Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech: Mina Kalantari of Innovative Health Diagnostics On The 5 Leadership Lessons She Learned From Her Experience
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Always believe in your passion and your strength. As a young girl, I didn’t know where my curiosity was going to bring me. There were many times throughout my career and in moving to different countries that I didn’t know if I would stick with my schooling. But no matter what, I made sure to continue and persevere, to be an example for my children and younger generations.
As a part of my series about “Lessons From Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Mina Kalantari.
Dr. Mina Kalantari is a creative research scientist, currently the Scientific Director of Molecular Testing at Innovative Health Diagnostics. With extensive experience in the fields of molecular biology and cancer research, she has several years of experience in the molecular diagnostics and clinical laboratory operations spaces. Her expertise includes development and implementation of quality management systems, with a focus on CLIA/CAP. Her specialties include: Molecular Diagnostics, Research & Development, Laboratory Operations, and Personalized Medicine.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
My mom was my role model. For her generation in Iran, she was a businesswoman. She was a fashion designer and had a sewing school to teach younger girls how to sew. She helped them start a career and was the major breadwinner in my family.
She traveled to Europe to take classes to excel. I always looked up to her but am not artistic or fashionable like her. I was always a very curious kid. During my time growing up, we played outside in nature, and I in particular was always curious about what we saw. My dad called me “doctor,” because my handwriting was so bad. I grew up being told I was going to be a doctor and with support like that at home, years later I charted my path to help people in the medical field.
While I was curious about how things worked in nature, I also wanted to create something like my mother. I chose the field of Biology as my major for undergrad. After obtaining my undergraduate degree, I didn’t want to stop after college. I rotated in hospitals, collected over 2,000 samples from patients and entered a Ph.D. program right after graduating from undergrad.
During the revolution in Iran, I wasn’t allowed back at university, which made me that much more determined to find a home outside of Iran. I moved to Sweden, Stockholm, and I picked back up my education in a new country. Adjusting to the new culture and learning Swedish language as well as restarting my BS and completing a MS degree to meet the strict acceptance criteria for the Ph.D. program at Karolinska Institute did push back my career, but it only made me more determined to keep going no matter what.
After completing my Ph.D., I was offered a tenure research position at Karolinska Institute, but my family and I left Sweden because my husband wanted to go to California to start a business. I secured a research position at UC Irvine for cancer research. At UC Irvine, I supported and mentored several undergraduate research projects every year. A few years later, one of my former students and IHD co-founder reached out to me asking about an open position at Innovative Health Diagnostics (IHD). They needed help setting up genetic testing, which is how I met IHD’s CEO and my close friend, David White. I helped IHD as a consultant for a few months but wanted to do research to be closer to patients and decided to leave UC Irvine and became co-founder of IHD.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began at your company?
After I began at IHD, a group of scientists visiting IHD from the East Coast, who were helping validate genetic testing, were in the lab at the same time that a friend’s daughter needed help with her assignments in molecular biology at school.
Everybody in the group became involved in her assignments and put their research on hold to help my friend’s daughter with her research project. They were so excited to help the young girl and took the time to help her to understand molecular biology. We ended up working all night long and the following day nonstop to meet our project deadline.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
While in the lab at IHD, I remember a big container of what we thought was acid, being knocked over. Everybody panicked! We had to evacuate the lab, call for help, and enact the proper protocols in a situation such as that. The container was actually filled with vinegar. We learned a valuable lesson to use smudge proof labels.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
I have been at Innovative Health Diagnostics (IHD) for almost 10 years, and have never worked with such experienced, kind, collaborative practitioners and people.
We have never experienced anything like the COVID-19 pandemic before, which we have been on the frontlines of fighting since March of 2020. To keep our communities in California, New York, and beyond safe, it has been an all-hands-on deck approach, especially when the additional variants such as Omicron came about in the winter of 2021.
At one point, myself and my staff were working 18- to 20-hour days to process and complete the quick testing turnaround times for our patients. At IHD, we pride ourselves on providing an intimate approach to testing when compared to other labs that are required to meet quotas at mass quantities. Our staff are incredibly dedicated to their patients, providing at-home testing and even delivering tests to patient homes if they couldn’t get to the lab themselves.
During the pandemic, a member of my team was notified that her husband and son had tested positive for COVID-19. She made sure that they were alright, tested negative herself, and still came to work at IHD so that she could keep her community safe and protected during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. I am grateful to work for a company with such amazing talent and caring practitioners!
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
At IHD, we take a human-centric approach, putting patients first by enabling access to accurate testing through our suite of at-home testing options. One of those tests is the upcoming at-home Anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH) test, which can help women monitor their overall ovarian health. Tracking AMH results over time is critical to understanding individual fertility.
Our at-home AMH test is a great option for learning more about ovarian reserve for women who have been trying to conceive for over six months, want to check if their ovarian reserve is appropriate for their age, considering IVF or other fertility treatments, or would like to conceive in the future. It’s important to prepare for the future and learn more about your likelihood of conceiving naturally to start a family.
Ok super. Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. Are you currently satisfied with the status quo regarding women in STEM? What specific changes do you think are needed to change the status quo?
STEM in general needs more focus for women. It is still highly dominated by men, and there is a need to see more and more female scientists and mathematicians that shine. Generally speaking, the view that women cannot do as well as men has to change. Women need to be more valued in STEM.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by women in STEM or Tech that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts? What would you suggest to address this?
Those who are women in the field of STEM need to help those coming up know that they shouldn’t be scared to enter these fields due to the fact that they are dominated by men. When women see that their field is lacking in diversity, they often lack confidence to be the one to step in and make a change — but they should not be scared! STEM is changing and more women need to know that they can enter the field and be supported.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a woman in STEM or Tech. Can you explain what you mean?
There are many myths when it comes to being a woman in STEM — it is often thought that men are more capable of doing challenging work or are able to think more critically, when really that is not the case. There are also myths that building a family and raising children are just roles for females, when in reality husbands help raise children too. My husband was a stay-at-home dad, so I could conquer my Ph.D. program, which I also experienced growing up with my own father. Men are just as capable as women to raise kids and women are just as capable as men to tackle their careers.
What are your “5 Leadership Lessons I Learned From My Experience as a Woman in STEM or Tech” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)
- Always believe in your passion and your strength. As a young girl, I didn’t know where my curiosity was going to bring me. There were many times throughout my career and in moving to different countries that I didn’t know if I would stick with my schooling. But no matter what, I made sure to continue and persevere, to be an example for my children and younger generations.
- Don’t doubt yourself, you are your best advocate. Be confident in yourself and know that you are on the path to success, that is right for you. I often thought about switching careers, even going to school to be a dentist. But I always went back to my first love of research and science. Understanding what will make you professionally fulfilled and keeping true to that goal, will make you a happy, successful, well-rounded person.
- Recognize your weaknesses, work to conquer them, and don’t give up. There is no shame in not knowing something. We as human beings have to continue learning, or else we will never grow. Be persistent in what you want to achieve, and understand if there are hurdles in the way, to learn what you need to conquer them and don’t give up.
- Believe in people and strive to help others. Going into the field of STEM, you see so many incredible people putting others and their community before themselves to save lives and make a difference. During the pandemic, we saw people step up in ways that we haven’t seen before. We, as human beings, need to keep that going and should help each other out a lot more than we do.
- Network, Network, Network! Relationships are very important. If I hadn’t kept relationships with my former students, I wouldn’t have been introduced to David White or IHD. Now, I am almost one decade into the best role of my career. Keep relationships, you never know who could be helping you find your next adventure!
What advice would you give to other women leaders to help their team to thrive?
For women leaders looking to best support their teams, I would say to believe in yourself and your team, follow your dreams and help your colleagues follow theirs and don’t get discouraged if you hit roadblocks — teams are there to lift each other up when there are difficulties.
What advice would you give to other women leaders about the best way to manage a large team?
As a female leader you need to be involved, be present, and show support, but at the same time not micro-manage. It is important to recognize your staff’s strengths and skills and assign responsibilities that fit well to their strengths. Don’t try to teach them something that doesn’t work for them, putting a square peg into a round hole. It is important to recognize what staff members are good at and allow them to thrive in that area. When business desires and passions match, that is when the real work begins! I would also advise other female leaders to show a level of compassion to your staff and team members, many businesses need a better “people culture” to help teams work harmoniously and function well — women can lead with compassion and still meet the goals set out by teams or leaders.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Our CEO and Co-founder of IHD David White is one of my closest friends and a person that I admire greatly. When we were switching from research setting to clinical setting, I decided to get a license to become a medical director in the future, but the classes in order to get the license were many towns away on the weekends.
I didn’t think that I would be able to manage it on my own due to high workload, deadlines and family responsibilities, but David kept encouraging me to take the classes and get the license. At the time, we were working hard, 6 to 7 days a week. David drove me every Sunday to and from school, would sit in Panera or Starbucks to work while I was in class, and eat lunch with me on my breaks.
He would spend his Sunday there, so that I could succeed. If there was a Sunday when he couldn’t do it, he would apologize that he couldn’t bring me! I am so grateful to him and the opportunity that I have had to work with him and IHD and his friendship.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I try to help as many students as I can, especially females, with research or advice on final projects in school so that they could work to get into the best universities possible to succeed in their careers.
I would often bring as many students as possible in the lab and encourage them to continue to do what they like to do and are passionate about.
I have taken the time to write great reference letters and help students get into well-known universities, even Ivy leagues such as Yale and Cornell medical schools.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
First and foremost, nothing is more important than to be good human beings and contribute to peace.
This life has so much to do with working hard, we often forget that we are human. We need to think about others, help each other, and support change that will make us all better human beings. If I won the lottery, I would share it. I would help people.
A few years ago, a friend of mine moved to California from the East Coast. I found out that she was unfortunately in an abusive relationship, so as she was leaving the partnership, I set up a bed in my living room so that she would have somewhere to stay and to feel protected during that time.
We are human before anything else, and it is important that we take care of each other.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
My favorite Life Lesson Quote is from Martin Luther King Jr.: “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.”
I am a person who has to move, I have to improve every day. I believe that every day we can move forward and learn something from somebody, that we can use to make this world a better place.
We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
If I could meet anyone, it would be Sylvia Earle, marine biologist, oceanographer, and explorer. I would always want my career to be in the sciences, but if I could go back and focus on a different topic, I would have loved to have been a marine biologist, where biology and science can help to improve our environment to preserve the planet Earth for our future generation. Life is beautiful in all its forms and worth fighting for. I would love to meet with Sylvia and get to hear from her experiences.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech: Mina Kalantari of Innovative Health Diagnostics On The 5… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.