Stories that Inspire: UVA’s STEM Storytellers on the Hill

On April 3rd, Carr’s Hill hosted its third annual “Story Collider: STEM Storytellers on the Hill” event. Four distinguished community members -- Stephanie Rowley, Bill Petri, Kathryn Thornton and Scott Acton -- each shared anecdotes about struggles they faced in their careers.

Among the more than 75 attendees was UVA President Jim Ryan.

“I deeply believe that the more we learn of each other's stories, the stronger of a community we’ll be. And my hope is that, as you leave here, not only will you leave knowing the stories that you're going to hear. But you'll leave more curious about the stories of others. That is, I think, the power of this event,” Ryan said.

A Charmed Life

Stephanie Rowley, a professor of education and the dean of the School of Education and Human Development, remembered thriving in graduate school. Many even said she lived a charmed life. She didn’t encounter a major obstacle in her career until she got her first professorial job at the University of North Carolina.

Rowley struggled to get a paper published in her first year as a professor. She slowly came to realize that her former collaborators had focused on the written content of her previous articles while she concentrated on the statistics. This led her to struggle to explain the importance of her research in her papers. Rowley would need to improve her writing ability if she wanted to get published.

Rowley embraced the vulnerability that comes with asking for help and reached out to her graduate school friends. Rowley received helpful feedback from her former classmates, and eventually published her first paper.

Read the full story at the UVA Research News website.