File photo Ah, the holidays. A time for gathering, feasting, celebrating, and some pretty complicated explaining. With all those family gatherings and holiday parties comes the dreaded question no postdoc really knows how to answer: "So, what do you do?" Usually something similar to the following dialogue ensues: "I'm a postdoctoral fellow in neuroscience at Emory University." "Emory? So you're some kind of doctor?" "Yes, I have a PhD." "So you're one of those fake doctors?" "Well, I don'

Courtesy of Heather Patisaul Only two months into my first postdoctoral position, I did something a good postdoc is not supposed to do: I got pregnant. I was thrilled to be expanding my young family, but I couldn't help but be apprehensive about how the news would go over among my science colleagues. As many of us already know, it is generally believed that science and family are not easily mixed; one usually suffers for the sake of the other. This wasn't my first foray into the forbidden. I