INTERVIEWER: All right.
You ready?
Your challenge, identify each item in the slides.
[UPBEAT MUSIC]
You have five minutes.
[UPBEAT MUSIC]
SEETHAL: My name is Seethal Meda.
I really wish I can see this in here.
SEETHAL: I enjoy working with microscopes,
because I can see the tiny cells and how confident they
are in the flask.
I'm not able to focus here.
That is the problem, I guess.
Mosquito?
[DING]
INTERVIEWER: You got it.
[UPBEAT MUSIC]
Coffee granule.
[DINGING]
What is this?
Cheetos.
[DINGING]
[UPBEAT MUSIC]
I was born and brought up in Andhra Pradesh,
in the south part of India.
My dad was a professor.
We are three sisters, and I'm the oldest.
As a kid, I was interested in plants.
So somehow, my interest started with botany.
I got into college.
It was 2001 when I graduated.
[CHEERING]
My majors were botany, zoology, and chemistry.
And then, 2002, I got married and I got my son.
I was completely mesmerized with him
and completely focused on him.
We moved to US in 2011, to San Francisco and Pennsylvania
in 2014.
I'm in Pennsylvania since then.
[PHONE RINGING]
[SPEAKING TELUGU]
SEETHAL: Since I was focused on my son,
I was not working anywhere.
My only interaction was with my family, friends.
And then, when he was in high school, I realized,
I want to do something for my sake.
I thought, I want to study.
Then I heard about Montgomery Community College.
[UPBEAT MUSIC]
I started with English 101, and then I got the confidence
that I can join a biotechnology and biomanufacturing course.
Dr. BRYANS: Today, we're going to repeat our PNA isolation
experiment from the protocol that you used.
So grab your micropipettes, and you can get started.
SEETHAL: I thought, I don't know that I
can be able to sit in a class in a different country
after 15 years of gap from my education.
Dr. BRYANS: I remember that, when she first
started the program.
The program can be quite intensive.
It's a lot of lab work as well.
And within about three or four weeks,
she was mentoring her lab partner.
She was now telling the lab partner how things are done.
SEETHAL: I was not very confident with new people,
but Dr. Bryans gave me the confidence that I can do it,
which helped me complete this course.
GEISELA: I know Seethal since she
worked in two different positions at Rockland
under my supervision.
Seethal was very shy at the beginning,
but she knew what she was doing.
Yeah.
SEETHAL: Actually, I got the knowledge of what the industry is
doing from this program.
I went to Washington for the Advanced Technology Education
conference to display my work from my internship.
HETAL: Presenting the internship project,
you talk with scientists, and the experience
gives us more confidence.
And I have seen her.
She takes all the opportunity, and she's a successful story.
GEISELA: Today, Seethal looks like an ambassador.
We would like to have more Seethals working with us.
[LAUGHTER]
SEETHAL: So how ATE helped in my career?
Dr. BYRANS: Yeah.
So the ATE stands for the Advanced Technological Education
program.
And it's an initiative funded by the National Science Foundation,
funding for biomanufacturing to help with developing programs
to train graduates to enter the biomanufacturing workforce.
SEETHAL: Montgomery College gave me the confidence that I can do.
My son, he told me, Mom, I thought
you will see me graduating, but I saw you graduating.
SUBASH: When she finished the certification course,
that was our achievement.
And above that, going all the way to here,
today, working as a job, was amazing.
Dr. BYRANS: That's the great thing about Seethal.
She's been all the way up for the challenge.
SEETHAL: Today, I work in the BioPharma company.
I work on vaccines.
I learned about myself that I can do it,
and I can work for the industry, which I never thought of.
That gives me a feeling that I'm doing something which matters.
[UPBEAT MUSIC]