So how did they get to know each other in the first place?
Lars Iversen: 03:30
Yeah, so Mette and I met each other through the University of Copenhagen. I think it was at the point where we were both bachelor students. I took courses in geography and I met Mette through that.
We just met each other at parties and student gatherings at the university. And that’s how we got to learn of each other. And we then later became colleagues.
Mette Bendixen: 03:56
No, I think it was like a classic in your early 20s kind of relationship. And as many people meet each other through through their studies, and this was also the case for us.
Adam Levy: 04:08
And Mette, I suppose the relationship got more serious, but then your academic career got more serious. How did things progress them?
Mette Bendixen: 04:19
Yeah, so we got our son during our PhDs and a PhD in Denmark takes three years. And that was two years into my PhD when I got pregnant.
And honestly, at that time, I wasn’t necessarily sure I wanted to continue in academia. I guess that changed after a big publication we had in 2017.
I realized how fun it could be to to make those breakthroughs, you can say. And that was also what was our first collaboration. So we’ve been collaborating for more than five years now.
Lars Iversen: 04:58
I’ve aways been very embedded in, let's say the, the researcher’s mindset. I was all worth thinking about going down the line of researcher.
Mette Bendixen: 05:10
Lars’ very strong wishes to stay in academia was something that sort of infected me as well. I could see that inspiration in him. And I guess that’s also been an important part of why I’m in academia today.
Adam Levy: 05:25
Given that determination and the complexity of finding the right lab and finding the right place to do your studies and become a professor, was there a tension here? Was it something you were nervous about balancing?
Lars Iversen: 05:37
There’s certainly been some, I mean, bottlenecks, and let's say milestones in our career where I was aware there has been some insecurity or something like that, whether or not we would both make it through. I think that’s fair to say, yeah.
Mette Bendixen: 05:54
I felt it the most when people have pointed out that “That’s never going to work, you can never land two positions at the same university.” I should have felt that from colleagues further ahead in their career stages.
Adam Levy: 06:08
Well then Mettte, can you explain how you have approached it as a family? How have you tried to navigate this, this academic career with this, yes, this personal life?
Mette Bendixen: 06:20
We’ve been very upfront with the fact that we are a couple and that we have a child.
In a way that, for example, on your CV, this is common to do in Denmark, that you write who you’re married to, and whether you have kids and when they’re born.
In the Danish system, if you want to advance in academia, after your PhD, you want to ensure personal postdoc funding, so you want to show that you’re good enough to to get funding.
And in that case, where Lars and I got our funding from the Carlsberg Foundation, they actively support young researchers with kids.
So when you apply for this postdoc funding, you have to simply tick off a box. So it’s very transparent.
Lars Iversen: 07:03
Yeah, I think transparency also go inwards. So we have spent so many hours discussing career paths and alternative scenarios, and what would work for Mette, and what would work for me.
And just having these conversations on a regular basis as a couple is super important.
I think in addition, and in thinking about this in hindsight, just the fact that we had kind of gotten over the first couple of years as a parent. And our son was three when we really started to travel. That helped quite a lot.
Adam Levy: 07:46
Yeah, Lars. Could you expand a bit about about that transition to not just being a couple in academia, but a couple in academia, where travel is a big part of the relationship.
Lars Iversen: 07:57
There are quite good funding opportunities in Denmark to support such transitions. And we were lucky to get a research fellowship, both of us, which supported not only the expenses associated with moving to a new lab in a foreign country, but also to maintain family life and maintain the benefits associated with being a family in Denmark as well.
So that helped a lot. And it made it a lot easier to do that transition.
Adam Levy: 08:30
Mette, can you explain what the setup of, yeah, maintaining a family life looks like in this context?
Mette Bendixen: 08:36
I mean, because we didn’t have that family support, where we could drop him off once in a while with grandparents, we were quite dependent on just the two of us.
And that meant that we had to work quite a bit in the evening. I guess that’s pretty common for many people in academia.
Adam Levy: 08:52
Now, I understand that it’s not just been about traveling together, but also about travelling separately. Can you explain how you've navigated this as a family?
Mette Bendixen: 09:01
So we were based in Boulder, Colorado, where I worked at University of Colorado, but Lars was affiliated first with Arizona State and since then Berkeley, and it meant that he had to travel quite a bit.
So specifically he was travelling roughly once a month to to Arizona State and stayed there for a week’s time or so.
And during those periods I was a single mom. But it only meant that in the days before and then in the weeks after when Lars was home, he took a bigger part in childcare work around there. So again, balancing it out.
So in that case, I think it was, I actually treasure those moments where it was just my son and I. We both had that both of us, when one of us is away for conferences or fieldwork, or meetings. The other one, of course, is in charge.
Lars Iversen: 09:57
I think it was working out quite well. So first of all I had a lot of support not only from Mette, but also from the professor I was working with. And that was, I think, essential for this to work.
He supported a remote setup, which I mean, at that point in time, it wasn’t that common. But I also think that a big plus were simply that we articulated this when we applied for our fellowship.
Mette Bendixen: 10:26
Yeah, I think it was. It turned into a quite positive experience, because the funding agency, they checked in on us, they knew, like the secretaries there, they knew that we were the couple living in two different states.
So I think being that being outspoken and open about it has has really been an advantage to us.
Adam Levy: 10:47
I have to say you’ve both been, yeah, very, very positive about the experience. Are there any things that Mette, you would like to change or some other time found frustrating or anything like that?
Mette Bendixen: 11:00
One of the main things is that it’s challenging to see how different the overall conditions for parent, parents and academia are globally.
So we’ve experienced a lot of support. It’s generally very common to have kids during your PhD.
And then you have a situation in the US where you barely have maternity leave, for example, right?
Lars Iversen: 11:26
So I think that that our situation, and the way that we have made this work, doesn’t necessarily apply to everybody.
We might come up this blue-eyed story that you should just apply for big fellowships and argue with the foundation that you will do so and so given your family situation.
But I also know that doesn’t necessarily work for everybody.
So I’m still thinking about how my advice I mean, is useful for for for other academic couples?
Adam Levy: 11:59
Well, speaking of advice, it’s been noted often that from mixed gender couples dealing with these two- body problems, women often draw the shorter straw.
Is there something you kind of actively thought about in your approach? And yeah, if so, how?
Lars Iversen: 12:16
I would say yes. And I think in our case, there hasn’t been any point in time where we have only considered.
We’ve always been thinking about whether or not a given place would be a good fit for both of us.
Adam Levy: 12:33
And Lars, have there been times when one of you has, for example, seen a job and thought,“Oh, that would be great. But oh no, it wouldn’t. It wouldn’t make sense because it would only be great if I was doing this on my own.”
Lars Iversen: 12:45
Yes, for sure. And we have had job offers on the table which didn’t work out because we knew that would place the other person in a situation where there would not be a contract to enter or there would be a gap in, let’s say, the funding opportunities.
Mette Bendixen: 13:05
Yeah, I guess the approach we took was, if I saw an interesting position that, I don’t know, in Boston.
I would, I would say to Lars that “Hey, look at this, try and see if the biology department, wouldn’t that be a good fit for you?” Could we see ourselves there as academics, but could we also see ourselves there as a family?
Adam Levy: 13:27
That was Mette Bendixen and Lars Iversen. Mette and Lars were keen to emphasize that what worked for them with their nationality, their careers, and their relationship, is a long way from a one-size-fits-all.
Different relationships find completely different solutions to the to body problem, or struggle to resolve it at all.
Andrea Stathopoulos is based in Greater Cleveland, where she works as a science analyst at Verge scientific communications.
She has a PhD in neuroscience. And actually it was during, or rather just before graduate school at Florida State University, that she met her partner.
Andrea Stathopoulos: 14:07
We actually met during interview weekend for graduate school.
Of course, you know, lots of people were there. At first, I was like,“Ooh, this guy’s competition.” Luckily, luckily, I got in and you know, we hit it off.
And so we sort of by accident, you know, started the program together. And I think a lot of people then assumed we had known each other from previously, and like, made plans to go off to graduate school together.
But that wasn’t the case. We only met a few months prior interviewing, but that’s sort of set us off on like, “okay, we’re, like stuck with each other off to graduate school. And who knows what will happen after that?”
We knew that from day one.
Adam Levy: 14:46
Andrea and her partner have tried various approaches as their relationship and careers developed in parallel. And in often unpredictable ways, something Andrea has written about before.
We started out by talking about how their relationship evolved, while they were still in the same institution, that is.
Andrea Stathopoulos: 15:06
It was maybe halfway through graduate school when we moved in together, I think that was a big step. And recognizing that, “Okay, if we’re very serious about our relationship, at what point do we talk about marriage? At what point do we talk about graduation timelines and careers after that?”
Because we anticipated that we might not finish at the same time, even though we have started at the same time.
And there was no guarantee that we'd find two positions for two neuroscientists in the same location. You know, fresh out of graduate school, you don't have like a lot of career leverage.
So I think we were just on the lookout for, you know, “If we can find two things that are kind of nearby, we’ll make that work for a little bit if we have to. ”
Adam Levy: 15:52
What did happen next after graduation?
Andrea Stathopoulos: 15:55
So I graduated first, but I wasn’t really set on staying in academia. Research wise, he had a postdoc lined up. And I figured, “Okay, well, that’s New York City, if I’m going to find, you know, an outside academia job, I’ll be able to find one there.”
So I sort of figured at that point, like, I would be the trailing spouse, I’m a little bit more flexible. I don't need to find the perfect postdoc PI. That's not what I was looking for.
Strangely, though, I did keep my eye on other positions. So when my husband graduated, we moved apart. Actually, I did not follow him to his postdoc.
I had gotten a visiting faculty position at a small liberal arts college. And I thought this, this will be really great.
And if I could hold on at this institution long enough, maybe they’ll turn it into a tenure track job. So we sort of moved apart at that point.
Adam Levy: 16:55
Well, this is interesting, because in this article you’ve written, you talk a lot about sticking to a timeline and all this kind of planning.
But I guess for the two-body problem, there needs to be some level of flexibility and spontaneity as well.
Andrea Stathopoulos: 17:11
Oh, the plan is always changing. The plan never lasts more than six months, in my experience.
Adam Levy: 17:19
And in this article, you talk about, kind of, the the two main options. You’ve already hinted at them from your experience.
But what are the two main options as you see it for approaching the two body problem?
Andrea Stathopoulos: 17:31
I think the first option is, you know, you read about it a lot in other articles, being the trailing spouse. And I sort of hate that title, because it makes it seem as if you're the tagalong, sort of less important career partner.
But I view being the trailing spouse as being the one who was more flexible. I was willing, multiple times in my career, to just follow wherever my husband ended up since he was pursuing an academic path at the time.
What ended up happening, even though I was willing to be the one following and just, you know, finding whatever employment I could, on those occasions, I ended up finding my own employment somewhere else, which forced us into option number two, which was to split temporarily.
So I think at this point, I, I’ve been with my partner for like 12 years. And I think we've moved in together at least four or five different times.
So it’s, it's been sort of a mix of, “Well I’ll move to you.” or “You’ll move to me.” But then we split back up again.
I think a lot of people assumed, “Oh, gosh, we’ll have to break up now since you won’t be living together. How are you going to get married and not live with your spouse? That’s really strange.”
So I think prioritizing the investment in your personal life, the same way we prioritize investment in our professional careers, is very important.
Sort of re-evaluating, as things change, helps you readjust that timeline and gives you, you know, personal goals to work towards.
Adam Levy: 19:09
Now, a common concern about the two-body problem is that at least for heterosexual relationships, it’s often women who end up sacrificing some element of their career to make the relationship work.
Is that something that you were quite conscious of in, in your approach with your partner?
Andrea Stathopoulos: 19:27
You know, in our relationship, I wasn’t interested in staying in academia. I was willing to consider alternative career paths and my partner really wanted to stay in the research route.
So I, I sort of recognized “Oh, that I’m getting that stereotypical role of like, the woman will follow the man wherever the job is, twice.”
I had planned to follow my husband to where his position was, and twice I didn’t, because I found something else that I deemed was, was a better fit for me at the time.
And in fact, twice he has given up his position that clearly wasn’t the right fit for him.
So even though I had been prepared to be that trailing spouse, almost ironically, it was my husband who ended up being the person who switched jobs to move closer to me.
Adam Levy: 20:18
So given all the moves, all the career changes, has there been, in some sense a solution to your two -body problem?
Andrea Stathopoulos: 20:25
Our solution to the two-body problem essentially was both of us leaving academia. Most people find employment outside the university system. That’s just the fact of the matter.
Adam Levy: 20:36
Andrea Stathopoulos there. Of course, being in a relationship isn't the only factor that can complicate the question of moving labs.
One challenge facing many scientists is navigating not only a new lab, but a new country for academics that move abroad to continue their careers.
There can be heaps of hurdles, but also huge benefits to the transition. And in the next episode, we’re going to be reflecting on how changing country can change a researcher’s life in many different ways.
Until then, this has been Working Scientist, a Nature Careers podcast. Thanks for listening. I’m Adam Levy.