Explaining scientific findings to the public can be just as important—and nearly as challenging—as performing the research itself. With experience in both science writing and behavioral neuroscience, Amanda Dettmer, PhD, not only conducts research but also writes about her discoveries and those of her colleagues: An associate research scientist at the Yale Child Study Center with a secondary appointment in the department of pediatrics, she also collaborates with the school’s Office of Communications. "This job is really exciting for me because I get to wear two different hats—researcher and science writer—that I rotate and sometimes wear at the same time," she says.
Building on 20 years of experience studying nonhuman primates, Dettmer now searches for biomarkers of chronic stress in monkeys that can help us better understand child development. She also writes articles and newsletters for her colleagues at Yale and the general public to promote the concept that behavioral and physical health are intertwined.
The Monitor spoke to Dettmer about her unique position and how she got it.
What do you do at the Yale Child Study Center?
Part of my job is to help develop a strategic plan to bridge communications between the Child Study Center and the School of Medicine’s department of pediatrics. The Child Study Center studies behavioral and mental health to help children and their families live more fulfilling lives, while pediatrics focuses primarily on children’s physical health. Largely due to psychological research, we know that these areas are intertwined. My task is to communicate both internally and externally about the connection between mental and physical health and to leverage science across departments to further this message.
Through newsletters and news stories for departments, schools and alumni at Yale, I communicate externally to policymakers, educators, parents and the broader community.
For example, I’m writing a story for the Yale School of Medicine’s alumni magazine, Yale Medicine Magazine, about a colleague at the Child Study Center who just received funding to build a state-of-the-art two-photon microscope to study startle responses in zebrafish, which may eventually reveal genetic biomarkers for autism spectrum disorder.
On the research side, before I came to the Child Study Center, I studied rhesus monkeys as models of child development and looked for biomarkers of chronic stress from the prenatal stage all the way into adulthood. I’m continuing that research here, but rather than working with a live monkey lab, I’m using an archive of biological and behavioral data that I collected with my former colleagues at the National Institutes of Health. I analyze compounds in various biological samples, such as hormones in hair, to assess how early life experiences—both prenatally and postnatally—shape an individual’s resiliency against or risk for chronic stress. I compare this information with additional data about how those individuals develop behaviorally, socially and cognitively.
Where did you get the training and experience needed for this job?
My path was rather circuitous, which is one reason I developed the tools and the expertise to be able to do both science writing and research. I’ve always been an animal lover, and after studying honeybees through a program for local high school students at the University of California, Riverside, I chose to major in zoology at the University of Washington in Seattle. That’s where I had my first experience with monkeys—studying pigtail macaques in the university’s Infant Primate Research Lab—and learned how they could be models for human development.
I did my doctoral studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, then worked with aging monkeys as models of Parkinson’s disease at the University of Pittsburgh, where I learned to do primate neurosurgery. After that, I spent five years working with Dr. Stephen Suomi at his Laboratory of Comparative Ethology in Poolesville, Maryland, which is part of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. It was there that I returned to my passion for developmental work in primate models.
In 2017, I was fortunate to be awarded APA’s Executive Branch Science Fellowship, an annual science and technology policy fellowship. I worked at the Institute of Education Sciences, an independent branch of the U.S. Department of Education that funds research into pre-K through postsecondary education. My husband is a public Montessori elementary school teacher, and it’s clear to me that the school environment is one of the key early life experiences that shapes child development, so I was interested in exploring the intersection of science and education.
I credit that yearlong experience, as well as others in the advocacy realm, with learning how to write for general audiences. I wrote materials for federal workers and blog posts for the public, and I am an editor and committee member for the website Speaking of Researchopens in new window, which covers animal-based research.
How did you find out about this job?
One thing I’ve learned along the way in my career is that it’s absolutely all about who you know. I want to underscore the importance of establishing and maintaining professional networks because you never know where they will lead you.
I had met Dr. Linda Mayes, the director of the Child Study Center, through my professional network when I worked in Dr. Suomi’s lab. While working in his lab, I traveled to the Child Study Center several times to give talks on my research into prenatal and early postnatal development in rhesus monkeys. Those early meetings ultimately led Dr. Mayes to recruit me for the science writing and research position.
How do you use your psychology training in your job?
There are aspects of psychology that are foundational to the research that I do, primarily comparative psychology, the study of animals and humans. Because of my training in this area, I’ve been able to study how monkeys behave and how their brains and bodies operate, which has given me greater insight into how humans behave.
But there’s a secondary way, too, which is just the way that you interact personally with people you work with. Understanding psychology has been immensely helpful in dealing with work conflicts, strategizing and problem-solving. I think psychology can really be helpful to your career in more ways than one might think.
What’s a typical day like for you?
There’s not really one typical day here at this job, which is part of what makes it exciting. But my day will generally take one of two paths: one where I have back-to-back events scheduled—a meeting with the Yale School of Medicine’s communications team or a research talk from a prospective candidate, for instance—that are both science writing and research related. On other days, I schedule work blocks where I have no meetings—that’s when I get the majority of my writing and research work done.
What is challenging about your job? What do you enjoy most?
The thing that is most challenging is what is also most rewarding—constantly trying to figure out how to balance the science writing and research roles. Sometimes it seems like there aren’t enough hours in the day.
The rewarding aspect is that I feel very lucky to be able to do it all. I’m not confined to research, and when I get frustrated or feel like I’ve run out of bandwidth for research, I can switch gears and focus on something else. I can use a different skill set for a while and still accomplish something.
What else should readers know about your job?
The other aspect of my work that has been most challenging is overcoming the anti-animal research movement. It’s a powerful movement that has directly affected my career, because People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals heavily targeted Dr. Suomi’s lab when I worked there. Even more concerning, the anti-animal research movement is interfering with the advancement of knowledge, which ultimately has implications for public health.
It’s important for the public to know just how much people engaged in animal-based research love and care for animals. It’s not something we always communicate well to the public and we need to do better at that.
