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The Women in Science and Medicine podcast features discussions with female scientists within West Virginia University and other institutions. In this series, we’ll share the achievements and insights from some of the country’s top female scientists and learn from their experiences to understand how they came to be passionate about science and overcame any obstacles in their paths. This podcast is offered by West Virginia University’s Office of Research and Graduate Education.
Welcome to West Virginia University's Women in Science and Medicine podcast, brought to you by the Health Sciences Center's Office of Research and Graduate Education. We talk to women with careers in these fields, gaining their insight into what it's like operating in roles that are still mostly dominated by men.
I'm your host, Mallory Weaver, and today we are continuing our series by speaking to yet another WVU alum. Joining me today is Dr. Amanda Stover, Assistant Professor at Clemson University in their Department of Public Health Services. Welcome to the show, Amanda. Thanks so much for being here.
Thank you very much for having me. It's nice to be here.
And I did not call you Dr. Stover or for our listeners. When Amanda was a student here, we had a good deal of contact with each other because she was on one of our T32 training programs of which I was a part of assisting in terms of purchasing for the students. So, it's good to see you again.
Yeah, it's great to see you too. So, Amanda, can you just Tell us briefly about your education and the path that led you to your role. Yeah, sure. So, I actually started my education at what was formerly known as Wheeling Jesuit University. And I started out as a psychology and chemistry double major.
I originally had wanted to go pre-med, but I sort of fell in love with doing research and I got really involved in research. I then decided to pursue a PhD at University of Cincinnati and it didn't work out. So I took a job in the Department of Psychiatry where I ended up getting my Master's in Public Health and Biostatistics and I got put on a project with the CDC where I was looking at hepatitis C surveillance and I worked on a project with some data from the local syringe exchange, and I have been invited to do a presentation for the Appalachian Translational Regional Network, and I started noticing this pattern in rural areas where people were endorsing really high rates of suicide attempt.
And that changed my dissertation work that I would eventually do at WVU, when my mentors both left University of Cincinnati, went to West Virginia University and took me with them. And I had the opportunity to get on the T32 grant when I came to West Virginia, which actually allowed me to do all of my own dissertation research.
And I started asking questions about people who had primarily opioid use disorder and why this group of people was at a much higher rate of things like depression and mental health problems and what eventually would lead them to harming themselves. Sure. And I was really, really passionate about why people, particularly in rural areas, That have these really high rates of isolation and really low rates of access to health care had problems with receiving adequate resources to health care and why they were sort of, you know, having all of these additional problems.
That we weren't addressing, and I just became really passionate about that, and I got my PhD in Health Services and Outcomes Research, and I saw that need for a more holistic approach to treatment, instead of just, okay, well, we've treated your infectious disease, or we've treated your addiction, to start thinking about taking it a step back.
You know, what led you to the past? That, you know, you started actually using your substance of choice or what caused you to start struggling with your mental health? And how do I bridge the gap between the two? Sure. I can only imagine how very closely linked those two things are addiction and mental health.
And I think it's extraordinary to dive in and explore that connection further. That's really important, especially to Appalachia, as you, as you mentioned. Yeah, and Appalachia has just always been very close to my heart. And, you know, growing up outside of West Virginia, Southern Pennsylvania, I really, really just love the area.
It's so beautiful and the people are so rich with culture. I just, really love serving that area in a meaningful way. Well, we certainly miss you. So, can you remember when you were much younger either girl in school or young woman, what really inspired you to really focus on the sciences as a general?
Yeah, it was an elementary school teacher. Her name was fantastic. Yeah. And I actually was really into like astronomy and space. And originally thought I had wanted to be an astrophysicist until I took high school physics and I realized that was a little bit over my, it was a little bit out of my skill set.
But she just really instilled a love of science in me that I remember being so curious and she remembered, I remember her telling us go out and explore the world, look at things, ask questions. And I think I was in about fourth grade when that happened. And I just really loved asking questions and doing science experiments and reading about stars and planets and learning everything I could.
And it just kind of spiraled from there. And the more I got into particularly chemistry in high school, and I really at one point thought I had wanted to be a physician. That just kind of progressed the older I got and then into college, which is why I had actually selected chemistry as my major. And then I decided, you know, I really like people and working with people, but I wanted to do that in a different capacity.
Instead of being a clinician, I wanted to ask questions and solve problems in a completely different way. And I just fell in love with the research. Yeah, it's, it's so it's so funny how physics, yeah, I, I, I'm with you on one and not with chemistry. I'm like, I, I hate that one too, but yeah, I definitely was not very good at physics.
I didn't feel like I was very good. Sorry, Mr. Takahashi was my physics teacher in my early college years. But I, I could not stand that course. But the one thing that I, that you, that you, that you had a teacher that inspired you very, very young, I find that so hopeful because past guests on the show and myself included, I don't recall.
It was never a voice that you're, you're a girl and you can't do science, but just, there just seemed to be an aura in the classroom that like boys were better at it. And I've heard that from, from other women. So, to know that a teacher really inspired you to, to go that direction is really heartening.
Yeah. And it was a female teacher, and I had several female teachers who were really strong scientific influences. Yeah. That's fantastic. Yes, we appreciate those women wherever you are. Absolutely. Every day. So, per your profile on your Clemson faculty page, you say that your quote primary research focus is addressing how mental and behavioral health can be integrated to more holistically, as you said, treat substance use disorders and decrease risk of self-harm for individuals and rural communities.
So, I think you kind of went into this, but can you share what inspired you to focus your research on the intersection of mental health and substance abuse? Do you have anything further to say on that? Yeah, actually so, oddly enough, I took a little detour from that when I first got here. I actually started working with the South Carolina Center for Rural and Primary Health Care, and my first grant that I got as junior faculty is actually looking at preferences for how pregnant patients select their primary care provider and obstetrician in rural areas and what barriers exist to access.
And that actually is something I became increasingly more interested in is barriers to access to health care. And that was something that I actually became incredibly interested in when I was in West Virginia. Yeah. And that started really early on when I was a doctoral student. So, I sort of had this shift in focus of looking at how we separate our healthcare system.
Right. You sort of treat everything in a siloed manner. It's, you see one doctor for one thing, you see another doctor for something else. And sometimes there's not a whole lot of communication. And in rural areas, this can be a big problem where you don't have the resources. Right. And often you can't see a psychiatrist or a psychologist.
Often, You go to the emergency department for everything. Yeah. Or your primary care doctor is the person who's seen you from the time you're an infant all the way till the time that you deliver your baby. Sure. And it's a really interesting sort of book. And I am shifting back into that mental health and substance use disorder sort of realm and looking at that relationship again.
That's what I'm actually actively working on some grants for right now. But I think You know, kind of going back to where that all started is I grew up in a pretty small community outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I remember first hearing about heroin when I was in 6th grade and that having a real profound impact on my community.
And by the time I actually started thinking about what do I want to study? What do I want to do with my life? I had known over 20 people who had died of overdoses. Wow. And, you know, they were all varying degrees of close to me, but the first person who was very, very close to me and who I dedicated my dissertation to, I had watched struggle for a majority of my life.
Right. It's a substance use disorder. Sure. And then shortly thereafter, when I actually chose my dissertation topic, a very good friend of mine died by suicide. Ugh. And I remember thinking very clearly, there's just so much more complexity to both of these things than just mental health or substance use.
And being so struck by the fact. I can't just watch this happen. So, when I was really in West Virginia and I started working on the dual diagnosis unit, working in the Center for Hope and Healing and talking to these people, I just was overcome with this desire. I have to do this. There's trauma involved.
There's pain involved. pain management involved, there's infectious disease involved, and we're not ignoring, but we're not adequately addressing all of the problems. And how do we make that better? So as somebody who focused on health services and outcomes research, how do we really take that health services piece and more adequately integrate that?
a more holistic approach, especially when in rural areas, people are going all to the same place to receive care. So, what can we do to make sure that they get it? Absolutely. Two, two points I want to make. The first is that I, for a long time lived in the state college, Pennsylvania area, because I went to Penn state, and I worked at Geisinger medical group for a short time.
And well, actually six years, six, seven years. And being in admin there and doing specialty scheduling, as you say, with that silo approach even a place like that that isn't particularly rural necessarily. There's not enough specialists and they're so they're so booked. So, when you have something like pain management, that's not internal medicine or family medicine, there can be a weight or rheumatology or neurology, you know, some of these specialists, you know, you're offered an appointment five months out.
And so that gets to be an issue as well, even in a, so in a rural area, I can't even, I can't even imagine. The other thing I will say specifically to pain management, what I've always found so fascinating is if you would have someone that does struggle with addiction, but then does truly have chronic pain, you have to treat them with the very thing they're addicted to, and it's such a, it's such a conundrum also working at Geisinger, you know, we would have patients that would come in and they were.
You know, prescribed medications, but they're locked up and there's just this stigma and the hassle and but then you can't just hand out the meds either. So, it just it really is a really convoluted matter. And the last thing I will say your passion. I'm so sorry for your losses, first of all, but your passion behind your science is truly commendable.
And I It's exciting to see that sort of passion behind it because you feel that the science will move forward even, even better because of that level of commitment behind the, behind the work. Yeah. I mean, I think so. So, in your opinion, what are some of the unique challenges faced by rural communities in addressing the opioid crisis specifically?
I definitely, I don't know if this is, you know, necessarily always unique. It's kind of like you said, though, I, there's. Not only the wait time, but scarcity of resources. And then, you know, I, I teach some foundations of rural health and it's one of my favorite classes to teach because you have this sort of unique approach of having to look at rural, the place and rural, the culture.
So, I like to, it's funny because when I teach, I used to make the analogy that rural is kind of like Baskin Robbins. And there's all these different flavors, but I've dated myself with that analogy now, so I kind of make it akin more to pizza toppings, right? Rural isn't rural every, you know, you have the rural south isn't the same as, you know, rural out west.
They're all different. They have all these different qualities. And I had a very. interesting and fun time learning what it's like to live in rural South Carolina compared to West Virginia. And I like learning the nuances and the new things about the different types of rural and how those things change.
But you learn that there are different patterns of behavior and how different people approach those. So, I think some things are, you know, we look at barriers to care and some of them are consistent. You have scarcity of resources. You have access things, travel times, but, and stigma, but the stigmas are different and the geographical obstacles that are there.
Sure. You have a long distance, but some of them aren't facing the terrain's not the same, right? We're in West Virginia. You have mountains and hills, and you get any type of snow whatsoever. You're not getting to a hospital. It's just not happening, right? Don't necessarily have that same terrain here in South Carolina, but if the roadway systems are not necessarily in the best condition and the wildlife is totally different and the things that you encounter are totally different.
So, I think it just really depends on where you are dealing with. And then you also have, you know, something that I had to learn about, which was really interesting was we have a pretty high Hispanic population in the county that I live in. So, one of the things that we have to address is making all of our materials.
for people who don't speak English, but we make the assumption that, okay, they speak Spanish. They don't necessarily, right. They might still be functionally illiterate and that's problematic. Right. So, you have to take in all of these considerations for the populations that you're working with. And sometimes that means you might have other things that you're dealing with.
So, I think specifically when we look at the opioid crisis. You actually don't know from place to place, we'd like to think it's a simple answer of getting them better access to treatment and getting, you know, we have all these solutions, whether its medication assisted treatment, or, you know, just like something as simple as more doctors, more facilities.
But it's really not and it varies by, and I think that's a lot of things that we're facing. It's not, it's also how do we address these stigmas from place to place that change, right? It's not one size fits all answer. And it's already hard enough to get right. So, I think, really, it's finding enough people that are willing to work and adapt to the area that they're in.
Sure. And that's really difficult. But I think one of the good things that I've found is there are so many people that are passionate about this, working in every area that I've been in, and I've been very fortunate to find those people.
Well, it's probably the curse and the blessing, the curse that more and more people are exposed like you are to folks they care about that are, that are suffering. Unfortunately when something becomes really pervasive in our society, that's negative, but the upside is that a lot of people get behind it and, you know, say enough is enough.
So, it's It really, the other thing I will say when you were talking about sort of the nuances and going different places within the country I had a, I'll shout out to my, one of my high school teachers, my high school civics teacher, Mrs. Mead. She was a black woman. And she always used to say, I get so annoyed.
People say America is a melting pot. It's not a melting pot. We're not, you know, these cultures aren't becoming one culture. It's a salad. It's a big salad bowl. And so, you can't assume that, you know, well, it just speaks to diversity in general. I mean, you just can't, it's just, there is no one mold for everything.
There just never is. No, I mean, it's a dynamic problem. I mean, and especially too, you have to look at not only are the people evolving, but the culture around substance use is evolving. Sure. So, I mean, and we have, you know, even within the context of. opioid use disorder, for instance. So, you have, you know, medications for opioid use disorder.
And then we try to have different types of treatments for other substance use disorder. And then you had the opioid crisis that then got infiltrated with fentanyl. So that's changing in dynamic. And then you're seeing the rise in other substance use like methamphetamines, which is causing A completely different crisis and then you have the mental health crisis on top of that.
So, we're looking at a very dynamic problem and it's how do you get over not only the stigma of substance use, but the stigma of mental health. and then the different cultures and how do you, I mean, so for instance, South Carolina is divided into like four basic regions. You have the upstate, the Midlands, the PD, and the low country.
And within those, you have very unique cultural approaches to a lot of different things. And how we work with people and treat people all has to be taken into consideration. And I just think You're looking at a very fluid, very intersectional problem. And when you work with people, I mean, you have to, I think, trying to dehumanize a problem is the mistake we make.
Trying to think of, Okay, we can do this and that solves the problem. It's just so much more complex than sure, trying to simplify or one size fits all solution. It's just, you know, public health approaches. Sometimes that just doesn't work. Sure, you might get a, you might get a large swath of folks, but that's probably your best.
Outcome, you know, you just, you can't reach everyone that way. And, and to treat people you want to get everyone. Yeah. I mean, I mean, you want to, you want to help as many people as possible. Absolutely. And I mean, public health approaches, we do, we want to target as many people as possible. I think, but I definitely think with the opioid crisis in general, we need to start being a little bit more integrative in our approach, and I think that involves you know, prevention and sort of treatment.
And I think we need to look at how those two interplay. Sure. It really ties to the next question really well because you mentioned partners and colleagues within your field emerging and having some partnerships there. How important do you think that interdisciplinary collaboration is in the work that you do?
It's huge. And I have. an amazing support teams. I still talk to people at West Virginia. I still, I mean, even when I came to Clemson, I have some of the most amazing mentors here that I could ever ask for. And I still work with some of, I did my postdoc at University of North Carolina and my mentor from University of North Carolina has.
done amazing work and making sure that I am really well set up to be prepared for a research career. And she, you know, keeps in contact with me and make sure that we've done a lot of collaborative work together, which has been especially helpful because I moved to a completely different region of the world.
Right. Yeah. No, you sort of get dropped. in the middle of a new state and trying to set up a new research initiative. It's really interesting and trying to, you know, make new contacts and figure out who are the players in, you know, making a difference. And I have great research partners at Clemson and I'm part of the Center for Addiction and Mental Health Research here.
So, I work collaboratively with people in Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management. I work collaboratively with people in Psychology. I work collaboratively with a lot of different faculty in Public Health Sciences here. There's just, I've worked with nursing students. I have a whole lot of different partners and I could not do my work by myself at all.
And I cannot say enough wonderful things about my work. current department chair. She is super helpful, super well connected in the state. Shout out to Dr. Griffin. She's amazing. And the, and she, she, she's wonderful. She's currently the interim chair, so she's absolutely amazing. And then I have a great team, actually my study team for the current grant.
I'm on all females. Dr. Windsor Sherrill, Dr. Rachel Mayo, and Dr. Lori Dickus, where it's a whole female set. I love it. Yes. And they are all powerhouses. Powerhouses. It is amazing to work with a bunch of female powerhouses. That's great. Yeah, I can't, I am trained by incredibly strong women. It's great for me to see students that I had personal interaction with when they were here.
It's great to see them land places that they're super excited about and where they're very supported. I'd love to hear that for you. Yes, I mean, and I am working with another woman right now who is helping me write an NIH grant. It's going to be the first NIH grant I submit. And she's also a palace and she's a GMT.
She's just. Amazing. And that's not, I mean, one of my other primary mentors is a man, but he, I mean, he's also phenomenal too. Of course. Yeah. I am surrounded by very, very strong women and it's amazing. That's great. Can I ask you an unscripted follow up question to that? Yes. So, you mentioned being dropped, right?
Sort of air dropped in a new place. Yeah. Okay. How would you, and I'm just thinking of listeners who may find themselves presented an opportunity to be dropped somewhere and they don't take it because of fear. And so, what I would like you to highlight is how do you foster those connections? How, what do you find are the best ways to foster and create those connections?
Ask a lot of questions. There you go. Ask a lot of questions. And I'm, so applying for jobs is intrinsically terrifying, at least for me. I don't think you're alone, Amanda. I mean, I like change. I really do. I kind of thrive in the chaos of change. Sure. But I saw the application for Clemson, and I knew that the job was, the job description was written for me.
They were looking for an assistant professor for rural health for a new MPH program they were starting. And I was like, bingo, that description is written for me. I need to apply. I think that's the best feeling when your job, when you, because that's happened to me too. And I, it's such a good feeling.
Yeah. And I, my biggest hesitation was that's nine and a half hours away from my family. I was like, okay. Well, let's go for it anyway. Sure. And I knew the moment I did my telephone interview that this was the job I was meant to take. Had it been offered to me. And it was, and here I am. So, sometimes taking that leap of faith is just worth it, and you should absolutely trust your gut.
And 100 percent making connections is about asking questions. Sometimes people hang up on you, and that's really unfortunate. It's unfortunate. I am lucky what they say about the South is true. Everybody tends to be really friendly. People really do tend to want to help. I have not, I have been very fortunate.
I've not run into a huge number of roadblocks. There are, you know, good days and bad days in research. It happens everywhere. Yeah. But for the most part, it's just about asking questions and letting people help you. Not being too proud to let other people. Yeah. Yeah. I think I love that. The simplicity of just asking questions.
That's yeah. I mean, that really makes sense. And the other thing I would say, too, is you talk about being liking change and certainly not everyone does. But what I would say. I'm like, I'm more like you. I like to switch it up here and there. But what I would say to those folks that resist changes you don't grow, but while being comfortable, it's just unfortunately, you know, and it's, you know, you don't have to be terrified all the time, but some butterflies generally mean you're growing.
It's what I, my belief. Absolutely. And I mean, like I said, everybody was so welcoming here. It was really hard though, too, not to ask people. So, who is the person that I go to if I want to do this? And who's the person I'll go to if I want to do this. And, you know, we have a really strong administrative team here that knows, even if they don't know the exact person, I need help from, they know who to ask to get me help, which is super helpful.
So, I mean, I think that is also pretty, you know, Clemson is very much a, you know, it's a public university with a small school feel. So, it's a very close-knit community, which is really great. And I like that a lot. Yeah, you make a great point there to, you know, we, we, we both I think simplified it. Oh, asking questions.
That's, that's great. But it also speaks to the environment you're in. If you're not, if you don't feel psychologically safe, if you're not surrounded by folks that you feel you can ask questions then that can, that can be admittedly difficult. So, I think the psychological safety of your team and who you're surrounded by is also plays into that as well.
Yeah, absolutely. So, I want to turn inward on your time here at WVU. Specifically, we mentioned that you were on a T32 training grant. So, you were on the behavioral and biomedical sciences, T32 training program as a past trainee on the grant, what do you think are the most beneficial parts of participating in a program like that?
And what are the things that are most influential on a student's future development or for your experience specifically? Okay, so now it's my turn to gush. I loved the T32 training grant. I cannot say enough good things about that opportunity. I think the best part for me was the independence that it provided.
Sure. Because it allowed me essentially to create a license to structure my dissertation. I actually fully designed my dissertation and was able to create something that was 100 percent mine. And I had wonderful guidance and support from my dissertation, which was great, but I wasn't confined to restraints of another grant.
Right. Which wouldn't have necessarily been a bad thing. Sure. But it gave me the ability to grow and develop as an independent researcher, while also providing me a community of other researchers to work and grow with. So, I had a cohort of scientists outside of my immediate field that created this whole new sense of community, which was really nice because even though, you know, you pick your, your chosen field for a reason.
Sure. It's nice to get that different perspective from people who are in the field. you know, basic sciences and social sciences and other behavioral sciences and have these different perspectives. And we can sort of be in different stages of our development and mentor each other. Yeah. Which was really, really helpful because it gives you that chance to sort of break away from the same group of people you see all the time and also have this sort of collective experience.
that allows you to cultivate a new sense of growth. So, I got to see a bunch of different perspectives on science, and it gave me access to a bunch of different experiences like book clubs and writing groups and allowed me to cultivate a different set of skills that I wasn't getting otherwise in my training.
And it allowed me, you know, access to things like I got to go to conferences and speak at conferences that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to afford. Sure. And I think that independence too, to do my own research, I left WE so well rounded and so well trained, not only because of my mentor, but because of the mentors I had on the T 32.
Sure. It was just right. Yeah, that that one angle that you mentioned, or the one benefit that you mentioned that I've never thought of is that peer mentoring sort of opportunity, you know, we, you think of mentor strictly as being faculty within your lab but sort of that peer mentoring opportunity I've never, I, that's, that's a great point.
I never thought of it that way. Yeah, I mean, and even though it might not be as formal as a lot of us, you know, we think of mentoring as a very formal thing. Agreed, yeah. But there's something also very therapeutic about it because, sure, I mean, you come together and you talk about when things aren't going so well, and when things are going well, but there was very much a sense of support from everybody in that group.
Even when we complained, it was never a, but it was never a sort of like a downgrading or a degrading sense. It was just a very much, we could tell when we were frustrated and at the same time find ways to objectively support each other to get through to the end goal. And that was very uplifting and therapeutic. in a productive way. That is great to hear. Honestly, I, I really do not know that I would have gotten through my PhD if it was not through the T32.
Wow. It was that profound of an experience for me. Well, you were fantastic, and we enjoyed having you. So, you're now the professor, not the student. Yes. What do you find most rewarding about teaching and mentoring students that now that you're in this role? I recognize. that my career is finite. It is not infinite.
And I do very much have a profound passion for what I do. Sure. I want my students to take away that no matter what they choose to do, that they find something that makes them happy. Hopefully I find a student at some point in my career that wants to do. And take on the work that I'm doing because it would be wonderful for somebody to eventually keep doing what I am so passionate about because I can't do it forever.
So, I do eventually want to inspire somebody to do what I do because it's important. Yeah, it's important. And I really do enjoy instilling that sense of passion in somebody, whether it's. for them to wake up tomorrow and be like, this is it. I know what I want to do. Or I really like what you're doing. I think I want to do that too.
I think I most enjoy working with students and mentoring students because I like seeing them find that passion. I really do. And I just, you know, it's, I remember how hard some of these days can be. And it's nice to help get other people through it. And I also like sharing what I love to do. Oh, sure. You know, it's, it's great.
I actually really like the teaching side of things. I like the balance. I like the balance of teaching and research. I mean, I love my research and I love doing the research on the day to day, but I really, really do like being in the classroom and I like the storytelling aspect I like the knowledge sharing and the history of it.
So, I think, you know, and the mentoring students is just, you know, it's a, it's a nice perk. It's getting to share what I know and hopefully inspire somebody to do something that they love to do every day. I love that. It sounds by your passion that you certainly belong in the classroom at least in some capacity.
I hope so. So, you kind of touched on this as well. But is there anything that you haven't shared already that you see moving your research and mentoring efforts in the future? What do you see your future looking like? So, we are building our MPH program. It's fully online, synchronous. And I am really enjoying helping to shape that and it's wonderful seeing fantastic from its inception and watching it grow so I am part of, you know, helping to build the rural health track of that.
And I think that's something I'm super passionate about. I got to teach the first iteration of the foundations of oral health course, and I am, you know, finding new ways to integrate. different aspects of Laurel into the classroom and into research. And I just, I really like it. It's been great. And yeah, it's been really kind of surreal having people call me Dr.
Stover regularly. I'm not sure how I feel about that most days. But yeah, I, you know, I have my first set of doctoral students that I'm mentoring, which has been really interesting. So, I think my, you know, my plan is just to make sure that I take as much information and continue to grow and learn and hopefully my students grow and learn with me.
That's fantastic. I think you'll do amazing things. Thank you. So, I only have one final or we're on the home stretch. I have one final question for you. In your view, what's the best advice for young girls and women that are looking to pursue careers in science and medicine and especially in underrepresented areas like rural health?
I think The best thing that they can do is to stay curious, keep asking questions, and don't be afraid to try and fail and try again. There are several paths to the same destination. My first attempt at a PhD did not work. And it took me two tries to get one. And I do not regret any of it. And I'm so glad I stuck with the second one and found my home here at Clemson.
I would not have changed a thing, but persistence is 100 percent the key. Sure. I tell everybody the first paper I ever published got rejected seven times and I still kept going. Yeah. So, I think it's the moments when we're ready to give up that we figure out who we are. And I definitely think curiosity and persistence are the keys.
I love that. There are no failures, only lessons learned. Exactly. And that's, I have a big poster in my office. that says there is nothing in life to be feared, only to be understood. I love that one too. Yeah. And I really think, you know, some days it's hard, some, some days it's scary, but definitely think that, you know, just keep powering through and, you know, it really, it really, everything works out for the best.
You know, I found a place here at Clemson. I love it. I really do. And it's, It's been great and I'm, you know, I do, I miss, I miss West Virginia. I tell everybody all the time. I was like, West Virginia in the fall is my favorite place to be, but I definitely think South Carolina in the spring, it has its perks.
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Well, it was a pleasure chatting with you today. That's all we have to our listeners enjoyed this episode, please check out my other conversations with amazing female scientists anywhere you normally get your podcasts. And please don't forget to rate and review Dr. Amanda Stover.
It's been a pleasure. And thank you so much for joining me on the Women in Science and Medicine podcast today. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.