Last night on UNCUT, host Jules Vasquez welcomed 2 outstanding Belizean physicists who have ascended to the apex of STEM on the global stage.
The first was Dr. Arlie Petters, who is currently serving as the Provost at the New York University Abu Dhabi. The other guest was Dr. Sydney Taegar, who is the Director of Systems Engineering and Architecture for Nokia's Optical Networks business group.
Both Belizean-born scientists have had to pursue their studies and chosen careers outside of their home country. Both men have expressed their concerns about the difficult decision to live outside of Belize. Here's a snippet from Dr. Petters who discussed his struggles to give back to Belize, while navigating the polarizing political climate:
Dr. Arlie Petters
"The way I see it, I'm a man of the people. That's my political party, and I'm here to help everybody who enlists, and I will do this the best way I can. My inbox is very full, but I will get a chance to go through my emails and I will respond to you when I'm able to, of course. And so I feel the emotional intelligence, the social intelligence is extremely important for me when dealing with the kinds of unhealthy, I would say, dynamics that you're talking about, Jules. At the end of the day, we are dealing with a young country with so many natural resources, green and blue, and so much talent capacity within our population. I see opportunity and I feel that what I do, I don't want any kind of interpersonal dynamics to get in the way of helping to advance the Jewel, right. I really believe, deep down in my soul; we've produced scholars and excellent people like Sidney, right. I was humbled to have benefited from the foundations that I got in Belize, both formally and informally, through my grandparents and through relatives. And so the capacity is there within our nation. My view with all of this is to not let the noise in the market distract me."
Here now is Dr. Sydney Taegar's explanation of his challenges of reconciling his dream of helping Belize progress in academia and the massive debt he racked up while trying to pursue his education:
Dr. Syndey
"I wanted to do a post-doc because I wanted to strengthen my connections, consolidate my education and continue to build my network within my field because I wanted to come back to Belize. And I wanted to participate in the development of the University of Belize in whatever way I could. I wanted to live, live and work in Belize, but still be connected to the research community outside of Belize. And I chose — people always, you know, how could you choose an esoteric like particle physics and expect to live in Belize and remain connected to that community? And there — it's not unfair. It's not an unfair criticism. But I actually chose particle physics over other disciplines in physics because it actually is one of the fields, because it's such a big enterprise in terms of collaboration, the size of the experiments, the way it's funded, that you could actually do that. You could actually live in Belize and participate in a — Arlie is not sure he agrees with that. So there are programs that exist to support scientists in developing countries. It's obvious that you cannot participate at the level that you could if you lived in a first-world country if you're working in a field like that. But I don't think it's impossible. And that was my dream of helping to build the university and still remaining in some way connected to the research. And I still have that dream actually, of doing that, but when I finished my postdoc, a couple of things happened and I won't go into all of them. But there were partly financial I had a certain amount of debt and I looked at what I was going to make at the University of Belize, and I looked at what I was making as a postdoc. I was making much more as a postdoc than I would make at the University."
Jules Vasquez
"6 figures difference."
Dr. Syndey
"Which was okay, that wasn't the issue. The issue was the debt. So when I look at the debt I had and the salary I was going to make, I was like, if I go to Belize, I'm just going to have to forget about this debt because there's no way I'll ever pay this off for the rest of my life."
Despite the challenges of pursuing educational opportunities abroad, both scientists had words of encouragement for other young Belizeans who are beginning their academic journey:
Dr. Arlie Petters
"Don't navigate it alone. Navigate with a community. We know the cliche; it takes a tribe. And so there are people like myself and Sydney, we are here as part of your network. And I think that's what that's a thing for of a lot of what it takes, in my opinion, to navigate in these kinds of waters, Jules. And the last thing I would say is our country is full of so much talent. And so I want you to believe that that talent is in you. And if it worked for me, the guy that studied under the kerosene lamp out of the culture capital, 'Griga. It can work for you as well."
Dr. Sydney
"Ask for help when you need it. You know, as I mentioned before, for me that was always the hardest thing. And if there was something I could tell my younger self now, I would say, you know, don't be that stubborn. When you need help, ask for it. There are people that are who want to help, who are more than willing to help if they know that you need that help."
This episode of the show repeats tonight at 8:00 pm and you can find it on the Uncut Youtube page.
