Akiko Iwasaki

Akiko Iwasaki is a Sterling Professor of Immunobiology and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale University School of Medicine, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She is pioneering research on how the immune system defends the body against viral infections at mucosal surfaces- the sites where many pathogens first invade. Her research focuses on how the immune system defends against viral infections, advancing vaccine design for diseases like influenza, herpes viruses and Covid-19 and cervical cancer. Recently, Akiko has been exploring the effects of Covid-19 on human’s immune systems and the consequences of Long Covid

Iwasaki is a mentor for young scientists and an outspoken supporter for women and underrepresented minorities in science and medicine. Her honors include election to the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and inclusion on TIME’s 100 Most Influential People lists.

Transcript

Speaker 3 0:02

Hello and welcome to the Scientess Podcast, where we talk to women with successful scientific careers about the joys of science. I'm your host, Karen Levy, an environmental health scientist at the School of Public Health at University of Washington in Seattle. I'm excited to share with you the stories of some pretty incredible women on this podcast. My hope is that these interviews will show aspiring young scientists that a career in science is not only possible, but can also be extremely rewarding and a whole lot of fun. Let's jump in with today's featured Scientess.

Speaker 4 0:37

Dr. Akiko Iwasaki is the Sterling Professor of Immunobiology at the Yale University School of Medicine. She also holds appointments in the dermatology, molecular, cellular, and developmental biology, and epidemiology departments at Yale. Her research focuses on how the immune system defends the human body against viruses, in particular at the mucosal surfaces where infectious agents enter the body. Her lab studies immune responses to many different viruses, herpes simplex, zika, influenza, rhinovirus, and retroviruses, to name a few. Most recently, she has focused on SARS-CoV-2 and is leading several long COVID investigations. Work in her lab has led to the development of mucosal vaccines that can prevent infection, transmission, and recurrent diseases. Dr. Iwasaki has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator since 2014 and is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has received many awards and honors over the years, including being named in 2024 to both Times 100 Most Influential People and Time 100 Health's most influential people affecting global health. That year, she was also named to Forbes 50 over 50 for innovation. She was awarded the KO Medical Science Prize in 2025, the Else Kroner Fresenis Prize for Medical Research in 2023, and the Carnegie Corporation named her as a great immigrant, great American in 2025. In addition to her scientific accomplishments, she engages extensively in public scholarship. She was a leading scientific voice during the COVID-19 pandemic and is also well known for her Twitter advocacy on women and underrepresented minorities in the science and medicine fields, advocating in particular for affordable childcare. So, Akiko, welcome to the Scientists Podcast. Thank you so much for having me. So I like to start with some basics. When did you decide to become a scientist? And did you always know from a young age that you were interested in science?

Speaker 1 2:40

Yeah. I did not know when I was a young child that I wanted to be a scientist. It's only when I was in high school I was taking the public high school courses, and one of the math teachers gave me a lot of opportunities to dig deeper and learn more advanced math. And that's when I learned that math is really fun. And before that I was really focused on Japanese literature and history. And so I didn't think I was going to go into science, but I think the sort of love of science that I learned from the teacher really encouraged me to think about pursuing math and science fields. And that's when I started to sort of shift towards science. And so how old were you at the time? I was in my first year high school. What is it, 14 or 15, something like that?

Speaker 4 3:29

14. And this was in Japan, yes?

Speaker 1 3:32

This was in Japan.

Speaker 4 3:34

Okay. And then what happened next once you finished high school? What was the trajectory of your career? Where did you study next?

Speaker 1 3:43

Yeah, so before I get there, I I have to explain that when I was 13, I went with my father to sabbatical. He had a sabbatical in Maryland. And so I spent about eight months in Maryland with him and my sister. And he was also an academic? Yeah, he is a physicist. Okay. He was going to a sabbatical in the University of Maryland. And I went with him with my sister, and that exposed me to cultures outside of Japan. And that sort of made me question what is the relevance of me staying in Japan, especially because I felt that the culture was not very conducive to women pursuing careers in general. So then in the middle of high school, I took some time off to do an exchange program. And I spent about a year in Canada. And that exposure reinforced my question about staying in Japan. And so I decided to quit high school. I left Japan at the age of 16 to go to a boarding school in Canada to finish the high school degree. And from there on I stayed in Canada to do my undergraduate and graduate work.

Speaker 4 4:54

Now, was that because specifically the environment for women was harder in Japan?

Speaker 1 5:02

Yes. I really saw no future for myself at the time. And I spoke with family members and relatives and friends and, you know, other other people about my concern. You know, the course of action that's the easiest was to stay there and one day become a wife and have children and be a housewife. And that trajectory was not attractive to me. And so I just decided that I needed to do something else.

Speaker 4 5:31

That's amazing that you knew that at such a young age and that you were able to figure that out and take the initiative to go on your own. That must have been really scary.

Speaker 1 5:40

It was scary. And now that I have teenage daughters, I also can't imagine myself at the time, you know, that I made this decision. But I think of I've always kind of wanted to do something with my life beyond being a housewife. And to me, staying in Japan meant that most likely I will end up having to do that instead of a real career. So yeah, I think that reasoning was quite convincing in my 16-year-old's brain.

Speaker 4 6:07

Wow, that's an amazing story that you were able to do that. Do you think it's still that way in Japan, or do you think it's gotten better in Japan for women?

Speaker 1 6:17

Yeah, I think hopefully things are a little bit better in Japan, but when I look at the composition of professors in Japan, there's a long way to go in terms of not even reaching parity, but like even catching up with other countries, Europe and US and Canada. So I still think there's a long way to go there.

Speaker 4 6:38

Yeah, that's too bad. Because we're doing okay, but not amazing. So to have other countries behind is not encouraging. But okay, so you went to college in Canada and then did you go straight into grad school or what was the next step on your journey?

Speaker 1 6:55

That's right. So after finishing my undergraduate degree, I decided to stay on as a graduate s student in immunology program in University of Toronto. So that's what I decided to do. Back then, you know, taking Yappy or things like that weren't really standard.

Speaker 4 7:14

Not as common, yeah.

Speaker 1 7:15

Not as common, yeah. And so you did your PhD then in immunology? Yes, I did my PhD in immunology and from there I went to the National Institutes of Health in Maryland to do my postdoc. And then I took my position here at Yale after that.

Speaker 4 7:29

So you've been in just one position for your whole career then after the postdoc.

Speaker 1 7:33

That's amazing.

Speaker 4 7:34

What year was that?

Speaker 1 7:35

Year 2000, I started here.

Speaker 4 7:37

Okay. Mm-hmm. Wow. So a lot of people end up moving around a lot more, but you've been able to thrive there, it sounds like.

Speaker 1 7:44

Yeah, I know. I mean, I thought about moving a few times, but in the end, I really like the environment here and the people. So stayed.

Speaker 4 7:52

That's great. Yeah. Amazing. So what excites you about your science and how has that changed over time?

Speaker 1 8:00

So I've always been a curious person. And so when I think of different problems and see brand new results that doesn't fit the dogma at the time, it really excites me. And so I've always been sort of challenging standard assumptions in science and trying to really get to the bottom of what's happening in the mechanism. So throughout my career, I've always been attracted to those types of questions. And over the years though, I have really changed the focus of my research a lot. So when I was a postdoc, I was working on these dendritic cells, which are cells that present antigens to T cells in these gut mucosal organ known as pious batches. And so that's what I did during my postdoc. And then when I became an assistant professor here at Yale, I decided to work on viruses because I thought that the immune system obviously exists for defending against pathogens. And one of the most common things that happen in humans is that we are exposed to myriad of viruses all the time. And especially during childhood, we acquire different types of viruses, and some of which we live with forever. And one of those viruses, the herpes viruses, family members, they become latent and they are impossible to get rid of once you catch it. So that's what got me interested for my first projects, is to really look at how these herpes simplex viruses enter the genital mucosa and to cause disease, and how does the immune system detect that and fight against it? So I started my career looking at that, and this is the one very long-standing interest that I have, but we're still working on that. But along the way, because of interests that are brought into the lab from postdocs and students, I've added a collection of viruses, including influenza virus, zika virus, and retroviruses. And so over the years, I think my interests expanded into multiple different viruses and multiple different questions that come with those viruses.

Speaker 4 10:04

You mentioned that other postdocs could bring ideas. Tell me a little bit about what's the lab environment like in your lab that allows people to bring in their own questions rather than just working on the party you're doing.

Speaker 1 10:19

Yeah. So that's one of the fun things about running this lab that people bring their own ideas. And as long as those ideas are feasible and the questions are important, I try to ensure that they have the right tools to be able to ask those questions. So for example, I had a postdoctoral candidate that came to me, very, very interested in the link between the common cold virus, the rhinovirus, and asthma and diseases that are associated with it. We weren't working on rhinoviruses at all. I barely knew how to culture those viruses in the lab because we really weren't doing those research. But she was very passionate about this question because one of her family members suffered from this type of condition and became very convinced that this was an important question. And so when she joined the lab, I decided that we have to just establish the infrastructure that she needs to be able to grow and study the rhinoviruses. And so that's what she ended up doing. And so every new virus, every new questions that are kind of launched from the lab often have roots in people who are bringing these ideas to the lab.

Speaker 4 11:28

That's great. And also really amazing that you create the space for people to be able to bring the questions that they're interested in. Did she bring her own funding or were you able to do that because of your HHMI status?

Speaker 1 11:41

At the time she joined, I wasn't an HHMI investigator yet. So we of course applied to different agencies for funding. But in the beginning, there's very little funding to start something like this. Fortunately, I still had some flexible funding from when I started. And over the years I sort of accumulated flexible funding mechanisms. So I was able to tap into that. But it's not sustainable long term. You can just start something with it, but then you need to get some pilot data.

Speaker 4 12:08

Exactly. Then you can write for funding. Yeah. That's great. And was she able to do that then, leverage that and come to Oh my gosh, she's so successful now.

Speaker 1 12:17

She's a professor here at Yale, running her own and asking those questions and being in the news all the time.

Speaker 4 12:24

Amazing. Yeah. That's so great. So actually, let's talk a little bit about mentorship. And I have a quote to bring in because I uh c got in touch with you through Kayoko Shiyoda, who she was a mentee of mine, and now she's an ongoing collaborator of mine. And she's now an assistant professor at Boston University. She's made a lot of scientific contributions during the course of her career, and she even wrote a book published in Japanese about being a woman in science. Amazing. And so I asked her if she wanted to share anything about her experience with you. And I'm going to read you what she said. She said, Akiko is one of the main reasons why I did not quit my education during my PhD training. My first child, Yuma, was born during my third year of PhD training. Even before the baby was born, I already felt overwhelmed, which made me seriously wonder whether I would be able to continue my career. At that time, I didn't have many role models or mentors around me who were mothers with young children. So I reached out to Akiko, who I saw as a beacon of hope among Japanese female scientists. Although I had not interacted with her much before, she was incredibly welcoming. She told me that it was completely normal to feel overwhelmed with my first child. She said that it was natural to worry about every detail and to feel unable to stop thinking about them. She shared that she too had felt overwhelmed when she was pregnant. And she also told me that this phase would not last forever. That conversation meant so much to me. It helped me realize that even a super successful scientist like Akiku had felt overwhelmed about pregnancy and childcare. It made me feel that it was okay to feel this way for a while and that I could get through it, continue my work, and stay in science.

Speaker 2 14:05

Oh my gosh, that's incredible.

Speaker 1 14:07

Wow.

Speaker 4 14:08

That's quite a testament to you. And I feel like this tribute from Kyoko, it speaks to many things. And one of them is about talking openly about issues of being a mother and a scientist, and also about the importance of representation. And so I don't know if you have any thoughts that you want to share about either of those things, about what it means to be somebody who can be an inspiration for other younger scientists.

Speaker 1 14:36

Yeah. Well, that's so gratifying to s to hear what Kayoko had to say. So I've always known, and from my own experience as well as looking at others, that this period of becoming a new mother and trying to run a lab or trying to succeed in your postdoctoral career or whatever it might be, it's always the most difficult time for women in science. And we need to normalize these discussions and not to pretend like we're all superhumans, you know, that we suffer. And it's okay. We need to acknowledge that it is hard and it's okay to be suffering. And that's precisely what happened to me. I almost wanted to quit science when my children were very young. And first of all, I say we need to normalize the discussion, but we shouldn't be complacent about how much suffering that many mothers, young mothers have to go through. And something I've been strongly advocating for is on-site childcare availability, not just for mothers, but for new parents. And it's so important to have in order for us to feel like we can do the work and be a parent and being able to do both at the same time.

Speaker 4 15:48

And when did you have your kids? At what point in your career were you?

Speaker 1 15:52

I was associate professor at the time I had my children. So I was fairly further along compared to a Kayoko at that stage. But there is no good time to have children and th there are challenges at every stage of the career. So it's not like one should aim for this particular stage to have a child or whatever.

Speaker 4 16:13

I always tell my mentees the same. There's no good time and there's also no bad time because kids are awesome and it's great to have kids.

Speaker 1 16:19

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. It's just the expectation that you can't be a hundred percent scientist and hundreds percent mother all the time. That's impossible. So it's really important to set your expectations so that you're not like a full-time mother and a scientist uh 100% of the time. That will disappoint anyone going through that stage.

Speaker 4 16:40

What did you do to manage when you had your kids? What were the things that you did to make it work?

Speaker 1 16:45

Well, this sort of changing the expectation and you know, as many scientists are, we're kind of perfectionists and we want to do everything perfectly. And that type of goal was not consistent with having children at that time. So I decided, okay, it's okay not to be perfect on everything, and it's okay not to make every deadline. We just need to prioritize what it is that is most important and most urgent and maybe focus on that. But you don't have to be a perfect human being in every aspect. So that's number one, is just to kind of change my mindset. Number two is that it's also okay to ask for help. Many people try to do it all by themselves, and somehow that's being celebrated, and I don't think it's the right thing to do. It's just too much to put on somebody.

Speaker 4 17:33

Kind of help.

Speaker 1 17:34

Oh, for example, I was fortunate enough to hire nanny when my children were younger, and so that helped with the pickup from schools or drop-off or whatever it was. So this type of help, and also I had help in terms of cleaning the house or doing the gardens or whatever it was. So i you know, these kinds of help that you often think that you can do it all, it's okay to totally ask for help.

Speaker 4 18:00

Yeah. Yeah, and I think about you're making money in your career, and then you watch it go out the door because you need to pay for childcare or whatever it is, it's worth it because that allows you to have your career and do the thing that you love that sustains you as a person. So I like to ask about life hacks. Like, did you come up with any systems that made it easier? Hiring outside help is one of them, but were there any others in terms of like food preparation or driving or working with your co-parent to make systems that worked? What were your life hacks for getting through that time?

Speaker 1 18:38

Yeah, you know, so just being okay asking for help from family members, friends, and others, colleagues, even. Because there are times when you have to drop everything to go pick up your child or whatever, and asking others to step in and fill in for teaching or whatever it might be. Before that, I I thought that asking people for favors is a just terrible thing. It's an inconvenience and imposition, and it is, but then I also do the same for others. So I think people understand that you need help and it's okay to ask for it. So that's not much of a hack. But I just became more comfortable doing that.

Speaker 4 19:19

Yeah, well, that's a good one. It's an important one because oftentimes we are barreling forward and we don't feel like we can ask anybody else to help us, but it's important to do that. Yes, uh your husband is an academic also, is that correct?

Speaker 2 19:33

Yes.

Speaker 4 19:34

How did you two split up the tasks? Like what do you each do at home to get through?

Speaker 1 19:40

So yeah, it's not like we have a chart where 50-50 split everything, but we basically help out in what we can do. For example, I travel a lot nowadays, even compared to him. And when I do that, obviously he will be alone at home, be in charge of everything. But we try to coordinate the travel and if needed, we do have someone who can help us in terms of childcare and things like that. So we try to split up as much as possible and support each other. And I wouldn't say it's a 50-50 split, but whatever we can do to help.

Speaker 4 20:16

Yeah, I also have a husband who's an academic, and I find that the nice thing about it is that we know which stresses we're each under. And so if somebody's writing a proposal, we know. Yeah just okay, let them write the proposal, step in, and then because we'll need it then from then when we're writing our own proposals.

Speaker 1 20:35

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, and the other thing that's really big for me is because my husband and I we're in the same field immunology and we're under the same kind of pressure and as you say, proposal writing or grant review, whatever it might be. And so it's just the sort of mental support that I have from him is also just as important as physical chores and whatever that we can do.

Speaker 4 20:58

To be able to talk about your science and get feedback from each other. Yeah.

Speaker 1 21:02

Yeah.

Speaker 4 21:03

That's great. Is he in the same department as you?

Speaker 2 21:05

Yes, he is.

Speaker 1 21:06

Yeah.

Speaker 4 21:07

Wow. How's that then? Has that probably has pros and cons?

Speaker 1 21:11

Yeah, but you know, we are actually kind of next to each other, but but it's not like we are working on the same questions. We do collaborate sometimes, but most of the time we're kind of independently operating. And uh it's nice. We do teach a course together, which is very nice. We developed this course for medical students, immunology course for medical students. We both love teaching, and that's something we also talk about, how to improve the teaching and feedback and so on.

Speaker 4 21:37

Do you think that your kids are gonna become immunologists?

Speaker 2 21:40

I don't think so. I think they've had too much immunology talk at home.

Speaker 4 21:46

That's funny. My dad also is an immunologist, and so I I heard a lot of that table, and my parents worked together. So uh really cool.

Speaker 2 21:53

Very similar.

Speaker 4 21:54

She was a biochemist, yeah, so something similar.

Speaker 2 21:56

Yeah.

Speaker 4 22:05

Okay, so one question is how do you decide what to say yes to and what to say no to?

Speaker 1 22:11

Oh boy. It's really difficult because I have to say no to most things. There's just too many requests and you do need to prioritize. Otherwise, you can't do your work. You know, what do I say yes to no to? It really depends on the ask. But most of the time I'm sort of prioritizing things that are important to me as well as that I can serve and that would be important to others. And so, for example, for seminar invitations, I try to not take more than one big seminar acceptance per month. Because otherwise you just end up traveling all the time and my own work suffers, and that's not good for anyone. Also, I try to carve out my Wednesdays are science days, so no one makes appointments. No I I don't travel and unless I have to be uh away on Wednesday on an international travel, that I can't help. But otherwise that's my sacred science day.

Speaker 4 23:08

And when you say science day, is that for writing or reading or being in the lab?

Speaker 1 23:13

It's any of the above, whatever I want to do that day, but mostly because I need uninterrupted time to think about the project, think about the problems. And Wednesdays are sort of reserved for that. Of course, I have a couple of meetings on Wednesday, but otherwise it's science day.

Speaker 4 23:29

It's funny because I also do the same thing, but and it's also Wednesday. And it's nice because it's in the middle of the week, and so you can have a breather. I just don't schedule meetings on Wednesdays.

Speaker 2 23:39

Great. It's the same, yeah.

Speaker 4 23:40

Yeah, that's a good trick, I find. Yeah. So what's a piece of advice that maybe you received along your journey as a scientist that you might be interested to pass along to listeners?

Speaker 1 23:52

Oh boy, there are many wisdom that I received from my former mentors and colleagues. But wow, you know what? I should have thought about this earlier. Well, for me, it's really important to when we talk about women in science and promoting women in science, often women, I think it's not just the stereotype. I think women tend to shy away from asking favors. And I think that's not the right approach because your male colleagues are asking favors, no problem. As an assistant professor, you often don't get invited to give plenary talks in big meetings, right? And that's not necessarily because people are trying to discriminate against you, but they might not know about your work or your existence. So it's okay to reach out to the organizers of meetings, or you have your mentor reach out to them, whatever it might be, just to say, look, I have this really great study coming up, and it would fit beautifully with the topic of this meeting. Is there a short talk I can give? This kind of thing. This kind of favor. I think women tend to shy away from asking these types of favors, and I think that's hurting them.

Speaker 4 25:08

I think it's interesting that you're calling it a favor because in reality it's sharing really important work out with the field, right? That example in particular. So it's not necessarily a favor to the scientists, maybe it's a favor to the whole academic community, scientific community, to share that work, and it's important and maybe men feel more comfortable with that framing.

Speaker 1 25:29

Yeah. Sometimes you're right. Yeah. It's only a favor in that you need to be squeezed into some kind of program. But otherwise, right, it is a favor to the world.

unknown 25:40

I like that.

Speaker 1 25:42

But yeah, you know what I mean? People often don't want to ask for these types of things. You know, I've been organizer of mini meetings, and when people do this, I'm always happy that others are reaching out to me and thinking about the meeting and wanting to present. And if it fits the program, I usually try to accommodate something like this. And for the person who's speaking, it's a huge breakthrough. I remember being an assistant professor and completely not being invited to any place. Someone at a meeting I mentioned about my work and someone squeezed me into a short talk. And that opened up a huge new network for me. Because after my talk, people came up to me and started asking questions. Journal editors were there and they were interested. So the door opens. And I think it's important for people to not feel shy about reaching out, asking for them to open that door a little.

Speaker 4 26:35

Also, let me speak to the importance of conferences and networking at conferences. It's a big piece of what we do.

Speaker 1 26:42

Absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker 4 26:44

Is there any way in which you can point to that being a woman has helped your career?

Speaker 1 26:51

I think being a woman probably has helped me in many ways that I don't even realize. For instance, this is not maybe being a woman, but this being a parent forced me to juggle so many things at the same time. And I I was able to multitask before, but now we're talking about hundreds of balls, right? And that skill set has been developed over time. And I feel like I bring that to work. And that's really helpful in juggling the many projects that people are doing in the lab. It's not really addressing directly your question about what is being a woman being advantageous, but this kind of parenting and learning from the process has really benefited me.

Speaker 4 27:34

That's actually another question I like to ask is how has being a parent helped you? So we answered that one. Yeah. We talked a little bit about mentors. Did you have a particularly important mentor and how did they help you?

Speaker 1 27:46

Yeah. So the high school teacher that I talked about, the math teacher, he really changed the direction of my life. And I don't think at the time he quite realized what what his actions meant to me. But over the years, because I talk about him all the time, people know. But this small act of kindness and inclusion means a huge amount to people who are starting their careers or thinking about science or whatever it might be. So to me, this mentor that I had in the science teacher is the beginning of this. One thing about the mentor is that in addition to your direct mentor, your thesis mentor, your postdoc mentor, I also s sought after other mentors at the same time. I had multiple mentors that I reached out to, just like what Kayoko did, right? People who are unrelated to your own work, but may provide advice. And that has been really helpful to me as well. So throughout my career, I've sought help from interestingly other female PIs and professors around me, and they've been instrumental in helping me continue in science. For example, here at Yale, Joan Stites is just a role model to so many people. Her presence and her power and her influence is being felt by many people, including myself, and just feel very fortunate to have a colleague and mentor like Joan who leads the way for other women.

Speaker 4 29:16

What you said about sometimes you don't even remember what you said to somebody. It can have this huge impact on your life, like you did for Kayoko. It's something that was really important to her, clearly. And you probably remember the conversation, but you might not have realized how impactful it was for her.

Speaker 1 29:32

That's so amazing. Yeah, it's so amazing just to hear about it in this setting. And that's the thing. I also try to tell my lab members and trankees how important it is to be generous to others. Because most of the time people are very respectful and generous to the superiors that they have to deal with, right? But it's very important to be equally generous and kind to people who are younger and who are still developing. And I think that has even more impact than being nice to the supervisors.

Speaker 4 30:08

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 30:09

Yeah.

Speaker 4 30:09

One thing that often gets talked about and that many of us have experienced is imposter syndrome. And so I'm wondering if you've ever felt that and how you overcame it if you did.

Speaker 2 30:20

I never overcame it.

Speaker 1 30:21

I I uh unfortunately I still have imposter syndrome. And it's something that I know I should try to overcome, but it's not something that I can control, right? And so no matter how many years of experience and how many mentees I've had the chance to train, it's still here with me. And especially when I'm in a setting of new colleagues or new meetings or new board meetings or whatever it might be, imposter syndrome is always there. And yeah, I I I really do you have a trick to overcome this?

Speaker 4 30:59

But I do think it's really informative for people to hear that somebody like you who is so accomplished, you've won all these awards in national academies, et cetera, and that here you are saying that you still have imposter syndrome. Uh, I think that's really amazing that you're willing to say that and that other people can hear that it's something that might just stay with us and just we have to accept it and then move on with our day, even if it's there in the background.

Speaker 1 31:27

Yeah, definitely. One thing it's helpful for me is that I know my vulnerabilities and I know my shortcomings, and I do have these imposter syndromes, and there are m many times I just feel like I should have done things differently. But it's just really important that that happens to anyone and that it's not just you, you know. And uh we're all going through it.

Speaker 4 31:50

So Yeah. I guess one way I deal with it is by building teams. And like you said, it's really important to know yourself so you know where your vulnerabilities are, so then you can build a team and bring somebody on who has strengths where that might not be your strength.

Speaker 1 32:06

Absolutely. Yeah. And the other thing that's helpful, especially in these male-dominated meetings where you might be the only woman or only two or three women, amplifying other women's voice in that meeting is important because often we get dismissed or ignored until another male participant says the same thing.

Speaker 2 32:26

So it's important to amplify uh voices, you know.

Speaker 4 32:31

I think that was something that the women who are in the Obama White House, there was a whole thing about how they actively did that to try to amplify other women's voices in the room. Yeah. So when you're not doing science, what are your hobbies and how do you treat yourself?

Speaker 1 32:45

Yeah, so uh I love to travel. I mean, I travel for work, which is a different thing, but I love to travel for pleasure, like with my family, and I still visit my parents and my sister who live in Japan. So those trips are very important to me, and I really enjoy that. So I take my time, I try not to look at emails or anything like this. I truly enjoy being with friends and family on vacation, and that's one thing that I actively try to do, and I'm usually the travel agent in the family. I schedule the flights and the hotels and to-do lists. So that's something that I do and I really enjoy, and I think the family also enjoys. Yeah.

Speaker 4 33:31

Do your kids still love to travel with you?

Speaker 1 33:34

Yeah, they surprisingly they still do whether they want to be seen with their parents or not, that's a different thing. Yeah. But once we're there, yeah, enjoy.

Speaker 4 33:46

And then how do you take care of yourself? So periodically you would go travel, but how do you take care of your body or stay physically and mentally fit? Is that something that you prioritize?

Speaker 1 33:57

Yeah, definitely. I try to squeeze in some exercise time during the day. It may be during the morning, before I leave for work or after work. I try to get some steps in and I do yoga. And so it's not like I can do it for hours, but just a little, even a little bit every day, I think it matters. And it's also good for my mental health to be able to exercise a little bit. So I try to do that and also trying not to lose muscle mass. So I'm doing a little bit of weights.

Speaker 4 34:30

Yeah.

Speaker 1 34:30

Yeah. Just to take care of myself.

unknown 34:33

Yeah.

Speaker 4 34:34

And what do you like to read or listen to or watch in your downtime?

Speaker 1 34:38

So my husband and I, we usually watch some kind of a TV show at night, and we might do some series or we might do a movie. But that's our downtime. So we spent some time together doing that. Otherwise, yeah, I'm always listening to podcasts when I drive from dropping off kids or whatever, trying to catch up with the news and I listen to Japanese radio stations trying to catch up with what's going on in Japan. So that's something that I try to do in my off time.

Speaker 4 35:08

So you can listen to the other scientists podcast interviews. Yes. I guess one question I like to ask is about do you think that there's one like sort of most important trait that you think it takes to make it an academia or as a woman an academia?

Speaker 1 35:26

Most important trait. Well, I can think of a couple of things. They're both necessary. One is uh resilience, and this goes for everybody in science. Most often the experiments either don't work or don't support the thinking that you have, and it's a very, very hard profession if you are looking for wins all the time. So resilience is one thing that I think is very important as being a scientist, and also communication skills. You may be a brilliant scientist, but if you can't communicate the importance of your science to your peers and to the public, it's very difficult to get funding or get recognition or get invited to talks and so on. So I think developing your communication skills both at the peer level and for the public is a really important thing to do.

Speaker 4 36:20

Yeah, absolutely. And maybe you could just talk a little bit about the communication that you did during COVID. We were talking about what do you say no to, what do you say yes to. Why did you feel like it was so important to spend the time doing public scholarship?

Speaker 1 36:33

Yeah. During COVID, I especially thought it was important for me to respond to reporters and also actively tweet scientific truth. There were a lot of misinformation and disinformation. It still is happening. And I felt that it's important to have my voice out there as an expert immunologist who's been working in viral infection and disease for a long time, just to put my voice out there. And so I often used to take two or three reporter phone calls a day.

Speaker 4 37:05

That's a lot. Yeah. Big time commitment.

Speaker 1 37:07

Big time commitment. And that was something actively I made conscious decision to say yes to. I still talk to reporters as much as possible, mostly nowadays about long COVID. This is an area of research that is so important to identify disease pathogenesis and diagnosis and treatment, and yet there's very little coverage in the media about COVID compared to other conditions. So this is also actively engaging reporters and people who are interested in speaking up about this. This is another conscious decision I've made is to be out there speaking about this.

Speaker 4 37:45

Yeah, I think it's really important to do if you have the communication skills and to be out there sharing that with the public. And clearly there's eroding support for science within the public. So having anybody who can speak articulately about the science is speaking to reporters is really important. Yeah, absolutely. So the last question I always like to ask is if you were not a scientist, what would you do with your time?

Speaker 1 38:12

Oh my goodness. Okay. Uh I will probably in the cooking business. I love to cook. And I love to try new recipes. You know, I'm not really good at it, but if I couldn't do science, I probably will pursue culin culinary art.

Speaker 4 38:30

Like open a restaurant or write a cookbook or yeah, something like that.

Speaker 1 38:34

Yeah. Try new different recipes, develop different things.

Speaker 4 38:38

What kind of food do you like to cook?

Speaker 1 38:40

Oh, I like to try different international cuisine. So I often just go to my phone and look for uh here are the ingredients that I have. So just the recipes. And often I try to do things like Mediterranean recipes or Mexican or whatever it comes up.

Speaker 4 38:59

Nice. That's great. Well, thank you so much, Akiko, for taking the time to talk to me and for saying yes to this interview. And yeah, it's been really fun to talk to you. Thank you, Karen, so much.

Speaker 39:12

Thanks for tuning in to the Scientess Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow on your favorite podcast app. It helps more curious minds like yours discover the show. You can find additional bonus content and make a donation to help support the show on our website, www.scientess.org. That's S-C-I-E-N-T-E-S-S. You can also follow us on Instagram at @ScientessPodcast. We'd love to hear from you with comments, questions, or suggestions for future interview subjects. Drop us a line at scientesspod@gmail.com. The Scientess Podcast is supported in part by the Seattle branch of AAUW, the American Association of University Women, supporting women and girls in the Seattle area since 1908. Note that this podcast is not affiliated with the University of Washington, and the views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Washington. We'll catch you in the next episode.