Nadia Marano

Nadia Marano, George F. Baker Associate Professor of Chemistry

Hi! I’m Nadia Marano and I am a professor in the chemistry department and a first gen college student.

My family moved to the US when I was almost 6 and I grew up in a New York City suburb. Neither of my parents went to college but they valued education and we were expected to do well in school. The era I grew up in and especially the southern Italian culture of my parents had fairly rigid ideas about appropriate gender roles. Fortunately, those ideas were about roles and not intelligence. My parents never gave me the idea that girls and women were any less intelligent or not good at science and math. It was expected that eventually I would grow up, get married and my family would be my main concern but, meanwhile, I was expected to well in all aspects school. That was a good thing because science and math were what I was better at and more opportunities were opening for women. My parents had good friends who did go college and whose kids did so my going to college was seen as reasonable – as long as I lived at home, which all good Italian girls were supposed to do until they got married. My father’s union gave scholarships to a few NYC colleges to children of their members, which is how I ended up at Manhattan College.

I started as a bio major but after taking some courses realized that the molecular aspects of biology were what interested me most so I switched to biochemistry. The chemistry department (where biochemistry was housed) was small enough that we got to know our professors and others students pretty well. Being good at science and from an immigrant family at a college that was mainly commuters and a lot of first gen students, medicine was often suggested as a good path, something I was not at all interested in. Research and an academic career were not on my radar. Other than my professors (whom I assumed knew everything about their fields and had to be incredibly smart and not average people – NOT true by the way), I did not know anyone with that kind of career. One of my chemistry professors encouraged me, invited me to do research with him, found me a chemistry department stockroom job that would allow me to do research some of the time, encouraged me to apply for research fellowship the following summer, helped me get a job at a chemical company one summer. These were things I would not have considered otherwise because I did not even know they existed. Several professors encouraged me to apply to graduate school and gave me advice on the process. I definitely benefited from a small department with professors who were interested in mentoring undergraduate students. Once I got to graduate school, things suddenly were more difficult. Princeton, although it was not huge, was a top-level research university; professors were focused on research, students were expected to be independent. Classes required less memorization and much more in-depth analysis. Research was not like undergraduate research where my professor guided me in every step. I chose a mentor whose work I was interested in and did not consider mentoring skills (or that it was something I should consider). I was left on my own without much guidance and I floundered. He ended up leaving the University after a few years and I had start a new project. I was fortunate to find someone who was a much better mentor and helped me transition to graduate level work. He had a project I could contribute to and made sure to include my work in publications. At whatever level, it is important to choose a mentor who fits your style and will help you thrive.

As I was finishing my Ph.D. and then moved to a postdoctoral research position, I came to realize that while I enjoyed research, I did not want to be in at a research university where a high level of publication and successful grant proposals were most important and teaching undergraduates secondary or tertiary. I enjoyed teaching and wanted an atmosphere much more like my undergraduate experience. Although I did not attend a small liberal arts college, as I learned more, I realized that they had what I valued the most from my undergraduate experience. So, I ended up here where I get to teach and do research with undergraduate students in a beautiful location that lets me enjoy biking, hiking, skiing.