Kessler Foundation - Fast Takes Podcast Series
Celebrating UN International Women & Girls in Science: Dr. Ada X. Chen shares her perspective - Episode 47

ADA X. CHEN: 00:06
[music] The science is like a puzzle. Identifying the missing pieces and putting the
pieces together.

JOAN BANKS-SMITH: 00:13
This is Joan Banks-Smith for Kessler Foundation's Fast Takes - Research that Changes
Lives. In this special edition, we are celebrating the United Nations international day
of women and girls in science. Our special guest is Dr. Ada Chen. Dr. Chen is originally
from China. She finished two years of high school there and then her senior year in
Scotland. She also remained in Scotland for her undergraduate degree, and that was
at the University of Edinburgh, and she majored in sociology. Her first master's is in
cultural and heritage management, and that was at the Edinburgh Napier University.
Her second master's is in rehabilitation counseling, and that was from the University
of Wisconsin Madison. And her third degree, a master's of public health was from the
University of Edinburgh. And her PhD was in rehabilitation counselor education, and
that was from the University of Wisconsin Madison. Dr. Chen, you have a lot of
education behind you. What made you decide to initially go off to Scotland?

CHEN: 01:22 [music]
It was actually a few reasons. First is the family influence. So my father back in
2000-- he is also a medical doctor. He specialized in internal medicine at first and later
he visited United States after visiting Scotland. He went to Winchester University in
Virginia. And he learned the concept of modern rehabilitation medicine there. So
when he came back, he is very impressed with the education system in the US, and he
thinks I will be a good fit to go on and study abroad. I also have a few family members
and friends who's living abroad, both in the USA and the UK. So that's the influence of
the family and friends. And also, for myself, when I was a younger age, I was very
excited to have the potential opportunity to experience different language, different
culture, and cuisines. The thought of it was very exciting for me.

BANKS-SMITH: 02:28
When you talk about the culture, and obviously, you have one degree in culture and
heritage, how did that translate into then moving into the world of rehab?
CHEN: 02:38 I guess the path that I took to get to where I am as a post-op fellow during the fulltime research on employment disability at Kessler Foundation, it's somewhat a long
path, and it's not conventional one. So my undergraduate major was sociology in the
UK at the time. So by the time I finished with my degree in sociology, I was very
confused. I was not sure what kind of career path I could take with a degree in
sociology. So I explored around. I've always liked culture and the thought of heritage.
So I saw this master's degree opening up. It's called cultural heritage management.
And I thought this could be a good fit because part of the sociology study is about
culture and heritage as well. So I applied for that. And during my master's degree
study, I realized that this is now the career that I want to take. This is now something I
want to do for the rest of my life. So I started to use my knowledge in sociology,
especially the knowledge on the disability of sociology as well as some of the
sociology methodology and use that background to give myself a opportunity to
collaborate with some of the rehabilitation medicine researchers in China. So we started to do some rehabilitation medicine research, which kind of gave me a chance
to apply for the rehabilitation counseling degree in Wisconsin.

BANKS-SMITH: 04:31
Throughout this journey, aside from your father being a doctor, has there been
anybody else who you felt has been influential, either as a mentor, professor, that
also helped you decide to go from the culture and heritage studies into
rehabilitation?

CHEN: 04:50
Along the way, there were a few people that had heavy influence on my decisions and
my development as a researcher in rehabilitation. First of all, it's a family influence. So
my father, he's not the only MD in the family. It started with my grandma. My
grandma, she graduated with a medical degree back in, I think, 1940s, 1950s.

BANKS-SMITH: 05:20
Wow.

CHEN: 05:20
Yeah. She was [inaudible] the first female doctors in the modern Republic of China.
Yeah. At the time, most people didn't even finish high school, and she somehow made
it to the doctoral degree and finished with MD. So, yeah, she had an influence her two
sons, my father who finished as a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner,
specialized in internal medicine, and now his most specialized in rehabilitation
medicine. And my uncle, he also went to the medical school. He is a sergeant. He's
actually a pretty famous surgeon in cardiovascular in China. So the family influence
had a very big influence on my decision process. The second one is my PhD adviser
back to University of Wisconsin Madison, professor Hong Chen. I think he's truly a
scholar and a gentleman. He's also a excellent educator and a very, very productive
researcher. So because I came from a different educational background with my
degree in sociology and culture heritage management, I did not know much about the
world of vocational rehabilitation counseling. So the first thing he did was he asked
me to take a lot of foundational classes during my PhD-- first three years of my PhD
years. So I ended up taking classes with master's students. I was taking maximum
credits every semester. And he also encouraged me to do the additional internships in
three different settings to let myself be familiar with the vocational rehabilitation
system as well as the mental health system here in the United States. He also gave me
a lot of opportunities throughout my five years as a PhD student to do different
research. So he helped me find my research direction, which is on demand-side
employment practice as well as psychosocial research on disability. He also taught me
how to do data analysis, prepare for the dataset, prepare and submitting manuscripts.
He basically taught me how to become an independent researcher. So where I
graduated with my PhD in 2021, I actually had over 20 publications. That was
opportunities he provided to me, and we still collaborate even through this day.

CHEN: 08:21
The last person that had lots of influence on me is my current center director at
Kessler Foundation, our director for employment disability research, Dr. John O'Neill
who is an amazing researcher, and he has been a great mentor to me because my
PhD program, my major is called rehabilitation council education. We are trained as
educators and everyone was expected to get a university job as a professor after
graduation. Most people in my field conduct research in university settings as
professors. So why apply for post-op position? I guess I was not so sure. I was now
very familiar with a typical community based research setting like Kessler Foundation. We had some really great conversations about what to expect, the differences
between doing the research in universities settings versus settings like Kessler. He
was able to share a lot of valuable insight because he has experience as both the
university faculty and a researcher at Kessler. So after those conversations, I was very
convinced that this would be a great fit for my career [inaudible]. Coming here is
definitely the best decision I've made in recent years. I've enjoyed doing the research
work here as well as working under Dr. John O'Neill and also seeing firsthand the
impact of the research that he does here. So those are the people have influenced my
decision process along the way.

BANKS-SMITH: 10:13
It seems that it's a nice mix of different areas of study to help you along this journey?

CHEN: 10:18
Definitely.

BANKS-SMITH: 10:21
You mentioned that you have a master's in public health and your PhD is as a rehab
counselor educator. How has those degrees helped you in your current employment
here at the foundation?

CHEN: 10:33
My PhD degree in rehabilitation counseling or rehabilitation counselor education and
my master's degree in public health, I think these two degree compliment each other
very well. So for rehabilitation counseling or vocational rehab, our focus is on
employment. The research we do is employment and disability. At least here in the
United States, employment is often viewed as a public health intervention because
employment provides better physical, mental, and emotional health to the individuals
with disabilities, also helping to achieve independent-living goals as well as better
quality of life. On the other side, being unemployed is connected to a few problems or
issues including depression, anxiety, substance abuse problems, ultimately lead to
poverty and bad health and lower quality of life. I thought employment is viewed as a
public health intervention. By learning some of the advanced knowledge and
especially the advanced methodology in public health could really help me with my
research in rehabilitation and counseling of vocational rehabilitation. I think my
education backgrounds in both sociology, public health, as well as vocational
rehabilitation counseling, it has shaped who I am as a research now. This experience
have provided me with the opportunity to gain a more comprehensive understanding
of the medical, psychosocial, and vocational aspects of approaches related to the
research I'm doing now, which is employment and disability.

BANKS-SMITH: 12:44
I'm going to shift gears here a little bit. During the pandemic, you, John O'Neill, and
myself, and a few others had the opportunity to work on the VRF manual. The VRF
stands for vocational resource facilitation, which is a narrative and guide, what does
this narrative and guide do? What's it used for? And if it's available to clinicians, other
researchers?

CHEN: 13:13
First of all, I want to talk a little about the intervention which is called vocational
resource facilitation. We usually refer it to as the VRF. So this intervention, it is a
person-centered and early-interventions vocational rehabilitation program. It is
designed to promote return to work and competitive integrated employment. For
currently, it is people with spinal cord injuries. So the intervention starts during the
inpatient phase at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation. It delivers the vocational services to newly injured individuals with spinal cord injury during the acute medical
inpatient rehabilitation state. And the intervention followed by systematic assertive
employment services, coordination, post discharge for around two years, which
leading to competitive employment. The manual we're talking about, it's like a
resources guide because vocational resource facilitation, the big part of it is to
provide to the patients with different resources and information that's relevant to the
employment that could help them return to work. So the manual describes what
vocational resource facilitation is. And some of the resources that the practitioner can
use to provide services to the individual. So my current project is to study different
stakeholder's experience and perceptions in regards to the effects of vocational
resource facilitation intervention. So by stakeholders, we're looking at two different
sites. First one is the supply side, which include the participants with spinal cord injury
who have received services from the vocational resource facilitation program as well
as the New Jersey state vocational rehabilitation counselors who have provided
services to the participants with spinal cord injury. And the other side is what we call
the demand side. It's the employers who have hired or rehired the VRF participants
with spinal cord injury. So I'm hoping to gain some insights about how those
stakeholders-- their thoughts on how to improve the VRF intervention program, and I
want to use those fundings to enhance the current manual as well as the current
interventions.

BANKS-SMITH: 16:28
For our listeners, back in the day, when somebody came into the hospital or the
rehab facility with a spinal cord injury, it could be a lengthy stay. But people didn't
necessarily think about what's this person going to do after when they get home. But
today, the thought process is even while you're in the hospital, we already have to
start thinking about how you're going to move forward, what are you going to do,
what can we do to get you back into the job, is that correct?

CHEN: 16:55
Yes. That is correct.

BANKS-SMITH: 16:57 This manual, is this for caregivers as well as clinicians?
CHEN: 17:03 Well, now this manual is mostly for the clinicians, but we are hoping we could expand
the manual to include some relevant information and resources for the care takes as
well.

BANKS-SMITH: 17:19
This manual is on our KFlearn.org website. If listeners are interested in taking a look at
it, we'll have all of that information in the description of this podcast. We're going to
wrap this up, Dr. Chen, and I just have one last question for you. From your
experiences so far, what advice would you give to girls and women seeking a career in
the sciences?

CHEN: 17:45
One important advice I will give, which has helped me a lot of the way is to keep your
curiosity-- is to be curious because science or the research work is very curious in
nature and really, to embrace and enjoy the intellectual challenges of the barriers
that you find along the way. Always asking questions, science and research itself can
fulfill a lifelong of curiosity for you. And I guess science is like a puzzle. Identifying the
missing pieces and putting the pieces together. So, yeah, I think the advice I would
give is to keep curious and don't give up.

BANKS-SMITH: 18:35
I think that's excellent advice. Dr. Chen, thank you so much for spending some time
with us and for sharing your background and the work that you do at the foundation.
We really appreciate all that you do here. [music]

CHEN: 18:48
Thank you very much for the opportunity.

BANKS-SMITH: 18:50
We will have Dr. Chen's bio in various links in the program now. So be sure to check
those out. Tuned in to our podcast series lately? Join our listeners in 90 countries who
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SoundCloud, or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast was recorded remotely
and was edited and produced by Joan Banks-Smith, creative producer for Kessler
Foundation. [music]