This post could also be titled: I have some news and this is how I’m going to tell you, in a retrospective. Volume 1. Also, I’ve turned on comments and likes here so you can use this platform to communicate, too!

I don’t spend as much time on Facebook these days as I used to (and if you’re reading this linked from there, it’s only because of you and people like you that I love who are there and I don’t want to lose touch with that I’m still sticking around at all, but consider subscribing to this newsletter instead so there’s a consistent place when Facebook inevitably gets even worse than it already is, or you can find me on any of these places from my Linktree), but sometimes I check in and there’s a memory post, up front and center.

“ON THIS DAY,” it says, “YOU MADE A POST ABOUT THE FOURTEEN FRIENDS ON YOUR LIST THAT YOU WOULD TAKE WITH YOU ON A ZOMBIE FIGHT IN THE OUTBACK.” Or it keeps shoving pictures up your feed of your deceased dog who you miss terribly or extraordinary weekends with your deceased friends you miss terribly or your old pirate group that you miss the good memories and a few of the people from but really not the overall constant levels of stress it caused you. Haha, GREAT JOB, FACEBOOK!

Today, however, that shout is accompanied by my thumb instead of my middle finger, because it has shown me a truth about a specific cycle in my life. When it comes to my history, Academia loves June 18th.¹ She rolls up like Miss Rhode Island in Miss Congeniality: "June 18th is the perfect date. Not too hot, not too cold, all you need is a light gown with velvet chevrons and a dope hood or two." So, here’s the history ON THIS DAY, per Facebook, a journey, etc..

16 years ago today…

I was working in my second lab as a Research Assistant II at OHSU, studying what happened to the brains of offspring of parents exposed to cigarette smoke and pesticides. (I published a pretty solid paper with them, it’s under my maiden name, you can read it here.) Now that I’m in charge of a lab, it’s very clear that Baby Scientist Jessica did not understand how grants worked, really. We were waiting on an organizational grant, which meant faster decision and money turnaround times, but it would have still meant at least a month off, not back to work immediately. I was starting to interview for other jobs (including the one I would start that August with the guy who would eventually become my graduate advisor and even later than that my son’s godfather), but I really liked the work I was doing.

That lab, sadly, did not get that funding, but Dr. Kisby went on to get other funding and re-establish his lab at Western University of Health Sciences. He’s now an Emeritus Professor and I hope is enjoying his retirement.

15 years ago today…

Testing laboratory eyewear in the Morgan Lab and making my colleagues across the hall laugh. I like to make people laugh. I was responsible for all of the high risk HPV testing at OHSU for several years (mostly cervical swabs but not exclusively, as we published some interesting HPV-and-other-site tumor data here!) and got to conduct it inside these colleagues’ lab where they were doing hundreds of tests for various diseases, including very rare ones. A few years later, OHSU would end up downsizing or demoting all the senior people who could test for some of those rare diseases, choosing to outsource the testing instead of keeping the expertise in-house, because of funding cuts. If you can’t get your weird rare genetic disease diagnosed in a few years, thank the people who keep shutting off scientific funds. The money from HPV testing would help keep the Morgan Lab research afloat for several years after I moved from tech to grad student until eventually that would be outsourced as well. The research I got to do in that time, though, helped shape my ideas for my graduate studies: why would the placenta be different if the baby was male versus female, and how did maternal high blood pressure instigate further changes? 8 years later, I’d put out a whole dissertation about it. It’s right there, and you can keep scrolling for what happened the day we celebrated it.

11 years ago today.

I have no idea why people think we do this. We do look at the colors of things. When I collect mouse urine (they pee down a funnel designed for their cage into a little tube, I don’t squeeze them, this is a conversation for another time) I guess I look at the urine like this? Scientists get asked to pose like this a lot, though. Here’s me and two friends, Lauriel and Ashleigh, all PhDs and dress-up enthusiasts, mocking this trope. This was also around the time that women were accused by a Nobel Laureate of being detrimental to the lab environment because “they fall in love with you and then they cry” so women scientists all did “distractingly sexy” things. Also known as JUST DOING OUR DAMN JOBS. This attitude continues to harm women trying to do science in 2025, so that’s super.

7 years and one day ago.

One of the happiest days of my life was getting to finally get hooded by my PhD advisor in front of my family and friends and thousands of strangers, most of whom had no idea what the hell a hood even was. Do you flip it over your head and pretend you’re a cool mysterious rapper? Do you use it to carry your wallet or lipstick like a purse? Do you wrap it like a fashionable scarf? Yes, because I did all those things.

But aside from being The Baddest Accessory in Academia, the hood has HISTORY. The colors MEAN THINGS. For instance, mine is a sapphire blue velvet trim around the outside, with a green lined hood. The lining represents your university (Portland State), and the trim is your program (for me, Doctor in Philosophy). The hoods are rad, and honestly, one of the draws for me to go to grad school, because I love them so much.

Also advancing science and studying the field that brings me joy and trying to improve the health of pregnant people and their babies, I suppose. That was a good reason to go.

Here are some more FUN FACTS about this day 7 years ago:

• I was the first member of my entire extended family to receive a PhD. That’s why it stands for “Parents Have Doubts.” I was also the first person in my family line to get a Bachelors. I’m as First Gen as they get and now I’ve ruined it for my kid.

• My PhD is in Biology because that’s PSU’s major program, which meant that I taught a wide swath of things to undergraduates in my time there, from basic plant biology to invertebrate systems to human anatomy and physiology (6 cadavers, no waiting, step on up!) to cell and molecular biology.

• The only three required classes for graduate students at PSU Biology are all in your first year: Prospectus (how to put together your proposal), Grantwriting (get that money), and Ethics (should be required for EVERYONE). I have a great story about the first week of Ethics. For the future.

• Speaking of ethics, I was the first one in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) ceremony to be hooded and diplomaed by Dr. Rahmat Shoureshi, who was the President of PSU at the time. It was his only year of commencement as he was ousted less than a year later for ethical concerns, staff mistreatment, and suspected funds mismanagement. Should’ve taken Bi 520 Ethics, man. It was right there.

• I was chosen to be one of two student speakers at commencement representing the 2018 class. I spoke on behalf of the graduate class. I remember talking about my roots. It was short. I used weird glass teleprompters. I don’t remember what I said but someone I interviewed for a job years later said, “I REMEMBER YOUR SPEECH!” and that was both terrifying and heartening. If you want to hear my speech, it’s actually still part of the ceremony and you can see it right here about 1 hour, 22 minutes. I just rewatched it. They made me take, like, five teaching workshops coached by the theater department professors and good lord you can tell, it feels overwrought to me but they were so insistent on emPHAsis for FEEEEELINGS. It’s still pretty good.

• I then had to sit on the stage for the next forever and look as serious as I could until I realized that no one around me on the dais was doing that and were going off the bathroom or sending memes to their awful friends in the audience. At least that last part was what happened to me and it was great. Everyone might all look very officious up there but they are not, turns out.

• The green thing my mom’s wearing the photo is called a Gratitude Stole. It is a way for Portland State to make more money off you help you express gratitude to the people who encouraged your journey. You buy it and write something to the people you’re going to give it to, and then wear it in your ceremony to gift to them later as a thank you. I wore this one for my parents, who took some college classes when Erica and I were kids and didn’t get degrees but always told us both that we would go to college. And we did. (I wore another one at my departmental commencement to gift to my advisor, as his first and so far only graduate student, it hangs in his office.)

• Afterwards we walked out and the clear day became a crazy raging thunderstorm very suddenly and we all got soaked through, but then I drank beer with a bunch of people, including a priest.

6 years ago…

Oh, sweet summer child.

A few weeks after I graduated with cheers of “No more 60+ hour workweeks! Yay work life balance and getting paid what I’m worth!”, I started my job as a postdoctoral fellow in a placenta research lab. The first few months were wonderful. I was working with human samples. I loved learning the new techniques and brainstorming future ideas. I thought I was just getting my feet under me enough so that my new boss would give me some independence.

By this time, though, the bloom was off the rose. I was a year in and feeling pretty discouraged, even as I tried to keep my spirits up. I worked very long hours. The pay was bad. I cried a lot. I was in a yo-yo relationship with my boss and department. I ended up transitioning into more intensive therapy and restarting medication because I was so depressed and couldn’t understand why nothing ever felt like it was good enough. I was trying so hard to prove myself to someone who was never going to let me do that.

It got worse. I struggled for another year. I am really grateful to my husband and my therapists and my sister and the friends who surrounded me then. On occasion, I could almost believe I didn’t deserve this and that my science was worth something. Sometimes I could almost believe that I was worth something.

Those were some of the worst days of my life. It was rough as hell. But I didn’t die. That’s worth something, too.

5 years ago.

And then a brilliant light.

After another year of a yo-yo work environment where the string just kept dropping me lower and lower to the ground, it became evident that one way or another I had to go. We were in the throes of early COVID so I was writing at home and while we were technically not supposed to be in the lab at all I was being required to still show up to the lab a couple times a week to “check on freezers.” Applying and interviewing for other positions ended up becoming a huge boon to my self esteem because I got at least one interview for 11 of the 12 applications I sent out. I considered postdoc fellowships and senior research associate jobs and even one cool job in biotech, but the moment I had the first phone call with Mike, I knew. He listened to my ideas immediately and got excited about what we could do TOGETHER. He was the one with the grant funding but was on board to hear where I was going, what I was passionate about, and how we could collaborate, right from the jump. He was funny and kind. It was clear he cared about the research and the people doing it. Mike hadn’t uttered the word placenta in a research context until I arrived, and now he’s almost as invested in the kidney-placenta connection as I am. I had to turn down a job offer and an interview that might have been closer immediate fits because I had a really good gut feeling that this is was where I needed to be. Mike was my boss for nearly four years, but even more than that, he was and remains now my mentor and closest scientific ally. I am endlessly grateful for him and his support.

I knew that despite not being one of my references, because it was internal the new department would have to call my old boss. Mike literally told me, on this blessed day: “Unless they tell me you were snorting all the lab cocaine or axe murdering technicians, we’re fine.” And the old boss did try to sink me, saying I wasn’t creative or motivated, and had no future as a scientist. Mike’s response to the worried admin: “I’ve met her, and when you meet her, you’ll know it’s not true.” He was and is the literal best, and I’ve done everything I can to try to prove his faith in me true.

If you want to read one of the most beautiful, surprising, approachable introductions to a scientific paper that’s been written in the last five years, take two minutes to read the Introduction to the paper below that Mike and I wrote (with then-fellow postdoc Yoshio Funahashi) on the consequences of acute kidney injury. Basketball! Latin! Kidneys! Also, it contains the acronym “SHReDD” (stroke, hypertension, reproductive risk, dementia, and death) which I coined and is now starting to be used by the larger kidney community and brings me such joy. The paper is called “Harm! Foul! How AKI SHReDDs Patient Futures,” it’s free here.

Speaking of not axe-murdering technicians, a slight detour up to the moment: we ended up hiring a magnificent tech to work directly with me that fall, and then she took over the project when I got funding for kidney-placenta work 9 months after I started (appropriately). Megan later moved on to biotech in CA, and now works for someone we know in the field who rocks at Stanford. This last weekend, Megan flew up for the Oregon Ren Faire and we got to spend the day hanging out together. If she keeps sticking her head in the stocks, she might get axe murdered, but IT WON’T BE BY ME. So I kept my end of the bargain.

I’m sniffing because of allergies. I haven’t seen any white powder.

Today.

I’ve gotten this far and I think I’ve figured out why my husband sometimes looks at me aghast when I’m telling a story. “You’re four layers down here,” he will say to me, exasperatedly. I am, probably. But it all seems important to the story, and look, if you want to tell this tale then GET YOUR OWN BLOG, HEBERT.² (I love him so much.)

So let’s accelerate.

5 years ago in July I joined the Hutchens Lab, got my own funding for a few years, worked my ass off and got mentored by some serious badasses and also got very lucky, and ended up getting a grant last May (thank you, American Heart Association!) and a spot in a fantastic fellowship (thank you, OCTRI and NIH NCATS!) in August. I was promoted to Instructor by Nephrology, my wonderful new division, last May, and then promoted AGAIN to Assistant Professor in February. I’m doing research I love to help figure out what’s going on in pregnancy after parents have kidney injuries, mentor a shared technician who is stupendously skilled and runs all my data wrangling-molecular assays-histology needs, and teaching a little. This fall, I’ll be the new co-director of the Human Physiology course for OHSU’s Graduate Program for Biomedical Sciences, the precursor of which I interviewed for twice as a student and didn’t get in. And now I teach in it. Wild. It’s not quite revenge, but it’s definitely sweet.

On top of this, as part of my required Training Plans To Be Gooder At Science, I’ve been taking workshops and classes. Continuing to learn is important in any job, but especially in research. In particular, about four years ago I started in the OHSU Human Investigations Program with their series of courses about how to bridge the gap between basic science (like holding up test tubes and staring at them, but also all the other real science that happens at the lab level) and clinical research (observing and treating conditions in actual people). That bridge between is called translational science, and it’s where I want to be. The fellowship I was in as a postdoc and the one I’m in now continued to pay for courses, so I kept taking them: Project Management, Organizational Leadership, Biostatistics, just a course or two every term and the credits started to rack up.

Last winter, I was notified I had enough credits that if I stayed on track I could graduate with a Certificate in Human Investigations this summer, which was great! Actual recognition that I learned things instead of just a list, that sounds awesome! I applied and got accepted, and was supposed to graduate about two weeks ago from the Certificate program.

Except. About two months ago, an update: “So you could get your Certificate, but we noticed you’re only 9 credits short if you want to do something else…”

And so, instead of graduating two weeks ago, I filled out some forms, and on June 18, 2025, this happened.

With my current credits, I will complete OHSU’s Master of Clinical Research degree by the end of the next academic year. I finished my second final for 6 months of Biostatistics courses this week. This summer, I’m taking two courses back to back, one night a week. In the fall and winter, it’ll be a course one night a week and a seminar one night a week. In the spring, a course for about 6 weeks. And then I’m done.

So why do this? I have a full time job and a PhD already, what’s an MCR going to do?

• It seems like a shame to get this close and not get it, especially since the fabulous OCTRI KL2 grant program is paying for my courses.

• I really wanted to take these courses anyway, they’re good for my scientific development. I’ve been taking 1-2 courses a term for a couple years at this point anyway. It’s still a time investment, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve put in this much, let’s go the last mile.

• An MCR is more than just research, it’s also about administration and organizational leadership, which are skills I’ve been developing and areas I want to be involved in as my career progresses. Getting this degree formalized on my CV/resume shows that I’m serious about that and hopefully gives me an avenue to that progression and positions in a few years.

• I’ve always been envious of clinical personnel who get to add more and more alphabet soup after their names with accreditations: Beronica Bumbles, RN, CNA, RSVP, BBQ, MLA, OMG. I’d be Dr. Jess Hebert, PhD, MCR. SOUP.

• DOUBLE HOOD

TECHNICALLY, you’re only supposed to wear the hood of your highest level degree. I’ve already got a PhD so that’s that.

However. Did you know. That no one can STOP YOU from getting the hood. And it’s a DIFFERENT hood.

And I want to be Dr. Jessica Two Hoods.

WHAT WILL I DO WITH A SECOND HOOD?

• Turn both into a stylish sarong dress like they wear on Survivor

• Carry someone’s infant in it like an academic Baby Bjorn³

• Stack them one on top of the other and make a double layered deep wizard hood and run a deranged D&D game

• Fill them both with snacks and throw packets of them at people in celebration

• Take suggestions from people what to do with two hoods and make another excessively long post about trying them out

It’s going to be a busy fall as I take on my first big teaching position as a faculty member, start the last year of coursework for the MCR, and write my next big grant, but I think in the long run it’s going to be worth it. The science is worth it. My family and career and future are worth it.

That is a long way to come from 16 years ago, when I didn’t know if I’d have a job in a week. From 7 years ago, with a fresh PhD and uncertainty about what came next. From 6 years ago, where I wasn’t sure how much longer I could stay in academia, and to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t even sure if I could keep surviving at all. But I am here. And I did survive. And I’m doing the thing.

I am worth this.

1  I know this is being posted on June 19th. It took me a couple days to write all of this because once I got into it I got IN.TO.IT. and I have a job and toddler and things. Please enjoy it anyway.

2  To which he replies, “THAT’S YOUR LAST NAME, TOO” but it’s been his for longer, so I think it makes a better pseudo-expletive the other way.

3  Appropriately I know someone who will have an infant about the right size by then so I hope they will let me swaddle their wee one in ACADEMIC REGALIA