Black Excellence Oral History with Austin Gray, June 15, 2021 (Ms2024-072)

Korin Jones: My name is Korin Rex Jones, and I am interviewing Dr. Austin Gray for the Black Excellence in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] project via Zoom. Today’s date is June 15, 2021. Dr. Gray, could you state your name and date of birth for the record?

Austin Gray: My name is Austin Douglas Gray; my date of birth is May 8, 1991.

Korin: Thank you very much. Now, to get an idea of where the story is going, could you give a brief description of your current position and a little bit about your research?

Austin: Okay. Currently, I am at Virginia Tech as an assistant professor in the biological sciences department. My research specifically focuses on emerging contaminants or environmental contaminants and, ultimately, understanding how they are affected or used through anthropogenic influence or influence aquatic systems. So, ultimately understanding the environmental 00:01:00consequence of our usage of environmental contaminants.

Korin: Very cool. Now, to jump way, way back, where were you born, and where did you grow up?

Austin: I was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, specifically, North Charleston, South Carolina. I like to make that distinction because when people hear about Charleston, they’re thinking the beaches or the tourist spots, but North Charleston is not as pristine or as adventurous as those areas, I would say.

Korin: What was your family like? More specifically, what did your parents do for work and then…well, we’ll just start there. What did your parents do for work?

Austin: So, that’s actually interesting, now, to talk about this especially with Twitter. You see a lot of first-generation in whatever, whether it be college graduate, graduate school, PhD and what not. But, in a weird scenario, I was fortunate enough to not be first-generation. My dad was very much a very 00:02:00well educated man. He finished eighth grade in a week, ninth grade in two weeks. At a time when Black people were fighting for civil rights, he obtained a master’s degree in education, and he went on and got a master of science as well. My dad was older than my mom by a good amount of years. This is also during the 00:03:0060s, so he definitely was well accomplished. By the time that me and my brothers were born--I’m the youngest of five boys--he had already retired from teaching for thirty-three years. Growing up, my dad just kind of set a really amazing precedent for me and my brothers because, for me, I got to grow up in a household where my dad was a well-educated man that achieved these advanced degrees at a time that, like I said, we were fighting for civil rights. He was breaking down barriers in his own right. My mom, she was born and raised in Charleston as well. Not as educated as my father but still intelligent, in her own right, 00:04:00but she more so was a product of her own environment, I would say. She grew up in a very rough area, rough neighborhood, and she did a lot. Worked really hard to overcome and get out of that situation. So, she sacrificed a lot for me and my brothers, but, in turn, she put a lot into us in regards to our education, to make sure that we had a future, that we did not stay in the same area, and that we did not stay stuck. But I think in a lot of ways for her, she gave up on her dreams, so that we can have ours. That was the kind of upbringing that I had with my parents, again, a mom that invested a lot within me and my brothers, and a dad who really set the example for me and my brothers.

Korin: A follow-up question to that. Are your brothers currently involved in science? Did you all choose similar paths, or did you sort of branch out?

Austin: So, we all, I would say, chose very different paths. We grew up pretty close. My oldest brother Edward was killed, when I was three years old 00:05:00in 1994; he was murdered in California. But, me and my other brothers, we all ended up--three of us are all a year apart as well, as far as age goes. My mom kept trying to have a daughter and kept having sons. We ended up going in different paths. My older brother Janockiel, who’s the second oldest, he is in New York and works in finance and business, but he also is a singer as well. He has a couple of LPs and albums that he’s made. He did off-Broadway and Broadway for a while, so he’s very much the outgoing, artistic, musical person. My other brother after him, Spencer, he’s in the Army now. He’s been in the Army for over ten years; he’s a combat engineer. My brother following him is my brother DeAndre, who was in the Air Force for a while, and he got out and is doing his master’s in social work. He wants to be a social worker, so he’s very much geared towards helping people. And a lot of that goes back to 00:06:00our own upbringing because, when I was fourteen, my dad passed away from cancer, and he died probably five days after being diagnosed. At the time, for me and my brothers, it was a very traumatic thing to go through. I think for my brother DeAndre, he remembered that, and he always wants to help kids through those type of hardships and situations, which is amazing for him to do that. And it also explains a little bit more into why my two middle brother’s went into the military and didn’t go into college right away. Because they were both high school stars--football stars, track stars--and they could have gone off and done amazing things. But, at the time, my mom was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer, and I was going into my senior year of high school, I was doing probably twenty-one credits of college courses. I was doing cross-country, track, and everything, so they actually dropped out or didn’t go off to college, so that I wouldn’t be alone. So, again, going back to that sacrifice talk with my mom; they did the same thing. They 00:07:00pretty much sacrificed all that they could have been, so that I wouldn’t have been alone during that senior year and focused on my schooling because it had always been known that, when I was a kid, I always had an affinity for academics and science, and even though I did sports, they knew that was my ticket. That was how I was gonna make it out, so they sacrificed for that. My brothers, even to this day, they’ll never ask for anything. Ever. They never feel bad or regret their decision because they see where it’s led. Even now, being thirty-one, thirty-two, they’re still supportive as they were back then.

Korin: Really interesting. So, given this familial closeness, I think something that a lot of academics are stressed about, from time to time, is this inability to explain 00:08:00to your family the work that you’re passionate about because many people see that as like, this is who I am now; I am this researcher, and this work is so much of who I am. One, do you feel that way? Do you feel like you have a lot more of yourself that exists beyond your work? And, two, do you find that you also have challenges explaining what you do or the importance of your work to your family?

Austin: Yeah, I don’t know. I feel like, within my own family and friend group, I’ve done a really good job just remaining true to who I am, regardless of my degrees or my research. I think, most times, I’m the butt of the joke because my friends or my family would say, oh Austin’s going to a conference, or they think I’m a secret agent making things up, like I’m 007 and conferences are a cover or something. But, as far as how my family and friends treat me, especially my brothers, like 00:09:00I said, we have a very close relationship. So, I think if anything, we rarely talk shop; I rarely talk about my work with them on a detailed level, but they are aware that I do water work, working in water, so they’ll ask questions once in a while. But, for the most part, I can say, throughout the past ten, eleven years, they don’t really inquire much about my actual work, more so that I’m doing well and that I’m succeeding or answering questions or doing this or doing that. But, in regards to talking hardcore science, I will say, if something comes up in the news, like we had the COVID vaccines, and there was a lot of questions they had that they--luckily, within my own network, I’m probably the only scientists that a lot of my family and friends know, so it kind of presents me an opportunity, where I can use what I know to help educate. Not so much inform, but just educate people, so that they can make informed decisions. And I think that’s been a benefit of me having the training that I had in science because it’s allowed 00:10:00me the opportunity to kind of present that. But, as far as translating my work or when I do ever talk about it, I always try to make sure that I come down to a level that is not so much that I know so much, but more so, this is what I’m doing, and this is what I find fun. And rather than going to deep hypothesis-driven aspects of my research, I just talk about the very broad implications. So, I did work in Charleston looking at microplastics in the Charleston Harbor, and my brothers would be like, oh, so what are you doing in the harbor? And I’ll be like, I’m looking for these little plastics that might impact shrimp and crabs. They relate to that because we all eat shrimp and crabs, especially being on the coast. Or when I did work with antibiotics within groundwater and stream surface water, I was telling my brothers that I was, essentially, looking to see if there were any remnants of these drugs in people’s drinking water. And that way, they’re like, oh, okay, and then they’ll lead to, well, why are the drugs in the water? And then I can answer that and say, well, these compounds don’t break down when we ingest them, and they’re like, oh, so when we use the bathroom, 00:11:00they go back out. And I’m like, yes. So, it’s different things like that, as far as explaining my work, but the person that is probably the most interested in my work is probably my mom. When I used to give seminars back in Charleston, whether it be to town halls or Sierra Club, Audubon Society, and whatnot, but every seminar, every presentation I gave she was right there. And she wasn’t so much, again, able to follow everything, but she has a good gist of what I do. I have family members that are more distant that I don’t really engage with too much, but sometimes when I see them they ask, so, what do you do? And then after a few years, it gets to a point where it’s like, all right, you gotta stop asking every time you see me because I’m doing the same thing I was doing five years ago. But, going back to the initial question, yeah, my brothers, for the most part, we don’t talk too much about that. We have a relationship where we talk about everything else but our work and everything, and that’s just how it’s been for us growing up. That’s just how we communicate. 00:12:00If it’s serious, or if it’s notable, we’ll talk about it. But, for the most part, I can say we genuinely just want to know how everyone’s doing. We all have our own families now and other parts of our lives. So, I think you mentioned it, but yeah, there’s parts of me that extend far beyond just my research that I’m known for than just being the water guy.

Korin: That is nice to hear, and I can definitely relate to the, yeah, I’m doing the same thing I was doing before.

Austin: It’s like, do you still--what do you do? Remember three years ago when you saw me, and I told you? Same thing. Life of graduate students.

Korin: So, you mentioned before that you sort of knew that science was your path fairly early on. Can you think of an event, if there is one, or collection of events, that sort of signaled to you, where it’s like, science is for me; this is what I’m gonna do?

Austin: Funny enough, like I said I’m from Charleston, South Carolina, so 00:13:00education in South Carolina is not the greatest, and I don’t know why this was the case, but I remember, specifically my third grade science class, we didn’t do anything but watch “Bill Nye the Science Guy” and “The Magic School Bus.” I kid you not! I don’t know if they had a shortage of science teachers, or if the person that they had just wasn’t qualified and was like, I’m just gonna play this, but we literally came to class every day, and we watched episodes of that, and honestly, that’s what really sparked my interest. As I was a kid, I was always going outside and playing in the grass and environment. But I never could say that I wanted to do that type of research. I mean, I just liked being outside as a kid. But I knew that I loved science, and I was just fascinated by the work that was going on, just learning about the solar system, learning about photosynthesis and all these different aspects that broaden your mind, and then you read and you read and you read, and you see like, wow, this is cool. So, for me, science has always been such a cool thing. And then, I tie that into my affinity for science fiction, which all 00:14:00it did was just make it even worse because I just love science fiction so much. So, I think all those things that aren’t academic played a great role. Even though “Bill Nye the Science Guy” and “The Magic School Bus” were shows that were supposed to help foster that type of thinking, again, it was that exposure that really got me thinking about being a scientist. And even then, I mean, I can say I loved science, but I never knew that I would be a scientist. I was more, at that time, in that schtick of, I’m gonna be an M.D.; I’m gonna be a doctor. I think it was because it was like a cool thing to tell people because I like science. And, again, goes back to exposure. I didn’t know about environmental research. I didn’t know about ecologists. I just knew that if you liked science, or if you were smart, you were a doctor. So, I’m like, okay, I’m gonna be a doctor. My mom and dad loved that, and I’d made up in my mind that I’m gonna be a pediatrician; I’ll be obstetrician, be an OB-GYN, and all these things throughout my time growing up until college. I then realized, in college, I didn’t 00:15:00want to be an M.D.; I wanted to actually do research.

Korin: Tell me more about that college experience. Where did you go to undergraduate and what major did you start with? Was it a pre-med sort of thing or was it just general studies?

Austin: So, I went to The Citadel Military College of South Carolina, which is a senior military college in Charleston and very prestigious, in its own right, within the region or within the southeast. You know the Civil War started with fired shots on Fort Sumter, but it was Citadel cadets that actually fired those cannons at Fort Sumter that started the Civil War, which, weirdly enough, shows how weird history plays out. But I say that because, to go to a school like that, with that kind of history, that type of deeply-rooted confederate history, I definitely did not expect what I had to go through would be as tough as it was. My older brother Janockeil 00:16:00had gone there before me. He graduated by the time that I got there, but he never told me what he went through and what he endured. He just kinda like--you know older brothers kinda set you up; they’re like, oh, you wanna go? All right. So, I got there, and my first conversation with him, I was like, dude, why didn’t you tell me? And he was like, you had to experience it. But, it was very much a rigorous program, where, I mean, your freshman year, you have to shave your head; you can’t use your own name. You have to refer to yourself as cadet recruit or cadet private. You have to sleep on the fourth level. There’s five battalions, four levels. Knobs--that’s what they call us as freshmen--knobs, because your head shaved and everything. And when you’re on the steps, if there’s upperclassmen on the steps, you literally had to ask for permission just to go up the steps, and if they deny you, you have to go back to the beginning and start over again. You have to memorize like a hundred people’s names, their rank, their order, and you had to do it alphabetically 00:17:00and by class. It was crazy, and that’s just one aspect of it. Every morning, you gotta get up and sweep the battalion at 5:30 a.m. for sweep detail. You got physical training at different parts of the day. You got formation. You have to go to mess, and mess is the same situation; you don’t get to eat freely; you have to ask for permission to eat. You learned table etiquette and how to pass food and how not to backhand people and all those things. Again, it was not a traditional college experience, so it was very much difficult. And when I came into my company--I came into Golf Company. I wanna say there was twenty-one companies at the time. And I was in Golf Company, and this was actually the company where the first Black cadet came through in 1966, Charles Foster. So, he came through The Citadel, and he graduated. And his story ends up that he died a few years later from a house fire. But, when I got there, I kind of thought a lot about his legacy being 00:18:00in the same company that he came in to. Learning more about his story, what the school did to him. And for me, it was motivating because it was my opportunity to make him proud and kinda set an example. When I got to The Citadel, I was about ninety-seven pounds. I was a cross-country runner and everything, so I was much smaller than I am now, but ninety-seven pounds at a time and came in; no one thought much of me. Everyone counted me out, or everyone kinda said, oh, Gray’s small; he’s whatever. But I ended up doing really well. I really excelled at the military aspect of it, which is funny enough that I didn’t go into the military, but I ended up becoming the first Black first sergeant in my company, and then I was the second Black company commander, but I was the first Black commander that was originally appointed for Golf Company. The one before me, 00:19:0094, Jerome White, he had taken the position after the previous company commander lost their rank, but I was actually selected and appointed. So, in 00:20:00some cases, some people consider me as the first Black company commander for Golf Company, which, again, in a school that was opened in 1842 to be able to break those kind of barriers down, to do it in a company that Charles Foster was in, it meant a lot. And even within the community, it was a big deal because of what it represented. It wasn’t so much about me, but more so the community that I came from, the barriers that I knocked down or help knock down for future cadets as well, which, I believe, a couple of years after me, there was a Black woman company commander for Golf Company. So, again, I think that those things really kind of helped pave the way to make that type of change. But, after my knob year--going back into how I got into research--after my knob year, I needed a job, and I just wanted to have an easy job. My brother was like, oh, I did work-study in the library, and I watched Netflix all day. I was like, oh, that sounds great! I’m gonna definitely do that. I just wanted money to hang out. At this point, I wasn’t trying to do too much. I didn’t realize research was my calling yet. I ended 00:21:00up going to the place for a work-study--and the library job was taken, of course, because it’s the best gig on campus--but there was a job for an aquatic toxicology--which, I actually had this professor, Dr. John Weinstein. I had him for anatomy and physiology my freshman year, and this is an upper-level class, but I had credits from my high school time that got me into the class. So, I kind of stuck out being a knob with a bald head--Black knob, bald head--in his class. He was like, hey, do you wanna wash glassware for me? And I was like, okay, I can wash glassware; that’s nothing. And I think this was back when minimum wage was like $7.25; it might have been lower than that; I think I might’ve got less than that. This is like 2010, so, yeah, it might have been lower than that. But, I started cleaning glassware at the aquatic toxicology lab and didn’t do anything. I just came in a couple hours a day cleaning glassware. But, I started listening to the projects they were working on, the work they were doing. I knew the graduate student who was in his lab because me and him 00:22:00were in the same mentoring program. We both started out in this medical M.D. mentor program that lasted three years. He’s now doing research, and weirdly enough, he kind of took me under his wing. His name is Jonte Miller, who’s now an M.D. out in California in San Diego. Life is funny. But, he took me under his wing and taught me a lot of the techniques that I still use to this day. And I realized, as I went through that summer and more so my sophomore year into my junior year, that this is what I wanted to do. I wanted to do research. I love being in the field. I love designing laboratory toxicology assays to answer questions that are important, at least to me. And nothing I thought I was doing--even to this day, nothing I feel like I’m doing is that amazing, in regards to changing the world, but I just think it’s cool! I just like doing stuff that I find it to be really cool to me. And that’s my motivation for how I do research. Even now, if it sounds cool, and I think it’s interesting, let’s do it, rather than, I’m trying to get published in this paper; I want this grant. 00:23:00I think about it completely differently. I think of it as a fun exercise because I still have a lot of fun doing the research, and a lot of it started because of that time at The Citadel. And Dr. Weinstein--I mean, to this day, me and him still have a relationship. We just had a Zoom call last week talking about some papers we’re still getting out. And one of them is a paper from that project that I’m talking about from undergraduate, a paper that I wanted to get out years ago, but graduate school happened. We’re still very close in that mentorship. When I told him I wanted to be a researcher, he did all he could to get me to the next level and prepare me as much as he could. That was just an amazing experience. To be at The Citadel and go through all that and do what I did there, I’m glad I found the research aspect of it because I, ultimately, would have gone into the military after graduating. But, I realized that that’s not what I wanted. Rather than serve and not wanna serve, I opted to do what I thought was more 00:24:00important, which is finding what I do and what I love. And my brothers at the time were serving. I think they were both in the middle of their first tour or second tours. And I told them what I wanted to do, and they said, hey, don’t serve, if you don’t feel--if your heart’s not in it. If you’re not gonna dedicate everything to it, don’t even come because it’s not going to get easier. So, I ended up opting out of my going to the Air Force, and I went to graduate school and got my master’s. I did my master’s at The Citadel with Dr. Weinstein. Stayed on and kept working with him.

Korin: That was fascinating. I really enjoyed that, especially the bit about just liking science.

Austin: Yeah; it’s doing what you love. I mean, I think that’s such an important part, when I talk to people. No matter what level, I have a natural affinity to people that you can just tell love what they do and love their work. It’s not about ego; it’s not about prestige; it’s about doing work that you find to be really interesting and really cool. 00:25:00Korin: A lot of questions coming from that. With these firsts that you were able to achieve, I’m wondering if the lack of anybody before you was due to a lack of support or being prevented from doing those things, or do you think the community just hadn’t really thought about it?

Austin: Nah. I’ve talked to a lot of people. One of the people I talked to, Colonel Robert Pickering, who’s at The Citadel now and probably responsible for, at least, five generations of Black cadets. He’s just that amazing for what he’s done for that school. But, he told me stories about all these amazing Black cadets that came before me that deserved even more than I did. I mean, Black cadets who should have been regimental commander, which is the top number one cadet, or cadets that should have been command 00:26:00sergeant majors or company commanders. A lot of it was because of the barriers at the time. I mean, even when I went through--I mean, while it was 2011, 2012 when these things happened, it still wasn’t the same social climate we have now where there’s a big push. So, even when I did it--I mean, I can speak very candidly. When I got company commander, it was a rare year because three of us got it--one of my buddies, Dijordan Porter, other one Lance Braye. Dijordan Porter ended up being a pilot in the Air Force, Lance Braye now an M.D.--and we three were all company commanders our senior year. And I remember very vividly someone coming to me at breakfast and physical training, Army physical training--so this is all Army contracts--somebody made a comment saying, oh, they gave those three niggers commander positions. And you would think that, in that setting, somebody would have said, that’s not right, or that’s not cool, but nobody said anything. So, I think about that a lot. And even when I was in my capacity in leadership, I still had barriers that I had 00:27:00to deal with and difficulties and different things. But, even a lot of it happened at the administration level. I mean, a lot of people were resistant to change, or they wanted to see you fail because you’re in this capacity, and it is like, okay, you got it; are you gonna keep it? Are you gonna keep your position? Are you gonna finish? I think that was a lot of the barriers that I had coming up. But, before me, I think there was just as much or many more qualified cadets that could have been in those capacities, but they just weren’t given opportunity, or if they were, they were scrutinized heavily compared to the others because I’ve seen firsthand on those rank boards--because that’s how you get those positions. You have interviews at different levels. You have company-level interviews and then based on company-level, you have battalion-level interviews. Then on the battalion-level, you have regimental interviews. It’s like job interviews. When I went through to get the job here, similar things; they look at everything--they look at your physical fitness, your class attendance, your merits, everything. If there’s any biases 00:28:00in there, or you have a discrimination against somebody, you probably will. And I think, in a lot of ways, the only reason I was able to rise to the levels that I did is because I advocated for myself. I presented myself or set myself up in a way where no one could really dispute me moving up. There were different barriers that I won’t go into great detail, unless you wanted to know, that came up when I went out for different positions where--especially my senior year, when I was going up for regimental commander, which is the number one spot, and there were different things that occurred in that timeline that kinda kept me getting from that position and kept me from being higher. It just showed me just how deeply rooted racism and discrimination is within that university. It goes to a big issue, that even goes into now, that still I have with The Citadel where, again, I’m proud of what I was able to do there, but I don’t wanna affiliate myself with that school anymore on that level because there’s just a lot of things that are going on and things that, when you’re there in it, you become numb 00:29:00to it. But, when you step out, you look back, and you see all that shouldn’t have happened, that you shouldn’t have had to go through. And even presently today, I mean, there’s still a confederate flag flying in the chapel. I think Black cadets, for the past ten years, have been fighting to get that removed, and it hasn’t been. So, for me personally, in my own beliefs, until that’s removed, I won’t be affiliated with or do anything with that school at all. I don’t care to have anything to do with it. I don’t go to parades. I don’t go to homecoming or any reunions or anything like that. You can’t tell me you wanna produce principal leaders for the world, and then you have that type of symbol in there--for what us, as Black cadets, contribute to the school, whether it be on a corps level, academic level, or sports level and have that bearing, to have no remorse about having that flying there. For me, ever since I graduated, it just became more clear that, although, like I said, I’m proud that I was able to go there and do what I did and become 00:30:00who I became, I just can’t deal with things that are just unforgivable for me.

Korin: I totally understand that. I guess the next question that I have is, what exactly was the makeup of the school, at least at the time when you attended? And I don’t need exact numbers or anything.

Austin: About twenty-one hundred cadets, about five percent women. Women weren’t accepted until 1996 or 1997. I mean, Blacks were accepted in 1966, and then women came in, maybe, 1994 with Shannon Faulkner, which is a story, if you wanna look into that; that still resonates. The makeup was about twenty-one hundred cadets, about five percent women, and, out of that twenty-one hundred, maybe, two hundred Black cadets. It might be less. 00:31:00I think every class, it might be thirty or forty Black cadets that are brought in. But, talk about attrition. You may start with a certain number, but by the time you graduate--like, my class of seven hundred became--we graduated with maybe four hundred. Along that journey in four years, people leave for various reasons, whether it be violations to the honor code system--so we had an honor code; if you lied, cheated, or stole or even tolerated anybody that did any of that, you were kicked out. And then if you had academic issues or financial issues. So, I wanna say that’s most of the makeup. It’s a very small percentage of Black and brown cadets and a big population of white males. I would say they probably were over ninety-five percent or ninety percent of the school. And then you have white women who were also part of that demographic as well. So, very, very, very one-sided, in regards to a majority demographic.

Korin: This brings up another question. 00:32:00In terms of retention, from my perspective, it seems like the Black scientists that we do have are excellent, and from your experiences, it seems like people who maybe needed a bit more help or a bit more support are weeded out from many of these processes, be it undergraduate, graduate school, or even just going into the job market and attempting to get these jobs. Is that something that you would say you agree with, or have you found something different?

Austin: No. I very much agree with it. I think about all the barriers that I had to go through and all the resistance. It’s always funny--I mean, I think when I started my Ph.D., people were so amazed by how confident that I was. They didn’t realize that that confidence--I had to develop that confidence. I mean, the confidence I have now I did not have high school, college, master’s. It wasn’t until I started my Ph.D. 00:33:00that I told myself that I had to believe everything that I can do before anything. Even if I’m going into a setting where I don’t know anything, I have to believe that I have the affinity to learn. I think about when I started my master’s, I knew my GPA [grade point average]--because The Citadel is what it is--my GPA just wasn’t competitive enough to go to different schools and whatnot, but I was like, you know what, I’m gonna do this. I’m gonna do my master’s degree, get some publications; I’m gonna kick ass. At the time, I had two national awards, a couple of regional awards, college-level awards on the graduate level. I also had a couple of publications, maybe two at the time. I also was identified/awarded the outstanding graduate student award for my graduate college for the whole master’s program, not just within my department, but the whole graduate college. So, all these things that I set out to do--and the main reason I did that is because that whole--I call it a myth because it just didn’t 00:34:00apply to me--that you have to be well-rounded and not just about this or that. I applied to Ph.D.s that cycle and, low and behold, they said, oh, your GRE [Graduate Record Examinations] isn’t high enough, so we can’t accept you. And this is, again, despite the fact that I had publications, national and regional awards, recommendations that were great and, again, being identified as the outstanding graduate of my graduate college. Wouldn’t that matter more than a test that measures the affinity for geometry or whatnot? I was left in my first round of going after Ph.D.s, and I didn’t get in anywhere. It’s funny enough, I had a situation where there was a professor at Baylor University at the time, he came to my presentation at a Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry meeting. He was actually my godfather’s mentor, when they were in college. He came to me and gave me this whole facade about, oh, you’re Baylor-bound. Come to Baylor; we want you here; go ahead and apply. So, I applied, and the months went by, and the months 00:35:00went by, and I didn’t hear anything. I finally emailed him in April. This is April; at this point, every cycle is closed; they already made their decisions. And he said, oh yeah, your GRE isn’t high enough, so we just couldn’t take you. It’s like, you’ve seen me present; you’ve seen my record; you’ve seen me as a master’s student; you’ve seen everything, but you still found some way to hold me back, and then after that, I ended up doing this National Institutes of Health [NIH] prep program. So, I did a post-baccalaureate after a master’s. I don’t think that’s ever happened. And I remember the situation itself because--my mom thought it was insulting, but, for me, it was like, I think I need an opportunity to show people how serious I am about this field that I am going to do this. So, I did this NIH prep program through MUSC, the Medical University of South Carolina, and part of the program is doing a Ph.D. curriculum for certain classes. I think I finished like 00:36:00at 3.5 GPA in that program. This is biomedical. So, for me to be environmental, then go over here and do that, I’m sitting here with these biomedical students doing first-year curriculum, a few classes, 3.5 GPA. I think I got another publication out at the time; the work that I was doing was in the newspaper with the professor I was working with, and I applied to MUSC for the following year. The program director--which is funny enough, I brought it up in our meeting last week--but one of the program directors met with me, and she was on the admissions committee. And, again, this is seeing me do all these things this year; out of the cohort that came in, I was a star student, and she told me they couldn’t accept me into the program, and I needed to redo undergraduate classes. So, I’m sitting here looking like, I have done everything possible on every level to prove that I can do--I’m in graduate classes at this school that you’ve rejected me from, and I’m doing better than the students who were admitted into the Ph.D. 00:37:00I remember her being very adamant; she’s like, you need to go back to undergraduate and redo undergraduate classes. I did not have some 2.0 GPA. Like, it wasn’t a 4.0, but it wasn’t awful. And, again, I have a master’s GPA that supersedes that; I have your GPAs here. Again, everything that they tell you that matters--to me, I don’t believe that, and I never did because every experience along the way just taught me that that wasn’t true, or it didn’t apply to me or people like me. That whole idea that you have to be twice as good, and for me, I gotta be four times as good. I would compare my CVs to other people’s at that time; I still had more. I did more. Everything that matters. SETAC, the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, North America, is a global scientific society. During my master’s--it was a three-year appointment--but I was elected as the chair of NASAC, the North America Student Advisory 00:38:00Council. So, nineteen regional chapters in North America, and I’m leading that, and I’m also on the board; I’m the first Black man on the board, and even as a student member, I’m still the first Black man to serve on the board in this society and doing all these great things. This is all during a master’s and MUSC, and they all just… none of that seemed to matter. I’m doing all these great things and extracurriculars, and none of it mattered, so I ended up getting into UNC Greensboro, and it worked out. And when I got there, like I said, it was that mindset that--you could say I had a chip on my shoulder that was there. But, I told myself--I was like, no one’s gonna tell me, no, again. I got there. I was very much focused on my work, focused on my research, and focused on proving everybody wrong because, once I got there--I mean, I had my own issue there, where my first year, me and my friend Megan were the only two Blacks that came in that year. No one talked to us; no one engaged with us. No one knew what we were doing. I mean, it wasn’t 00:39:00until I joined my lab, and there was a few guys in that lab that I communicated with and was close with, but outside of that, the department didn’t engage with us, not until they saw that, oh, Austin’s smart. Because I was getting As. All the students in our cohort, they were having study parties and this and that and getting together, but I wasn’t invited, until I was doing better than them. For some reason, it was like, oh, Austin, everyone likes you because you’re smart. So, that tokenism kicked in. And so, for me, I just kinda pushed back a little more on that. Because, again, it’s like if y’all didn’t respect me and have good thoughts about me beforehand, why? And even afterwards, I would see the quality of students that came in after me--and this isn’t an elitist or ego thing--but they just didn’t have to do what I had to do. I talked to these students that came from undergraduate, and they weren’t even anywhere close to what I did, even in undergraduate. I was just like, man, you got straight from undergraduate to a Ph.D.? Or students that had master’s, it was like nowhere 00:40:00near my experience or the CV [curricuum vitae] that I had, and, for me, that has always stuck out for me. I was like, wow, I had to go through all of this to do all of these things just for you guys to get the easiest route ever. And, for me, I started recognizing more and more, and that kinda helped with that imposter syndrome. I think everyone deals with it, but I think the way that I combated imposter syndrome was more so because of that. I realized that all these people that I thought were so much better than me or so much more qualified, they weren’t. I was equal or better than them. And I realized in most cases, it’s not like these people are just phenomenal students or scientists. It’s that they have someone that’s gonna give them a chance, or they have somebody looking out for them or somebody that they know along the way that’s making it an easier route rather than me. When I say I had to climb and crawl from the bottom, I did. I mean, to go from washing glassware to being a professor. And the route, as you’re hearing now, wasn’t an easy route. The 00:41:00furthest thing from easy. So, all those barriers that come up, yeah, I definitely think that’s what deters a lot of us because, I mean, even in that journey, I, at points, wanted to quit. I, at points, questioned whether or not I really deserved to be here. Maybe it isn’t for me. Maybe I’m just not cut out for it. And, I mean, I’m pretty confident. I believe in myself a lot, but that happens. All that doubt creeps in because you get told, no, enough, or you’re shown it enough, all you can do is start to believe it. So, I can only think about those students that had it worse than I did, or, specifically, Black women who deal with situations of not just bigotry because of race, but also because of sex. And it’s not just from white men, but from all men, even Black men that treat them negatively. And so, those are definitely the barriers that keep us from--not just within academia, but pursuing STEM on any level. So, I’m very aware of that, and that’s why I’m always sensitive towards people trying to get through graduate school because I just know, especially for people of color, you’re 00:42:00entering a space where no one really looks like you, where no one really understands what you’re going through. And when they try to convey that they understand, especially after what we just saw happen with George Floyd, it just doesn’t come across as genuine as you would like it to be. And it’s just checking a box. And that’s what I thought a lot of it was, was people checking boxes to show that they’re diverse or inclusive, or they’re not bigots. I think a lot of times people don’t realize that just by being a gatekeeper, making things harder, you’re contributing to that system within academia or in different structures. So, yeah. I think those are a lot of the barriers that keep--situations like mine and worse--that keep us from pursuing it. Because I think you’ll be rare to find any students that aren’t students outside of color--people who are not of color, white people in general--that have stories like that, that can sit down and tell, oh, well, this is all the barriers that came up along the way. 00:43:00If you would imagine, I guarantee that you’d be looking like, that’s not really the same story. Again, over here, this guy had everything, got nothing from it. So. Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s definitely tenacity that gets us through I would say.

Korin: Yeah, that story of tenacity is very impressive. So, going off that, the not-stopping portion, the military, I know, especially in the Navy, they’re constantly recruiting for Navy scientists. Given that you had these military connections and this military background with the school, why was that never an option? Was it because of the school, or was it just that you had this goal that was set up that didn’t involve that?

Austin: Both. It was both for me because The Citadel is not the real military. When I tell you what I had to go through there--it’s ridiculous. I mean, I dealt with the most unprofessional--and 00:44:00not just from the cadets but also from actual military leaders that we had who retired or reserved military people like colonels, lieutenant colonels, majors. I mean, we interacted with all of them, and the way that they were, and the way that I was treated as well, it just left a bad taste in my mouth. So, I didn’t want to pursue that anymore on any level. And also because I realized that I wanted to do research. I looked into Navy and Air Force research areas, and I was like, I need to go and do graduate school and go higher. Again, talking to my brothers helped with that. But, yeah; I mean, those things definitely played a role within it. If I didn’t go to The Citadel, and I went to another university, whether it be HBCU [historically Black colleges and universities] or a predominately white institution, that probably would have been something that I went into, but because I went to The Citadel, because I’d dealt with that for four years of haircuts and shaves and uniform inspections and room inspections and saluting and doing all those things, I realized although I was good at it and excelled, 00:45:00I didn’t wanna do it anymore. My oldest brother Janockeil, who went to The Citadel, the same thing happened with him. He was in the Air Force Reserve Officers’ Training Corps in high school, went to The Citadel, did well. He graduated early and never looked back. I think we all got to the point where we didn’t wanna do it anymore. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice any of my goals or dreams for that either because it is a dangerous game you’re playing. I mean, for me, I understood very clearly the risk of going into the military and the chance that you are deployed, or you are in a situation where your life is threatened, and what if you don’t make it home? Especially at a time where my brothers had two tours each. And, luckily, they made it back, but friends of theirs didn’t. I was very aware of that, and that’s why I took it very serious because it wasn’t a position or a job that I would just not go into wholeheartedly because of the risk. I mean, it’s not saying every job you’re gonna be on the front lines, but there’s still a risk associated when you put that uniform 00:46:00on. So, I took that very serious, and I didn’t wanna gamble with anything like that as far as, oh, I’ll do four years, and then I’ll go and get my degree or something. Because what if I don’t make it four years? What if something happens, unexpectedly, on the domestic level, and I don’t make it back? Those are the things that kinda kept me from pursuing that level, but I did think about it.

Korin: Another follow-up question, given the state of the world last year, and the entirety of the George Floyd riots, there were a lot of changes that took place within a lot of systems where there was a push for diversity. What I’d really like to know is, as somebody who is in academia and has been involved in academia, to see things like these buildings that are named after known racists and bad actors and see in the news headlines that NASCAR 00:47:00has decided to ban the confederate flag at their events, what were your feelings towards academia as a whole when that came up?

Austin: I still deal with it. I try to be as proactive as I can be, but sometimes it’s really hard to be as proactive as I wanna be because, for us it’s like…George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, those are catalysts--or mainly George Floyd due to the video. The video of seeing him choked for nine minutes with someone’s knee on his neck; I think that was very eye opening for a lot of people, specifically, white individuals who turned a blind eye to police injustice within this country for the longest--But I was frustrated with it because, the sad truth is, this is what we’ve been talking about for decades. This is what we’ve been living with for decades. This is what we’ve 00:48:00been dealing with every day of our lives since we came here. And for people to just now--like I said, it was great to be seen, but it sucks it took so long to be noticed. For that to happen and people say, oh, we need to change our diversity policies; we need more Black and brown people in STEM; we need to do something. And it’s like, well, why didn’t y’all do this? Why didn’t you do this when you first got here? What are your true motives? I’ve seen a lot of performative allyship via social media, especially Twitter, and I think Instagram did it, too. People posted black squares, and everyone was like, Blackout Thursday and black squares; we’re showing what we can do. But, for me, it bothered me on a deep level because--I think even back to when I got my email from my department head; there’s only like four Black people in the department. At no point was there anything directed toward us or some follow-up, hey, how are you doing; how are you dealing with this? It was some blanket statement about how our department doesn’t tolerate discrimination, and we’re all about diversity and inclusion. That was the furthest thing from it, 00:49:00because after my year, I don’t think we really recruited another Black male within the department. I wanna say within my whole time in my Ph.D., I was the only Black male; we had another international student from Africa, but as far as being Black American--which I distinctly make it very clear just because I think sometimes we get lumped together with African students from Africa or international students from Africa, and they don’t understand that those are just different dynamics there, where you have those that are from their home continent, with their home country, then you got us in America who don’t know where we’re from. We don’t have that connection to our motherland like that. So, for us, all that we know as people is being Black Americans. So, that’s my own personal belief on that; that’s why I tell people, call me Black; leave it at that. But, I definitely was frustrated during that time because I’m seeing all this, and it’s already triggering, which I don’t think people understand the mental aspects of that. It affects us every day. The PTSD [post-traumatic stress syndrome] from seeing that. 00:50:00I don’t look at those videos anymore. If it says, young Black man or woman has been shot or killed, I don’t look at the videos. I just take the text. I can’t look at those videos anymore or see anymore of that because it does something to me. So, for the George Floyd situation to happen, there were people that now say, oh, yeah, we should care about Austin because he’s Black; we should do more for Black and brown people. For me, I wish people did it for the right reasons. It still doesn’t seem like most of this is for the right reasons. There are people that are genuine, people that really care, people that are doing their part to make things better. I won’t deny that. I know that is happening. But, from an academic level, as an institution, it doesn’t seem as genuine as it should be, and that is something that I think is gonna take time. Sadly, like James Baldwin said, “How much time do you want for your progress?” And I feel like we’ve waited this long, and we just gotta wait a little bit longer because I think the shift that we’re seeing now is moving into--Saul 00:51:00Williams, who is an American poet said it perfectly. He said, “The greatest Americans have not been born yet. They are waiting patiently for the past to die.” And I love that quote because I think people get so caught up into like, oh, World War I, World War II, Vietnam, those were the best generations. That wasn’t the best of our time. I don’t even think now is the best of our time. Imagine what we can accomplish, if we get rid of all this bigotry and all these stupid things that don’t matter, but people think they matter. That’s what I think about that. Until these people that have these bigoted or biased viewpoints are gone in academia, we won’t really grow. It’s hard to really promote diversity, when your chair or your provost or your dean has biases that they can’t even acknowledge, or you do acknowledge it, and they feel that it was an attack. If the system is messed up, then how do we fix it for everyone? 00:52:00Seeing changes to buildings is good. Understanding where I went to school, every building--I don’t know if you’ve seen Glory with Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman about the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment in the Civil War. But, at the end of the movie, they’re in this battle in Pawleys Island, or somewhere in South Carolina, and they’re killed. Colonel Robert Gould Shaw is buried with his soldiers, instead of going back home for a proper burial. The general in charge for the confederate regiment that defeated the 54th Regiment was Johnson Hagood, and that’s who our stadium is named after at The Citadel. I grew up in Charleston, where Calhoun Street--I mean…I tell people there’s a very specific reason why I’m not back in Charleston, and why I’ve never been back to Charleston, because I believe Charleston is the most modern attempt to relive the Old South. 00:53:00You’ll never see a more segregated city in the South than Charleston. Where you can go into Mount Pleasant, and you see no Black people, and then you drive into North Charleston and see nothing but Black and brown people. Charleston, Goose Creek or Berkeley County. It’s just ridiculous. But, to see people changing the names of streets, I think that’s a big deal, but it’s always the pushback that I always notice. The intent? That’s great that you’re taking the names off, but I’m looking at the people who are mad about you taking the names off or changing the street because, essentially, you have people that are, literally--and this is goes back to The Citadel issue, where I had a lot of friends--well, now associates or people that I used to know, but, at the time, I thought they were friends--whenever we would speak up about removing the confederate flag, they would immediately…everybody’s brothers, and The Citadel’s big on their ring, and I don’t wear my ring much, but everyone’s big on saying, brotherhood and camaraderie and sisterhood that you develop in those four years, and to a level it’s true, until you mentioned 00:54:00the confederate flag. Once you mention the confederate flag, nothing you say is valid anymore. For me, I had to lay it out for someone. Going back to my freshman year, funny story--hate to sidebar, but--my senior mentor, he was part of the Sons of Confederate Veterans [SCV]. So, this is my mentor, during my freshman year. Actually a really nice guy, to be honest. Weird, I know. Nice guy, but he told me he was part of SCV. He was like, Gray, are you willing to come to a meeting? And I remember being in my room, as a knob, and you can’t really say no, so I was like, this might be interesting. I’ve always been curious. I was like, you know what? This will just help me in any rebuttal, when I get into arguments; I can talk about being in these meetings, and they’ll be like, oh, I see you went to the meetings and stuff. So, I went to the meetings. I just wanted to observe and hear all that they talked about. They were talking about the legacy, heritage, and all the things you hear about why people promote the confederacy. And I remember asking him, 00:55:00years later, not at that moment because, at that time, I was just taking it in and listening to the stuff that they were saying. But I was like, for everyone to sit there and talk about heritage and honoring your relatives that fought and died, none of y’all ever thought about when the KKK took that symbol and besmirched it and used it to terrorize Black folk? Was any of y’all talking legacy then or heritage? No, y’all let it happen. I was like, so, don’t tell me, years later now, that you care about legacy or that it’s about heritage. That goes back to my comment about The Citadel cadets. It’s like you’re trying to honor an uncle or a great-great-great-great-uncle that you never met or a great-great-great-grandfather you never met, compared to someone you broke bread with, you cried with, you shed tears with. That person you never met, their feelings supersede me, and I thought we were brothers. And that’s where the disconnect started. I’ve separated completely, for the most part, from most of those friends or people that I used to know. So, when I see the backlash from people when they see 00:56:00the confederate flag being removed or names being removed…then they make the statement that, if you don’t remember history then it is bound to repeat itself. Well, hopefully, it doesn’t repeat itself. That’s the point. It’s such a weird statement to make. When I see the response of people from that, that’s what elevates my heart rate. It’s like everything on social media, everyone’s proud to be American, until you read the comment section, and then you see what people say behind a keyboard. It just shows that those are really a lot of people’s internal thoughts. And I think a lot of that came out even in 2016 with the presidential election of Donald Trump where we saw a lot of people that we didn’t know had these viewpoints become a lot more outspoken, and you’re like, oh, I didn’t know you felt like that. But then, we also saw that it was mostly a backlash from Barack Obama. So, yeah. Those things from an academic level. And it, ultimately, just felt like a lot of it 00:57:00just came off disingenuous and a push to just appease--because somebody did it, now we gotta do it. And I think there was a trickling effect where some organization or some institution addressed it, and everybody wanted to jump on board. We still had people that were upset or mad about the removal of the confederate flag, which shows the greater issue within our society that I don’t think we’re truly addressing.

Korin: So, this next question is a bit complex. I’m trying to figure out how to word it. In your situation, who you are and what you’ve done, there is a lot of clear evidence as to how much you deserve the position that you’re in. You’ve been told, no, so many times that you worked harder and did more, and you got more, and you became more. And so, I feel like if somebody were to say, you don’t deserve this, you just got it because you’re Black, there’s a mountain of evidence you can just point to to be like, no. 00:58:00But for, let’s say, newer students, maybe somebody who’s entering undergraduate now, and they’ve gotten into a program that maybe seems like it was iffy. What would you say to these new students, in terms of keeping intact their feeling of their own worth? How do you get past the, this was just because you’re Black, without that hardship making it very clear?

Austin: No, I’m actually ready for this day to come. I would just love that situation. Like I said, I was a teaching assistant and had students before, but that never came up. We talked a ton about everything else, as far as life and different things going on. I would love a student to come to me and ask that question of doubt, so that I can reassure them that that’s not the case at all, and at no level is that ever going to be the case. Even if it is, so what? That’s my whole thing. 00:59:00It’s like, and? Think about how many people you know that are subpar, not even close to being deserving, that got a chance just because of how they look or because of their last name or because they live in this area or because their auntie knows this person that works here, this and that. For me, none of that matters. When people bring stuff like that up like, oh, this is a diversity hire. I’m like, and? And I hate to say it, but white people been gettin’ over in this country doing the bare minimum, since the beginning. I mean, literally, since the beginning. So, I don’t have that mindset that if you’re a student of color, and you come into a department, you’ve got to be thankful; you have to acknowledge whether or not it was a diversity hire. No. That is not the case; that is not true. You are here because you applied. You were accepted, and that’s all you need to think about. And what I would want to convey to them is anything outside of that doesn’t matter. It’s a quote I heard a long time ago, but I always tell friends of mine, especially during my Ph.D. 01:00:00when people were getting angry or envious about any success that I had--always somebody would come back to me; there’s always a messenger in the group--and I was like, well, you let them know that what people think about me is none of my business. And that’s the same thing for those students. What people think about whether or not you get into a program or a position, that has nothing to do with you. That’s not your concern. That’s on them. That’s what they have to live with. That’s what they have to think about, and for you, and the capacity to be in the space, all you can do is help the next person up. And that’s all you can do. You can’t worry and doubt. When I got this position, I had that brief moment where I was like, well, I’m thirty years old and just getting out of my PhD, did a four month post-doc, am I really deserving? And I thought back to everything that I went through. I thought back to all that I had to do and all that I had to prove and all that I had overcome, and I was like, it wasn’t that I didn’t deserve it, it’s that this is the least that I could have got. This is the least 01:01:00that I deserve over all the years of dedication--for the work that I put in. So, for me, that’s what I felt like, once I got over the hump of imposter syndrome and thinking about all that stuff. I was like, no; this is what I deserve. I deserve this; this is exactly what God had in store for me. That’s how I look at it. So, any student that comes and has that mindset of, well, maybe I’m just a diversity hire; maybe I’m just here because of me being Black or brown. Don’t matter; you’re here. And once you’re here, what do you do with it? Are you gonna make it better for the next person after you, or do you want to sit there and worry about everyone thinking about you being Black? At the end of the day, it’s not a mask you can take off; this is who we are. And if people have those thoughts about them, then that’s not my job to change. It’s not my job to sway their opinion. It’s not my job to present myself in any light because, as any person of color in STEM, we already represent way more than we should. We’re always the example; we always have to think about those things when we interact with people; I can’t 01:02:00be the angry guy because then I become the angry Black guy. I become a stereotype, or I become a generalization for people that people don’t know. So, those things are already on our minds. So, the last thing you need to do is think about, oh, man, I’m only here because I’m the Black guy or the brown girl. Those things just don’t need to be on the mind of any student. Because academia is gonna weed that out anyway in its own course because the system itself is still discriminative towards people of color. So, even if you are getting in, it doesn’t mean you’re going to graduate, and it’s gonna be easy. You’re still gonna fight. Why labor on that, when you can just do all that you can to be successful, and make it better for the next person?

Korin: Well, that was an amazing response to that!

Austin: I’m still waiting for students to ask it, so I can give it to them. [K]: Is there anything else you’d like to add before I conclude the 01:03:00 interview?

Austin: I think this is really important, this type of work. To really have a documentation showing just--in the end, anecdotal stories. In science, we get so caught up in, oh, we can’t use anecdotal evidence; it’s anecdotal. It didn’t go through the statistics; we didn’t do a regression on it or whatever. But, these anecdotal stories--my own personal story itself--have a connection to so many other people that, when they hear it, they’re gonna resonate with it, and the same thing for other interviewers. And, hopefully, what that does for people that aren’t within our community is show them that the things that we’re talking about aren’t outlandish. These aren’t a social construct that we just made up in our mind or paranoia. These are real things that we really deal with, and that has to be considered, as we move forward because it’s only about moving a goalpost then. All we’re trying to do is get equity, and people don’t really even want to acknowledge that we’re not on the same playing field. I think hearing these types of discussions, these types of 01:04:00stories, ultimately, will show people that the people that are applying, that are of color, they had to go through a tremendous amount just to even get to this point. So, that has to be considered and factored in. Everybody’s journey, or walk through science as I call it, isn’t easy. It’s not saying just because of me being a Black male, it’s been harder than everybody else. No. It’s not saying that. But it has been hard. And I think those are the things that people have to consider, when they are talking about increasing recruitment or retention of diverse students from different backgrounds. You have to understand where they’re coming from; you have to understand what they’ve been through, their journey, their walk. What can you do to benefit them or help them through that, if you don’t understand that? You can’t just simply bring them into your lab, give them a diversity fellowship, and then say, oh, yeah, we helped them with this support; we helped them get through it. No, there’s a lot more that goes into it. And that’s the hard work that I think academics aren’t ready to take, but that is where we’re heading. It has to be a little bit more personal 01:05:00because every student you have is gonna have their own problems and barriers and different things to deal with. That’s even heightened when you have students of color or different sexual affiliations or physical abilities. And if you’re not designed or ready to really address those things and to be a supportive ally, then it’s just gonna make that whole push different. It’s gonna make it a slow push. It’s gonna make it like rolling a rock uphill. You think you’re making progress, and then the minute you let up and give up, it rolls back down, and you’re right back where you started. So, I think this is important, again, just for changing that structure, changing how we approach things as a society, an institution, and in the academy itself. So, thank you for this, and thank you for the opportunity to even be able to talk and tell my story.

Korin: Thank you so much for participating in this. With that, our time has ended. So, I’m gonna go ahead and end this interview. 01:06:00Austin: Awesome. Thank you. [End of interview] Ms2024-072; Gray; Page 2