I’ve been living in New York since January 2005, when I moved from Stanford, CA after finishing my Ph.D. in physics. My arrival to New York was a bit shocking: I came from the most beautiful campus life in sunny California to a harsh winter in NYC. I wish I had known about NYC what I now understand. But at the time, arriving to the NYU-subsidized apartment that had a hole in the wall where the AC unit should have been was not pleasant. I slept on the floor that night, freezing. And in the middle of the night, when I went to the bathroom I had a strange encounter with a cockroach in the sink. New York was everything: a sea of possibilities, an international hub in which to connect with people from all over the world, a welcome change to a high energy place where everyone wanted to accomplish something big.
While in New York the past few years, I completed two postdoctoral fellowships in Applied Math and Applied Physics at Columbia University and at the Courant Institute for Mathematical Sciences which is one of the best institutions to pursue applied math research in the world. It was also there that I discovered that I wasn’t quite cut for an academic career. While I managed to publish a paper in an applied math journal, my personal life felt limited. I spent most of my weekdays, weekends, morning, day and nights working at my office in Courant. I wasn’t getting much sleep and I was working as hard as I could. While the academic part was going well, I felt more alone than ever before. Despite trying to connect with people, I had no friends in the building and I recall being one of the only women in the building. I had an office-mate who I think was nice, but even when I sneezed, he wouldn’t offer a simple “bless you.” I was surrounded by all the extreme geeks that I once cherished: they were brilliant, deep, and so socially limited. Except this time something in me saw the light. I wasn’t willing to spend more time struggling in this environment feeling miserable every day just so I could then get to become a professor who was again struggling with a similar difficult environment. I lacked female role models beyond the Ph.D. point and I was so scared of the emotional tundra I was experiencing, that I decided to leave academia. Sometimes I still regret this decision. But I have learned that we make decisions with the limited information we have at the time we make them. And at that time, this is what I needed to do to save myself.
I had all that was required to continue in academia, I had done two postdocs under the prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) fellowship. And as disappointed as I was with the lack of a welcoming attitude, I went to the furthest field from doing science. I became a bit of a cynic and joined the ranks of about 1,000 other physics Ph.D.s who worked in Wall St as “quants.” I first worked at the famed Hedge Fund: Applied Quantitative Research (AQR) but encountered the quant crisis of 2007 and life became insanely difficult. We were commuting back and forth from midtown in NYC to Greenwich, CT. I moved to midtown on 44th St. between Lexington and 3rd ave because I needed to improve my commute as much as possible. I would wake up at 6am and dropped myself from my apartment on the 34th floor to Grand Central to catch the Connecticut-bound train. We started our work days at 8:15am and then management would sponsor individual take-out dinners if people were to stay beyond 6:30pm. Many of the young people working there at the time had a pretty focused goal of making as much money as possible, so their absolute dedication was justified. For them, those weekly dinners meant a great excuse to stay until 8:30pm working. At that time, we were all given individual black cars to drive back to Midtown. I never understood why we didn’t share cars with each other to Manhattan. After all, we all lived pretty close to one another in Midtown. But I guess that car ride home was considered part of our own “free time.” I hated riding those cars as it always gave me nausea to be flapping around left to right in the backseat.
One thing that I have always envisioned when people ask me how do I see myself in the future is having a large, nicely decorated apartment in a big city like New York City, Paris or London where we (I and my husband) host weekly dinners with interesting people from various backgrounds and walks of life. I’ve lived in a few cities in my life and I’ve played a role in different professional fields so I am lucky to be able to connect with different people and bring them all together. Many other visions of the future fizzled out and changed over the years. But the one where I’m married to a man with whom I can have intellectual conversations and we both enjoy connecting with people has always persisted. I remember when I was looking for someone to marry and I went out on dates, I would always try to get an idea if the man across the table would be one who enjoyed intellectual conversations at dinners with many different people. You see, I didn’t dream about having lots of money or luxuries, fancy bags and multiple homes around the world. I have always dreamed of having a cozy and beautiful space. Well, it turns out that after 13 years of living in NYC, I am nowhere near that dream. We live in a small one bedroom place in the lovely area of Tribeca. And I’ve been hoping that one day we can move to a larger place somewhere in the city. But even when I had a high-paying job in Wall St, the thought of being able to buy an apartment in NYC made me sad. Because I always knew the apartment would have to be a fraction of the size of the one I dreamed about just to be able to host small number of people.
The COVID pandemic has unfortunately brought to life a devastating impact on gender equality. Living in New York City and prior to that in Mexico, I’ve seen inequality’s many faces: the gender pay gap, the stereotype threat that women and other minorities feel in STEM, the lack of diversity and representation in government, the arts, engineering and the sciences. So when my friend Ulla Maaria Koivula posted on Facebook about the Free 90-Day Helsinki Relocation Package, I jumped out of my seat with excitement! Ulla has spoken very highly of the amazing Finnish education system, the superb healthcare and the advanced way in which the Finns have achieved equality in most areas of social life. They even have a 35-year old woman as a Prime Minister! In my lifetime, I’d like to experience life in a society which has been consistently ranked amongst the top nations in happiness, work-life balance and quality of life. It’s a gift for my kids to show them that there are other ways to live life.
“I am so grateful to have been selected to become a 90-Day Finn. I have always dreamed of living in a society like Finland: a high-tech tub; an environment with good work-family balance; and a paragon of gender equality. Can’t wait to be there!”
[8:00 PM, 1/23/2021] Deborah Berebichez: I've been thinking a lot about what Anke said and all of you supported. And i feel the need to write my thoughts here, in the privacy and support of this great group.
[8:04 PM, 1/23/2021] Deborah Berebichez: When I lived at Stanford, I learned to adore that place. Mostly Palo Alto and super laid back lifestyle. But my love for it was really centered around the incredible women-led friendships I developed while at school there. This means you. Whenever I would get invited to a dinner with Maite, Quecha, Angela, Anke, Liz, Suse, Erin, Marines, Noelia, Tatiana, etc I couldn't believe my luck! I don't think I ever enjoyed myself so much as when we hung out together!
[8:05 PM, 1/23/2021] Deborah Berebichez: Yes, I loved Stanford and made other friends, but I remember how I felt like "I found myself" whenever we did "ladies night." Growing up I just hadn't found a collection of such incredibly smart, beautiful and warm group of women who I could spend my life with.
[8:06 PM, 1/23/2021] Deborah Berebichez: I moved to NYC because I recall hearing from friends that it was easier to find a "normal" guy to marry in NYC rather than the Bay Area geeks I typically went out on dates with. Hahaha! I did care so much for Randy, but I didn't feel like he was "my person." So when I got accepted to NYU and Columbia for my postdocs I didn't hesitate.
[8:09 PM, 1/23/2021] Deborah Berebichez: Dating in NY was not easy. WHile many of my Jewish friends from growing up in Mexico had found their ideal guy in only a year of being here, I remember feeling miserable and alone. I loved NY, it was fun and challenging and people were interesting and there was so much stuff to do. But like many others I felt ultimately alone, living in a studio by myself. What saved NY was that professionally I got to explore many different areas: I got into media and did some cool science TV shows (which had been my dream), I tried my luck in Wall St and eventually went into data science.
[8:10 PM, 1/23/2021] Deborah Berebichez: My dad (who meant everything to me) died in 2012 when I was in NY. And I was more alone than ever. And just as I was thinking of moving to the Bay Area again to reconnect with all of you, I "re-met" Neer through Match.com. AFter 13 years, we found each other again. And my life changed. He was amazing. And he was there for me throughout my mourning and throughout everything else.
[8:14 PM, 1/23/2021] Deborah Berebichez: Right after meeting Neer and connecting with him, I started telling him how much I loved the Bay Area and how much I wanted to live there! He didn't know much about it but agreed to visit a few times. We are both pretty adventurous so we've taken every opportunity we have had to travel and get to know other places. We spent 3 months in SF which we loved, we then spent four months in Europe traveling and working remotely. We had a blast. We started the process of having kids in NY because I had done fertility treatments here (I had 18 frozen eggs in NYC!). Eventually non of the treatments worked! And we ended up having our lovely kids naturally -pretty late in life-. But we both felt so comfortable with our OBGYN here that we didn't even think of leaving for any reason.
[8:15 PM, 1/23/2021] Deborah Berebichez: Anke, Erin, Quecha and some of you asked about my goals. The truth is that I don't think I have very strong professional goals at the moment. And it could very well be because taking care of a 4 and almost 2 year old is so encompassing and time-consuming.
[8:21 PM, 1/23/2021] Deborah Berebichez: When we contemplated living in SF, we had a serious conversation with Erin and Victor. And Neer got a little worried that -like in NY- people work really hard to make ends meet in SF. ANd it's not like we don't want to work hard; but none of us feel like doing that right now. Neer is still a professor but he gave up his research entirely (he closed his lab) and is only teaching two classes per semester so he can do that remotely. He gets paid the same but his free-time is amazing! We spend every day together, he takes ALexandra to school, we have lunch and dinner together every day. And many days we have time to walk around and talk about life and physics during the day. We feel so privileged that we can spend so much time with our kids! But of course it com…
[8:23 PM, 1/23/2021] Deborah Berebichez: Then came COVID and I lost my chief data scientist position due to COVID-related budget cuts. And for the first time, I was left pondering if I really do want to take that super powerful data science position out there.... -or not. I was interviewing for chief data scientist at ETSY and CEO of DataKind and all these cool jobs but I just couldn't muster up the motivation to want to do these jobs.
[8:25 PM, 1/23/2021] Deborah Berebichez: So I decided to not get another job. Instead I'm working on creating my own online course for women in STEM. I've helped many women over the years so now I'm trying to put it all together and have a company around that. While I would absolutely love to be next to all of you who live in CA, the truth is that we are no longer so excited about getting back into a full work-schedule (at least I am not).
[8:27 PM, 1/23/2021] Deborah Berebichez: So the opportunity of Finnland accomplishes a few things: what we want more than anything now, is to lower our living costs to see if we can both test the waters doing other things without losing our relaxed lifestyle. I want to slowly build this course and Neer wants to continue his occasional data science consulting project. But not in a crazy way like many jobs would have us do, but more in a way that can prioritize our famiuly time together.
[8:28 PM, 1/23/2021] Deborah Berebichez: So Finland, I think, would allow us to lower our living costs while trying new things, give us much more living space (a 3BDR house near a forest and 10min from Helsinki is $2,200Euros/month). an amazing education for our kids, and some time to travel around and experience lots of things as a family.
[8:41 PM, 1/23/2021] Deborah Berebichez: As always I appreciate and love our friendship. Thank goodness for Whatsapp that keeps us close -even when we're far away. And I look forward to all of our next in-person get togethers. I love you all so much!