How two scientist mothers made it happen

Fieldwork can be a nightmare of logistics. Nobody would increase the burden by taking their children along — would they? We did just that, embarking on a four-day field campaign in a remote village with our three children, all under four. Not only did it work out, but we recommend it.

We met in 2015, when we worked in the same laboratory at the University of Buenos Aires. Both of us are biologists: V.L.L. is an ecotoxicologist and M.L.L. studies the ecology of shallow lakes.

We’ve both also been involved in other projects. M.L.S. has worked on a study of drinking-water quality in neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires for the past 15 years. V.L.L. has worked with rural and Indigenous communities as part of the Argentinian arm of the international organization Vía Campesina. We’ve formed a strong friendship and enjoyed holidays together with our partners before we became mothers.

We supported each other in our shared desire to embrace motherhood as working scientists, which posed certain challenges. In 2019, M.L.S. began a three-month internship at Michigan State University in East Lansing, and her partner, Fede, took on full-time caring responsibilities for their six-month-old daughter, Maite, when the family moved to the United States. At the same time, V.L.L. relocated to Salta, Argentina — 1,490 kilometres from Buenos Aires — to live with her partner, Nacho, when their daughter, Julia, was just two months old.

Read the full post on the Nature Careers Website – https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-02471-2