Fashionable Biotech Exec, MD
Biotech Exec – kicking cancers a$$ with my husband at the family biotech biz; a fashionista, patient, MD (former neurosurg), and blogger www.fashionsurgeon.com
Throughout my career in medicine and biotech I have observed women in the male dominated STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) industries feel compelled to reject their femininity. Personally, I have a great passion for science and medicine – I graduated first in my medical school class and went on to be accepted at a top ranked neurosurgical training program. Currently I am a top executive at a biotech startup in San Francisco. But, people always have a hard time reconciling my appearance with my resume, because of the vivid stereotype of what a “doctor” should look like. Turns out, I am as fluent in haute couture as I am in the latest drugs being studied for the treatment of glioblastoma (a malignant brain tumor). I love fashion and have never suppressed that for my career. I was known throughout the hospital as “the doctor with the pink lipstick,” and when I presented our therapeutic for the first time to a governmental agency (Department of Health and Human Services) I was complimented on my heels (classic Louboutin Bianca’s of course). So when I got a text from a friend who met someone who apparently designed high fashion clothing for women in STEM, I immediately found this designer on instagram – enter Shenova fashion.
I have not been this excited about a fashion label since Karl Lagerfield began designing for FENDI (and I went bat shit crazy for the bug bag). Shenova fashion is not simply cute “I love neuroscience,” shirts, but a high quality, high fashion, quickly expanding clothing line that designer Holly Renee calls “industry chic.” Holly’s design aesthetic was heavily influenced by her mother, a molecular biologist, and her brother a computer programming prodigy. Inside her mother’s lab she found inspiration in the scientific instruments, hazard signs, and how the sterile world of fashion was such a stark contrast to the seemingly “whimsical” world of fashion.
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