Women in Science and Medicine Podcast · Women in Science and Medicine

University of Kentucky's Dr. Carrie Shaffer

·34 min·3 clips

Dr. Carrie Schaefer wanted to be a scientist since age four, never deviating despite cultural barriers.

This episode features Dr. Carrie Schaefer, an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky with appointments across veterinary science, pharmaceutical sciences, and microbiology. Host Mallory Weaver explores Schaefer's career journey and her perspective as a woman in science from Appalachia. Schaefer details her educational path, which began at the University of Kentucky with a degree in Agricultural Biotechnology. She secured competitive FBI research internships following 9/11 and later earned a PhD from Vanderbilt University. After a brief stint in a startup, she completed postdoctoral fellowships at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Caltech before returning to Kentucky. Her research program is intentionally cross-disciplinary, spanning human, animal, and plant studies. Schaefer integrates biomedical engineering to develop new infection models and studies how circadian rhythms affect infections in patients with comorbidities common in Appalachia. She is a female principal investigator on a COBRE grant, a congressionally mandated program to boost research in less-funded states. Schaefer notes that post-pandemic, she emphasizes work-life balance and mental health with her lab trainees. She observes that women in academia, regardless of parental status, took on disproportionate unrecognized service and administrative burdens during COVID. A surprising insight is her lab's accidental study of circadian biology, which emerged from interdisciplinary collaboration. Schaefer also advocates for protected research time and more administrative support staff to free scientists for creative thought. She mentors by working alongside trainees in the lab and openly discussing her own mistakes. The episode has a conversational and encouraging tone, blending personal narrative with professional advice. Listeners interested in academic career paths, interdisciplinary research, or the experiences of women in STEM from rural backgrounds will find this episode valuable. Those seeking a highly technical discussion of a single scientific field might find the broad overview less engaging.

As heard by us

A grounded look at Appalachian roots, research leadership, and persistence.

Dr. Carrie Schaefer's conversation feels strongest when it stays close to Eastern Kentucky and an Appalachian family history that reaches back generations.

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Why you'd press play

A Kentucky-rooted research story about staying close to home and serving a land-grant mission.

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