Since he didn't have a solid idea of where or how he would make a career in biology, Stephen Haddad veered away from science in the early part of his career. That was probably a good thing, as the field that ultimately was a match for his interests and his skills didn't even exist until more than a decade after graduation. Find out how proceeding slow and steady is required not only for winning the race but sometimes even getting to the starting line…on today's Roads Taken with Leslie Jennings Rowley.
Since he didn't have a solid idea of where or how he would make a career in biology, Stephen Haddadveered away from science in the early part of his career. He started out in management consulting and was happy to get a broad view of how business works, but the siren call of science made him take a smattering of research positions before realizing that he needed to go back to school for more specialized training in genetics and epidemiology.
As it turned out, not getting into a scientific role earlier was a good thing as the field that ultimately was a match for his interests and his skills didn't even exist until more than a decade after graduation. And in the end, it turned out that moving more slowly and methodically in the personal realm was as advantageous as in the professional one.
In this episode, find out from Steve how proceeding slow and steady is required not only for winning the race but sometimes even getting to the starting line… on ROADS TAKEN...with Leslie Jennings Rowley.
About This Episode’s Guest
Stephen Haddad is an expert in applied human genetics with degrees in epidemiology from Harvard and Boston University. He is currently a scientific investigator at GlaxoSmithKline. He lives in the Boston area with his wife and young daughter.
For another story about the letting the path open to you slowly, listen to our episode with Jennie Tranter.
Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com
Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley
Music: Brian Burrows
Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com
Stephen Haddad: Yeah, I think for me, I've been known to be sort of painfully slow at times in different aspects, which has been a benefit in some ways. The sort of that methodical nature is good for science in a lot of ways, but I think I was slow enough in both my career and personal life that they both coincided at about the same time.
Leslie Jennings Rowley: Since he didn't have a solid idea of where or how he would make a career in biology, Stephen Haddad veered away from science in the early part of his career. That was probably a good thing, as the field that ultimately was a match for his interests and his skills didn't even exist until more than a decade after graduation. Find out how proceeding slow and steady is required not only for winning the race but sometimes even getting to the starting line…on today's Roads Taken, with me, Leslie Jennings Rowley.
Today I'm here with my friend Steve Haddad, and we are gonna talk about how long things take and how fast life goes, and kind of the overall unexpected pace of our journey. So thanks so much for being here with us today, Steve.
SH: Sure, Leslie, happy to be here. Yeah.
LJR: So I start this the same way with all my guests and ask the same two questions and they're these: When we were in college, who were you? And when we were getting ready to leave, who did you think you would become?
SH: Okay, so Leslie, so I, you know, having listened to a number of podcasts, I knew these questions were coming and when I thought about how I would answer them the second one was pretty easy and a very short answer, which is that I truly, I would say career-wise did not have a clue as to where I would end up being. I think I thought on a personal level that I would be married with a couple kids at age, you know, 30-ish. Potentially. That also didn't happen. But I think career-wise, I really was pretty clueless and didn't have a clear view.
So now when I think of the first question you asked, I started thinking and when I thought about who I was in college, it felt for me, like my response, like it was more of a feeling and an emotion and an experience like that. And much more of that than trying to like recount specific facts of, you know, that many years ago. And given that and the fact that the show is called Roads Taken, which I like very much, I decided I would compose a poem for Roads Taken in response to that question.
LJR: Ah, my first poem. I love it.
SH: Yes. So…
LJR: Is it a limerick?
SH: Nope. No. And I'll probably embarrass myself. It's not super long. It's pretty short. And I'm gonna read this as a response to that first question and hopefully it won't come up across as too melodramatic slash corny. But that's always been one of my strengths anyways, so we're gonna go there.
LJR: I love it.
SH: Leslie, are you ready for the first poem on Roads Taken?
LJR: I'm barely ready. I'm beside myself happy. Let's go.
SH: OK, take it in. I'm gonna try to say it, and the poem is called Green, and I would say that it goes out to French dorm from 92, 93, roughly.
I was green and blue and black and white.
Excited, timid, bold, and bright.
My family, they all live near,
Just past the wall and down the hall.
We shared our secrets, shut our eyes,
And slowly drifted off to Enya
Huddled close, we didn't know the whitest snow would come and go.
Our dearest friends would come and go.
The hidden grass could never rise above the painted green.
No limits seen, my dreams were big. But what they were, I couldn't say.
We bantered over breadsticks on the stairs till 3:00 AM
Before December carried us away.
We powered through the morning chill against our will to make the grade
And up and down the Baker stairs and in and out our focus fades.
Another staircase took me down a winding road to underground.
The dark and dingy basement haze where some of us would come of age.
We felt alive as lightning crashed, the moonlit sky, the satellite.
Those good old days, we sang along night-swimming in our favorite song.
These memories, all parts and cause of how I felt and who I was.
But always green with shards of blue
Atop, a bed of black and white, an open heart, a foolish soul.
Excited, timid, bold, and bright.
That's how I feel.
LJR: Ow. Wow. Okay. So you didn't even say that you were a scientist at Dartmouth?
SH: No. I didn't mention the science.
LJR: And you are a scientist. So where did Mr. Poet-literary-man come from?
SH: Well, I knew that I couldn't probably be good enough to make a career at that, Leslie. So
LJR: He was hiding. Is that who you were at Dartmouth, the hidden poet?
SH: I don't know. I mean, I think along with science, I always had an interest in. Actually second career was, prob of interest, was probably more law and politics area. And I always liked to write, could never write in a long form. So I feel like short form poems, et cetera, are a bit more my strength. I could never be a Brad Parks. I could never write in a long form. So, yeah, I, it's something I enjoy. I haven't done a lot of, and that's the first one I've written actually in a few years. So for some reason this form kind of inspired me. I think it was the Roads Taken title to the podcast, which I assume is taken from The Road Not Taken, but that's…
LJR: Yes, yes. A fellow Dartmouth guy, Robert Frost. Yeah. So…
SH: That’s the end of my corny melodrama, Leslie. So take it away.
LJR: Well, I love it. No, because I mean, anyone that was there, you infused it with those, you know, Enya made me laugh. REM made my breath, like, catch. And all the, you know, yes, we had some white snow, but in Hanover, it's not always white and Wow. That really does take you back. And I hear what you're saying, that it could be a feeling much more than a litany of kind of who, who you were in terms of the things you did or the ways you Yeah…
SH: I think probably for a lot of us, right? I mean, it was, it's such a formative part of your life those years, like at that age and everything that you experience and the new things that you know, that you experienced and that you go through? Yeah. I think for a lot of people it's a very heightened part of your life. And so yeah, just sort of, I felt like that was, I couldn't capture it by just sort of recounting, you know, with adjectives who I thought I was back then. [LJR: Yeah.] I don't think I'll ever knew who I was, but I mean, we were, we were young. I mean, when you think of. Who you were in the eye looking through the world at the eyes of an 18 year old, 19 year old. It was a long time ago.
LJR: Yeah. So young. And you know, gaining all those experiences, those little things that you infused into your poem, but also I think that's probably why you didn't have an answer to who you were going to be, because your map for the possibilities wasn't tested yet, you know? It was, it had so few markers on it of what you could go do or who you could go be. My guess is that your parents were married with two kids around the age of 30.
SH: Exactly.
LJR: That seems like something to emulate, right? So, yeah. Yeah, I totally get that. So that said, you were. The closeted poet that I didn't know about. You were, however, in the lab and people knew about that part of you. So instead of the politics part, you were drawn to do some sort of specialization. So was that a way that you could leap out of the college world and do science directly? What was the path there for you?
SH: Yeah, I mean, I think I was, you know, I was a biology major, a math minor, and I definitely had a strong interest in biology, genetics.I think when I graduated, like probably a lot of classmates and some other folks that I've heard on the podcast as well, I really didn't have an idea of what my options were career-wise in biology and science. I really didn't want to be a doctor and actually I didn't want to have a wet lab bench type of job, and I don't think I knew outside of those two areas really what my options were.
I think because of that, like you know, a few others that I've heard as well, you know, corporate recruiting came. It was an easy way to sort of find a job. I think I somehow twisted it into convincing myself that consulting, you get exposure to a lot of different in industries. So since I don't know what I want to do, why don't I go do that?
I ended up working for what used to be Anderson Consulting and is now Accenture. And I think I kind of veered away from science for, I guess it was, well, really mainly three years before I kind of started to swerve backwards. And I don't regret it though. I think I made great friends from that first job. I got to travel to amazing places. I learned quite a bit just about sort of business and technology in general, which is, was like kind of broadly applicable. But then, after about three years—and I was in a remote project in upstate New York during the winter and I think that also prompted some come to Jesus moments for me—but I was at that point decided to get out of consulting and I did a few kind of odd science-related jobs. And then somehow kind of veered my way back into genetics and epidemiology and those fields and went back for my master's and kind of went from there.
LJR: But wait a minute. So that seems like a big leap from
SH: It is.
LJR: Oh, I'm just, I'm on this consulting path and then I'll, I'll go in reverse. So what, what was the impetus for that? The. The talking to yourself. It wasn't just cold nights, it was, you know, how did that really happen?
SH: Yeah. I didn't have a passion for what I was doing in the consulting job, although it was, you know, interesting. I was learning a lot, but I didn't have a passion for it. Yeah. So I was, I just was trying to find a way back into science and you know, the first job I took was not necessarily a specific interest, like major interest of mine, but it was substance abuse research. I did a lot of like interviews to collect data, and then I ended up going to a job that was a CRO that sort of manages clinical trials. And I think when I was at that job I was doing a lot of administrative type of work that I also didn't love, but I saw that there was this other group doing statistical analysis and doing more of the data end of things, and I thought that probably is more of what I wanted to do. And I started to research a bit more into possible careers and I, you know, found out a little bit more about this career of epidemiology, this career of genetics within that field.
You know, from the, that job applied for my master's in epidemiology and kind of went from there. So it was, I don't know if it was drastic or gradual, but it took me a long time, let's put it that way. [LJR: Yeah.] Finally kinda focus in on the career that I ended up, you know, being in now, so….
LJR: Right. And pursuing for quite a while. So yeah. From that master, then getting the requisite first job in the field and then ultimately pursuing the PhD, Right?
SH: Exactly. Yeah. So I did a masters, I, I never actually. Although I felt like I was always good at school, I didn't always love being in school. So I got outta my master's and ran away for a while and convinced myself that I didn't need the doctorate. And then I kind of realized that I probably did to not have a limited in my head in that field. So I worked at Mass General Hospital for a bunch of years doing psychiatric genetics, and then went back from my doctorate and from there went into the pharma world, which is where I'm in now in the big pharma world. So I worked for Pfizer for three years and now I've been at GSK for three years.
LJR: And what kind of roles have you had there?
SH: Essentially, it's sort of in the early discovery space, so it's trying to use human genetic data to find good drug targets. Mainly in those, these last two jobs have been focused in metabolic areas, so mainly kidney disease, some with obesity Type II diabetes. So essentially trying to find what the next best places are to drug to create the new drugs for those diseases. And yeah, that's in a nutshell what I've been doing for the last, I'd say, well, five, six years.
LJR: Wow. Yeah. That is like the frontier of where we are right now. I feel like you're so on the cutting edge and so necessary in our world clearly.
So, being in the pharma industry at this time, where, You know, COVID has made us all aware of the amazing science that people like you are doing behind the scenes we never hear about until, wow it's really doing some huge impact in the world. And not just COVID, of course, all the things that you're working on. How is it, I mean, in some ways pharma is like big pharma. We like to not love it. And so how does that appear in your world?
SH: You know, I think, obviously, you know, COVID has been a terrible thing and there's it's hard to even talk about silver linings of COVID. I think throughout Covid for the pharma industry, I think people did start to at least realize the value of those companies in society and what they can offer to society. And although it doesn't take away from a lot of debate and discussion, which is healthy about, you know, controversial things around drug pricing and other things, I think at least there was became more of a recognition of, you know, what those companies can do. And I think in my own experience at both Pfizer and now GSK, it's been experiences with some of the smartest, best people that I've ever worked with. And, it has crossed the span from biologists to statisticians, to chemists to physicians, and really a lot of people that I've worked with who in sort of my own view are very good hearted, good intentioned individuals who are really trying to make new medicines for patients that really desperately need new medicine.
And I think that the pandemic brought that to light and you know, I do think these companies, you know, do hold a important place in society and have the resources to bring something about—as it did in the case of the vaccine—something about that not really other health organizations are equipped to do quickly and effectively. And yeah, it makes me, you know, proud to be part of, you know, the company that I'm part of. And I think it has been, I think, enlightening to a lot of people, hopefully.
LJR: Yeah. And it, it's great that the greater public and society kind of gets that now too. But I think there's this other thing like not only are you proud and like willing to say it out loud because the public are on your side, but that everybody that you're surrounded by in the chain kind of feels that sense of making an impact and going to work every day in order to make better impact for humanity.
SH: Absolutely. When you see, yeah, when you see those people around you and…it's definitely humbling when I see the, the quality of the scientists around me. You know, I think a lot of us have that experience sometimes. But yeah, it's really impressive. The people that I work with, the fact that they do work very hard to try to find new ideas, new innovative therapies especially for disease areas that are not well served right now. Yeah, we're trying. It's a hard area and even with human genetics, most, you know, drugs still fail trials and it's you have to really try many, many, many things until you find one that works. And You know? We're still at it. Yeah slow and steady wins the rate. Yes, exactly. Yeah.
LJR: So that has been one part of life. I know there's another part of life that isn't [SH: Sure.] just the day job. So when did your life change in that way?
SH: In the personal sphere. It changed when I, you know, probably it was a couple years after I met my now wife and decided to make the plunge and propose, and I feel like that was that decision. It sounds very like non-romantic once said in that way, but I feel like that decision sort of was like a pivotal moment in my life and sort of opening myself up to other parts of my life and the idea of, you know, having a true partner and you know, being a father someday and all those aspects that weren't part of my life before then. So I feel like that was really opened up my life to a lot of other possibilities and I'd say, you know, for me at least—I think for everyone is different and it's not for everyone—For me, it was made my life more full in terms of having that partner, having eventually our daughter that we have now. So much less time, as I'm sure you're familiar with, but, you know, fulfilling in a different way that I hadn't experienced before.
LJR: Kind of a later stage parenting journey has been part of that, you know, slow and steady wins the race or the theme. [SH: Yeah.] What, what can you say or wanna say about that?
SH: Yeah, I'd say I wish I had the energy I had 10 years ago. Our daughter is now almost five years old, so although there's something to be said for the slow and steady, I don't know that I would necessarily recommend young children at an advanced age as…
LJR: But guess what? I will tell you, 10 years ago, I had a five year old and I still felt like I didn't have enough energy. So…
SH: Maybe, maybe, yeah, maybe there's no difference. So, yeah, in that aspect, I don't know that I look at it and say, oh, I'm glad I waited till I was this age to have a young child. I don't, I wouldn't look at that part in that way. But obviously it's been a joy and you know, amazing. [LJR: Yeah.] At the same time. And maybe the fact that I waited a long time for that, you know, and you know, there's definitely some to the appreciation part that comes from that, I'm sure.
LJR: Yeah. It's made it sweeter. Yeah, sure. So when your encountering your wife and deciding this was gonna be the direction you wanted to go, where did that align with all the other decisions you were making professionally?
SH: Yeah, I think for me, I've been known to be sort of painfully slow at times in different aspects, which has been a benefit in some ways. The sort of that methodical nature is good for science in a lot of ways, but I think I was slow enough in both my career and personal life that they both coincided at about the same time. So I feel like if, you know, what, if I had met my wife and had a big family early on? I may have wondered, do I have the time to go do a doctorate? You know, is that gonna fit into my life? And you know, I think sort of in the end, the fact that both of those things sort of progressed slowly and I got married at a fairly late age and decided exactly what I wanted to do and what degree to pursue at a fairly late age. They sort of worked, it kind of worked out for me. I don't know that I would've recommend it to others if you can do it faster. But I think it worked out for me and I think it gave me the space to be able to pursue my career to the fullest, and then the personal things sort of just happened to come at about the same time for me.
LJR: Yeah. But I mean, I, the reason I ask is because I had this feeling that once you're on a track of like letting your mind expand and saying, okay, I need this other thing to fulfill me, then you're gonna do that in various domains of your life. [SH: Yeah. Sure.] And I also think it's interesting that, you know, the one thing that you did think, You had your eye on when we were graduating, it's like, I'm gonna get married and have kids and do that. And had you pursued that? [SH: Yep.] All these other things might not have, you know, so
SH: Probably wouldn't have happened, right? Yeah.
LJR: Yeah. Right, right. So sometimes it's, it's good to not have a goal and sometimes it's good not to pursue a goal and who knows.
SH: Yeah. The other thing I wanted mention too, cause, it was for me, I don't know, for some people may have experienced something like this too, but for me in my career, like the type of work that I do right now, like those jobs actually weren't really available when we graduated and probably for the next 15 or so years after we graduated. So the field itself has changed so much that the type of job that actually is like perfectly, I feel like, tailored to what I, my interests are and what I'm good at, that didn't come along really until the last, I'd say, 10 years. There was a publication that came out, it was 2015 that essentially said, you know, if pharma companies use human genetic data and they find drug targets that are validated by human genetic data, that likely they'll have twice the success rate in clinical trials. And that paper didn't come out till 2015, so it wasn't something that pharma companies, I think in general, emphasized as much. And I think that kind of worked out for me as well too, that if I had known exactly what I want to do and gone looking, I would've ended up somewhere else because, the type of job I do now wasn't, you know, didn't exist at that time either. So it kinda…
LJR Right. And if you had established yourself in that other field or role, even if it were close, it would've been harder to pivot potentially to this thing, right?
SH: Absolutely. Yeah. Even if I had from a distance scene, oh, that's what I want to do. Probably might have been too late or too hard to kind of maneuver over. So my message to everyone is if you're painfully slow at times and people tease you about that, persevere.
LJR: Slow and steady wins the race, they say.
SH: Yeah. Slow and steady. Sometimes. Sometimes it helps. Yeah. It worked out for me, but…
LJR: Yeah. That's good. So Steve, I think all of that is so valid to think about like new fields just coming into existence that you could never have anticipated. So when I ask that question of looking to the 20-something-year-old Steve and saying to him, look, this has been your trajectory. This has been your life. What do you think? What would've he been thinking?
SH: I think I would've been pretty happy. You know, I think when I graduated again, I didn't have a good sense for what my career options could be. And I felt kind of like I was a little bit lost in that regard. So I think if I had looked back at the type of work I'm doing right now and how much I enjoy it, and what a sort of like a practical, possible good benefit, you know, that type of work can produce. I think I would've been really thrilled that the field had sort of gone that direction, that I had kind of found my way there somehow. Even though it took long time, I think I would've been pretty happy with ending up there ‘cause I was much more, I feel like, lost when I graduated in terms of where I was gonna go.
LJR: Well, and you had respect for the methodical nature of science and life and, you know, plodding along.
SH: You can, you can say, yeah, I guess you can say it that way. So yes. So I, I think I would've been happy looking back or looking whatever forward.
LJR: Forward? Yeah.
SH: Whichever way it was supposed to be. Yes.
LJR: That's right. Well, I think it sounds like. It was worth the wait and being ready to tackle a new field and new challenges and new experiences and new joys. You needed to be in the right time, the right place at the right time. So…
SH: Exactly.
LJR: We're so glad that you shared all this with us, and thanks so much.
SH: Thank you, Leslie. Thanks for talking to me.
LJR: That was Steve Haddad, an expert in applied human genetics who is currently a scientific investigator at GlaxoSmithKline. He lives in the Boston area with his wife and young daughter.
Just as Steve realized that some things aren't quite right until some time in the future, we know that some of our classmates aren't necessarily quite ready to share the story of their roads taken. That said, we encourage any of my classmates who might feel as though the time has come, to reach out to us at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com or through the Contact Us link at RoadsTakenShow.com. We will likely be taking another hiatus in the fall to leave some room for our team to pursue other projects and let some pent up demand mount from our audience. So let's try to book a time soon. We still have lots of episodes to share throughout the summer, though, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don't miss those guests and me, Leslie Jennings Rowley, on Roads Taken.