- [Mary] I'm Mary Parker
and welcome to this episode

of Eureka's Sounds of Science.

Ziva Abraham is the CEO
and founder of Microrite,

a consulting and training company

that helps pharmaceuticals,

biotechnology and
medical device companies.

She is also mad about mycology,

having fallen in love with
fungi at an early age.

She has written and
edited books and articles

on the topics of fungi and the prevention

of contamination in clean
rooms, and she is here today

to talk about her career and her passions.

Welcome Ziva.

- [Ziva] Thank you, Mary for the priming.

- [Mary] I'm so glad to have you here.

I hope you feel welcome.

So can you, for the benefit
of our listening audience,

tell me about your education

and your experiences before college?

- [Ziva] Absolutely, this is
something I'm never asked,

so I'm going to share
this for the first time.

I was born in a very
religious community in India

where girls were married off at the age

anywhere between 13 to 16 years of age.

But I was fortunate that
my mother had admitted me

in a local Anglo Indian Montessori School.

Well, this Montessori school
teacher somehow convinced

my mother to admit me in a
Zoroastrian school, again,

this is in Bombay, India,
and my mother agreed.

School life was not fun.

- [Mary] I'm not actually
familiar with that type of school,

could you explain a little
bit what that's about?

- [Ziva] The Montessori
or the Zoroastrian?

- [Mary] The Zoroastrian but
we might as well explain both.

- [Ziva] Okay.

So Montessori, the Anglo
Indian Montessori School

is when we had British ruling India

so the mixed marriages between
the Indians, and the British,

and their progeny was called Anglo-Indian.

So they had a lot of British customs

but they also spoke English language.

It was a great school,
Montessori School was great.

I learned to eat with a
fork and a spoon, not knife,

fork and spoon and learn
some basics of playing piano.

Zoroastrian is the most
ancient religion from Paras,

Paras is Iran today.

Their tenets are good thoughts,
good words, good deeds,

and there are very prominent
philanthropist in India.

So Zoroastrians moved from Iran or Paras

many, many years ago,

but they really did
advance education in India.

And this school was built
by Carvers G. Jahangir,

a prominent Zoroastrian and a
lover of education and arts.

And that is the school I went to.

It was not a school that we know today.

It was a girls' school, the
girls were not only groomed

in academia but also as
being a good housewife.

So, we had to learn
gardening, cooking, cleaning,

embroidery, sewing,
handicrafts, everything.

And if you failed three subjects,

whether it be gardening,
cleaning and embroidery,

you fail the class.

It was a strict school.

It was very interesting.

I wish there were more
of those schools today.

- [Mary] This is a total
tangent but I can tell you

I have a whole rant prepared
about how kids are not given

the typical home economics
classes that they used to.

I mean, I never did,

but it sounds like it used
to be something from...

Sure there would be cooking
and taking care of babies

and that sort of thing, but
they would also teach you

how to balance a checkbook,
how to pay your taxes,

and that's just not something
they teach in schools anymore.

- [Ziva] I wish they did, I wish...

The things we were
taught Mary was amazing.

We grew vegetables like
lettuce and all that,

and then we can buy it at a reduced price.

And then there was one bookkeeper,

and we had turns in counting,

did we make a profit or not make a profit.

And one of the things that...

I'm a good cook, and one of
the things we were taught

in cooking was also presentation.

So when you had cooking exams,
you were not just judged

by the taste of the food
but also the presentation.

You don't see that today.

- [Mary] Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that's a bit of a tangent.

Tell me about what
school was like for you.

- [Ziva] School was tough.

I could not participate in
sports because I was not allowed

to wear shorts from the
community I was born in.

Also my school uniform was
very different than all girls

because I could not wear
a skirt and show my legs.

It was not easy.

It was really not easy.

But as I progressed in the
grades, by middle school,

I knew I had to study hard

and not meet the plight
of getting married early.

I had to fight.

I had to fight all throughout.

And I had to fight also to go to college.

But I am glad it was
a good fight I put up.

- [Mary] Well, I mean, we're glad you did

because we're going to get into

how cool some of your new work is.

But in the meantime,

what do you think drew
your attention to fungi?

- [Ziva] Oh, this is such a fun question.

So you know in 10th grade, Mary,

we had a very good biology teacher.

And we had to learn
about, in the 10th grade,

in the Zorastrian School,

learn about the life cycles of microbes.

Okay?

And I really got so fascinated by fungi,

this fascination continues till today.

For my first degree,

I majored with some focus
on plant pathology, right?

So I didn't know what I was doing,

I had to fight to go to college,
the college was close by,

I agreed, "Okay, I won't go far,

"I'll go to the closest college."

They had major in Botany,
I took major in Botany,

and they had Plant Pathology.

And that really got me even
more into learning about fungi.

And the more I learned,
the more I was fascinated.

Fungi are so versatile, aren't they?

- [Mary] They really are fascinating.

- [Ziva] Their own
class, their own phylum,

it doesn't matter.

They are beautiful, very mysterious, very.

That's why they keep me going till today,

and every time I discover
something and I say,

"Whoa, I didn't know about this."

- [Mary] So it started
with a 10th grade teacher

and then obviously you
took some more classes but,

what finally convinced you
that this could be a career?

- [Ziva] Well, so once I
completed my Bachelor's in Botany,

I wanted to focus on
microbiology, especially mycology.

So, remember, I'm talking
about the 70s, okay?

There was just one institute
that offered mycology

in Bombay, and I was
lucky to get admission.

Of course, it was a
challenge on all fronts,

now I've done my Bachelor's,

why am I doing my masters
and why am I going far away?

It was not far away, it was
half an hour train ride.

And also from the university,
well I had very good grades

in my Bachelor's, I was
a distinction student.

I was still not thinking

about making fungi as a career, right?

I was just living my passion,

I was just excited about fungi.

My career actually started
when I aced my Master's degree,

Master's class, winning a
CSIR for a fellowship for PhD,

CSIR fellowship is Council of Scientific

and Industrial Research
Fellowship, it was a lot of money,

I was so excited.

It was like a salary for a
technician, a senior technician.

- [Mary] Wow.
- [Ziva] And that was when...

Yeah, it was very good money
and all the conventions

were paid for, it was a
very good opportunity.

And this is when I knew the career path

I wanted to choose and that was mycology.

So, I was guided by one person
in the beginning because,

as I said, moving away
from home was a no-no,

but this person who also knew my family

said she could come to Pune,

and then she will get great
guidance, I will guide her.

And he actually encouraged me

to do my research on
microbial insecticides.

And I worked on bacteria,

some bacteria but mainly
on Beauveria bassiana

and Beauveria brongniartii

and a little bit on Fusarium species.

But, as I told you, I have
been very, very fortunate.

So, this person guided me to
work at Hindustan Antibiotics,

which was very prominent
antibiotic manufacturing company

that used to screen for
fungi and actinomycetes

and had the best mycologist
and microbiologist.

So, I was trained, and Dr. Tirumala Char,

who is a world renowned
mycologist, and Dr. Gopal Krishna,

both from Hindustan Antibiotics,
advised and guided me.

But I got even luckier.

This person was doing
some work in conjunction

with Pasteur Institut,

Madame de Balzac of
Pasteur Institut, France.

And she, and I'll tell you
a little more about her,

she took great interest in my work

because there was not
much work done on fungi

and that capability of
being commercialized

as microbial insecticides or pesticides.

Now, Madame de Balzac of
Pasteur Institut, France,

was a pioneer on microbial insecticides

and she was the one who
actually helped commercialize

beauvericin and Bacillus thuringiensis.

So, I had three great teachers.

And they were tough on me,
they were not easy on me.

But they all encouraged
me to work on fungi.

They said, "This is an
unexplored field work on fungi."

But I have to tell you,

those were the best years of my life.

So you know I must say,

the research years was
like riding motorbikes,

you won't believe that.

Going into remote fields,

collecting insects with fungal
growth, coming to the lab,

identifying them, propagating them,

and testing them against pests.

- [Mary] Yeah, that does
sound really weirdly fun.

- [Ziva] It was so fun.

I did do a lot of mass
scale spore production

in bio fermenters, so that's
where I got first introduced

into biotechnology and how
to use fermenters, right?

But, then in 1997, I moved to Israel.

Now microbial insecticides was a new field

and there were no career opportunities

in my field of research.

So I fell into the
clinical laboratory system,

where I worked as a clinical
scientist for 12 years

and then chosen as the founding director

to start 12 clinical
labs for Maccabi medical

for the entire South zone of Israel.

I must say, if not for my
manager at Kaplan hospital,

I won't have been such
a good microbiologist

and a good contamination
control microbiologist.

- [Mary] And Kaplan was in Israel?

- [Ziva] Yes.

- [Mary] Okay.

- [Ziva] He encouraged me, not
only he taught me microbi...

And I'm talking old days, okay?

I'm talking '77 to
whatever years, 12 years,

I was on the evaluation committee

of the first microbial AMS system,

I don't know how many
people know about it,

this was the first automated
microbial identification system

built by McDonnell Douglas for NASA.

And BioMérieux wanted to
purchase it for clinical labs,

and they chose 11 prominent
clinical labs in the world,

and my boss's lab was one,
and he put me on that project.

He encouraged me to
explore new technologies

when we discovered HIV, the
ELISA systems and all but,

again, I owe a lot to my mentors.

- [Mary] Yeah.

So, this type of mycology is mostly geared

towards keeping fungi
away from patients, right?

Off of patients, off of equipment,

tracing where they come from?

- [Ziva] Yes.

So, clinical mycology is much different

from pharmaceutical mycology.

Clinical mycology is
very limited there to...

But I'm glad that you're
asking this question, Mary.

I must talk about this.

So, in the beginning we only
talked about clinical mycology,

the samples we got were
all clinical mycology,

trichophyton, microsporum,
things like that.

But with the onset of HIV,

we started seeing patient
get fungal pneumonia,

and the whole field of
clinical mycology changed.

That was a great opportunity for me

to learn how fungi evolved
and how they attack.

The first one to rediscover
from HIV patients

was Pneumocystis carinii,
we don't even talk about it.

We literally had to develop
media to recover this.

But in 70s aspergillosis was
a lung disease of the pigeons,

that's all we knew, okay?

It doesn't affect humans.

With the onset of HIV, we
started seeing Aspergillus,

it started in Pneumocystis carinii

then Aspergillus and then
some of the zygomycotas fungi.

So, this has always been fascinating to me

how these micro organisms
specially fungi evolve, right?

And how they attack.

And I think in our industry
there's a gap in understanding

how fungi evolved, and how
they adapt and how they infect.

And this is a gap that, I think,

someday I want to write
about and talk more about,

that we don't have an
infective dose in fungi.

We say you need 10 of E.
Coli, or 100 of Shigella,

or 10 to five of Bacillus cereus, no,

you could have one mole and the person

is really immunocompromised that one mole

can then take root and spread.

- [Mary] Yeah, absolutely.

- [Ziva] It was a very fascinating time

from '77 till I came to US in 1992.

- [Mary] And then you
move to the US in '92,

how did you get from there

to founding your business Microrite?

- [Ziva] That's interesting.

It's the American dream, right?

In 1992.

By the time I left, I
was the founding director

of medical lab systems
for South zone of Israel

and a chauffeur from work.

- [Mary] Nice.

- [Ziva] But, there were 12 labs

and some of the labs were remote,

and I had to manage the labs.

And even during wars we all get recruited,

and I had to manage all the
labs for emergency operations.

I don't know, I was offered a bigger job

but I just wanted to explore

and looks like it's in my nature.

I came to US in 1992, right?

It was a tough move.

It was a tough move.

I had to start as a temp
worker after having a chauffer

but that didn't deter me because I worked

as a Operations Manager
for Clinical Lab System

which today is Quest laboratory.

It used to be Corning, then Metwest,

then Unilab, then Quest.

I used to manage all the departments,

but at some point in the
clinical laboratory system

here in US, they decided
to reduce the number

of technologists and hire more analysts

means machine operators.

And I did not like that

because we had lost the knowledge base.

So I started working
in the pharma industry,

medical device industries.

So I worked for about five
companies as a contractor

or a full time employee.

And that's when I realized
that there's a gap

in understanding microbial contamination,

its effect on the patients,

and contamination control in general.

So in 1998, I made this
bold move, I quit my job.

I was working at Biolab, I quit my job,

took six months off and said,

"I really want people to look
at contamination seriously

"because there are a lot of
immunocompromised patients

"and micro organisms are evolving."

So what should my
company look like, right?

I started this company in 1998

as a single microbiology
consultant, I was not happy.

I knew that there is more
to contamination control

than microbiology alone.

So then I started
building a team of people,

and it was slow progression
I have to tell you,

and it took me about 10
years to have this whole team

and I am telling you it
never feels like work today,

it's always a learning,

every day it's a learning
opportunity for all of us.

So, these were all high level
experts in facility design,

computational fluid dynamics,
airflow visualization,

validation, microbiology quality.

And the goal was to
provide holistic solution

for manufacturing contamination
free medical products.

They have been involved in drafting

many of the standards that
we use in the industry,

such as the ISO 14644 series
of Cleanrooms standards

and sterilization standards.

So the goal was that together
we can provide a holistic

and proactive approach
to contamination control

than a reactive approach to
remediating contamination.

I hope that makes sense.

- [Mary] Yeah, absolutely.

It also kind of gets in
nicely to the next part

of what I want to talk about,

which is some of your pet
peeves with facilities design.

I believe that you had some
case studies in your book,

I was wondering if we could go over those.

- [Ziva] So I'm going to
tell you my favorite one.

That is the most common
in most of the cases

where companies get warning letters

or for a DD observations,
have media failures,

sterility failures, or
even data integrity issues.

At Microrite, we call it
stealing from Peter to pay Paul.

Let me explain this to you.

- [Mary] Yes, please.

- [Ziva] So, you have the RABS system,

we get very excited about technology,

but we don't think through it.

We don't think through it.

We depend upon the suppliers to give us

but we have to decide what we want

and understand the design
of the barrier system,

the design of the Cleanroom,
and their integration.

These are not two separate units,

they affect each other by
barrier systems, I mean,

your RABS, open RABS, close RABS,

active RABS, passive RABS,
your isolators, right?

So, majority of the time
we are seeing either

there are open RABS,

that means they don't have
their own hyper filters,

but we see close RABS

they have air inlet from the Grade B area.

So the air that is supposed
to clear the Grade B area

is sucked directly into
the air inlet of the RABS.

Now I want you to visualize this, okay?

It comes out, it goes into
the RABS inlet, right?

What happens?

What happens to grade B area?

It's starved of air.

- [Mary] Oh, yeah.
- [Ziva] Does that make sense?

- [Mary] Yeah, I think so.

- [Ziva] Now just imagine that
you have this RABS, right?

The air is sucked in, the
air comes down from the RABS

and it is supposed to
go to the return duct.

But that inlet is so
powerful, it's sucking so bad,

that part of the air goes
into the returns while returns

of the Grade B area most of
it is going over the operator

back to the RABS inlet because
the suction is so powerful.

- [Mary] Okay.

- [Ziva] Understand what is happening.

So this air came down, touched the floor,

picked up the dirt from the
floor, contaminated the person,

went back into the RABS.

Now this contaminated person

is going to do aseptic operations,

any surprise that you get failures?

- [Mary] Right.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

- [Ziva] Oh, yeah,

this is a very common
design flaw that we see.

- [Mary] So these are the sorts of things

that you are able to see in a facility

and then advise people that
have partaken of your company,

and you guys have solutions for these?

- [Ziva] Of course, so, we
have design engineers, right?

Our design engineer actually wrote

ASHRAE's Cleanrooms Design Guide.

We take design very seriously
including door openings,

pass throughs and everything.

And today, Annex 1 2020
addresses all these

because we are learning, as
an industry we are learning.

We also provide
computational fluid dynamics.

And I want you to understand

that computational fluid dynamics

is a pre-emptive tool to
understand your air flows.

You saw this example I gave was
related to air flows, right?

So, if you do a computer
modulation off your air flows

in the design phase when
it is still in blueprints,

you get about 90% accuracy of
how your air is going to flow.

And most probably this
will become a required test

in ISO 14644-4 which my
team is participating in.

I think it will save people a lot of pain

and trouble later on, if they know exactly

whether the design is good
and whether they should choose

that equipment and go on
with the construction.

So, getting the preemptive
or the initial look

into the design air flows, personal flows,

particle generation, upfront is good.

And we do that all the time.

Plus, we are very well known
on airflow visualization,

we even built.

I told you I work with
very smart people, my team,

they're engineers, a lot of them,

I don't talk their language,
I'm learning every day

but they decided they
want to develop equipment

for airflow visualization
that can actually map

the air flows, not give
false positive results.

And they succeeded in doing that.

And that's where we have the
Tracer Particle Generator.

- [Mary] Yeah.

So this tool can visualize the airflow

in a space that already exists,

not just one that it's trying to design?

- [Ziva] No, the CFD is
for the design phase,

and this is for the space that exists.

And of course, we have microbiology,

I'm microbiologist so I have
a big team of microbiologists

and I really wanted
specialized microbiologist.

So, what I did is I
chose people who are good

at compendium methods,
who have worked in labs

and managed labs, those
who are cell therapy,

those who are good at EM disinfection,

people who have developed disinfectants

and have worked for companies
that develop disinfectants,

and of course contamination
control microbiologists.

It's all fun.

- [Mary] So, it sounds
like the design phase,

in order to get these
places to be up to code,

up to keeping the contaminations
as low as possible,

that's the most important phase.

- [Ziva] Absolutely.

You design well and then
you verify that design

because that saves you a
lot of trouble later on.

And it starts with the URS, I have a joke.

I always tell people, if
you don't tell the vendor,

if you don't decide as a team,
what is your ultimate goal?

How do you want to achieve the goal

and what design is best for you?

The supplier is not
going to do it for you,

they might give you off-the-shelf option.

And I compare it to a man coming home

and the wife tells him, "Why
didn't you do the dishes?"

And he says, "You never told me to."

This is exactly the same thing.

Unless you tell the supplier
exactly what your design

should be, exactly how
it should be integrated,

they won't know.

So, if we put effort in the design phase,

verify the design by CFD,

confirm the airflow by a smoke study

or air flow visualization,

we can reduce a lot of
contamination issues.

- [Mary] I think that'll
come in handy for design,

not even just for labs,

I feel like people are starting
to understand how airflow

works a little bit more because of COVID.

And going into restaurants
and doing air studies

to see if there's an infected
person in the kitchen,

how far does it go out into
the dining room and vice versa.

- [Ziva] Yes.

And I'm telling you over these years,

occasionally you will have
other causes of contamination,

but majority of the contamination
are either air flows

or personnel and material
flows, and mainly air flows,

if it is in the critical
grade A, Grade B areas.

- [Mary] So, let us know
the title of your book.

- [Ziva] So this book was four
years in the making, okay?

Because I wanted it in a certain way,

and have a certain flow,
starting from case studies.

These are real, these
are case studies and 483.

And then explaining the
reasons behind these.

So we start with design,
CFD, airflow visualization,

screenings, so on so forth,
including static charge.

The name of the book is

"Cleanroom Contamination
Prevention and Control:

"A Practical Guide to the Science".

I was very flattered when
PDA wrote on their site,

and it's still on their site,

that this book has information
not found anywhere else.

And that was my goal, and I achieved it.

I'm glad, and I'm sure people
will get a lot out of it.

- [Mary] That's wonderful.

That's a rare thing to say for any book

that it has new information in it.

- [Ziva] Yeah, it was a journey,
this book was a journey.

- [Mary] Does your work bleed over

into your own personal hobbies?

- [Ziva] Yeah.

- [Mary] I kind of figured.

- [Ziva] Yeah, I'm a botanist, right?

I love plants.

I live in San Jose, California,

we don't get half an acre to a acre land.

I have a 6000 square foot lot

with a 2000 square foot house, right?

But I grow 22 fruit trees,
tons of ornamentals,

vegetables, flowers, you name it,

and they are from all over the world.

So, I actually treat
each plant separately.

Some are acid lovers,
some don't like acid,

some like too much nitrogen,

some don't like so much nitrogen.

So, a lot of my botany and
ecology work I use in my garden

but you'll be surprised to
hear what I'm saying now.

I think I'm learning more
about fungi in my garden

than I've ever learned.

- [Mary] That does make sense.

No, it makes perfect sense.

- [Ziva] It does.

So you get some fungal
contamination here and there,

but the most...

It was such a shock for
me that I was seeing

this underground fungal network being used

by plants to fight similar species.

I dig into the ground, right?

I dig into the ground, I
take my manual microscope,

look into it.

So I'm going to give you two examples

which are very, very interesting.

I have Michelia alba,

it's called champa and Michelia champaca.

One is a tree from China,

you will find them in
a lot of monasteries,

and champaca is from India.

This is the most expensive
perfume, that's what I'm told.

Well, my alba was established
tree when I planted champaca

the Indian version about
20 feet away from the alba.

Champaca was so happy and its
flowers are much more fragrant

than those of alba and it
was flowering profusely.

And just one spring, it was dry.

It was killed by the alba.

So you see how fungi are?

They do some good work,
but they also are very--

- [Mary] Do some assassination.

- [Ziva] Yeah, they do right in my garden.

And I thought that was a unusual case

because they were across the
walking path I couldn't dig in.

Well, I planted two mulberry trees.

One was Pakistani mulberry,
which are long and juicy,

and one was Afghani mulberry,
about 15 feet from each other.

Now the Afghani mulberry was much shorter,

Pakistani mulberry was much juicier.

To give it about five years,

the Pakistani mulberry was sucked dry.

Just one fine morning I go
there, it's all sucked dry.

- [Mary] Wow.

- [Ziva] Spring of course there are no,

so you go beginning of spring,

winter everything is dry
anyways, it's all sticks.

I see the Afghani mulberry flowering

and it gives out mulberries
all at the same time.

And the Pakistani mulberry
gave out some flowers

but they were dried.

Well, it died.

So, yes, my work does bleed
into my personal hobbies.

- [Mary] That is fascinating
but also sad for the tree.

- [Ziva] Yes.

- [Mary] So to bring it back to something

you were mentioning before,
what specifically for you,

why do you think
mentoring is so important?

I know that you engage in it a lot

in your own business as well.

- [Ziva] I had such good
mentors who contributed

to my success.

And not everybody has this
opportunity, I felt this.

When I came to US I
didn't do any mentoring,

of course I mentored my employees.

But beyond my employees, I
didn't mentor anybody in Israel.

But when I came to the US,

and I started joining organizations

such as American Women
in Science and of course,

other PDA and other organizations,

I realized that not everybody
knows the career path

and none of us know early on, right?

But they don't have any
opportunities to have a mentor.

So I made it a mission to mentor,

I've mentored at Stanford for many years.

The grad students, post grad students,

not always technical sometimes
you just need a helping hand.

Sometimes you just need encouragement

if you have gone through research

and if you've gone through a PhD program,

you know how hard it is.

So, just encourage you
will get through it.

What I really loved was
mentoring young girls

through American Women in Science,

there was an organization
called, it's still there,

Expanding Your Horizon,

and I mentored girls from
sixth to the ninth grade.

And it was not only me, we
were about 52 workshop leaders,

and once a year,

we would take over San
Jose State University

all the classes, right?

And everybody and other grounds.

And everybody, all the
52 that include industry,

that included NASA, universities,

and different topics,
astrology, astrobiology,

I taught mycology,
there could be chemistry

and all that in a fun manner.

And we encourage girls,
especially girls who did not have,

and there are schools that
would approach us, right?

And talk to us why
they're having a challenge

with certain students, and
we would encourage them

to send the students
to this program, right?

And so we have this one day of fun,

and we would tell these girls,
"Do you want to be a TA?"

that just boost their morale
and give them a little more

confidence and we would make
them teacher's assistants.

And it was a simple thing, experiments,

looking under the microscope,

doing portabella mushroom prints,

or looking at breeches
under the microscope.

And they would literally
get to make their own slides

and look under the microscope
and talk about it, it was fun.

And we used to have
three classes in the day,

the students paid about
$15, they got breakfast,

all the fun, little books and all that,

and then they went to different classes,

they chose which classes,

and they had three years to
sort of go to different classes.

But during the break, we would all sit

with our students whoever wants to join,

and tell them about how we
got where we got today, right?

And those became my students
and my mentees for a long time,

they were young students

and they would attend
the course all the time.

And I realized that every
year, if I see those students,

they felt a little more
confident about themselves.

But I do get a lot of new
immigrants or the student chapter

of PDA local chapter in San Francisco.

These students will always approach me

and I always make time
on the weekend to talk

to them because I have the
guidance they don't have.

And it's not always about
your path or your career,

sometimes it's just talking to them.

And one of the things I
tell all these students

that I mentor and I said,

"A mentor is not a person
who's holding your hand

"all the time, a mentor could be somebody

"you have hold in high regard,"

Right?

I did that.

I said, "I emulated my mentors."

If you emulate somebody
you hold in high regard,

you will reach there.

So, I think, it is very
important for professionals

to really pass on their life experiences,

not always knowledge,
their life experience,

talk about this challenges
and talk about their wins,

which really encourages young students

that they are not alone.

Everybody goes through that.

- [Mary] Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, thank you so much for
joining us on Sounds of Science.

It was really wonderful talking to you

and hearing about your amazing career.

- [Ziva] Thank you for the opportunity.