WIB-Seattle Leadership Spotlight: Mie Field

Mie Field
WIB-Seattle Sponsorship Chair

A pivotal moment in her love of life sciences came when she completed an internship at the University of Pittsburgh, working in the cell biology department. Mie worked as a laboratory and a research assistant, thinking that her path in science was solid. “I thought that was going to be it. I’m going to become a researcher in this area,” she said. “I thought that was my path, especially since I did a summer internship at University of Pittsburgh, and it was the best summer of my life.” From there, Mie earned her bachelor’s in biology from the University of Bridgeport and followed her passion to work at the Tufts Medical Center’s Molecular Cardiology Research Institute (MCRI).

However, Mie’s career took a shift when her family moved to South America. Initially, the intent was to temporarily move, be closer to her spouse’s family in Paraguay, and help with their nonprofit organization, but Mie and her family ended up staying for over nine years. When they moved back to the US, Mie found herself with a conundrum: she was excited that her family was moving to a city with such a strong biotech industry, but she also struggled to find a laboratory job that paid well enough for her family to thrive in Seattle. “I needed mental stimulation and the analytical side of my brain was itching. I was so happy when I heard we were moving to Seattle, because it’s one of the big life science hubs,” she said. “But it’s not all about bench labs! I realized being in the US, having three young kids in the Seattle area, it’s so expensive. I did look and see if I could do 9-to-5, five days a week, or even weekends in some labs, but that kind of schedule just wouldn’t work for my family.” As Mie searched for a position that would serve her own interests and her family’s needs, she came across Women In Bio. “I was so excited, but with a 10-year gap in experience, I was thinking ‘How the heck am I going to get back into the career?’” she recalled. “I searched around and found Women In Bio on Google.”

Despite her efforts, Mie said, “I’ve experienced a hard time staying in the life sciences field. Sometimes when life changes, being able to have a path is nice, but so is being able to be flexible.” Her transition to financial services might seem unrelated to her biology-based education, but Mie has found there’s significant overlap when it comes to her motivations. “I thought being in science, being a part of figuring out what the mechanism is, and helping people find treatments or diseases would allow me to make contributions to making people’s lives better. Now, I’ve changed my career to financial services, and it’s the same thing, just helping people feel better about their finances.” Mie said she’ll always love science, but she’s found her footing in the financial services world. “The work that I do right now, I fell in love with it. If it took me another year, if the timing was off, I probably would still be trying to get back into the life sciences,” she said. “I feel like financial services was a calling, and my life was guided to what I do right now. The training that I got and how my brain works, the analytical side, it’s definitely a big boost when working in this field as well.”

With WIB, Mie finds that she’s able to maintain a tether to the life sciences while pursuing her new career path. “WIB opens up the doors for that kind of situation. A career change, especially from academia to the industry, is a big thing,” she said. “WIB helps so many women in this field to continue to be in this field, and there are so many opportunities. It would be nice if I could contribute to that, for people who love science to be able to stay in science.” One of the things that Mie values the most about being a part of WIB is the connections she has formed. “The connections that you get to make open up your eyes to what’s actually out there,” she said. “The support that we can give each other, I always try to help others, and in WIB, you can see that everyone’s helping each other.” Mie’s impact as the Sponsorship Chair means that she is able to help our chapter continue to support women in Seattle’s life science community. We couldn’t be more grateful to Mie for taking on this essential role on our leadership board!

Submitted by Mariana Huben