Black Excellence Oral History with Jessica Ware, June 24, 2021 (Ms2024-072)

Mika Pagani: Okay, hello, and good morning. My name is Mika Pagani and I’m interviewing Dr. Jessica Ware via Zoom for the Black excellence in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] oral history project. Today is June 24th, it is 9:05 a.m. So, thank you for being here, Dr. Ware. Can you start off by stating your full name and date of birth for the record, please? If you are comfortable.

Jessica Ware: Sure, my name is Jessica Lee Ware and my date of birth is May 12th, 1977. And I suppose since this is an archive, I should actually say my legal name, which I never actually say, is Jessica Lee Irons. But when my parents weren’t married when they had us, and the nuns at the hospital where my mum had us encouraged her to put père non déclaré in French, which means father not known. And so, we don’t have his last 00:01:00name. But then, they got married when I was in grade two and so we started using his name at that time. But I’ve never had my name legally changed. And so, on my passport now, my legal documents actually says Ware, because I got an affidavit signed to allow me to use it for my passport when I got an American passport. And then, I’ve just used that name ever since. So, it’s kind of weird. But technically, my name is Jessica Lee Irons. [Laughs] Mika: Well, thank you. Thank you for sharing that personal information. And that’s funny, ‘cause that’s a segue to what I was just going to begin with, is the story of your parents and maybe perhaps you can give insight to what their names were and how they grew up?

Jessica: Sure. Well, my mom’s name is Susan Virginia Irons-Ware and she grew up in Toronto, Ontario. She wanted to be 00:02:00an artist and she did very well in art, I think in high school. Anyways, it sounds like she didn’t totally get along with my grandparents. And it was the 1960s as well, and I think it was becoming more common for people of multiple races to kind of hang out together and I think my grandparents weren’t, according to her, weren’t totally down with it. According to them, that’s not the truth. But you know, who knows? Family stories. So, long story short, she left home a bunch of times while she was in high school. But eventually, she finished high school and then she moved to Montreal with this guy named Alan Itakura, who’s an artist also. He lives in Montreal still. And that’s when she met my dad, just briefly. He’s from Memphis, Tennessee, and he was the oldest, I think, 00:03:00of nine children that my grandmother had. They grew up in abject poverty, as sharecroppers and formerly enslaved people. And so, then he got the first and best-paying job in the family really, which was, he joined the Marine Corps in high school and he was sent to Vietnam, in one of the first waves of people that went over there. So, he was exposed to Agent Orange and actually has a really debilitating neurological Parkinson’s disorder that all other people in his troop have. It’s really sad. But anyways, when he came back from Vietnam -- he did two tours there, and then he was a drill instructor, which are people who train drill sergeants, and then he left the Marine Corps and went on the GI Bill to Canada, to Montreal, and was at university there. 00:04:00And that’s where he met my mom. So, that’s where they met. And they did not stay together very long. I don’t think it was very long at all. And then, he moved back to California, which is where he was living. But then, like I said, he moved to Canada when I was in grade two, I think, or so.

Mika: Thank you so much. Wow, wow that’s quite a story. So, would you like to maybe illustrate the background of this? So, where did you grow up? And what was that experience like having them both as parents in the area that you were?

Jessica: So, we grew up, as I understand it, well, my mom was living with this guy, Alan Itakura, who’s Japanese. He was not Black. And so, I mentioned that only to say that, I think 00:05:00there was a surprise at the hospital. They weren’t really sure what we were going to come out looking like. Which would be kind of like the DNA test, I suppose, with if we had dark skin or not. So Alan, I’m still friends with him now, he’s a nice man. But he and my mom broke up shortly after we were born. It turns out we weren’t his kids. And so then she moved back to Toronto. She was frazzled raising twins. I’m a twin, so raising twins and a single mom. She didn’t have a job really, it wasn’t easy. So then, she moved back to Toronto and she ended up, I think we lived in an apartment building for a while. And then, we were on welfare. And then, with the help of her grandmother, my great grandmother, she bought a house. A tiny, I don’t think my kids’ two rooms together could have probably been the size of this house. But this little 00:06:00tiny house. I drove by it eighteen months or so ago when I was in Canada, to show my kids that and they couldn’t believe that we lived in it. They were like, this isn’t even a house, this is like smaller than a garage. But anyways, she bought this house with the help of her grandmother right down the street from her parents. She lived in the house that my grandfather’s father had built when he came from England. And he was born there, she was raised there, and then we grew up a couple of doors down. And we had our bedroom at my grandparents’ house. And so, they really raised us because she was working as a teacher. So, we were raised by my grandparents who are really loving, and wonderful, and white. When my dad came, I remember going to visit him in California and being like, whoa, there’s a Black person here. Because of course, we didn’t see ourselves as Black because it was 00:07:00something that we never ever discussed, really. That was when we were three, we went to visit him. And then, when he came to Canada, I could remember we went to the airport to see him. And I was like, who’s that Black man? I said that to my mom. And she was like, that’s your father, like I was stupid for not knowing that. But how would I have known? When we didn’t have any photos of him and we never ever talked about him. Other than my grandparents saying kind of not nice things about him because they viewed him as someone who had kind of left my mom in this bad position raising these twins. So anyways, long story short, when he first came to live with us, it was a really big change. We weren’t allowed sugar or sweets. My mom was very very strict with a lot of things. And he would give us spoonfuls of honey and make pancakes and stuff. But also, my friends at our daycare started asking a lot of questions. And so, I can remember sitting at supper, like, why are you 00:08:00like this? Why are you Black? I don’t understand, why do you have to be Black? And he was like, you’re Black too. And I can remember looking down at my hands and thinking, oh my god. And I felt really bad about it because at the time, in our social circle, in our peers, that was seen as something really, really bad. And we hadn’t been given a lot of positive stories about Black people. By my mom never talking about it and my grandparents talking about my dad as kind of a bad guy and my friend’s saying that Black people were bad, I was like, oh this is really bad. And I remember crying at the dinner table and he was kind of like, why are you crying, this is actually wonderful, what have you done, Susan? And so, then he quickly bought us a couple of Black dolls because everything we had was just white things. So, he bought us a couple of Black dolls to play with. And he bought us a couple of books and stuff like that. But my 00:09:00parents are baby boomers, so their whole generation’s very self-absorbed. So, they weren’t hands-on-parenting, in a way that we might do now. So, it was a lot of mystery. And then, we ended up moving. My grandparents moved up to Northern Ontario, and we moved with my parents to a small suburb in Toronto. Which was like “The Jeffersons,” we felt like we were moving up because it was a big deal. We each had our own room and that was a really big deal. And the house even though now, I also drove my kids by that house and they were like, where did you live? But it was so much bigger than the garage little shack thing that we were living in. It seemed very dramatically like an amazing thing to me. So then our lives really changed dramatically after my dad came to live with us, I would say. Financially for sure ‘cause there was two incomes and that made a really big difference in our life. 00:10:00But also, from that point on which my parents really strived to pretend like they were always -- pretend that they were always married. They pretended like they were married a couple of years before they had us because that was the common parlance. That’s what all our peers were like. So then, we had to keep it a secret. They were striving people, so they really always kept striving to quote unquote better themselves. So, we didn’t go to school in the town where we lived. My grandfather had worked for the Board of Education, so somehow, he finagled something so we had gotten the chance to go to school in a very rich, fancy district. My mom had to drive us -- well, I guess we started taking public transport when we were in grade three. When we were eight or nine years old, we started taking the TTC [Toronto Transit Commission]. But anyways, they were strivers. So, from the outside, it would’ve looked like we were doing much better than we actually were ‘cause they 00:11:00didn’t have generational wealth really and they didn’t have any money. And there was many a times when the bills weren’t paid and it was really stressful. But from the outside it looked like we were climbing this ladder, which I think Syrus and I, my twin and I, have fought against our entire lives. Because sincerity and honesty is something I think we both value very much since we were raised to be fronting or pretending for so long. I can remember my parents’ friends were like, I can’t believe you guys aren’t doing anything for your parents twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. And I was like, you mean in seven years? And they’re like, no it’s the twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. However, I guess we were twenty-two or twenty-three, whatever the story was supposed to be that they had met and then gotten married two years later than they had us. And I was like, oh god I hate this. [Laughs] Mika: Oh so, it’s almost like they were almost trying to rewrite their own history. 00:12:00But now, you get to flesh out all the details. So, I’m happy that you get to do that for yourself.

Jessica: Cathartic.

Mika: You finally have the power. Wow. So, you mentioned you have a twin and that came up several times. One of the questions I was gonna ask was about your siblings. Would you like to speak more to the experience of being a twin and growing up side by side?

Jessica: Well, being a twin is amazing. I don’t really have a lot of experience of not being a twin, although I do have at least one sibling, a half sibling. She came and stayed with us just for one academic year when I was younger. But her and my parents didn’t really get along. So, I don’t think of her really very often. So, I don’t really know what it’s like to have someone older than me or someone younger than me. When you’re twins, you’re kind of like an only child in some ways, because there’s no one that you’re looking after. And there’s no one really that you’re looking 00:13:00up to. But at the same time, you have a best friend that’s always there, which is amazing. So, being a twin is, I think, one of the most important things in our lives. It’s a fundamental part of who we are. My twin and I are really, really, very close. We haven’t always been close, I can remember we had quite some time during when we were teenagers in high school. We really had a hard time getting along. And I think it’s always hard for twins, when you start having other people in your life. Like partners or whatever, that can be a really hard thing to transition through. And then, my twin transitioned to a man, when we were in our early twenties. And that was hard because a big part of our identity was looking exactly alike and being identical twins. And so, when Syrus told me that he was a man and that he was gonna 00:14:00transition, selfishly I was like, oh no this is gonna change. Us looking identical is a really big part of who we are. But of course, other than the fact that we don’t look completely identical anymore, I mean, it’s the best thing that ever happened to him. And it’s the best thing that ever happened to us. He’s so happy and really thriving. He’s a vibrant art practice in Toronto, and he’s a professor at McMaster University in disability arts and gender studies. And he’s my best friend on the entire planet. So, being a twin is great. And when you’re going through school, there’s a lot of challenges for undergrad, for grad school, whatever. It was just nice always having someone in your corner, I think, which has been great. We’ve always kind of viewed it like we were two halves of one whole. 00:15:00So, I’m working to support my kids for sure. But I’m working assuming that there’s two of us. There’s really actually two of us that are doing whatever we’re doing. What he’s doing he’s doing for his daughter, but it’s also for our family. We just really support each other in everything that we do. So, it’s really great. I would recommend it. If you can have a twin, I would recommend it.

Mika: I only wish, maybe if I could go back in time. That’s wonderful, what a story. So, it sounds like ‘cause now understanding where both of you are, and he being the artist he is and now you’re the scientist you are, I wonder if we could backtrack maybe to the early memories of your education and figure out how you went on those parallel paths. Do you have memories of your early education? Were you immediately drawn to science knowing who you are today or is there a different story there?

Jessica: I 00:16:00think we both really liked drawing. And I think we both really liked nature and the outdoors. But I can distinctly remember in elementary school, we were in the same class, all through school. And I can remember a teacher saying, oh wow look, isn’t that interesting. Both of the Ware twins have drawn something. Sy- well it wasn’t Syrus, Syrus had a different name at the time, but Syrus’ is so much better. I was like, oh, this stings, Miss Lyons, thank you. But they compared us a lot about everything. Like, oh isn’t that interesting? They would announce to the class, we have the test results, and one of the Ware twins did really well on this math test and the other one didn’t do well. So, there was a lot of competition and comparisons. So, I think because of that, we really consciously, I can remember in high school kind of thinking like, we don’t want to do the same thing for a job because it was too much comparison and competition. And I 00:17:00really liked science, and Syrus really liked science. And I really liked art, and Syrus really liked art. I was really like that. But my mom was an artist and her life seemed like a misery to me to be honest. Because she really did resent us. I think she thought her life would have been really different if she hadn’t had us because she wanted to be an artist, full stop. But instead, she was a high school teacher who taught art and who did art on the side and kept trying to sell paintings on the side. But with mixed success, and when you’re a full-time art teacher raising kids, you’re not really going to be able to be in Soho having giant shows. Like it just wasn’t in her future. So, she was very resentful. And I don’t think she really liked her job that much ‘cause high schoolers have to take art, but they don’t necessarily want to take art. So, it wasn’t really fun. So, when Syrus said he wanted to do that, I was like, you’re crazy. 00:18:00That’s crazy. I would want to do anything to not end up having a life like our parents ‘cause it just seemed like misery to me, honestly. I was not even exaggerating, it just seemed like misery. But part of it is, of course, the choices they made. Like constantly striving for things that are unnecessary. But maybe that’s their generation, it’s boomers, right? They’re just like fronting and showing and never having enough money to make ends meet because you’re trying to put on appearances and it just seemed like misery. That was one of the reasons why I thought, even though I really loved art, I wouldn’t have gone into it. And then when we were in university, we used to joke about it. That I could take Syrus’s science classes and he could take my art classes and we could just get degrees in both or whatever, which we never did. Because Syrus came to UBC [University of British Columbia] for one year, but had like 00:19:00a pretty severe nervous breakdown at the end of the first semester, and ended up in an institution for four or five months. And then went back to Toronto and ended up going to University of Toronto. So, we couldn’t have taken each other’s classes, even if we wanted to, but we always thought that would be kind of fun to have done. But anyways, that was a conscious decision, I think, to not overlap too much. And then, also Syrus has inherently kind of talented artists. So, it makes sense that he would do that because he’s just really very, very gifted. So, I’m really happy for him.

Mika: Oh, I love the bond of siblings. That’s great to hear. So, I want to focus on you then and where you first attended college and had your 00:20:00success. Would you like to share that?

Jessica: Sure. Well, I went to a very competitive high school. My parents, again, this is part of the theme that they were always trying to be something they weren’t. I mean, the whole family, they’re very driven people. My grandparents, even though they wouldn’t have had what my parents would have considered was success, they were also very driven just in the things that they did. Anyways, my parents found out that someone who was a smart kid in my class in elementary school was applying for this special academic school called the University of Toronto Schools, which was like a project that was part of the University of Toronto, but it was a high school that went from grade seven until grade thirteen. And it was really prestigious. And at the time, it was federally funded so it wasn’t super expensive to go there. If you took this three-days 00:21:00or two-days series of tests, and you were smart enough to get in, then you could go there, was the idea. And so, my parents set their goal, like, okay, well, the kids have to do this. Thankfully, they didn’t tell us that we had to do this until like a week or two before the test. Otherwise, it would have been really stressful, I think. But they were like, oh yeah, by the way, you’re taking this test. And I’m like, what are you talking about, UTS [University of Toronto Schools], what? Anyways, we took the test, and I got in. And so, I went to this school and actually really loved it. I love it even more now than I did then, maybe because now when I look at what my kids’ high school is like, I’m like, oh, that was actually really nice. ‘Cause it was really a very focused environment for people who like to learn. So, some of the other things that my kids are dealing with in their high school, it wasn’t there, which was nice. And Syrus didn’t get in, which was really very stressful for a variety of reasons. So, anyways, long story short, it was a really competitive environment. 00:22:00And so, I did not want to do that for my university. So, most of my peers were applying to like go to the States, which would have been a big deal, to go to an American college. Or to go to McGill or U of T [University of Toronto] for medicine or law was what pretty much what everyone was going to do. And I really didn’t want to do that. I just wanted to get off the treadmill that I felt like we were just running on. And I really wanted to do something that involved outdoors. So anyways, I went to UBC in Vancouver. I thought I was going to do oceanography but it turns out I wanted to do marine biology because I’m a dummy and I didn’t look it up before I went. Although there wasn’t the internet the way that there is now, so that’s my defense. But then, when I was there, I took a lot of invertebrate zoology classes. And then I learned about insects and I got really interested in insects because I was working my way through school. As I’ve mentioned, 00:23:00my parents were not wealthy people. So, a week or two before I had to leave to go to UBC, I was working two jobs in the summer. And my mom was like, just so you know we can’t pay for your university. And I was like, oh, I was kind of assuming you weren’t but like still Dad always said that he would whenever we were out with people. He was always front, like as if he had like this big college fund for us. I’m like, there’s really nothing? And they were like, no, there’s nothing. I think they gave me, when I got to the airport -- I mean, like I said they did buy my plane ticket to go there, which was nice. But they didn’t actually buy it. Their friend worked for Air Canada and so she gave me one of her Friends and Family passes. But that’s neither here nor there. I’m still grateful. They gave me $11. And they were like, you’re on your own, kid. So anyways, it was expensive. So, I ended up getting a work study job 00:24:00and on student loans. And in University of British Columbia, there was an entomology department, well the zoology department, but the entomology section of the zoology department. And then, that was it. Then, I just ended up falling in love with doing insect things. Although, I did a series of work study jobs, and they all were in entomology in some way. I did a research experience, where this woman hired me as her assistant to go to Costa Rica and help her do this research experiment that she was doing. And yeah, so that was kind of my plan. And that’s when I learned about grad school. That was when I learned about that you could get a job as a professor, which I’d never really thought how people got those jobs, but I kind of learned about it there. I learned how to do research. And then, I finished my degree and went back to Toronto. And I planned to try and just get a 00:25:00job for a while before going to graduate school. But it turns out, there’s not very many jobs you can get with a Bachelor of Science. So, I worked as a technician at a dialysis center, like a renal unit in a hospital for a couple of years while I applied for grad school. And then, I came to the states, to Rutgers to do my Ph.D. And I started in a lab, three of us did all at the same time, and we all left by -- we started in the summer to get some experience. Thank gosh we did that because by August, all of us, we’re like, we gotta get out of here. This is not a good environment. October thirteenth is our anniversary date. By October thirteenth, we had all left that lab, and I switched into a different lab that worked on systematics. And then, that’s kind of what I’ve done ever since, is systematics. Mostly working on dragonflies and damselflies, but then also termites and cockroaches. 00:26:00Mika: Wow, so it sounds like entomology provided you that safety net of the financial security, it was kind of that saving grace, or what have you. So, that’s really interesting to hear. And I think I would just backtrack, because I feel like there may be a story, but I don’t know, you tell me if you’re comfortable, of moving to the States and what that transition was like of having grown up in Canada, and then just suddenly starting here for your job. How was that? Did that affect you in any way?

Jessica: Well, my dad’s family were from Memphis and from the States. So, I certainly felt like I had American family, but I did not feel American. I am very Canadian. And the Canadian kind of dogma is that Americans are big personalities, and that they’re 00:27:00going to take Canadian culture, and this is brain drain, and everyone’s leaving, and you shouldn’t leave Canada to go to the States. And it was like this kind of narrative that what I was gonna do was kind of bad. My family, they were supportive but they were also kind of jokingly like, I can’t believe you would go and live there, why would you do that? But when I was living in Vancouver -- Vancouver is considered to be a very diverse city, and it is, and Canada is a very diverse place. But certainly in the 1990s, there were not a lot of Black people that were in Vancouver. And there was a lot of racism, and it was just terrible. It was subtle racism, microaggressions. But then, people screaming at me on the bus, strangers, like really bad. My university teacher telling racist jokes in class, it was not good. And at the time, we had kind of formed like an unofficial kind of 00:28:00Black working group or whatever that would meet at my apartment. And it was a bunch of us from all over the world. And we were just like, this can’t be what adulthood is like, this is terrible. So, in my mind I was kind of thinking, even though I was worried to move to the States, I assumed everyone had a gun and that it would be horrible, I was also thinking, maybe in terms of just being able to be around other Black people or be a member of this broader Black diaspora, that it would be really rewarding. And that part is definitely true. Although, Syrus is a founding member of Black Lives Matter Canada, and Black Lives Matter Toronto, and they really have done -- there obviously is a really vibrant community in Toronto. But at the time, I just felt like, I guess I wasn’t plugged into it. I don’t know. Although my parents did a lot of stuff with Black groups in Toronto when I was growing up. When my dad came to live with us, it was a really big part that we did. 00:29:00But even so, I was just excited for the chance to move here and maybe be part of something that was older and maybe that there would be less racism in some way. I don’t know why I thought that. And so, that was something that, even though there was like this fear of going to the States, that was something I was really looking forward to. And plus, I was just really excited to go to graduate school, to be honest. And for a long time, I was thinking as soon as I was done, I would go back home. But once you’re in, it’s hard to get out because then you’re in grad school and you feel a fear. Like, what are you going to do after grad school? And I was applying for postdocs [post-doctoral fellowships], but I didn’t really want to move back and get a postdoc in Toronto at the time or in Canada because the postdocs are paid a lot less there than they are paid here. And at the time, by then, I already had a kid and I was kind of supporting us. 00:30:00I was married at the time, my husband wasn’t working -- or he worked occasionally, here and there. I don’t know. So, it was just like a lot of pressure. And then, once I got my postdoc, then I was applying for jobs. I did apply for some jobs in Canada, and I applied for jobs kind of elsewhere. But when I got my first job here, I was like, oh now I have a tenure-track job, I’m not going to leave a tenure-track job, right? And now that I have my dream job at the museum, I can’t imagine ever leaving it. So actually, when I got tenure, I got this tattoo, which is a sugar maple leaf. Kind of to remind me of home, but also it was like a thing for myself because I knew that once I got tenure, I’m not going to give up tenure. And that meant that home was gonna be a little bit farther away. But the good thing about being at the museum is you have a lot more flexibility with your time. 00:31:00So, it’s been the pandemic so I haven’t been able to visit Canada, but I think I’ll be able to still go there as often as I’d like, which is nice. But I definitely miss it. And I definitely noticed like when I go places, if I go to international meetings, people will act very differently once I tell them that I’m Canadian. I can remember being at a dragonfly meeting, one time we were in Namibia. Anyways, you’re sitting around chatting, we’re just being very polite. And then, I said something about how I was Canadian, and they were like, wait a minute, you’re Canadian? And I was like, yeah. And they’re like, oh thank god, we thought you were American, okay, so like what’s the deal with? And then they started like saying all this gossip. Like, what’s the deal with this, this, and this? And I was like, oh god girl I don’t know. [Laughs] It was funny. Yeah.

Mika: Oh my goodness. That’s so comical. I was muted, but I was laughing. That’s a very universal 00:32:00thought. And I completely understand why, as an American. I love the symbolism of that tattoo as well. That’s really great. So, I think I’d say maybe from taking you back to being in that first lab of working on dragonflies and then now to your dream job. Can you connect the dots for me?

Jessica: Sure. Well, when I was in graduate school, there was someone in my lab who was a technician who made like a lot of really racist and sexist comments. He really encouraged me to drop out and he was like a thorn in my side. And I tell you, that was an inspiration because I wanted to out-publish him, I wanted to finish and get top grades. I did not want to let him be right, right? I also had unexpectedly found out I was pregnant at the end of my first year of grad school, which 00:33:00was not planned. And my parents certainly were like, well, you can’t do grad school. And I was like, you can’t tell me what to do, actually. Who’s paying the bills here, not you? So anyways, I was determined to show people what I can do. So, I really worked very hard in grad school. So, I think because of that, I was able to write a successful National Science [Foundation] Fellowship, an NSF fellowship. And I was in Germany doing a German academic exchange, for three weeks or four weeks or something like that, measuring dragonfly wing flexural stiffness, when I got the email that I had gotten the fellowship, and I was so excited. I was pregnant with my second child, who was planned. But now, in retrospect, I’m like, that was bad timing, because of course then I had Zack 00:34:00a couple weeks after I defended my Ph.D. But I had this postdoc lined up, so it was great. So, I did a postdoc at the American Museum of Natural History for two years working on termite evolution. And then, I applied for lots of jobs. And I got my job at Rutgers [University] Newark and I was able to start nine months later, or six months later, or something like that. So, I was able to collect a bunch of data. So, when I started at my job, I could really just start publishing data and be productive. And then, there had been some signs that maybe my marriage wasn’t gonna work out from early on because my ex-husband had a problem with monogamy, I guess. He couldn’t do it, so he just was 00:35:00a chronic infidel. And so, I guess maybe two years before I was supposed to go up for tenure, then he just basically kind of stopped coming home, be out all night with strange women. He was actively cheating and so we had this kind of sudden, unexpected divorce where I was just like, I actually don’t need to do this. And so, it was a transition period for me, because again, everyone’s like, oh this poor Black woman, raising two kids by herself, a single mom, she’ll never be able to do it. And so, that lit a fire under me. And I was like, uh-uh, no. So, I wrote a successful NSF [National Science Foundation] career grant right after I got divorced, which was successful. I got divorced in 2014 and I found out about it 00:36:00in 2015. I got divorced in March, I wrote the grant all summer, and then I got it, I found out like in December or January or something. And then I got tenure. It felt like a relief, ‘cause I was really starting to feel panic, I’m responsible for these two kids. Now, I’ve lived my whole life to not end up like my mom. And now, here I am, as a single mom, raising two kids. And I was like, this is not what I ever would have planned for myself. Anyways, but it ended up being okay. And once I got tenure, I felt such a huge relief. And I have really great graduate students I was working with. I felt like we were really productive. And then, there were a few other job offers that I got, I was asked to apply here or there. But my ex-husband really didn’t want me to move because he wanted to be close to the kids -- although he never sees them. He sees them like once, maybe twice a year. But anyways, 00:37:00I felt like I was in a way trapped in New Jersey. Again, so this was like what I’ve worked my whole life to not be. But now, I felt so fortunate that I was asked to apply for this AMNH [American Museum of Natural History] job and I applied not thinking that I would even get an interview. And when I got an interview, I didn’t think I would get the job offer. And then when I got the job offer, I still didn’t think they were gonna hire me. And then when they did, it really felt like a totally new beginning ‘cause I was starting to feel like I was trapped a little bit. I like Rutgers, Rutgers is wonderful. But I feel like I could never leave Rutgers Newark because I couldn’t leave New Jersey because Jeremy wouldn’t let me leave New Jersey. And so, this felt like a new beginning, like a rebirth, felt great. 00:38:00So, it’s been kind of like a runner’s high right now. Everything’s great, work seems fun, and there’s so many resources there. Facilities have been established which is great for the research. And we started basically from when I got tenure in 2015 onwards, I’ve tried to really do a lot more outreach, to try and make changes in the field. Like, the things that I felt like I had to struggle with, people shouldn’t still be struggling with it. There shouldn’t be the systemic barriers that are due to systemic racism, sexism, the patriarchy, homophobia. Institutionalized issues. We’re trying to tear it down and build it up from the ground. And I think that also has been helpful for making me feel less trapped. There are things that we could do to make things better. So, that’s another thing that kind 00:39:00of makes me feel optimistic right now, because I feel like we’re doing things that are making change, which is good. So, at the museum, we just got a big NSF grant to look at dragonflies. We’re trying to sequence all of the dragonflies, every species for their genomes, as well as morphological, ecological data. But the museum, I had to go up for tenure again, which was a little bit scary. And so, I did and I got it again in December. So, that was like a really good feeling, too. So, it’s good and my kids are doing well. My child actually transitioned when he was in grade one. We socially transitioned in grade two, I guess. But it was clear that we were going to do this starting in grade one, and he’s thriving. He’s in grade seven, going into grade eight next year. My daughter, Aeshna, 00:40:00she had some pretty serious health issues because she has severe OCD [Obsessive Compulsive Disorder] that was, at times, bad enough that we weren’t able to even leave the house when she was really young, in elementary school. And now, she’s really thriving too and she’s doing so great. And she’s in high school, she’s going into grade eleven. So, I feel like there’s a lot of things to be really thankful for, and to be really happy for.

Mika: And look at you, you have your dream job and your lovely children. That’s wonderful. Not to just assume things, but you brought up earlier how you didn’t want to be your parents and stuck and trapped in this job that you didn’t even want and now you’re at your dream job, congrats. That’s amazing.

Jessica: Thank you so much. We talk about it a lot here with my kids. I really have tried to always just remind them, to the point where they get annoyed, that I don’t 00:41:00feel resentful. I feel so excited, I’m so grateful that I get to be their mom, I’m so grateful that I have them. My life is so much better because of them and that I’ve never made any decisions that were bad because of them. The decisions I’ve made that were bad were my decisions on my own, not because of them. So, they’re like, ugh Mom I know. But I think it’s just ‘cause they don’t know what it’s like to get the other message; it feels bad.

Mika: Of course, if only they knew. So, in talking about your kids, and I only ask because I know that you’ve written papers about it, would you like to speak to the experience of being a parent, while a graduate student? Being a parent, while being a scientist and with all this pressure on you. I definitely feel like you have some points and if you’d like to share, I’d love to hear.

Jessica: Well, I think that being a parent in grad school was, like I said, 00:42:00it was unexpected. We certainly didn’t have any money. And it was really tough going, a lot of the times bills weren’t paid, electricity got turned off more than once, not having money for the things more than just Kraft dinner or rice and beans. It was not easy. But having said that, I had a lot more flexibility than I think I have had at any other time in my life, including before going to graduate school when you’re working shift work, whatever. So in that way, I actually had a lot of time with Aeshna, more so than with Zack. So poor Zack, as soon as he was born I had started my postdoc, so right into daycare. I can remember nine months or ten months into his life, feeling like I barely knew him. That sounds dramatic, I mean, of course I saw him on evenings and weekends. But compared to Aeshna, I actually had her in the lab 00:43:00with me for the first nine months or ten months or something. So, it just felt very different. But I think this type of job is really a good job to have as a parent, because even though many of my colleagues would complain, and there’s many things to complain about in terms of academia for sure, like I get it. But compared, I do wonder if some of these people had had jobs before becoming a TA [teaching assistant]. Like a lot of my peers, a TA was their first job. If you ever had another job, which I have had literally like probably one hundred jobs, I don’t know, fifty, at least, like they’re really inflexible. Dentist appointment, who cares? Like kids’ choir appointment, who cares? And the risk of you missing work to go to those things is that you could lose your job. By comparison, academia is like a dream. Like I was able to go to Aeshna’s concerts and plays and things like that. I went to so many that I think one time, the after-school program she was doing 00:44:00did a play that I didn’t go to, and she’s never let me forget it. And I’m like, I’ve actually been to every single thing that you’ve ever done except for this one time that Little Owl Enrichment had an afternoon daycare play, and I didn’t go to it, and she didn’t let me forget it. Whereas my parents never, I can remember them going to my graduation, but they were just always working. Like they wouldn’t have been able to attend, not like they were interested in going either, ‘cause this was a different time where it wasn’t really expected that you would do those things. So, I just feel like you just have a lot more time and flexibility than you would in a regular job. And I would say that compared to some of my friends, certainly on the outside it might look like they have less time with me. But I do feel like the time that we have is like quality time. I feel like many of my friends who are in town who don’t work or who work from home I guess, work-from-home moms or stay-at-home moms, 00:45:00they are tired of seeing their kids. So, they actually structure all these other events so that they actually never have to see their kids. And when they see their kids it’s just driving them from location to location for various activities. Whereas, I think because I don’t have the time, honestly, to be driving them everywhere, I do think -- I do feel like I do that, that’s like 70 percent of my week is driving them to music lessons, because they both do a lot of music stuff -- but even so, the time that we spend is, like, compressed, but it’s very intense. Quality time is really, really very close. But that could also be because their dad isn’t around, so we just got really, really close by necessity. I think that the culture of academia is changing a little bit. Like when I was in my first job, when I was at Rutgers, they routinely would have faculty meetings that were late in the day. While I was a newly single parent, I was routinely scheduled to teach night classes. 00:46:00Which meant, basically, all of my salary was going to pay for nannies and childcare. I was hurtling up and down the turnpike, never sure what was going to happen with the kids at home. And I feel like that’s changed a lot even just since my kids were younger. Where I feel like, maybe by more brave people speaking out, it has become more common. I’ve heard peers say, well, I’ve got my kids, I can’t do that, or can we schedule it earlier for parents? Whereas, I feel like when I was first starting at Rutgers [University] Newark, I actually remember saying, I unexpectedly got divorced or my husband has unexpectedly not lived with us starting in January. I got divorced in March that year and in January my class was supposed to start. I said, is there any way I could change my class to be at a different time? 00:47:00And the person who I asked, who was doing the scheduling and one of my fellow faculty members, brought it up in a faculty meeting that week and said, I would like to address the fact that some faculty think that they can schedule their classes around their personal family needs and that’s not acceptable. And I just had to silently cry during the meeting, like this [Gestures crying]. I was like, oh god this is brutal. I feel like that wouldn’t happen as much now. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m just being naïve. But I feel like it’s getting a little bit better. That kind of toxic stuff, it gets called out more. Which is, I think, good. And that’s why I really have tried to be really a loudmouth about these things, too, because there’s always going to be someone that’s going through that. Because we’re all humans.

Mika: Definitely, and I feel like even going off of that, because you keep bringing up themes of how you hope the future is, and I want to ask 00:48:00you, what is something you look forward to in your work? What is some change that you hope is brought about in the next coming years? And what are you looking forward to in the future?

Jessica: Hmmm. Well, I do feel optimistic about work to diversify our field. But the deck is stacked to favor us, because we won the birth lottery of being born in the Global North, right? I have access to genomics, and CT [computerized tomography] scanning, and cutting-edge technology. And any of the work that I do will be favored for grant applications, for award applications, for everything. And my friends and colleagues who are living in other places, in Jamaica or in Ghana or in Nigeria or wherever, the deck is stacked against them. And they’re doing amazing work, but because they don’t necessarily have the 00:49:00same capacity in their country, because of colonialism and the history and the long legacy of it. In terms of economics, in terms of where the development is happening in AI [artificial intelligence] or in whatever the cutting-edge thing that people are doing, the deck is stacked against them. And so, I guess what I’m optimistic or hopeful of is that we take responsibility for these things, and that we change our rubrics, and we redefine how we’re evaluating success. And we start to actually have something that looks like equity, and not just the word equity, but actual equity. So, that’s something that I’m really hopeful for. I’d love to see a future where, when I’m on a call for work there’s a bunch of other queer people, there’s a bunch of other Black people. That the conversation is just as comfortable as it would be with 00:50:00the people in my chosen circle, where we could talk about real things. That would be a really good future if it was like that, I think. People have to be willing to give up their spot. I think that’s a hard conversation to have. But I’m really hopeful that our white allies and colleagues who want to do DEI [diversity, equity, inclusion] work, that they realize that that means that they don’t always get to still hold nine spots on a twelve-person board. Or did they just make the board fifteen people ‘cause those nine people still want their spots. I’m hoping that there’ll be some active decisions that people will make that will make the world a little bit better. Fingers are crossed.

Mika: Wonderful, could not agree more. I feel like that very much goes with the sentiment of we all aren’t free 00:51:00until everyone is free, right? So, it’s like all of these people that hold such privilege and power, it’s just like, look around, does it feel like good privilege and power if your fellow colleagues are down here? So, I would just like to state that I am so happy to have you as a vice president of a society that I’m involved in [the Entomological Society of America] and someone that is really looking for change, such as what you’ve said. So, thank you. I could not agree more.

Jessica: Thank you so much.

Mika: Yeah. I think that’s a lovely way to end ‘cause now, unfortunately, I don’t want to be done, and I’m just like, oh we’re doing so well, but I think now that we’re coming to a close, I’ll give you space to say or I’ll ask, Is there anything else you would like to state, maybe a mantra or maybe just for these records of a closing statement that you’d like to share? I just want to give it up to you and not guide too much.

Jessica: Well, first of all, thank you so much for the chance to chat 00:52:00with you about this. I actually always read, I read and reread and reread these comic books called Dykes to Watch Out for that Allison Bechdel writes. And in one of them, Ginger, who’s the perpetual Ph.D. student who takes eight or ten years to do a Ph.D., she’s one of my favorite characters, this Black woman who I think she’s studying like, white response to the literary canon to Black oral tradition or something -- I can’t believe that I’ve memorized the title of her fictional thesis in this comic book series -- anyways, as part of her procrastination technique, one day she decides to record for the lesbian oral history project. So, she records everybody’s origin stories. And I always thought, oh, it would be so neat to be part of an oral history project, but have you ever done anything that’s really worthy of history? Probably not. So, I feel very honored that you asked me because I feel like I haven’t done anything yet to really be worthy of being included 00:53:00in an oral history. But I guess what I would say for my mantra or my statement would be that as women, as queer people, as Black people, as people of color, we’ve always been scientists. There’s always been artists, there’s always been scientists, we’ve always been there. We’ve always been looking at the world with curiosity. Sometimes our work was valued and sometimes it wasn’t. But the future, there is a future. I really do believe in visualizing Black futurism and what the future could be. And I think there is a future where our science is valued, where our science is changed, where our science is unity, where our science is everything that it was in the past and everything that will be, all together at once, where humanity 00:54:00is saved by the chance to really be curious and have our knowledge valued. My twin writes a lot about Afrofuturism and wrote this play called Antarctica. They’re actually turning it into a movie. But in the play, there’s colonies. This is actually really true that Antarctica has been split up into different countries owned by colonial powers, even today. The idea is that as Antarctica thaws, those countries will own that bit of land. But in this fictional future, people actually have been born in these different territories. But in this future story that my twin wrote that was a play, people intentionally were born on these different land masses so that when it thawed people could go there 00:55:00as the descendants of that land slice. But the people are Black, disabled, queer people, and they go and then something dramatic happens. And the world is largely unstable and everything’s on fire because of global warming and climate change everywhere else. And Antarctica is this refuge. And I often think about that because one of the characters in it that Syrus wrote is someone who is neurotic and over-attentive, her name is Jessica. She’s a scientist and she’s really picky about things. So, I was like, oh this hurts seeing myself in reality, because Syrus knows me better than I know myself. But anyways, in it, Jessica keeps talking about how the science is everything. They’re doing all these other things, all this stuff happens. But everything comes down to the science, in terms of human survival. So anyways, I’m just excited for science to 00:56:00be the language that we all are speaking and that it’s valued -- everyone’s kind of science is valued.

Mika: And I could not have thought of a better way to end. Thank you so much. What a beautiful sentiment, and I’ll be sure to check that out. I’m extremely interested in that now.

Jessica: Yeah, it’s a neat play. Once it comes out as a movie, it’ll be cool. I hope it gets to be a big thing ‘cause it’s actually a really neat sci-fi, if you like sci-fi. It’s not really science fiction. It’s actually kind of, like I said, Black futurism. But I think that’s the category it would be under.

Mika: Well, Afrofuturism, we definitely need more of it. That’s incredible. That’s very expansive, definitely don’t want to be limited to timepieces. And I love the opposite direction. So, I’m a fan. But, thank you so much. Thank you for your time today. I think we can close with that.

Jessica: Thank you for having me. This was wonderful. 00:57:00Thank you. I really can’t tell you how delighted I was that you invited me. So, thank you.

Mika: Of course, definitely. One of, if not, the first name I thought of. So, I really appreciate your time. Thank you again.

Jessica: All right, take care. Bye for now. [End of Interview]  Ms2021-001;Pagani; Page 2 Ms2021-001;Pagani; Page 1