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Intro/Outro (00:00:02):
Welcome to The Microscopists, a Bitesize Bio podcast hosted by Peter O'Toole, sponsored by Zeiss Microscopy. Today on The Microscopists.

Peter O'Toole (00:00:20):
Hi, This week on The Microscopists, I'm chatting to Jennifer Waters of the Nikon Imaging Center at the Harvard Medical School. Tune in, Watch, listen, find out what Jennifer's favorite type of microscope is.

Jennifer Waters (00:00:34):
I feel like Widefield is overlooked too much.

Peter O'Toole (00:00:37):
The satisfaction of working in a shared resource core facility, and

Jennifer Waters (00:00:43):
We can help them, you know, we can turn that around and put them on the right microscope and show them how to run it properly. And,

Peter O'Toole (00:00:49):
What was one of her early inspirations?

Jennifer Waters (00:00:53):
He had a telescope and he used to take me up to the roof of his apartment and he would take images. I have a, I have a picture in my in my office of the moon that he took

Peter O'Toole (00:01:04):
And to be seen, not just heard, her impressive sewing skills, they really are quite amazing.

Jennifer Waters (00:01:12):
I also think it's a good skill to have if like, you know, things go really awry in the world, right?

Peter O'Toole (00:01:18):
A her favorite food.

Jennifer Waters (00:01:20):
I mean, it's, you know, it's the perfect food, isn't it? When it comes to anything except health

Peter O'Toole (00:01:27):
All in this episode of The Microscopists. Hi, welcome to this edition of The Microscopists with Jennifer Waters, over at the Nikon Imaging Center at the Harvard Medical School. So Jennifer, how's you today,

Jennifer Waters (00:01:47):
I'm doing well. Thanks so much for having me

Peter O'Toole (00:01:50):
On I'm going to start off actually, cause you've actually recently ish just over a year ago, I think got a Chan-Zuckerberg award , life-changing, there's two things here cause not everyone will be aware of the Chan-Zuckerberg initiatives and not everyone will be aware of what, what you've been funded to do. So actually, so could you explain a bit about what the Chan-Zuckerberg initiative to start with?

Jennifer Waters (00:02:17):
Sure. So Chan-Zuckerberg initiative as the name implies is Priscilla Chang and Mark Zuckerberg's philanthropy, philanthropic effort. Oh no. Now I'm doing a Peter.

Peter O'Toole (00:02:31):
Keep going, keep going.

Jennifer Waters (00:02:34):
It's Priscilla Chang and Mark Zuckerberg, philanthropic effort. And so they're putting money into science and justice and education and they are super psyched about imaging. I say often I don't know what I did to deserve the fact that for whatever reason they have decided that imaging is the most important thing and they're putting tons of money into it. So it's fantastic. And not only that, but they recognized. And as far as I know, they're the first funding agency certainly in the US to recognize that positions like ours should be funded. And so yeah, the, the, you know, the grant announcement came out and I, I read it and I thought, this is exactly what I do with my life. And it was the first time I had ever read a grant you know, call for proposals that, that sounded like me. So I wasn't sure if they were looking for like junior people, it wasn't super clear or, you know, old people like me, but I went for it and I'm super glad I did because it's been fantastic. It's really enabled me to do some of the things that I've been wanting to do

Peter O'Toole (00:03:46):
If you class your supply, if you classify yourself as old, that makes me really old and that's not a good thing to think about. Wow,

Jennifer Waters (00:03:55):
Well, I'm probably older than you think I am Peter,

Peter O'Toole (00:03:58):
And I'm probably younger than I actually look, I'm tempted

Jennifer Waters (00:04:03):
To compare numbers. I'm willing, if you are,

Peter O'Toole (00:04:06):
You should go to the chat and just put them up in the minutes. I have,

Jennifer Waters (00:04:10):
I will tell you that I have a big birthday coming this

Peter O'Toole (00:04:12):
Year. Oh, wow. So I'm guessing that's not 40.

Jennifer Waters (00:04:19):
No, it's 30.

Peter O'Toole (00:04:23):
Oh yeah,

Jennifer Waters (00:04:25):
No, I, I turned 50 in June.

Peter O'Toole (00:04:28):
You were a couple of years ahead of me. Yeah. It's quite good. Actually, we will come back and we'll come back to that in a moment actually. Cause if there's some relevance to actually how our careers have been quite similar in their timings, but you've got the Chan-Zuckerberg award, what is it to do?

Jennifer Waters (00:04:46):
It pays my salary for five years and a full salary and there's travel money. And there is also they they've given us sort of additional money we can apply for. So last year, not last year, last year we didn't do anything. Previously they they let us like apply for extra money to visit other imaging scientists in the program. So, yeah, it's been great. When I applied for the grant, I, I told Harvard that if I get it, I'd like to hire someone additional in my group. So I was able to do that, which was awesome and has freed up my time, as I said, to do some of the little projects that I had been thinking about for awhile.

Peter O'Toole (00:05:30):
And what sorts of projects are they?

Jennifer Waters (00:05:33):
Well, micro courses is, is one of them. So this is my YouTube channel. I make short videos on sort of fundamental concepts in microscopy and it's something I've been wanting to do for a while. I've learned a lot about things on YouTube. And I sort of see it as a medium that is really accessible and, you know, the, I envisioned like the graduate students sitting in their microscope room, waiting for their time-lapse to finish and watching this, you know, 10 minute video on, on numerical aperture. So I feel like it's, it's the kind of thing that is easily digestible.

Peter O'Toole (00:06:12):
Okay. So to the importance of this, it's not obviously just for your students, your, your users of your microscope. So you run a facility which we'll come to, but this is obviously, and hence the award, the initiative, this has global appeal and it's really educating about the fundamentals of microscopy and science in general, cause micro microscopes are fundamentally vital and underpin so much science research across the disciplines. Actually people can access this because it is on YouTube across the world. And I think that bit's really important. How biggest challenge, how have you managed to distribute how to get people to actually watch it? Because it's not just because you put it on YouTube, doesn't mean people will know it's there and useful. So how have you found that?

Jennifer Waters (00:07:05):
I mean, Twitter has been amazing. I mean, I have to, I have to say I'm not a huge social media fan. I don't, I don't really use it in a personal way. But it's been amazing for you know, getting the word out on, on these projects. So yeah, I think it's all Twitter.

Peter O'Toole (00:07:23):
Yeah. I think we've had this conversation with other people in the past Twitter. Isn't about for a lot of scientists. It's one of the best places, one of the best resources for learning, finding out new job applicant, new job potentials eighties publications courses, and access to materials such as your own. So it's not about a conscious of thought, which is where maybe it started with celebrities. It's very much a very useful tool

Jennifer Waters (00:07:48):
For useful. I'm I'm always telling people you really have to be on Twitter. I mean, there's, I, I hear about so many things via Twitter.

Peter O'Toole (00:07:57):
So what's your, what's your Twitter tag, go on. What's your tag for it so they can

Jennifer Waters (00:08:02):
@ Jencwaters

Peter O'Toole (00:08:05):
@yourbioimaging on my side. They're fantastic resources. There's lots of fantastic fact there. So [inaudible] pick them up as it goes along. So you've done that, but actually, so you, your passion for microscopy, it's helped in your, your passion for teaching, but that probably comes at the moment. Your current job is at Harvard, but running the imaging center there itself. And there's obviously a lot of teaching. So why, why are you running an imaging facility and why,

Jennifer Waters (00:08:40):
How did I wind up here? Okay. So let's go way back. Is that okay? Yeah, so I, I went to SUNY Albany for, for undergrad and I studied biology. I studied biology and you know, honestly, like at the time I had no plans, no, no big plans for the future. I, I grew up in a family. I was the first person in my family to go to college. So it was never something that was taught about my home or expected. And, and to be honest, I just sort of, you know, I did do well in school and I just kind of followed a couple of friends who also went to college. And toward, I think it was my junior year. I heard that you could do something called undergraduate research and, you know, it was explained to me what this is.

Jennifer Waters (00:09:34):
You can get credit for doing research in somebody's lab. It sounded fantastic. Right. So I having never heard of it before. So, so I did that and I wound up in [inaudible] lab who is a microscopist and did a lot of DIC imaging of cells and mytosis using technology that no one ever uses anymore, except the DIC part. And took a lot of, you know, two color fluorescence images on film and loved it. I just loved it. I wound up working for coming as a technician for a year after. And basically the people in his lab convinced me that I should go to graduate school. It was, it was never something I imagined even when I went to college, but they convinced me I could do it, you know? And so I looked around, I was in love with microscopes at that point.

Jennifer Waters (00:10:27):
So I really wanted to wind up in a microscopy lab. And I, I applied to a few places specifically because there was a microscopist there that I wanted to work with. And I wound up in Ted Salmon's Lab at UNC Chapel Hill, go Tar Heels. And yeah. Amazing experience. Ted is a biology program was a biology program. I do have a degree in biology, but Ted's an engineer in training. And so he had a very technical approach to microscopy. We all knew our microscopes in and out and Ted taught in a lot of microscopy courses. And I was the first one to volunteer to TA I TA a lot for him. So when I was finishing grads, you know, towards the end of graduate school, I started to feel like I wasn't curious enough about any particular biological problem.

Jennifer Waters (00:11:24):
Like I don't, I don't feel like have that sort of intense curiosity that I think you need to really drive a research program. And so started thinking like, what do I want to do? And I knew I loved the microscopes. At the time, I didn't know anybody running a core facility that had a PhD at the time. It was you know, technician, maybe a master's degree. So that didn't enter my brain. But basically what happened was one of the vendors who knew, was looking for a job learned that Wake Forest University, which is also North Carolina, was looking for somebody to teach microscopy. So Nina Allen had just left there and left a sort of hole. She left a couple of microscopes behind. So I went there as an adjunct faculty member to teach microscopy course. So that was the first time I developed and taught a microscopy course on my own. And I was there for two and a half, three years, I think. And then the job I have now opened up and, you know, it, it was, I remember interviewing and asking every person I interviewed with, why aren't you hiring a technician because I wanted to make sure we're all on board. Like I could see why they should, should do this. Right. and they had exactly the right answers. And so I felt really confident that it was going to be a challenging and interesting job. And so I took it.

Peter O'Toole (00:12:45):
So it's a big, a big step, but actually it's very similar to myself. You started that in 2001,

Jennifer Waters (00:12:52):
2001, the core opened. Yeah. That's when it started.

Peter O'Toole (00:12:55):
Yeah. Well actually I, I, so I took over the running, it was a new core, new, new whole infrastructure, core facilities, all as one unit being put together at York. And I was asked, I went for the job for the imaging and cytometry core there in 2002. Is that only, yeah. Behind it was very different initiative, but actually I didn't ask that question. It's a very good question, but I kind of saw the potential that actually, if you're a microscopist, you need got to be very careful here, technicians, and it doesn't matter what technical post has all sorts of skill sets that everyone brings to it. And I could see the potential of using the postdoctoral experience to drive research and enable research and bring that postdoctoral expertise to lots of different science. Instead of addressing one scientific question, it's addressing lots of scientific questions and that's why they're such fantastic environments to work in. Have you, have you had many difficulties in dealing with the variety of sample types with variety of different research projects that have come through your doors?

Jennifer Waters (00:14:07):
Oh, sure. You know, there are things that come in that are very challenging and probably one of the most challenging things for me really in doing this job for so long you never could have told me I'd be here in the same job 20 years later. But I still love it and it's an incredible place to be. And so, you know, for me, the hardest thing is actually been seeing how things have changed in microscopy over the years. And like when I first started, people would come in and they'd have everybody does a consultation initially with me and now with other people from my group, as well as me. And you know, we talk about what they want to do. Of course their experiment. We think about how it might be done controls and this and that. And it used to be that I could be like, Oh wait, we can do it way better than this.

Jennifer Waters (00:14:57):
You know, we're going to use the motorized stage and we got this and that, and they get all excited and now they come in and they want to do, you know, storm and alive spirit ride. Right. And so I find myself having to break a lot of hearts. And so it's gotten a little more like, you know, you feel bad, but at the same time, what I tell myself is you are saving these people a hell of a lot of time, right. And effort by steering them in the right direction. So yeah. So I think that's what I think of when I, when I think of hard is, is the people that come in with an idea for, for an experiment they're really excited about. And, you know, I have to explain to them why it's, it's probably not worth their time to even try. I'm always happy to test things with people. In fact, I'd like it when people are skeptical. And so I love a good skeptic and so happy to test things, even if I think they're impossible, but yeah, those are the things that are,

Peter O'Toole (00:15:54):
You can't be optimistic as well as skeptical at the same time.

Jennifer Waters (00:15:58):
Absolutely. Although I, no one's ever accused me of being optimistic. I consider myself a realist, but I think probably I'm airing on pessimistic,

Peter O'Toole (00:16:08):
But, but I would say it's very similar problems to what you find. What, what, what technique, what microscope technique is your favorite technique?

Jennifer Waters (00:16:21):
Hmm. I have to say the appropriate one for the specimen.

Peter O'Toole (00:16:28):
Oh,

Jennifer Waters (00:16:28):
All right. That was unfair. I will give a real answer widefield. I, you know, widefield is an incredibly light efficient technique, right? You are getting as many photons out of the sample as, as most microscopes will allow you know, in a, in a, in a well set up widefield microscope. And the truth is it's, it's the best choice for a lot of samples and a lot of experiments it's going to get you, you know, highest signal to noise ratio for many applications, you know, less photobleaching cause you need less illumination, et cetera. So I just still, you know, I love widefield. The, the new techniques are, are exciting as well, of course, but I just, I feel like Widefield is overlooked to me.

Peter O'Toole (00:17:18):
I never had a Nobel prize for it. I don't think isn't that sad if you think about it, but then nor has Confocal

Jennifer Waters (00:17:24):
There's a lot of things in microscopy that it's sort of shocking that have not gotten Nobel prizes that have had very, very high impact.

Peter O'Toole (00:17:33):
Yeah, absolutely. That I'm looking a bit, I'm looking. Yeah. I'll go care for how this looks because you just don't, I'll just ask you what your favorite technique is. What technique do you least like?

Peter O'Toole (00:17:50):
That's a difficult one Isn't it,

Jennifer Waters (00:17:54):
I mean, there's no technique that I hate, you know I, things that are really prone to artifacts are, are, are I have the hardest time with not that those are things that, that can work around can be worked around and paid attention to. But like, for me, from my perspective, usability is so important. Right. And so when techniques come out that, and there's a lot in the super S space like this. Okay. when these techniques come out and they, and they, you know, the developer and the, you know, down the line, the commercial, commercial companies that, that commercialize the instrument, you know, they tell you all the great things about it. Right. But there always compromises, right? There's always things that you have to worry about and you have to test for. And so I think those techniques that from, you know, from somebody who doesn't have a strong microscopy background, they look at it and think I need to do that technique, you know, but the limitations of it, the really like tons of limitations of it are not so apparent. So that's, I'm not giving you an individual, you know, single technique there, but I think those are the kinds of things that I,

Peter O'Toole (00:19:28):
Yeah. More skeptical of. Maybe that's a better word for it or results.

Jennifer Waters (00:19:38):
I I've never seen a microscopy image I wasn't skeptical of.

Peter O'Toole (00:19:42):
So can we come back to the start? What was your inspiration or who inspires you, who are, who, you know, inside and outside of work, who, who were the characters? Who are the people? What inspired you?

Jennifer Waters (00:19:57):
Yeah, I think, you know, I only, this only occurred to me when I was about 30, to be honest, but when I was a kid, my dad was you know, as I said, he, he didn't go to college, but he was a big reader, you know, he read a lot and he was, he was into science, you know, we used to watch like Carl Sagan videos together and, and things like that. And I thought science was super interesting and he had a telescope and he used to, you know, take me up to the roof of his apartment. And he would take images. I have a, I have a picture in my in my office of the moon that he took. And there was a point where it clicked to me that, you know, this, this must be in there somewhere, this idea of taking images through objects. Right. So I certain that, that was an initial inspiration. You

Peter O'Toole (00:20:51):
Do realize a microscope, isn't a telescope though.

Jennifer Waters (00:20:54):
Do I, do I do. They're quite different. But they also have some similarities. So yeah. And yeah, I mean, you know, honestly right now at this point I could maybe talk about other people throughout, but my group inspires me the most right now. You know, I have, I have the best group I've ever had right now. I would say you know, I find a lot of great people come through, but

Peter O'Toole (00:21:25):
So is this, is this a lot of your group?

Jennifer Waters (00:21:28):
No, that is not my group. That is our last cold spring Harbor course, actually. So some of my group is going to be in there. Maybe everybody, well, let me put my glasses on.

Peter O'Toole (00:21:40):
I can get you a group. I can come back. So this must be some of your lab.

Jennifer Waters (00:21:44):
Well, yes. So that is so we've got Tally Lambert there who I think give you now. And Anna Jostes in the middle and then not part of my group. But Hunter Elliot there on my right

Peter O'Toole (00:22:00):
To the, I've got to say, they look like they're in a uniform of yellow,

Jennifer Waters (00:22:03):
They are in a costume. So if anybody's looked around our website, you might know that our microscopes are named after characters from the show arrested development. And anybody who as a fan of the show will look at our website and sort of know that we, we we work hard to put the appropriate character with the appropriate microscope. But this was the one of our departmental retreats. And we had a it was around Halloween and we had a costume contest. So we were dressed up as the workers in the banana stand, which again, you're a fan of arrested development, which many people are, we know exactly what I mean. And you'll think it's super cool.

Peter O'Toole (00:22:54):
So I noticed you took the picture. I take it. You're also in the costume.

Jennifer Waters (00:22:59):
Honestly I wasn't, I would have been, but I sadly I hurt my back. And I wound up not being able to go. But yeah.

Peter O'Toole (00:23:10):
So I think thinking about when you can't get into work, I presume this is probably from a lockdown period and yeah,

Jennifer Waters (00:23:17):
This is all of us. This is the current group. Plus not all of our pets, but, but some of them so yeah, me of course, and then, sorry,

Peter O'Toole (00:23:29):
That's not who we got in the picture, give them a shout attack. Cause obviously these are the people that really do the work now, because obviously you're just YouTube all the time. So

Jennifer Waters (00:23:37):
Yeah. I don't do much any of these people do it. All right. Yeah. So there's me up there with my cats and Federico Gasparoli. So he's our newest fellow. He, he has started since the pandemic. He, he he's Italian, he came from Scotland and he had to wait a very long time, poor guy for his visa. He's yet to know what the core is like without, you know, a mask and six feet away from everybody, but a great guy, super enthusiastic he's he fit right in right away. So Anna Jost is holding the adorable tuxedo cat up in the corner there. And Anna was, yup. That's her. Anna was the second fellow in the advanced microscopy fellowship program that I run. And actually one of the reasons why I say the CZI award was life-changing is because what I did was hiring Anna.

Jennifer Waters (00:24:36):
And so she is her official title is associate director of imaging education. And so she she's also very passionate about teaching, like I am. And it's been awesome to have somebody who, who likes to think and talk about teaching approaches as much as I do. So that's Anna and then this way here Oh, yep. That's Talley Lambert again with two out of his three cats. Yep. And on the other and yeah, so tally I could talk a little bit more about Talley Talley has a bit of a history. So he was actually a student in my first cold spring Harbor course in, in 2011. And anybody who knows Talley knows that he is incredibly smart. So he really stood out as a student and we invited him back as a a TA for the next course.

Jennifer Waters (00:25:27):
And you know, of course he was once again, fantastic. And he wound up at the first of the the fellows in my program. So we were also very lucky to be able to recruit and hire him. And he, he runs our most advanced microscopes. He works with our users who are, you know, sort of doing the most complicated experiments. And you know, he's, he's behind FP base and is a major contributor now. Yeah, great guy. And then last we have our second fellow Rylie Walsh Rylie also awesome. She's very interested in teaching. She's obsessed with SIM. And yeah, she's, they're all just fantastic. And like I say, they're super exp inspiring, particularly the fellow is they're so excited, you know, they just, they just want to do everything and, and it's, they're just such a pleasure to have around

Peter O'Toole (00:26:31):
You got the fellows you've got, and you mentioned on the country, just, just for clarity, you got a TA's, which I presume a teaching assistance. Yes. And these are, I think, a place where your

Jennifer Waters (00:26:44):
Yeah, those are my, fur babies. So I am, I'm a proud, crazy cat lady and that's Chloe and Olivia. So I adopted them almost four years ago now from a local shelter and they were, they were, you know, street cats. So we had a little bit of a breaking in period, but they're absolutely adorable and have been a great comfort to me in the last year as I've been stuck at home.

Peter O'Toole (00:27:15):
And I have there was a picture that has not come out, which is drat. So I was going to say, cause I also have a picture of you with the cats actually on a sewing machine and the machine for some reason, but this is either a deconstructed pair of jeans on your floor, or you have cut the material out and started to sell your own jeans.

Jennifer Waters (00:27:39):
Yeah. So this is so one of my passions outside of microscopy is sewing. I absolutely love to, so I've made the majority of my wardrobe. They go, yep. That's me sewing. At my Bernina sewing machine, I actually have four sewing machines. That's that one was my first one and the one I use the most.

Peter O'Toole (00:28:06):
So why did you need the other three?

Jennifer Waters (00:28:09):
So I have two standard sewing machines. So when you make something like jeans, the last picture, which we can maybe get back to you, but you are using two different types of thread, you're using the thread that you use for construction, and then you're using the sort of the thread that shows on the outside of your jeans, right? The, you know, usually yellow or coppery or color. And so it's just faster and easier to sort of go back and forth between the two machines rather than rethread each time. So that's a little bit of a luxury. And then I have what's called a surger, which finishes the edges of fabrics. So they don't fray. And they're also used to construct knit garments like t-shirts and things that are stretchy. And then I have what's called a cover stitch machine, which is for hemming garments, primarily. That's what I use it for.

Peter O'Toole (00:28:56):
So it's just like microscopes a different microscope for different experiments. You now have a different sewing machine for each purpose of sewing. Exactly. They each have their own purpose and the shirt you're wearing today homemade or purchased.

Jennifer Waters (00:29:15):
Yeah. And the picture behind you is a pair of jeans that I'm in the middle of constructing. So I've, you know, I've done the fly and the pockets and the back pockets and the inseam and the next step is to, you know, so the seams down the side and hem them and put the waistband and all that on it. So it's, it's so fun. And it's, it's one of those things that I got my brain is, you know, like many of us it's, I have a hard time turning it off. It's just cranking all the time. Right. And so it's something that I can do that requires a lot of attention or you screw up, you know, which is frustrating and to backtrack. And so I love it because I just turn off, you know, I just engross myself in, you know, constructing the Starman and it's super fun. And then I have like

Peter O'Toole (00:30:05):
Either that or Harvard aren't paying you enough.

Jennifer Waters (00:30:09):
Well, you know, I, I also think it's a good skill to have if like, you know, things go really awry in the world.

Peter O'Toole (00:30:17):
I think I'd rather farm. Maybe if things go really well. I think about the

Jennifer Waters (00:30:22):
We'll, we'll meet farmers too, but you know, we need people to make our calls.

Peter O'Toole (00:30:27):
So if you were listening to this podcast, do go watch it on the YouTube channel because the shirt Jennifer's wearing right now is awesome. You just very impressed. It's a very different skill.

Jennifer Waters (00:30:39):
It's really fun. I mean, there's different aspects of it too. That are fun. Like the, you know, the construction, like, you know, when there's hardware like this, there's there's hammers involved. I mean, yeah.

Peter O'Toole (00:30:49):
It's, it's fun. There's so many parallels to the sites, the instruments, all the tools you'll be agents that you're buying game.

Jennifer Waters (00:31:01):
Exactly. There are, it does feel like a scientific process, you know, there's problem solving, there's planning there's yeah. Finding the right components and yeah. And of course the machines, you know, which of course some always calibrating and cleaning and making sure that

Peter O'Toole (00:31:18):
Optimally, what else out of, out of actually, you've got a ton of plans going to say, what else do you like when you're outside of work, but you've got a ton of plants behind you. And actually, I think you sent me some pictures of lots of plants.

Jennifer Waters (00:31:34):
That's, that's one of my windows. Yeah. I love houseplants. I I have a lot of them. I have over a hundred. There's, there's a couple of couple like genera that I, that I like to collect. And yeah, so it's a little bit of an addiction, but like it's a little, their hobby, you know, I'm, I'm a hobbyist

Peter O'Toole (00:32:00):
Plants. I love

Jennifer Waters (00:32:01):
Peperomia in particular. They're my favorites. The image you just showed was is my Hoyas window. I like Hoyas a lot too. It's yeah. It's sort of like their growth pattern. This, this, if you're looking at me that three on my that you can see on my, on my shelf here are peperomia. So, and I have some ficus over here. Yeah, again, it's like, it's one of those things that is just like, it's a, it's a little bit of the biology for sure. And it's also really, it's super relaxing. You know, my, my mornings I live alone and my mornings are, get up, make my coffee, you know, wander around the house and check out the new leaves and water. And I just, I find the whole process, very sort of Zen, which is something that I'm I'm a little bit intense. So Zen is good for me. Yeah.

Peter O'Toole (00:32:54):
I noticed this picture, which you have more plants, but I also noticed in your house somewhere, like, yeah, I noticed a picture hanging on the wall so much. I had to zoom in on this. So I kind of edited your picture and bit and zoomed in.

Jennifer Waters (00:33:10):
Yeah. So another hobby, which honestly has fallen a little bit on the wayside is painting. Yeah. I painted that. That's awesome. Yeah.

Peter O'Toole (00:33:23):
It looks really great. Microscopist. I've got a pretty good idea what it is, but go on, describe this picture for those actually listening.

Jennifer Waters (00:33:34):
Thanks. I mean, it's, I'm, I'm certainly no, you know professional artists, but I do, it is fine. I mean, in general, I like to make things, you know, so it's, it is, it's something I haven't been doing too much of lately, but I actually have an idea for a painting that's been brewing, but, but yeah, these are point spread functions. I call this one pleasure and pain. You've got sort of artist's rendition of course, of a perfect point spread function. And then I highly spherically aberrated point spread function.

Peter O'Toole (00:34:02):
No, I, I prefer the perfect one and it looks like, it looks like I've got light shining from my head.

Jennifer Waters (00:34:09):
Yeah. I have a little bit of a, I love, I don't know, point spread functions don't we all love them. And I did a little bit of a point spread function series. I have a point spread function tattoo. I think some people know that, but on my back as

Peter O'Toole (00:34:23):
Well, I wouldn't ask you to show us right now,

Jennifer Waters (00:34:28):
The students at qui get to see it.

Peter O'Toole (00:34:32):
I want a Jennifer Waters picture in my house. Now that that is something that I've got to get. It's a beautiful picture. Yeah. It captures it really nicely. At least you're at least you've, aberrated almost as bad as it could have been after about user.

Jennifer Waters (00:34:47):
Hmm. Yeah. Can definitely get worse. Can't it.

Peter O'Toole (00:34:52):
That back into work, have you ever had, what has been the most difficult time you've encountered at work and, and how have you overcome that?

Jennifer Waters (00:35:03):
Huh, that's a good question. I think, you know, for me, probably the hardest times that I've had have been learning how to manage people, you know, that was, I really lucked out when I first started my job, because the first person I hired, who I have to mention is a woman, Lara Petrak. And I hired as a technician. We, she worked for me for 11 years. She worked her way up. And she was absolutely fantastic and we worked very well together. She now works for Ocal lab and she kind of made me think it was easy, you know, and I've, I've had fantastic people throughout, you know, throughout my career or working with me, but it's, you know, managing people can be difficult. And, and that was learning that process and learning how to do that well was hard. That was, that was hard learning. Absolutely. Yes, yes. I do think I've gotten better at it. But yeah, and honestly, my current group makes it easy because they all have, you know, they're just such hard workers and very, very creative and and enthusiastic. So, so, and hard on themselves, you know, I'm quite hard on myself and, and these guys are too, so most of what I'm doing is, is really just telling them they're doing a great job. So how do they make it easy on me?

Peter O'Toole (00:36:46):
How did you learn the skills of managing staff?

Jennifer Waters (00:36:50):
I actually took classes at one point because it was becoming clear to me that I didn't, you know, I mean, basically what happened was w what's happened is I, when you have somebody that works differently than you do, you know, it's, it's trying to understand that and, and get the best, you know, get the best relationship one can given that. And I took classes, it turns out like this is a field that people study. Right. And yeah, I learned quite a bit from that. You know, simple things like have a one-on-one meeting with each person every week. And I started every week. I have a one-on-one meeting with each person from my group. I mean, there's only, you know, five of us, so it's, it's not hard, but it, but it is really has been really good. I think sometimes the meetings, I always tell everybody they're completely optional. If there's nothing you want to chat about, you can just not come. And sometimes they're, you know, 20 minutes and sometimes they're an hour and a half, it's just, it's just a time that put aside every week that we can touch base. And it's actually been really important now. Right. When we don't see each other every day. Unfortunately

Peter O'Toole (00:38:01):
I think my team would hate me if I did that. I think they have enough of my voice just on the, on the, on the lab meetings themselves, which is a couple of times a week at the moment. Yeah.

Jennifer Waters (00:38:11):
Well, it tends to be pretty informal and, you know, sometimes some of it just chit chat and but yeah, it's really a, you know, I don't mean it mean it, I absolutely hate micromanaging. It's like I despise it. Right. I

Peter O'Toole (00:38:27):
Don't worry. I do get it. Yeah.

Jennifer Waters (00:38:30):
Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, no, it's what I want to say is like, I really liked people who were just of doing their own thing. Right. So it's nice to have a place, a place to come together and talk about what they're doing, you know, so we just sort of chit chat and yeah, I like it. I think they do too. But

Peter O'Toole (00:38:46):
So difficulties at work managing what's throughout your career, what has been the biggest highlight? The most enjoyable period that you've had to date,

Jennifer Waters (00:38:59):
You know, starting the Cold Spring Harbor course was that was a really big deal to me. So I had taught that as I mentioned, I was a teaching assistant for, for Ted Salmon for many courses when I was a graduate student. And and I, when I got the job at Harvard, I thought, Oh, geez, I'm a Harvard. Now I better brush up on stuff. And so I contacted the directors of the course that I had taken as a graduate school graduate student which is at the EMBL, the AQM course and asked if I could come and just kind of hang out. And I wound up going to that course for nine years. And at the same time, of course, I was developing curriculum at Harvard and I was by the end teaching a graduate course on microscopy at Harvard.

Jennifer Waters (00:39:47):
And the directors of that course directed it for a very long time, you know? And so I just got to the point, I wanted to do my own thing. You know, I had a lot of ideas and and I just honestly just was getting frustrated with somebody else's vision. I had my own. And so I decided to leave and I, I should say I was teaching another microscopy courses as well, a couple of different courses at Cold Spring Harbor, one by John Murray. For example, and, and at the time at Cold Spring Harbor, because I was a core facility person and didn't have the word professor in my title, I was a teaching assistant in the course, even though I was acting as an instructor. Right. So at the, at the time people in core facilities running a course, like this was not a thing. And so I left,

Peter O'Toole (00:40:42):
Yeah. You put that down to, I guess, just literally named snobbery title, not of the capabilities at that point.

Jennifer Waters (00:40:51):
Yeah. I mean, yeah, it was, it's just a perception right. Of, of this is, this is the realm of the professors, the teaching of the grad students and professors, right? You, you, core facility, people are there to help know how to use the microscope work, you know, train them how to use the microscope. But I think it was, that was more the perception at the time. Obviously it's changed dramatically in the, in the, in the years sentence, but I knew I could run this course. You know, how I felt, I, like, I knew I could do it. I wanted to do it. And I actually, you know, I felt like I was really good at it. And, and I, as a core facility person, you're putting more time into learning how to teach this stuff. Right. So I was going to this courses and like, you know, to be quite honest, there are people giving really bad lectures, like, excellent.

Jennifer Waters (00:41:40):
Microscopists, you know, name recognition, but terrible lectures. And for me, I was like, I just want a course where every lecture is like really good. And the students like learn everything, you know, and, and nobody makes any assumptions about what they already know going into it. I had, I had a vision, so I left, I decided to just leave the course. I didn't want to do it anymore. After the nine years, it was like long enough. And to two weeks or two months later, Cold Spring Harbor called me and asked me if I wanted to start a course. And I was over the moon because I, I don't know that there was anybody else running a course. One of these courses that was running a core facility, I don't think any of microscopists since, since then there are, but so I was really proud, you know, something I felt like I worked hard to do. And I was, that was a big moment. And I'm also very proud of the advanced microscopy fellowship as well. I think that's been really successful.

Peter O'Toole (00:42:38):
And, and just, just pointing out, you've obviously got two of those fellows working with you and that the courses aren't just about teaching people, how to use microscopes, they also motivate and show people that there's a career in microscopy as well. And it can really change people's careers as it has to your career. And actually a couple of your staff that they have had their futures inspired. And I'm sure there's many others that have gone on the courses. And now similarly been inspired to become microscopists, not biologists you or life scientist using a microscope, but actually becoming a microscopist using biology for their microscopy.

Jennifer Waters (00:43:23):
So it's so satisfying, you know, it's so satisfying too. I mean, I love teaching at Harvard too, but it's like smaller scale. You know, we mostly teach like one day workshops. And so Cold Spring Harbor in particularly short, intense courses are so satisfying to see how much they learn over the course of the two weeks. And and they're all, like many of them are already doing a microscopy experiment and some of them leave. This was actually Talley Lee left realizing he was doing a lot of things wrong just because he didn't know the details of the equipment. And yeah, so it's really satisfying for them to, to know they're going to go home and, you know, do a better job. And, and we definitely have had alumni who have gone on to you know, be in core facilities that, that weren't planning on it. So,

Peter O'Toole (00:44:13):
Yeah. And you mentioned how, just going back a little bit, I'm just bringing this up now. How perceptions of people who work in facilities under the bandwidth technicians I will really annoy, I know one of our friends by saying we offer a service, in some respects and we are there to serve in some respects, but serving and collaborating can be the same thing I think. And it's teamwork and it's terminologies can really upset some people. And I think we're in a much more open, no, but you must have faced a lot of you know positional discrimination. Yeah, absolutely. That makes sense. Your pseudo status, even though salary wise, you'll be on quite a senior equivalent salary. I'm not going to go there, which is equivalent to some of the, maybe senior researchers lectures. But because the title, you said, it's because you haven't got the title professor, right. There's sometimes a perception. I think that is less. So now, how have you found that over and over in the States

Jennifer Waters (00:45:25):
It's changed a lot? I mean, part of the reason why I, as I said, I asked everybody at, at Harvard Harvard medical school when I interviewed why not hire a technician. And, and, and it was the fact that they understood the additional you know, knowledge that you can bring to, to helping people on the microscope, if you, if you have the experience of having done research yourself. And so but nonetheless, you know, I was a core facility director, and that was quite different. And, you know, I have memories of, of a, I won't name names, but a very well known senior faculty members saying to me early on, like, I don't know, I wouldn't do, you know, I wouldn't want to do experiments and having, having my people do experiments on the core if I don't understand those experiments. And I feel like that's changed, you know, I feel like, I feel like there's a lot more trust.

Jennifer Waters (00:46:20):
I'm sure. Ultimately they understand. I don't mean to make it sound like, but, but I think the faculty are much more and it's particularly junior faculty, right. It's definitely junior faculty come in and treat us like colleagues immediately. Right. So that has changed, I think, a lot with the, you know, younger generations, but one of the reasons why I've stayed at Harvard this whole time, and the reason why I haven't left is because I do feel like a colleague there over the years, it has become where, you know, there are labs that at, at Harvard medical school who do all of their imaging in the core facility who don't have microscopes in their lab who rely on, you know, my group's expertise to, to guide their trainees. And so I don't feel that way locally. I don't feel that way at all locally. Or very, very rarely, I feel like a colleague and I get, you know, I don't mind saying that it's a service. Like we are here to help you, you know, that's, that's fine. But what I do care is that I get the respect that I, that deserve based on my, my expertise on an experience and that I feel for sure.

Peter O'Toole (00:47:36):
And, and you touched on that's going, going back a bit, then we, a lot of post-docs in the world that will think, Oh, well, you know, why would you want to give up research, wait for it. Why would you give up research to just use a technology? And this could be any technology could be genomics platform, a mass spectrometer, it could be all sorts of different equipment types. What, what would you say, would you not want to have a project? And I make that your, you know, yes, you help others, but would you not like a question that you resolve in yourself? What would be your answer to that?

Jennifer Waters (00:48:16):
Not a biological question, to be honest, I, I, there hasn't been a biological question come across that I've, that I've gotten, you know, I can, I certainly feel the excitement when a user is excited about their data and I, you know, but for me, I'm much more interested in understanding how microscopes, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm much more interested in, in deeply understanding them and testing the things that are not clear. Right. And so yeah, that, that's what interests me more. And I think as much, you know, I think that's much more useful better use of my time. So

Peter O'Toole (00:48:57):
Yeah. So my, my counter to the argument is, well, actually, why would you want to only solve one biological question when you can help solve lots of biological questions? Yeah. And you mentioned it, the excitement when, when a user and yourself, cause you've helped them sees something for the first time and it answers a question they've had for ages about fundamentals of life. And you've seen one of those questions answered in front of your eyes. Maybe you don't appreciate it and same depth as a user, but you know, what they were looking for. Can you talk to them obviously? And when they see it and you see it, or you point it out and say, no, I can see it, the look of excitement on their eyes, you know, it's infectious, for sure. It's exciting for us to part of that team. We are part of so many teams.

Jennifer Waters (00:49:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's true. I mean, we I think one of the things that I mentioned, I'm a skeptic. I think that's one of the things that my group and I sort of share, we're all, we're all quite skeptical. And I think that actually matches quite very well with the researcher. Right. Because they're so, they're so excited and they're so trying to get the answer and we can be there gently reminding them, well, we still need to do that control, you know, like let's double check this and that. So it does very much feel like collaboration as you're, as you're working together. And one of the things I also get really excited about is when we have somebody come to the core who has been trying to get an experiment to work like in their lab and have really been struggling and we can help them, you know, we can turn that around and put them on the right microscope and show them how to run it properly. And bam it's, you know, the signal they didn't think existed is there, so that's super satisfying to,

Peter O'Toole (00:50:55):
How often did you get on the microscopes still?

Jennifer Waters (00:50:57):
Oh, Hmm. Not, not, not that much. Not that much. I'm afraid. Yeah. I do at times I, what I really miss is feeling intimately involved with every single microscope through my core, you know, I mean, for most of the time I've been here, I, I was the one who knew the most about every microscope, like all the intricacies of how it's set up and such, and that's not the case anymore, you know? So that's kind of, thankfully I've people that I very much trust to hold that information. But you know, I, I'm at a point now where I, I really liked to talk about imaging and I really like to talk about you know, experimental design and approaches and I, you know, obviously I love to teach. And so while I, there are times for sure that I miss it. I like the things that I'm focusing on right now. And, and I, and I live through the fellows who are so excited about all the time they get to spend on our microscopes.

Peter O'Toole (00:52:07):
So you don't get it. So you don't get much time in the microscope. You got a great team. You got the Chan Zuckerberg initiative award to setting up loads. What does the future hold? Where do you see yourself going? I'll start there. I'm 49 years old to come in on 50. You confess to that already. What are you going to do? What's your next challenge?

Jennifer Waters (00:52:35):
My next challenge. So you know, I do want, I tell myself the micro courses or my book, you know, I want to, I want to cover all the topics I've been really slacking off in this pandemic. It's just been hard, isn't it? So but I have a lot of topics that I want to cover. So that is, to me, a big project that I'll be working on for years. I think I have been talking with, I'm not quite sure. I always have like ideas brewing, you know, and I'm not, I'm not sure which direction I'm going to go in, but, but I have been talking with three of my imaging scientists, colleagues Abhishek Kumar, Martin Fisher, and Aaron Taylor about sort of putting together like a, there's so much educate so many, especially now with COVID lectures, learning materials for microscopy online, right.

Jennifer Waters (00:53:27):
There's tons of them. And I'd like to put together a website that's sort of a curated by, you know, people who do microscopy teaching set of lectures. And I'm also really in it. And what I mean by that is we would sort of go through what's out there and pick our, you know, the ones that we liked the best and think cover the kinds of material that we want to be part of this curriculum and put that together. And yeah, there's a lot more to that idea, but the only thing I want to do in, in somewhat related to this is I want to start hell I want to, I want to help junior imaging, scientist, junior core directors who are starting up teaching. I want to help like share curriculum and such with them. So I, I have an idea. I actually have a website I'm working on right now that I'm going to, where I'm going to share the micro courses slides. So that's almost up and running.

Peter O'Toole (00:54:27):
I have to ask the YouTube channel for this is called

Jennifer Waters (00:54:30):
Micro courses, micro courses,

Peter O'Toole (00:54:33):
Just, just to make sure we clear it and that's not a [inaudible]

Jennifer Waters (00:54:38):
M I C R O courses all one word. Yep.

Peter O'Toole (00:54:42):
So we are unbelievably coming up to the hour fast. I've got some quick questions for you though. What is your favorite food?

Jennifer Waters (00:54:54):
My favorite food. I think I have to say pepperoni pizza as much as

Peter O'Toole (00:55:01):
Absolutely. Yep. I'm with you on the way.

Jennifer Waters (00:55:04):
I mean, it's, you know, it's the perfect food as an when it comes to anything except health.

Peter O'Toole (00:55:10):
No. Do you know what it's the perfect fuel from the drinking at an evening or just long running on a Saturday is full of carbs, sugar , salt, fats. So yeah. I love it every Friday night. It's religion.

Jennifer Waters (00:55:27):
Is it? Yeah, actually when I have pizza, it's a Friday night thing, so yeah,

Peter O'Toole (00:55:32):
Since, since undergraduate days that's the one thing I will not allow to change. So what is your, what, what foods do you most dislike? Imagine you're taking out on the course of a meal nightmare dish to have served to you.

Jennifer Waters (00:55:51):
I am not adventurous when it comes to seafood. I did not grow up eating seafood. And so, yeah, I, there's a, quite a few things that people love that kind of, I will try anything. But, but there are plenty of things in that genre that I don't go back to.

Peter O'Toole (00:56:11):
Yeah. I, I, I, again, I would agree with that. I remember one Elmi when it was a seafood restaurant and it was crabs, lobster and shells, and that was it. That was it. It was nothing else that night. And one slice of bread. I was hungry evening that night, right?

Jennifer Waters (00:56:27):
Yeah. Like I can get by, but it's never, never satisfying.

Peter O'Toole (00:56:31):
Look on the bright side. There's always drink wherever you go. So what's your favorite drink?

Jennifer Waters (00:56:35):
It's true. I like cocktails, so let's see. Martinez, I think is probably my favorite. Also like a good Negroni yeah,

Peter O'Toole (00:56:46):
And least favorite drink

Jennifer Waters (00:56:51):
Bartles and James wine coolers. Do they still make those?

Peter O'Toole (00:56:55):
W what was that drink?

Jennifer Waters (00:56:59):
It was in, Oh God, it was high school college. There were these Bartles and James wine coolers. They were, you know, bottled, like wine and juice or something. Things of that genre. Do you know?

Peter O'Toole (00:57:13):
I like the fact that your favorite and least favorite are both alcoholic, but okay. You are straight there with alcohol. Forget the coffee, the teas, the hot chocolate.

Jennifer Waters (00:57:23):
Oh yeah. Well, coffee. I mean, isn't that a given is coffee. Like, I feel like that's a required.

Peter O'Toole (00:57:30):
And what about so you've got your food, you sit down and you've got your drink. So what would you want, what, what movie would you watch? What were your favorite? What's your favorite movie of all time?

Jennifer Waters (00:57:44):
I have a favorite movie of all time. I love documentaries. That's usually what I'm watching. And I liked the sort of documentary series that there's more and more of now. So that's huge. Yeah. I do watch movies. I've watched a couple of good ones lately, but I, but documentaries are the thing that I,

Peter O'Toole (00:58:02):
What contents, there's documentaries about all sorts of things. What,

Jennifer Waters (00:58:06):
Okay. Anything, if it's a good documentary? I like it. Anything, one of my favorite documentaries actually is King of Kong. Strongly recommended if you haven't seen it, it's about the sort of world champion donkey Kong players. And it's just a really, you know, what I think is the best is when it's a topic you wouldn't think you were interested in, because I don't care about, you know, competitive video gaming, but, you know, when they can make it like fascinating and you go into this whole other world that you're, you're not, you know, part of it. Yeah.

Peter O'Toole (00:58:37):
Yeah. So you, yeah, you really did mean anything didn't you at that point? Yes. Okay. So you've watched a movie, you go to bed, you put some music on, what music would you listen to? Classical rock, pop indie. What would you, what would be your genre there?

Jennifer Waters (00:58:51):
Oh, wow. You know, I, I honestly don't listen to a ton of music. If I do turn on music, it's going to be something like Nora Jones or Taylor Swift. It's like those sort of maybe girly music. I listen to a lot of podcasts actually. That's usually, if I've got my headphones in, you know, water and plants, I've usually got a podcast on.

Peter O'Toole (00:59:16):
Okay. And, and then it's time to make yourself sleepy. So you pick up a book or do, do you read books?

Jennifer Waters (00:59:22):
I do not a ton, but I, but I do. I used to be a really heavy reader and yeah, but I do.

Peter O'Toole (00:59:30):
Okay. And finally, you're that you're then going to wake up the next morning and you going to get some clothes on? Yes, I think I know what the answer is. This is going to be, what is your favorite item of clothing?

Jennifer Waters (00:59:43):
Well yeah, I, I, it's definitely gonna be something that I made of course. And it changes a lot because I make, I make clothes a lot. I mean, I have way more clothes than I possibly need, and I give them away a lot because I make way too many. I think jeans like jeans really are my favorite thing to make. And so probably, you know, probably made 15 pairs at this point. And but there's still a couple that I, you know, they're starting to wear out. I love them so much. I probably, and I live in jeans, so

Peter O'Toole (01:00:14):
Yeah, Denim, I did think that would be the answer. Yeah. What's your least favorite item of clothing, which you obviously don't own. Cause why would you own something you dislike that much?

Jennifer Waters (01:00:24):
Yeah, actually didn't bake a blazer one time just because I thought it would be a good thing to have. I'm not really a blazer person, but, and I also wanted to make one because it's, I didn't know how to, so it was kind of challenging, but yeah, anything like dress, I'm just not a person who likes to dress up, you know, anything, anything dressy? I like to wear a dress like a casual dress in the summer, but I don't, Oh God, you know, high heels, no done.

Peter O'Toole (01:00:54):
To end on. I usually ask if you've got a favorite joke. So actually I have noticed that my shirts actually quite cool bordering on more way fringes, I think. And I've heard, you know, more song, so I'll give you a choice, favorite joke or your Moray song, which I don't know. So,

Jennifer Waters (01:01:18):
You know, there are things that I'm good at and there are things that are not, that I'm not. And singing is way up there on the list. Charlie has a great singing voice. So if I, if he was, you know available, I would have him sing it for you. But it is a song and Talley does sing it when he does his SIM lecture. And I will tell you the lyrics, which is when the moon hits your eyes, like a big pizza pie. That's amore.

Peter O'Toole (01:01:48):
Oh no, no. What the song is as well as in, I know how he's going to go now

Jennifer Waters (01:01:54):
It's in your head. You're going to listen to it all day.

Peter O'Toole (01:01:58):
I'm going to be running hours tomorrow morning and all I'm going to have, is that in my head? Yeah. Thanks Jennifer. And on that note, Jennifer, thank you very much for joining me today it's been great to catch up and have a chat with you. And I hope everyone's enjoyed listening or watching. Please. Don't forget to subscribe to the various channels. And I say this one is well worth watching the pictures that

Peter O'Toole (01:02:20):
I'm sorry. The point spread function, picture no artistic. It was so brilliant. Brilliant. So Jennifer, thank you very much.

New Speaker (01:02:30):
Thank you, Peter was a lot of fun.

New Speaker (01:02:34):
Thank you for listening to The Microscopists, a Bitesizebio podcast sponsored by Zeiss microscopy to view all audio and video recordings from this series, please visit bitesizebio.com/themicroscopists.