Liza Brusman in the lab!
Biology and Stopping Heteronormative Paradigms in Biology Research

Topics: Prarie Vole Behavior, MCDB, Biology, LGBTQ+ STEM Experinces, Heteronormative Paradigms in Biology 

Liza Brusman (she/her) is a queer graduate student in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at CU Boulder. She works in a lab where she studies what's going on in the brain that causes some species to pick a partner for life. We talked about prarie vole pair bonding, issues around heteronormative paradigms in biology reserach, LGBTQ+ experinces in STEM, and more! Listen or read the full transcript below! 

Transcript

The following trascript has been lightly edited for clarity. 

Arpi: Hi, I’m Arpi.

Liza: And I’m Liza.

Arpi: And Liza is a graduate student in MCDB at CU Boulder and I sat down and talked to her about her research with prairie voles. So tell us about your research.

Liza: So I work in a lab that studies how some animals pick a partner for life. And this is called pair-bonding. So we use prairie voles. We study what’s going on in their brains that allows them to form these bonds for life and these bonds we call them social bonds or social monogamy which means they raise young with their partner, they will defend their partner, and they will choose to spend time with their partner. But this is not the same as sexual monogamy which means they only mate with one animal or their partner. So our lab tries to figure out what’s happening in the brain that facilitates this. And we look at individual cells in the brain and how cells are connected in the brain. And we try to find the differences between animals that do form pair bonds and animals that don’t.

Arpi: So what specific question are you thinking about maybe researching soon with prairie voles?

Liza: So one of the questions I’m interested in right now is why some prairie voles form these bonds and why some don’t.  The majority of prairie voles do form these pair bonds but some do not and we don’t know why so I want to know what’s happening in the brain that’s different in voles that do form bonds and voles that don’t.

Arpi: And we talked a little bit about the importance of including LGBTQ ideas and paradigms into research like this and not sticking to more heteronormative paradigms. What are some examples in research that became problematic when they stuck to more heteronormative paradigms?

Liza: So this isn’t an example from MCDB but it is an example from the neuroscience of social behavior. A lot of people study social behavior and how animals interact with each other. And some people study mating behavior and for a long time people thought that in rats males played the active role in sexual behavior and females were just passive in allowing the male to essentially do what he wanted. And as more female researchers started to study social behavior they found that the female does actually play an active role in sexual behavior but it’s important to keep open minds when you’re looking at data like this because oftentimes people only find what they’re already looking for and the results that are found  in social behavior are often I guess to some degree based on expectations of social and sexual behavior.

Arpi: And how did you know you wanted to pursue a STEM degree and career?

Liza: I just love learning all the time. And I think research is super interesting. I am really interested in neuroscience and I decided that a PhD was a good way to continue my learning in that field and perhaps be able to do it as a career.

Arpi: And can you share some experiences about being LGBTQ in STEM?

Liza: Overall my experiences being queer in STEM have been really positive. I actually had an instance where somebody who was interviewing for my program said something homophobic to me and a professor in my department reassured me that there’s absolutely no tolerance for homophobia in our department and essentially that he would ensure me that this person would not be admitted to our program. So that was a really good feeling that somebody a professor in our department stood up for me.

Arpi: Cool. And what advice do you have for folks who are in high school, LGBTQ, and want to pursue a STEM career?

Liza: So when you get into college if you want to pursue a STEM career, it’s important to get started working in a lab and sometimes people don’t know how to do that. It’s kind of a scary process. But what I did was I just started emailing professors whose research I was interested in and saying you know that I was an undergrad and I had taken these courses and I was interested in their research. And although some professors won’t reply to you those probably aren’t professors you want to work with anyway. And you can find a mentor that way and start getting some research experience.

Arpi: Awesome. Well thanks Liza.

Liza: Thank you.

Transcribed by Sophia Ulmer