I Wanted the Wrong Things

Emily Ashkin met Nobel laureate J. Michael Bishop at a high school science fair. At the time, Emily didn't feel like she belonged and Bishop gave her advice that still comforts her today.

How do you explain complicated science and not put people to sleep? How do you balance home life with a career?  PhD student Martyna Kosno talks about it with Jennifer Doudna. Doudna won the Nobel Prize in 2020 for her discovery of the gene-editing tool CRISPR–Cas9.

When MD-PhD student David Basta started his PhD, he thought he wanted a mentor who would tell him exactly what to do. Instead, he got a helpful lesson in failure from his principal investigator, Dianne Newman -- a MacArthur-Award-winning microbiologist.

Kwabena Kusi-Mensah, a child psychiatrist from Ghana, meets one of his scientific heroes: Harold Freeman. Early in his career, Harold Freeman recognized that poor Black Americans were disproportionately dying from cancer. He made it his mission to change that.

When Dina Zamil was growing up, the people around her discouraged her from going to medical school. She took inspiration from Eqbal Dauqan, a biochemist and refugee from Yemen, who has succeeded in science despite enormous obstacles.

Andrew Tran struggled with self-doubt. But Andrew's obsession with instant ramen led him to a scientist who changed his perspective. He learned about Barry Marshall, who discovered the cause of ulcers by taking matters into his own gut. 

How do you silence the naysayers or manage your self-doubt? Is there an upside to failure? On Dial an Idol, emerging scientists and physicians call their scientific heroes for guidance. They get advice that's useful whether you want to be a scientist or anything else.