Who are you, really? On Mayim Bialik’s career as a neuroscientist and actress

Perhaps you are a scientist by day and a social media influencer by night. Or perhaps you are a secret superhero hiding behind your innocent science workbench.

I am neither of those things. For me, science has been my whole life. Since I started my PhD, I noticed that I refrained from telling people that I am doing a PhD when introducing myself. I would only say it when being asked whereas ‘little’ me would have said this proudly out loud without hesitation. Thinking about it retrospectively, I figure that I simply did not want to make the PhD my whole identity. Neuroscience is still at the forefront of things I am passionate about, but like most human beings, my interests change over time. With that comes a change in priorities: what matters most in my life and what truly makes me happy.

This is about women empowering and inspiring other women

This brings me to the topic of discussion: Dr Mayim Bialik’s career as a neuroscientist and actress. If her name is unfamiliar to you, perhaps the character Dr Amy Farrah Fowler from the hit TV sitcom, The Big Bang Theory, rings a bell. If no bells are ringing then worry not, I’ll give you a brief run through of who she is.

The four-time Emmy award nominee broke into the world of acting as a teenager. Since then, she has been cast in numerous TV shows and films. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in neuroscience and pursued a doctorate in neuroscience from UCLA whilst continuing her acting career. Her research focused on Prader-Willi syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder. She stayed in academia for another 5 years after earning her PhD, teaching neuroscience alongside some other subjects. After this, however, she decided to leave academia to pursue her other interests.

As a big fan of The Big Bang Theory show, I was excited to see a neuroscientist represented on screen. But Mayim Bialik’s ‘straight-laced’ character is rather different from the person she is in real life.

I recently listened to a podcast in which she talked about both her neuroscience and acting careers. When asked about how she got interested in science, she reminisced about a female personal tutor she had on the set of the TV show Blossom during her teenage years. The tutor was a dental undergrad at the time.

Bialik mentioned, “It was the first time I heard a woman talk about science as if it were poetry… the world is an unbelievable place and look at the details we can understand as humans. It is unbelievable because of science. I started crying when I realised how beautiful the universe is.” She went on to say that this tutor became a female role model (in science) who changed her life. The two still keep in touch to this day.

I believe this is a relatable scenario for most of us who decided to pursue neuroscience (or any field for that matter). There is often one person or one event that inspires us to pursue that field. Try and think back, who or what inspired you to be in the field you are now? More importantly, as Mayim Bialik said, it was having a female role model that was so important to her in that ‘career-defining’ moment. This is about women empowering and inspiring other women, especially in male-dominated fields.

“The field [neuroscience] needs both women and men,” Bialik eloquently said. While I do not like to dichotomise gender roles, I wholeheartedly agree with this statement in that every individual can bring different perspectives to the table. A great example was how Bialik mentioned that science was being talked about as poetry. In a more general sense, my view is that the beauty and art of neuroscience may be perceived differently by everyone, and since each individual is inspired by something different, it is important to have a diversity of viewpoints and scenarios that can inspire the younger generation.

Mayim Bialik perceives her TV role as that of a mentor, especially to younger girls - she certainly has been for me, and I’m confident to suggest that she has indeed been a role model to many other aspiring female scientists out there too.

In another interview with Forbes, she reflected on the importance and opportunity of portraying a character as a female neuroscientist on TV by saying, "To show them [younger girls] that not everyone starts as a scientist, but you can still be interested in it later in life."

Returning to the podcast interview, when asked about her decision to leave academia, she noted that she was mainly driven by her priorities as a mother. Understandably, she wanted to have more flexible hours to spend time with her kids which she did not get from a career in academia. She had her first child while she was still in graduate school and a second child soon upon finishing her doctorate degree. Although she mentioned that it was no easy task having a newborn while doing a doctorate degree, she was sure of what she wanted in life. Personally, I admire her for taking this bold step and knowing what she wanted.

Bialik returned to acting and now she has multiple projects including having a podcast and YouTube channel of her own, writing and publishing books and, of course, advocating for women in STEM. This brings me to my point at the beginning: our priorities and sources of happiness change over time. Mayim Bialik started off as an actress, then she became a neuroscientist, a mother, an author, and so on. Even though people will mainly identify her as an actress, she is still all those things. It was never ‘one or the other’. And although she is not in academia anymore, she still speaks fondly of her passion for neuroscience; she will remain a neuroscientist no matter what career she pursues.

So, if I were to ask myself “who am I, really?” I would say that I am a neuroscientist (or rather, still a PhD candidate but I guess it counts somewhat), a writer, a baker, a runner, an artist, and many others. And who are you? You can be anything you want to be! Cliché, I know, but it is true nonetheless and you can shape your identity however you want it to be.

---

This article was written by Adriana Zainurin and edited by Ailie McWhinnie. Interested in writing for WiN UK yourself? Contact us through the blog page and the editors will be in touch!