Stories of Women in Neuroscience · Stories of WiN

Dr. Eva Pool

·35 min·2 clips

I really didn't believe I could make it because I didn't speak English, but then one mentor changed that.

Dr. Eva Puhl begins at the beginning. She was fascinated by the brain as a kid, but she did not grow up with a fixed plan to become a researcher. Her first pull was clinical: psychology, mental health, and brain-body communication sounded closer to psychotherapy than lab work. Internships nudged her elsewhere. The transcript only gives part of that early shift, but it frames research as something she found through training, not something she assumed from the start. Margarita keeps the conversation gently chronological. She introduces Dr. Puhl as an assistant professor and principal investigator at the University of Geneva, where her lab studies the role of effect in learning and decision making. Then the story gets more personal. Dr. Puhl talks about reaching out to a lab after hearing that it was strong technically and also supportive in a real human way. That part lands, because the move was tied to grant schemes from the Swiss national foundation, similar to Marie Curie, where researchers go elsewhere, learn expertise, and bring it back to Switzerland. She already had funding. That changed the ask. She could approach the lab with a project she would write and ask whether they wanted to support it, instead of simply asking for a position. The research fit was there, but the move still was not something she wanted at first. Mobility was expected for researchers in Switzerland. Her husband was more excited about the U.S. and Los Angeles. Once she arrived, though, the lab became the kind of place she still talks about with warmth. People ate lunch together, talked through analysis choices, shared code, shared time, and made the technical work feel less lonely. The episode closes quietly. After the career arc, Margarita asks about free time. Dr. Puhl says climbing used to be a long-running love with friends before having a son changed her days. Now free time means her son. It is a small answer, and it fits: this is a story about science shaped by training, mentors, moves, family, and the rooms where people help each other think.

As heard by us

A neuroscience career story about clinical questions, mobility, and the human infrastructure behind a strong postdoc fit.

Dr. Eva Puhl's route into neuroscience reads less like a fixed plan than a long pull toward better explanations. A childhood interest in the brain led through psychology, mental health, and clinical questions before research became the sharper fit.

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Want a neuroscience career story where clinical psychology questions lead toward addiction research and a supportive lab chapter in Los Angeles?

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