Dr. Nika Shakiba appointed Tier Two Canada Research Chair in Cellular Engineering
Dr. Nika Shakiba, Assistant Professor at SBME, was recently appointed as a Canada Research Chair for her research that focuses on understanding the social lives of stem cells. Dr. Shakiba is a big believer in outreach and mentorship, which shines through the students in her lab, and in her passion project, Advice to a Scientist. We caught up with Dr. Shakiba to learn more about her career and stepping outside of her comfort zone.
What is your biggest career highlight to date?
My biggest highlight has been having the opportunity to see my trainees innovate beyond my own thinking. We have had a number of new projects in the lab emerge through ideas put forth by members of my team, some of which I was not sure would work and they really surprised me when they showed promising results. I am happy to be proven wrong by them.
What inspires you to push boundaries in your work?
I’m always inspired when people dare to step outside their comfort zone. Jumping between fields takes courage, to ask naive questions, meet new people, and to show others the value in your divergent perspective. I’ve been inspired by my mentors who have done this and left marks on fields, or even created new ones. When boundaries are pushed it makes room for new ideas, and new people, to solve old problems.
What excites you the most about your work with Advice to a Scientist?
Advice to a Scientist has been a passion project, extending from my own time as a trainee. I’m excited about our vision to make advice sharing and mentorship broadly accessible and diverse. But most of all, I am excited to work with others from around the world who share this vision and want to work together to build a global resource that serves the community.
What is the best advice you’ve been given by a mentor?
Don’t lose sight of your values and make time to reconnect with yourself to know what they are. This is the compass that you should follow when you come to forks in the road, whether professional or personal.
What advice do you give your students?
Diversify your mentorship. Seek out and foster interactions with people that can challenge and empower you along the many different dimensions that make you who you are, and pay this forward to peers and next generations.
What’s next for you?
I’m honoured to have been nominated to hold a CRC and am eager to continue to work with my team and our collaborators to make cells an engineered substrate for therapies.