Dr. Mom • Dr. Diana Gragg
(Lecturer, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Stanford University || CA USA)
“We’d always talked about having kids, but we weren’t ready at 23. I’d always had this idea about 30 being the age I’d be ready — that ended up coinciding with me passing my qualifying exams for my PhD. Our daughter was born during my PhD, which was awesome — my advisor was super supportive. I had returned to school after working as a chemical engineer in industry because I wanted to spend more time on the issues I cared about — climate change and the environment. Conferences were hard because I was nursing — I’d go nurse her, then run back to my poster to talk about my air pollution PhD research. We had our second child during my postdoc researching energy efficiency.
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The deal we had was that after I finished my PhD, he would go back to do his executive MBA so we weren’t both in school at the same time. I found out after a year that he had been having an affair with a classmate — it blew up my world. I was totally blindsided. It took me about six months to wrap my head around the fact that the future I thought I was going to have forever was not going to happen. You think about your kids, retirement, who you are — but I also had to look back and question what was real and what wasn’t. To have an affair, you’re making a decision to lie to the people who are supposed to be closest to you, who love you, every day. I have found support in surprising places. What I’ve realized in this process is that being open and vulnerable to people about what I went through allows them to do the same. I am sharing this part of my life journey to let others know they’re not alone. I hope I can also be support for others — paying it forward by being open.
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I love being a mom, I love teaching, and they’re related in a lot of ways. As a mom I teach my kids all the time, and I feel that way about my students — I love teaching them how energy impacts the environment and touches people’s lives, making them see broader themes, and how they can be impactful in the world. It’s so important. If I can do this for the rest of my life, I’m happy.”
