Ida Chow is the Executive Director of the Society for Development Biology (SDB). As well as managing the society, Ida organises and participates in many of the society's educational and outreach events. We caught up with Ida at the recent SDB Annual Meeting to ask her about her background and to find out more about the various SDB-run activities that she's involved in.

Most people know you as the face of the SDB – the person who manages all of the society's activities – but can you tell us a bit more about your background and what you did before you joined the SDB?

Before I joined the SDB, I was a faculty member at American University in Washington DC, USA. I was working on the development of neuromuscular junctions using Xenopus as a model. Prior to that, as part of my PhD (in Physiology from McGill University in Montreal, Canada), I studied the distribution of acetylcholine receptors in Xenopus; and as a post-doc (at University of California Irvine) I worked more as an electrophysiologist and cell biologist, looking at communication between nerves and muscle cells in culture during synaptogenesis. While I was at American University, David McClay, who was the SDB President at the time, asked me if I could help out with running the SDB, which at the time was being managed by FASEB (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology). I thought ‘why not?’ and that's how I first got involved with the society.

Was the move from teaching/academia to working for the SDB an easy transition to make?

Well, it was pretty much a necessary move for me. My family and I had recently moved from California to Washington DC, and my husband and daughter weren't keen on moving again. A lot of the jobs that were available at the time in the area involved molecular biology, which was something that I just wasn't interested in. So the job at the SDB seemed quite appealing. I initially worked for the SDB as well as for the Society for Leukocyte Biology, so it was a full-time job and kept me busy, with full benefits. Of course, I really missed the lab – the first couple of years were really tough and I definitely had some sort of withdrawal symptoms and missed tinkering about in the lab. But over time, I started to become really enthusiastic and excited about what the society could do for the larger community. I changed my line of thought and started to think about what I could do to help out. I became a full-time member of the SDB staff and gradually got more and more involved. When I retire, I think I'll go back to doing science…but as a post-doc in someone else's lab!

When I retire, I think I'll go back to doing science…but as a post-doc in someone else's lab!

Can you tell us a bit more about your role and responsibilities as Executive Director of the SDB – what's an average day like for you?

Well, a typical day involves any combination of the duties I have, depending on time of the year and deadlines (as it's very important to keep oneself on track). With assistance from the SDB staff (of two: Marsha and Sophia) I deal with: continuing the SDB programs, Board activities, membership-related issues, meeting planning and organizing, grant proposals and report writing, budget and accounting, liaison with other scientific societies and institutions on common interests, participation in meetings and workshops, and other routine office activities.

You've been heavily involved in the ‘Choose Development!’ programme, which aims to increase the diversity of undergraduates wishing to pursue a career in developmental biology. What was the motivation behind this programme?

I had been thinking for a while that we – the society – needed to somehow integrate people, especially the under-served, under-represented populations in science, who would like to be involved in science and research but just don't have the opportunity. At that time (in 2010), the National Science Foundation (NSF) was running a pilot programme that aimed to broaden participation and encourage first-generation students and under-represented minorities to take up science. So I attended a NSF workshop together with Graciela Unguez (a faculty at New Mexico State University) and Karen Bennett (University of Missouri), who was Chair of the SDB's Professional Development and Education Committee at the time, to find out more. We came back, wrote a proposal, applied for a grant…and got it! The main purpose of the grant is to give people more than ‘one shot’ – you need to give people multiple opportunities to find their way and actually stay on in science. So we set up the ‘Choose Development!’ programme, which allows undergraduate students to spend one or two summers actually doing research in a SDB member's lab. The students learn how to do research but they also receive tutoring and mentoring on life in science, and how to progress into a research career. They go to the SDB annual meetings to present their previous summer's research results and are introduced to the community; this was another key aim of the initiative: for them to have a sense of belonging to the developmental biology community.

And do you feel that it has been successful?

Yes! We got the grant for 3 years initially but it was extended for an extra year. Of the 17 fellows who have now graduated, of a total of 25 who were accepted into the programme, 13 have now gone into graduate school or medical school. So, it's been a small initiative but a very successful one. Unfortunately, the NSF programme was terminated, and there aren't many other funds that we can apply for, but we're trying to partner up with some of the host schools to share the costs. The SDB Board has been very supportive and enthusiastic about the programme so I hope we can continue.

The SDB also runs a productive ‘Boot Camp’ for pre-tenured faculty. When and how was this programme set up?

I helped to set this up but there were lots of other people in the SDB who helped too; that's the great thing about the SDB – there are so many people who are enthusiastic and willing to get involved. Many years ago, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund used to offer training schemes for post-docs, but they decided to pass this responsibility on to scientific societies. So they put out a call for societies to attend a workshop to find out more about how they could help. Karen Bennett and I went to one of these workshops and learned a lot about what we could do to help post-docs and junior faculty, and how to run professional development programmes. We came back and thought, ‘Hey, we can do this’. So I went out and bought two Drill Sergeant hats! We thought a lot about what pre-tenured faculty need and designed a ‘Boot Camp’ programme around this. It covers lots of things: what's active learning, how to develop a course syllabus, how to navigate the politics on a university campus, how to work effectively with others, manage a lab, and so on. We also have a few lab sessions, like on specific research organisms and how to set up an animal facility. The first ‘Boot Camp’ was held in 2006 just before one of the SDB annual meetings and was a huge success so we've been holding them every other year since; the one we held earlier this year in Portland was the seventh one. It's a lot of fun, and the feedback we get has been very positive. We also have former ‘campers’ progressing to being Drill Sergeants! Importantly, we try to make sure that the programme evolves as times change. For example, at the most recent Boot Camps we included discussions on unintended/unconscious biases, and how to be aware of them and avoid them.

Teaching and education also seem to be huge priorities for you. In fact, you were awarded the 2016 SDB Viktor Hamburger Outstanding Educator Prize for your outstanding contributions to developmental biology education. I've always noted that education and teaching sessions feature quite prominently in SDB meetings – can you tell us more about this?

The society has always incorporated education into its activities – it's in the SDB's mission statement. We recognise that we need to reach out and teach people more about developmental biology, and one way of doing this is to engage with the younger generation and speak their language. If you want people to understand what you're doing, you need to be able to communicate and convey the knowledge, whether you're talking to a fellow scientist, a child or your grandmother! We need to tell people at all levels about developmental biology, how things develop and how we can use different organisms to study development. So we try to make sure that the SDB also trains its members on how to be effective educators and communicators.

We need to reach out and teach people more about developmental biology, and one way of doing this is to engage with the younger generation and speak their language.

You've also been involved in various outreach activities, coordinating the SDB's participation in the USA Science and Engineering Festival. How has this been received by attendees – do they get excited by developmental biology? Should we be doing more to act as advocates for the field?

It's been really well received! The kids in particular just love it. When we go to these fairs, we take microscopes and developing embryos such as frog and zebrafish embryos. We've also taken some planaria so that people can understand regeneration; we make cuts in the lab and then show people the different stages of regeneration. The great thing is that we've had lots of different students and principal investigators, mainly SDB members, help out, and Marsha Lucas has done a great job of coordinating their participation. Many people have never seen a microscope or looked down one so they're often amazed and fascinated by what they see. Sometimes you run into problems: I remember we were once showing a young girl some frog embryos and talking about development and evolution, and her mum came up and dragged her away, saying that what we were doing was ‘dangerous’ and ‘evil’ because we talked about evolution! The poor little girl just wanted to see the embryos and find out more but wasn't allowed. It's quite eye-opening, for both us and them, and gives us a reality check. Incidents like this also remind you that people have different opinions so we need to understand how to reach out and, again, speak the right language to make people understand why what we do as scientists is important. There's a lot more to be done.

The nature of developmental biology also raises a lot of ethical issues, and this is something that we also need to be aware of and sensitive to. For this reason, I have also participated in some events involving the US Congress, aiming to tell them more about the actual science behind issues such as cloning, in vitro fertilization and stem cells. It's hard to know if and how this actually affects the decisions and policies they go on to make but I think we need to at least try to communicate with people like this.

Of all of these activities – outreach, education, faculty training, tackling diversity – which do you personally find the most enjoyable?

I think I really love getting people with different backgrounds to come together – to do things together, to be inclusive and not be prejudiced. So I guess all of these SDB activities are part of this, but my culminating aim is to bring people together and see and understand that there are different ways of thinking, and not ‘my way or the highway’. It's been quite stimulating. When I started working for the SDB over 20 years ago, the society members were primarily white, Caucasians, but with good female participation. Over the years, as more and more people gravitated towards the field, we've started to see so much more diversity. As a result, I think developmental biology has become much more inclusive as a community, and this has been great to see.

If you have a passion for something, you'll be more likely to overcome any difficulties or barriers that you come across.

And what would be your advice to young researchers starting out in developmental biology today?

I think the main thing is to do what you really have a passion for – if you have a passion for something, you'll be more likely to overcome any difficulties or barriers that you come across. If you really enjoy what you're doing, you for sure will have a brighter outlook on everything. Also, keep your mind open as there is always a lesson to be learned.

Finally, what would people be surprised to find out about you?

I guess most people are always surprised to find out that I'm more Brazilian (as I grew up in Brazil) than Chinese. Also, people are surprised to find out that I have a twin sister. In fact, my parents didn't know that they were having twins so even they were surprised. Guess what, there are two of us!

You can find out more about the SDB and their activities at their website: www.sdbonline.org