@Kayla @alice I apologize for the late reply! The move to sustainability research involved a mix of intention and serendipity, like most things in my life 😄 long post incoming! Brevity is not my forte sorry 🙈
Back in 2020, I took a break from postdoc life because I was completely burnt out and I wasn't enjoying how academia does science. I put a lot of thought into:
(a) what would I really enjoy pursuing on a medium to long-term, and
(b) what kind of people I wanted to collaborate with -- this part was extremely important to me because I had worked with enough academics at this stage who just wanted to work with clones of themselves rather than welcome (neuro)diversity. I could butt heads with them as a non-conformist, or I could carve a separate path for myself.
I started doing freelance science consulting because I really do enjoy science, just not in a purely academic context. I got lucky that I got contracts from companies that wanted to create educational toolkits related to computational neuroscience (my expertise) for their clients (scientific labs in the US). While the money was good, these companies were for-profit and I once again found myself not enjoying the process at all. The work was "easy" if I may so say and I could finish it within a short time if I wanted to but because of my disinterest, I would end up spending a lot of time just stressing out over "why am I doing this?!" despite finally getting the opportunity to work with one of the most accommodating and kind manager I had met so far! So (b) from above wasn't enough. It had to be a combo of (a) AND (b).
Around that time, I and 2 collaborators won a science grant specifically focused on outreach in India (where I live). I really enjoyed engaging with the local science community - with which I had lost touch during my 2 postdocs abroad. Along with this, I had been volunteering for certain non-profits and found it very stimulating and fulfilling working with the communities there and seeing direct impact from our work (like the Climatematch Impact Scholars Program which we launched last year)! I came to realize that I wanted to do research where I could see its impact in the world around me, specially in India.
I had also started gardening in 2020. My in-laws are farmers. And so I got super interested in regenerative agriculture and thoroughly relished connecting with nature. It was such an amazing stress buster. For me, growing my own food sustainably and creating healthy soil through composting became more than just a hobby. I started researching about it and day dreaming of living in a permaculture food forest :) Around this time, I came to learn about Adam Aron who after 20 years of doing cognitive neuroscience shifted to teaching, researching and organizing on the climate and ecological crisis. This was so inspiring and helped eased my stress about transitioning away from neuroscience to doing sustainability/ecological research despite having spent about a decade in the field of neuroscience!
After some soul searching and some online tests, I also found that I have strong indications of having a neurodiverse brain - ADHD, ASD, add DSPD with a non-24 hr circadian rhythm into the mix. I realized that while I could survive in a purely academic setting, I wouldn't thrive in it as there are very few labs that would understand me and welcome such diversity without prejudice!
I wanted to work from home as much as possible. So I put a word out to my collaborators that I was actively looking for such opportunities and to move to doing research in the sustainability space. Luckily around the same time one of my collaborators let me know that the echo network was looking to hire a Data Analyst. They ended up hiring an ecologist as the Data Analyst but took me in for a short contract as a Research Analyst based on my interview and my interests. It was also serendipitous that this org was started by an ecologist whom I had met during my PhD days. She found that the beautiful field sites where her lab was doing research were being destroyed and in one case was even turned into a parking lot, if I remember correctly! This and other academic research constraints motivated her to start this network. Her courage to undertake this large-scale public-private social innovation partnership was infectious!
My short term research contract with the echo network ended up becoming more than a year long. I found the work super rewarding -- we were using scientific principles to bring about changes in government sustainability policies. When I found out that their Head of Research was moving out of India and they were looking to hire someone for this leadership role, I jumped at that opportunity and have been working in that capacity since last month. I negotiated a 4-day work week because they currently can't pay me what I was asking for 🙂 The pay in the non-profit sector isn't all that bad to be honest, it's just that the salaries in the for-profit sector are so hyper inflated (at least in tech). Time will tell if I have indeed found the combo of (a) and (b) that I was looking for but so far I'm actively learning new things and enjoying the translation of research skills in this space!
Well that was quite a ramble! 😅 Let me know if you have any further questions. I'd love to share my experiences and help others make such a transition if they are unhappy with where they are now.