Michele Ong

Cultures have an incredible impact on our society. And not just anthropologically. Cultures from a microbial context have an equally significant impact on the industries that allow us to live the lives that we want. Jayashree Srinivasan is a microbiologist specialising in biotechnology and microbial research. Join us as we speak about Jaya's journey to cultivating cultures, the intersectionality of culture and identity, and the complementary nature of being both scientist and pastry chef. I'm Michele Ong, and this is STEAM Powered.

Good afternoon, Jayashree. Thank you so much for joining me on STEAM Powered. I'm really looking forward to having a chat with you about your journey.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Hi, Michele. Thank you so much for inviting me. I've never done anything like this, so I'm excited.

Michele Ong

Ah, I'm so excited to be your first, it's so great. So hopefully this will be nice and chill for you. But we shall get into where you started with your journey as a microbiologist. So, what motivated you to study biology and biotechnology?

The immersive pressure to pursue science and biology.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Way back, I was raised by two scientists, mum and dad both biologists and professors in institutes in India. So all my life, I think everyone's always just expected that's what I would do, right? Like, it's all your parents are scientists, you grew up,in fact, we grew up on campus. All my friends were kids of scientists. You will go outside and people are only talking science. It was a very, very immersive experience in childhood.

And you know, when we went on holidays, they'd be also attending conferences, visiting people who are also in that field, so there always was that expectation. People expected me to score really well in science and specifically biology. And I think for a young person, if you're told that there's something you're expected to do, that is the last thing you want to do. You will fight that with every fibre of your being.

And so, I just rejected the idea just purely because I don't wanna do what everyone thinks I should be doing.

It is probably a bit of both that I truly did enjoy biology and also that if you're hearing so much about it, there is a fascination, right?

Like when I was growing up, instead of drawing squiggles, mum and dad were teaching me how to draw like, alpha-helixes and beta-sheets protein structures, so it's really hard to avoid it. So I think, like, the subliminal messaging went through when I did, there was a love for biology, I just was very conflicted about it.

Michele Ong

When I finished high school, biology was my best subject. It was the one that I enjoyed the most, much to my dismay. How disappointing. Hahaha.

Jayashree Srinivasan

I, was so, I was disappointed with myself. I thought I was going to be this really rebellious spirit and do something wild, but no, that, that's what I wanted to do.

I enrolled for university in India, and it's technically an engineering degree, but it's specialising in biotech. So we did a few engineering subjects and a few science subjects, but it was mostly like biology. And what biotechnology means is essentially the application of biology in the real world to solve real world problems.

And so we studied how you can use biology to address problems in the health industry, in the agriculture industry, food industry, anything, so it's quite broad.

I think people often joke that if you study biotechnology, you're a jack of all trades and master of none, because a lot of people really get into, I'm going to study microbiology or biochemistry and get really into one thing.

But with biotech, you study a little bit of everything, which I personally think is really, really good for someone who's starting out in their career, because you don't want to, you know, just learn one thing and all your life you think that's what you love because that's all you've ever done.

In fact, my boss recently told me that they do say jack of all trades, master of none, but there's another line to it that says, but better than an expert of one. So it, I see it as a strength that you do learn quite a bit of many different things.

Taking advantage of the opportunities available. It was... a lot.

Jayashree Srinivasan

So anyway, I enrolled in engineering degree because it was a four year course that came with a research component in the end and it had heaps of different internships embedded into it.

And I knew that's what I need. I need a diversity of experiences. I've never been the most happy in a classroom setting because I'm quite restless. I like doing things with my hands, I like learning by doing. So typically a science degree in India would be a three year degree and I saw that as maybe limiting options because four year degrees do open up a few more doors.

So I did that and university was quite a lot. I, I did, I did the internships that I talked about. I took opportunities to travel and did an internship in France. I won a fellowship to go to the US because all of a sudden I decided that I want to study bioethics and learn what that is. So I went to New York and worked in a hospital to learn about bioethics and that was really good.

Finished university. I did like what they call in Australia, your Honours year. That was like a project component. I did that in stem cell research in a lab that is looking into using stem cells for cardiomyopathy, which is a heart disease. So I was studying one of the well known genetic mutations that cause cardiomyopathy and is seen, unfortunately, quite commonly in India.

There's the 'obvious' next step, and there's following your bliss to become a pastry chef.

Jayashree Srinivasan

I did that and I knew that I really very much enjoyed my time in the lab. But the same thing happened again where everyone said, Oh, surely she's going to do her PhD now. That's what the obvious next step is. And I hated it. I hated that that's what everyone was saying I should do.

And all along, I've always had such a big love for cooking, baking, making desserts. It was such a big passion of mine. So I decided, well, you know what, did university, I'm going to go be a pastry chef now.

And that's what I did. So I went to the other side of the world, this was my big adventure, went to Melbourne, enrolled in patisserie and studied that for one and a half years. Uh, worked in a few restaurants, had a really, really great time. I was, uh, here with my best friends. It was just like soul satisfying a year and a half. Also the amount of chocolate and cake that you get to eat and get to take home is just extraordinary. So that was such a good year and a half.

And in that time I gained skills that I don't think I would have gained if I had stayed in science at all, because a kitchen is really hard work. You learn how to be really efficient, how to be very resilient, how to deal with all kinds of people. And you know, I moved around within the hospitality sector a lot and I keep telling people that if you've negotiated with a really drunk person at 3am when all you want to do is finish your shift and you've had that conversation in a civilised way, then you can negotiate with anyone.

Michele Ong

Hahaha.

Hearing the call back to science.

Jayashree Srinivasan

So, once I finished that I was working in restaurants, I really enjoyed it, but I knew that this is not what I wanted to do forever and that I do, as much as I was trying to avoid it, do very much love science, and I do want to go back.

So I decided to enroll in a Masters by Research. A Masters by Research is a bit different to a Masters by coursework in the sense that there's no classes and like I said, I do not classroom settings. It doesn't work for me. So, you are in a project, and you do that project for about two years, and then you write up the thesis, and you present your work, and you're awarded your Masters if you do that successfully.

Michele Ong

So it's quite self-guided or, like, is there—

Jayashree Srinivasan

Yeah. Very, very driven by the student. Uh, so I had two supervisors, one because I was placed in an industry. So I had an industry supervisor and a academic supervisor. That was very good.

I was very fortunate in getting that because it really set me up for the career that I wanted because I wanted something in research.

Jaya's interest in the translational space of science.

Jayashree Srinivasan

I knew I did not want to stay, do academia because the whole thing really stresses me out. And I think you need a different level of taking care of your mental health for academia.

And yeah, I wanted to stay in the industry and I've always been really interested in what they call the translational space of science, where you have a discovery or a technology that's ready to go out, on the cusp of getting out into the real world and, you know, actually people seeing it and using it.

But that in between us making it happen is what I was really interested in and I was researching and developing a biofertiliser. So it uses, uh, soil bacteria that can convert nitrogen that's in the air into fertiliser. So when I did that, I think from there there was no turning back.

The benefit of an expectation circuit breaker.

Jayashree Srinivasan

And you know, I think also the, um, going and doing uh, patisserie was a really good circuit breaker for me because it got everyone off my back.

Michele Ong

Hahaha.

Hahaha.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Everyone gave up on me. Everyone gave up on me at that point. They decided I'm a lost cause. She's doing something weird. She's doing something crazy. Well, we are gonna stop watching this train wreck.

Michele Ong

Oh no!

Jayashree Srinivasan

So, uh, I mean, it's just like, I'm joking, but it's a bit like, you know,and culturally there's a lot of expectations of doing science and, you know, there's quite a hierarchy in professions and I've felt like I really did break away from the mold in choosing to do culinary, which is not, just not what people were expecting.

And yeah, I think once everyone kind of took a step back, it was definitely my own decision and I knew nothing was, no one was actually telling me, go do this now, or we want to see you do this.

Michele Ong

That's such an amazing experience because it gives you a chance to view your own perspective on your choices and that's, that's really helpful sometimes. You just need that break.

​

Looking for something more and the return to sciences.

Michele Ong

It's so interesting that you did that range of things because I was going ask you, like, where did you see a future in microbiology?

But at the time you didn't have that perspective at all until you got additional experience and got to be able to see what kind of other options there are out there. So what drew you back into science after going to culinary school?

Jayashree Srinivasan

It was two main reasons. One was I was finding as much as I love being a chef, it was not satisfying my desire to create because once you start out as a chef, you only get to the point where you're creating new dishes and things in the really like advanced part of your career. When you start out as a commis chef, you're following directions and every day to me looked very much like the last, so I was getting quite mentally restless that I want, I want more, like give me something else to do.

So I wanted to satisfy that, you know, more of that problem solving, creating something, and I think more than anything, just where your job involves learning new things, I would really, was craving that. And that was one thing that drew me back to science.

And the second thing was, it's quite, like I said, quite a hectic job and there's a lot of urgency to it. And I would sometimes reflect and say, there's a lot of urgency, but at the end of the day, what am I doing? Like we are preparing food. It's making people happy. But I think I want a bit more.

Like I would love to keep doing this, but I would also like something else. I want to feel like I'm putting something out into the world. And yeah, that's the main reason.

Michele Ong

It's nice to be able to see that balance of being able to do more, I guess, short term immediate gratification creation as well as long term curiosity driven creation. And that's a really good balance.

Industrial biotechnology and production processes.

Michele Ong

So, we'll kind of come back to that part later. But in terms of your science, because right now your work involves bacterial and fungal cultures, but how did you get from the biotechnology part of that, and veer straight into all these nice tiny little things that make a bigger impact?

Jayashree Srinivasan

Yeah. So, like I said, biotechnology is so broad, you could apply yourself to many different fields. And the field that I found myself in during my Masters is what is called as industrial biotechnology.

Industrial biotechnology is exactly what it sounds like. You have something like a therapeutic or some product that is useful to the world. And how do you produce it? Hence the industrial part of it.

There are many different ways to produce a compound or a product that's of interest, and one of the most efficient ways to produce is through a genetic modification of well understood microorganisms. They essentially become like little cell factories.

So say you have a product that's produced by some other creature, like it could be a horse, a cow, a bee, plants, plants are a big one, of course. There are many compounds produced by plants that have potential medical uses.

I'm going to simplify it and say you can cut out the gene from the other organism and then stick it into a microbe like fungi, like E. coli, or pichia, those are our favourite well understood ones, and they will essentially produce it for you.

And part of our job is to do that and to give those microbes the perfect conditions to produce, you know, heaps of that protein as much as possible, and that involves keeping them nice and happy, understanding what the product is, and creating the perfect conditions for it to want to do that, to actually want to make that product for us.

So when I entered into this space, what I was making was a biofertiliser, which is, it's a soil microbe, we don't want it to make anything else. We just wanted to do what it does best naturally. So my work was how do I make as much of this as possible, again, keeping it as happy as possible. It turned out that that microbe was actually quite complex, and liked to go into sort of dormant states when it was unhappy, like a lot of us did during the lockdowns in COVID, I think, um, but—

Michele Ong

So many parallels.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Um, so it was working how to like, stay active, stay happy, continue to reproduce so that we have lots of these cells that we can use.

So I guess the short answer is that biotechnology is quite vast and one of the fields is microbial biotechnology, industrial microbiology, where you're using microorganisms to produce useful products. And that's what I found myself quite interested in because of all the things you can do, I feel somehow connected when there's a whole creature that you're working with and you need to understand its quirks, how it grows, what it likes, what it doesn't like, I like that, you know, I can look at it under the microscope and see the whole organism moving around, living its life as compared to, you know, if you were working on small molecules or proteins, this is just what really speaks to me.

Every day looks a bit different.

Michele Ong

Yeah, that's cool. It's pretty much, like, literally cultural anthropology. But, well, microbial cultural anthropology, which is very, very neat. So, what sort of things have you found the most interesting about figuring out how to create these happy cultures?

Jayashree Srinivasan

I think the best part of my job is that we get such a diversity in projects because mainly what we do is support upcoming businesses like small biotechs and you know, they may not necessarily have the facilities to do all the R&D that they need. So they'll approach someone. They'll approach us and make use our expertise and all of our technology that we have.

In a job like mine, each day looks very different to the last. I've been exposed to so many different types of organisms and products. And I think for me, the most interesting thing is just how each one is so different to the other. You think you've got it figured out and then the next one comes along and the product is entirely different. It's just produced in such a different way. So you really need to go and read up, look at the literature, see what other people know about this product, and how we can apply our knowledge with what's already out there to create this process.

The applications of industrial biotechnology and microbiology.

Michele Ong

That's very cool. So what sort of industries have been utilising this sort of research and development?

Jayashree Srinivasan

There are a lot of industries in the agriculture and food space who make use of this technology.

Our team works, we're within the biomedical field, so the kind of products we work on are usually something with a medical use. There could be something that is an antimicrobial, it can kill pathogens, especially, you know, we're really focusing on the escape pathogens and the antibiotic resistant strains. That's a really big problem in our field now, and there's a lot of work going into that. We are approached by a range of different industries that could be producing vaccines. They could be producing a medicine. They could be producing a compound that can be added to wound dressing. They're trying to develop a new spray to use in hospitals or cleaning solutions.

It's so vast, like we've seen so many different things.

Michele Ong

That's so interesting. Because, like, it's stuff that can be applied at all stages of so many different supply chains, from the agricultural end to the health end and everything in between, from the sounds of it. Like, it's very, very cool.

A day in the life of a cultivating cultures.

Michele Ong

So what does a, because I know you said every day for you looks different, but what does a typical day for you look like in terms of the work you do in cultures?

Jayashree Srinivasan

On a typical day, if we are running what we call like our process development experiments, we use equipment called bioreactors, which I like to describe as mega mansions for bacteria, because they're little vessels that we will grow up our cultures in and the conditions in the vessel are very strictly controlled.

So it's controlled at a specific temperature, pH, mixing rate. We're constantly adding in yummy food for the bacteria exactly as it needs at the specific speed that works for it. So a mega mansion, they're in there, you know, we're trying to give them the perfect conditions.

My day will be very driven by the protocol. It's very important that we do everything exactly as we've planned, especially when you're trying to, you know, you have a range of different conditions you're testing and you're changing only one condition. You want to make sure that you're doing everything in the same way, and of course it's not just me, we are a very team-oriented field so I work with really wonderful people.

So my day would involve setting up these instruments and then that would sort of determine how the week's going to go. We'll be setting up an experiment and then day to day we're constantly sampling and monitoring how it's growing.

And when I say we're monitoring how it's growing, it's one of those things that you can't actually see it, but you can detect the effects of it. So we can't actually count how many cells are in there, but we can measure the turbidity of the liquid. If it's very turbid we can then do a calculation to tell us how many cells might be in them. And we'll be testing how much sugar is in there or what sort of residue is in the liquid that will give us an indication of what's going on.

Michele Ong

At the end of the process, we'll be harvesting all the culture that we've prepared over the week and then processing it and sending it to other teams for more testing because there's so much expertise in the area and even like the microbial team will work with other departments and use expertise from a range of different professionals to complete a task.

That's very cool.

The importance of using a baseline in cell cultures.

Michele Ong

So because you have to do all that set up over whatever period that's designated for the protocol, I guess, because it's cultures, you're not starting from scratch, so are you just kind of taking and building each time that you'd run each of the protocols?

Jayashree Srinivasan

Oh, this is a, this is a really good question. Intuitively that, yes, that's what it feels like you would do, like, if you're someone who makes yogurt at home, that's what you do, you're basically using some of the last bit for the next bit. But our work, we can't do that because every time you have a generation of an organism, you are introducing a potential for natural genetic variation. And because we have so carefully, you know, manipulated the genes of this organism and introduced a foreign gene, we don't want to do that because you risk either losing that gene of interest or it just developing some other different trait that we don't want it to.

So we have what we call a cell banks. And we will store our main stock of cells frozen at -80 degrees and every time we need to use some of it for the next experiment, we will take some out from there. So, every run you have, it's always coming from the same source. And that's actually a really important part of the work to make sure that it always stays the same.

Michele Ong

But if you're taking it from the bank, doesn't that mean you'll run out?

Jayashree Srinivasan

The key is to make plenty.

Michele Ong

Okay, so you can always still make it from scratch each time to add to the bank to set the baseline. That's cool. I didn't know that. That's interesting.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Well, we could make like up to a hundred vials at once, and that will give us plenty to go for a while. Yeah.

So that's how, um, like, because I read in one of the other things that some of these cultures are about a hundred years old as well Yes, yes. The ones that are very old are referring to when we use cultures from collections, so we can gain access to old collections as well.

Michele Ong

That's cool. Ah, so interesting and so much scope because you're adding so many additional interesting factors over time and in different contexts. Nah, that's very, very neat.

​

**Jayashree Srinivasan:**

Testing developmental antibiotics against known pathogens.

Jayashree Srinivasan

One thing I could add that I haven't talked about yet is yes, I did talk a lot about process optimisation and like this protein production space, but again, like I said, diversity of work. Because we are a team of people who are experts in microbes, we also do get sometimes asked to work on other activities that involve microbiology knowledge.

Like one that's been really interesting is testing new antimicrobials. That is if other parts of the organisation, have a library of new compounds that they think could be new antibiotics, part of my job is to test these compounds against the known pathogens. So I will, grow up what's called the escape pathogens, which are the multi-antibiotic-resistant infections in hospitals, which is that really our target infections. So I'll grow the pathogens and test the compounds against them and see if they're actually able to successfully kill these antibiotic resistant bacteria as well.

Michele Ong

That's cool. So you're running battery tests against what they've developed to see whether you can break it.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Yes, basically. It's normally high throughput testing but I call it higher throughput because it's not entirely done by machines. It's still very much done by us. But we use robots to make it just so that we can test up to like, I think I've tested like 2000 compounds at a time.

Michele Ong

Oh my goodness. So over what period would you do that many?

Jayashree Srinivasan

Uh, a week, or less, three days. Yeah.

Michele Ong

Wow. That's a lot.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Robots are cool.

Michele Ong

Yeah. Robots are cool. Nice.

Watch as Michele is mentally overcome with questions about pathogens.

Michele Ong

So yeah, that, that, that's very, very cool. There's so much that I could ask you about antimicrobial resistant pathogens that I think would take much longer than we have time for. So I might have let that one go. Yeah, I have lots of questions about this.

Jayashree Srinivasan

We can go a little bit more into it.

Michele Ong

Do I want to talk about protocols for handling pathogens? Yeah, I'm gonna ask that one, and then we'll move on.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Yeah, excellent.

**Michele Ong:**

Protocols for culturing pathogens.

Michele Ong

The fact that you are culturing these pathogens to test against potential new antibiotics and medicines, what's the protocol for handling them? Because there's so many different types and then there's the interactions in between them and having to isolate all of this kind of stuff. So is—

Jayashree Srinivasan

That's right.

Michele Ong

is there anything particularly interesting a complete layperson would want to know about how you handle culturing pathogens?

Jayashree Srinivasan

Well, there's different classes of pathogens. What we call the risk group, and that is a standard classification in Australia. So, very harmful pathogens, what you call risk group three, risk group four, are not something that, most labs are equipped to handle. We would not even be able to get those strains in. That is handled more like— there are specific laboratories to do that and it's exactly what you're picturing that you see on TV of people in astronaut looking suits. You know, it's done with a huge level of safety and seriousness as it should be.

The kind of pathogens I'm talking about are much less risk level that we are definitely equipped to handle. We still need approvals and certifications to do so and it's just all about training, good practice. We have dedicated spaces for that work, dedicated people for that work, and we take all the precautions to make sure that everybody's always safe. But fundamentally like we are allowed to work with pathogens that cannot just escape into the world.

So even like a mistake cannot happen because we have very strict rules, but even if something did happen, it's not a pathogen that could go off into the world and start infecting people.

Michele Ong

It's not going to become a medical drama trope.

Jayashree Srinivasan

No, no, no. That's where the movie analogy stops.

Michele Ong

Awesome. That's very cool. Because yeah, I think people forget that in order to be able to treat these sorts of conditions you have to be able to have access to them.

​

On Indian, queer, and migrant identity.

Michele Ong

Cool. So from cultivating happy, microbial cultures and their identities to something a little bit closer to home, another thing that you're really passionate about is cultivating a culture of acceptance and community for queer people of colour andso that they can feel safe being who they are.

I was wondering if you could share a little bit about your part of that journey.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Yes. I would love to. I really like talking about this. And the reason I say I really like talking about this because being able to talk about it is a privilege. Many people can't. You know, they'll go their whole lives never talking to anyone about it. So yes, I will take every opportunity to use the privilege that I do have to share my journey and talk about the importance of talking about it in the world and hearing all these stories out there.

When I lived in India — so I was raised in India — it was, against the law to be queer. The good thing is it no longer is against the law. It is decriminalised, but, that is just one step in a long journey because there's lots of things, lots of policies, that need to be in place for queer people to truly be equal, like anti-discrimination laws, legalising marriage. And so we have a long, long way to go.

And, I came out, I realised I was queer and came out to friends and family when I was in India. I realised when I was 17, came out in my twenties. And then when I moved to Australia, it was, you know, there's, sort of like, experimenting with being out to everyone, not making this something to hide, but, there's a lot, I think, a lot of internalised homophobia you pick up when you're in a different culture that isn't very accepting of these things.

So coming to Australia has been quite interesting. It was not exactly what I expected because I had this very like Hollywood version of how life was going to be once I got here. That it's going to be rainbows everywhere, and it's going to be pride every day. It was obviously not the case, right?

There's a lot of bias still around and there are lots of allies and equally a lot of people who don't understand, or are not necessarily very accepting or just ignorant of the facts. So when I started doing my Masters, I was not out at all. And actually, in fact, where I did my Masters is also where I was employed soon after, so it was within the same team, so they'd known me quite a while.

And, once I came out at work, I mean, the, the positive part is just the load that was off my shoulders, right? Like, I can't put in words the difference it makes to not have to hide something. Or like, you know, you have these sort of lunch table conversations where someone says, Ooh, like something, something boyfriend. And then it's so awkward to choose, do I correct them? Should I not correct them? Is this going to be an unnecessary drama or oversharing? All, all of these sort of like overthinking and questions would come in. And, eventually I joined like the pride group at work, met really, really wonderful people.

So that's the positive part. But the parts that I'm still like finding to a bit of a challenge is finding identity, here. I think being an immigrant can be very confusing, because you're sort of stuck in between, you know, you not quite, don't quite fit in at home, don't quite fit in where you've moved to. So you're like, Oh, where am I? Who are my people? And I found that to become quite like a, it's almost like, not a barrier, but just like something I was working through, because I found that a lot of queer spaces that I entered here were very Western and just not aligning with my values, or it was that I just didn't necessarily feel welcome all the time.

So there's the intersectionality of it is something that's—

Michele Ong

Very complicated.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Very complicated and, I think I was struggling with like a lot of people not understanding how difficult it was for me to be out because there was still very much a part of my brain that was saying this is wrong and I shouldn't because when I was in India, I was convinced that I'm never going to be out, I was like, it's not safe.

Michele Ong

Just for a bit of context. So, for the listeners, homosexuality only became decriminalised, I think, in 2018, wasn't it?

Jayashree Srinivasan

Mhm, yes, yes.

Michele Ong

Yeah, so it's a relatively recent thing, and here in Australia, a lot of the conversations we tend to have are about things like

medical and legal rights for partners, as well as recognition of gay marriage. But that is quite a long way into that journey of acceptance here. Whereas in India, you're, it's only just beginning that part of that journey.

Jayashree Srinivasan

That's right. Yeah, that's exactly right.

Michele Ong

Yeah, so having to create that bridge as an immigrant here as well, and having to, straddle both sides of that particular journey has to be very taxing.

Perceptions, stereotypes, and expectation management.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Yes, it is. It's confusing because I feel like when I go out to queer spaces, the queer part of me does feel included, but then also this is culturally like not a comfortable place for me because, you know, I don't know, sometimes, my friends, we use the term like the glittery, sparkly, party sort of energy, which isn't quite what was sitting well for me either, because those are the kind of events that get put out there. And I mean, it's just like a struggle for introverts in general as well, isn't it? But it gets a lot more complex when there's the queer aspect and the immigrant aspect to it as well.

And there's also a really strange dynamic that comes in where, once I came out, in life, in Australia, in general, there might've been people who, before I was out, viewed me in a certain way, that they had some sort of bias of like, Oh, she's Indian and this is what I think that means and this is what I'm expecting from her. And then when I came out, it threw them a little bit because the idea of an Indian woman who's also queer was novel to them. They'd never heard of it.

Michele Ong

There's no nice little box that you can kind of put someone in because of all those intersectionalities.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Yes! Because there's just not as much visibility of people of colour who are queer, right? And that's just, again, coming from that cultural context. It's not safe most of the time for a lot of people of colour to be out. So you don't have as many role models. You don't have as many celebrities. So people, they would be a bit thrown by it, and thenthey would start to like me a little bit more like, Oh, this is cool. You know, this is a unique feature this person. Oh, how, how interesting, you know, she's brown and she's queer. Wow. And then like suddenly would accept me now as a queer person more than they would have accepted me as a person of colour who was straight, which I didn't like. I'm like, this is not okay either.

Michele Ong

It's so many layers of the acceptance thing because it's what people have, what their experience has exposed them to. So, have they been exposed to more migrants? Have they been exposed to more queer people? Which is the thing that, where have they put that in their tier of acceptance and normalness in—

Jayashree Srinivasan

Yes. Exactly, yeah.

Michele Ong

You know, in their tier of values. It's, it's very nuanced and complicated.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Yeah

Queerness and the Westernisation of identity.

Jayashree Srinivasan

It is. It is. And it's, I'm only like, I feel like I'm only just starting to unpick it a little bit. And I think it's again, in my mind, the way I make sense of it is that often queerness is viewed as a Western thing. So when someone might have an unconscious bias towards people of colour, and then they hear that they're queer, it Westernises that person in a little way.

It's something that it's hard to fight for people you come out to, but also, it's hard to fight within yourself as well to find your identity as a queer person of colour, while also preserving everything about your cultural background that you do value and not like using the queerness as a way to Westernise yourself because then, you know, your exposure to queerness is influenced by what you're seeing.

Identity does become complicated. But you know, it forces you to introspect and be aware of your perspective, what you're doing, and I've caught myself doing that a few times where I feel like, to fit in with queer groups, I've changed certain things about myself and then say, wait a second, I think this is where it was coming from, and I'd rather not change this about myself.

And at the same time, you will find things that you do want to change about yourself as well.

Michele Ong

There's a lot of code switching you're having to do now because of all the different environments and contexts that you have to exist in. And yeah, the whole idea about queerness being a Western concept is fascinating, but I understand exactly what you mean by that. And, you know, when you come from Asian or migrant cultures, no doubt, most of us will have had the parents go, Oh, you're getting so Westernised now. You're getting so Aussie. And it's like, but what does that mean? What aspects of personality and identity relate to Westernisation? It's such a peculiar idea that this aspect of identity is culturally influenced. I'm sure there are papers and papers, written about this.

Jayashree Srinivasan

I'm sure. And that also then plays into like, once you are thisbeautiful human being who's been through all of the things and you've taken a little bit from your culture, and a little from the Australian culture, and you created this person that you are. And then you go and then you try and find community in like queer settings, then the Indian part is confusing. And then if I go and try and find community in Indian settings, and then you get asked like, so when are you getting married? And you're just like, oh my gosh, I don't know how to answer this.

Michele Ong

It's like, well, where shall we begin?

Jayashree Srinivasan

So, and then you, again, go back to, is it safe to, you know, come out here, is it not? Are you going to accept it? Are you not? Because there's the weight of thousands of years of culture.

Michele Ong

I do not envy the minefield of cultural expectation that you have to navigate just to get through life. Oh my goodness. So, have you found being in Australia easier for you to create or cultivate your new identity or, not really new identity, but I guess embed that identity?

Jayashree Srinivasan

Yes, most definitely. This has been the best thing. I think, being in Australia has been very freeing because it is most of the time, more or less safe to be out. And I think if I was in a situation where it was not safe to be out I know what to do. There are systems in place. That can help to have things to fall back on.

Life hack: Have you considered having your coming out peer reviewed?

Jayashree Srinivasan

And that has been a really good move for me because, okay, I'll give you a little bit of a story. When I was in the early stages of figuring out, you know, my sexual orientation. How do I come out? How do I navigate the world now that I know this about myself? For one thing, it answered a lot of questions, right? Because you always, like every young queer person, will relate, most likely relate, to feeling all their lives there's just something that isn't clicking. Like, why am I just not feeling the same way all my peers are feeling?

So there was that really good revelation, but then also the challenge of how on earth am I going to tell my very traditional Indian parents about this? How am I going to tell family? How am I going to tell friends? Is society ever going to accept me? And I once talked to a doctor about it and fully, there's no joke, was told, Oh, why don't you attend this psychiatrist clinic where they will give you help to become bisexual? I'm a lesbian, I'm not bisexual.

And then I said, but why? He said, oh, because that's just going to make your life so much easier and we can, we can do that for you. So I think, like, I wonder, it's, bizarre it's, it's bizarre. Like, look, I have also, to be clear, I've had a wonderful psychologist in India who was so accepting and changed my life and was pivotal in me coming out.

I actually came out to my parents in a group family session with a psychologist in the room, which honestly, life hack for young queer people, do it. Because like, if your, if your parents ask you, like, questions that you may not know how to answer, there is a professional in the room that they cannot yell at, they cannot scold them, so do it that way if you can.

Michele Ong

It's an expert in the room, it's fine.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Yes. Yes, um, like, it was almost like my coming out was peer reviewed which has really worked for my sciencey parents because they like looked at the, the psychologist and were like, you agree with what she's saying? Okay.

Michele Ong

You've got a thesis defence going.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Yes.

You can't learn who you are if you don't have the space to be who you are.

Jayashree Srinivasan

So, but, um, the reason I gave all of that background is because I think given all of that, if I had stayed in India, I don't think I would be who I was today because I was very much mentally restricting myself.

I was very bogged down by the anxiety of the future. And having that much anxiety on a day to day basis will really reduce your capacity to do other things and won't let you grow into the full version of yourself. Moving here has really given me the freedom to discover who I am.

A lot of queer people I think will also relate to sort of like the later in life coming of age and realising who you are, which I think a lot of people will experience in their teens. I've had those sort of realisations in my twenties because, you know, this is where I'm starting to really feel like I'm living my full life.

And of course, like here I've had the good fortune of living with friends who are so accepting. I call them friends, but they're family because we've known each other all our lives, and, it's very different to be taken out of that setting of like community that you want to be accepted but you can't, then to suddenly be in a place where everybody knows and everyone's okay with it.

It's quite life changing.

Michele Ong

Absolutely. And yeah, it allows you to thrive because you don't have that concern bogging you down anymore. Thank you so much for sharing that because it's such an important aspect of not just being a migrant, but being queer, and being different or feeling different in your home and your chosen environment. So I really appreciate you sharing that.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Thank you.

​

I'll just add quickly that I went to Mardi Gras in Sydney last year. And it was amazing because I had been to New York Pride by myself when I was 20. Nobody in my family knew I was going and I went there on my own. This was the first queer setting I'd been in and it was a lot.

It was really full on. I sort of made friends strangers. And then to go to Mardi Gras with work, with community of wonderful people, it was incredible. It was just, I don't know, uh, it's crazy to just be so immersed in an environment that's just, everyone's like you, everyone's accepting. It's just like, I think healed a lot from the past. And it was around that time that I sort of realised that I think what I want to see in the world is more role models of diverse backgrounds, because I think as a young person, if I'd seen someone out there that I admired, who looked a little bit like me and was queer, it would have made a world of difference.

Just to know that this is okay and making a positive association that a queer person can be happy, a queer person can be successful, a queer person can thrive and not just keep it a secret. And not seeing another option.

Why I choose to put myself out there is because I'm like, if on the off chance that some young person who looks a little bit like me can see me and identify with me and that can give them some assurance about their future, that would, you know, that's like life goals accomplished.

Nothing would make me happier.

Michele Ong

Absolutely. And having that representation isn't just good for the person who's experiencing that, but it normalises it for the members of their family and community who to see that representation as well and who need to see the examples because, you know, we know our Asian families love being put against other people as an example.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Yes, exactly.

Michele Ong

Yeah, able to have the opportunity to go, well, they're okay, So, yeah.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Yeah. And I think also there's a lot of benefit in like a diversity of professions being seen out there as well, because if all like the elder ethnic family people, like all the aunties and uncles, if all they ever see are actors and actresses or singers who are queer, they're going associate queerness with that profession.

But then if you see, like, architects, bankers, chefs, scientists, everyone—

Michele Ong

Regular jobs.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Yeah, it could be anyone. Like, I think that would, that'd be really nice to see.

Michele Ong

And maybe the next Indian culinary chef isn't gonna get shunned by their family.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Right? I have to say though I'm blessed becauseI have very accepting family now. It was a journey, but we got there.

Michele Ong

Amazing. Well, I'm glad that you got there. That's the important part.

​

Balancing being both microbiologist and pastry chef.

Michele Ong

So, speaking about your culinary journey and how that contributed to, you know, finding your identity as well.

Jayashree Srinivasan

You'd always wanted or been interested in the culinary aspect, but what made you start your venture up for As You Whisk as a cake business alongside your career as a microbiologist?

Like I said, I've always loved baking. And every time I baked, I had a designated taste tester, a designated decorator, and that was my best friend. We've known each other since we were three and every time I baked, she would receive all the results of the experiments, the both the successful and the failed ones.

And she's actually, she's an artist. So at some point she got really curious about decorating and using like buttercream as a way of making art. And she started picking up on that.

Somewhere along the way, we just casually said to each other, oh, you know, wouldn't it be fun, like, if we can make it a real thing, have a little business. Like, how fun would it be?

And then we'd be like, yeah, that'd be pretty fun, and then move on as you do when you know, you think that things can never really happen. And then we got to a point when we realised that there was actually nothing there stopping us from doing it. And it wasn't, it was not like a primary source of income, it was just, I really wanted to do it and she discovered that she can actually paint like landscapes and things on cake, and that was really exciting. She could paint on macarons and that was really cool. So we wanted to start doing that. And around the same time, I had quit my kitchen jobs. And like I said earlier, I told you that one of the big things that was missing with my jobs in kitchen was that I couldn't create things. But the good thing about being the boss of yourself is that you can do what you want to do. So, again, I set to work, we wanted to make desserts the way we like them, like we don't, I don't know if you like fondant on cakes like the rolled out sugar, sweet stuff, we didn't want to use any of that. So we only wanted to use buttercream. We wanted to keep everything low sweet and mild. And I think it was the best of both worlds for me. I got to do science and then I also get everything that I love about being a pastry chef. I still get to do that in my life in like a serious way, it's more than a hobby.

We're both extremely driven and passionate about it and it's, it's been great. We do like market stalls and get to meet members of the community, we take orders from people and it's just, like, good for the soul because it's one of those jobs where you end up in like the celebratory moments of people's lives.

You get to see kids turning one, you get to see anniversaries and you see people in like the happiest parts of their life and like then to hear the feedback you get and it's, it's great. Like it's a heartwarming job.

Michele Ong

A literal slice of life, yeah.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Yeah, it's a very, very heartwarming job and I think it's good for people to have a side hustle. It's easy to let work become your whole identity because you do spend most of your time at work. But I think it's also important to remember that love what you do, but also the work you're doing needs to facilitate life outside of it. And yeah, I, I like the balance it brings.

Michele Ong

And it's, it's incredible because all of the skills that you've just developed, working in kitchens, going to culinary schools, working in labs, and doing all that industry research stuff, it's all very complementary to the kind of work and running your own business and connecting with people in so many different ways. It really, yeah, it gives you this whole view of more completeness in different aspects of your life.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Yes, definitely. And it's really, it's nice to own a small business because that's like a piece of your heart. You put everything you have into it.

Michele Ong

Yeah, it's really quite rewarding.

The transferrable skills between Jaya's skill sets.

Michele Ong

So I've touched on like the fact that all of your evolved skill sets are complementary, but what have you found yourself taking from your different spaces into those other spaces as transferable skills?

Jayashree Srinivasan

Preciseness in measuring things out.

Michele Ong

The precision of the pastry chef.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Yes. I mean, it's in, it's in both, right? You need to precisely weigh out something, whether that's chemicals or flour, you know. But I guess jokes aside, what I find in common between like both fields is that there is like an idea of something novel that's driving you and in both fields, you are working towards optimising something to create the best possible outcome. And the approach is quite similar, whether that's in science or in cooking. And I think both baking and science bring that sweet spot of calculative preciseness blended with a creative approach.

That's, I think, that's where my skills and my happiness lies, and I think anything I do in life, that's what I'm seeking.

Michele Ong

Yeah, absolutely. Just wanting to be able to create that blend of both aspects to be able to create something new. Love it.

What advice would you give someone who'd like to do what you do, and what advice should they ignore?

Michele Ong

And one last question before I let you go. What advice would you give someone who'd like to do what you do, and what advice should they ignore?

Jayashree Srinivasan

What advice you should ignore, in my opinion, is I think having a long term plan might be a bit overrated. Like if you have one, amazing, excellent, follow your dream. But if you don't have that vision of this is who I want to be when I grow up, which I still ask myself, who do I want to be when I grow up at the age of 27. It's okay if you don't have a fixed idea. I think in my life, I don't know if I have authority to give people advice, but for me, this has worked, just doing the next best thing. The next thing that I know I will enjoy, often taking those kind of steps of short term joy will lead you to finding exactly where you want to be, where you're creating the impact that you want to do, and you're enjoying your work while doing that.

Often for me, like very big long term goals have either not end up being where I went and I'm better off for it, or it just kind of, you get a bit stressed because life is not going that way. So if you feel a pressure to have a fixed goal for the future, just let it go. It's okay. It's overrated.

And a piece of advice I might give people is that I think when you see professionals, you enter a professional space, often you see, you tend to notice like the best of people, you see people doing really well, people showing forward the best versions of themselves.

And as a young person, it's really easy to feel intimidated, and to feel like you need to be a certain way or you need to be like them in order to fit in or to be as successful as them. But I think it took a while to truly, truly get to place where I'm like, no, I'm going to be myself, right? I don't want to lose who I am in the process of trying to look like what a confident and successful person should look like. And once you get there, like the confidence will show, like you will truly feel it. It does not have to look for you how it looks for other people. So when you get into a workspace, especially like in a place like science where you might make mistakes, you may not always make the best decisions, it's very empowering to own up to them, to say, this is what I thought, this was my thought process, this is what I did, or I was clumsy, I dropped it, I'm so sorry. That's okay. Just be honest. Don't hide mistakes. Accept that part of life — we're all human. And I think that embracing those flaws will lead you to eventually like that spot where you're quite happy with who you are and happy for everyone else to see it and not feel the need to hide it behind like a more, a more confident than you are lens or a more Western than you are sort of mask.

Yeah, absolutely. You don't have to be perfect, because it's all a process anyway, and you'll figure it out. And as long as you're aspiring, or as long as you're learning who you are as you go, that's the important part.

Exactly.

Michele Ong

Amazing. That's incredible advice. And yeah, so thank you so much Jaya for sharing with me today.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Thank you for having me.

Michele Ong

Yeah, I really appreciate your time in having this conversation about your journey, about your very, very, cool work, and your own path to identity and all the different cultures that you work with on the day to day basis.

Thank you. This has been really fun.

Yes. Thank you so much. So if people would like to find out more about the kind of work that you do where can they go?

Jayashree Srinivasan

You can put my LinkedIn, I'm pointing like the YouTubers in the bio.

Michele Ong

Link and subscribe!

Jayashree Srinivasan

Yeah just find me on LinkedIn. I'll be there.

Michele Ong

Amazing. And I'll also add a link to As You Whisk.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Yes, please do. Have a look. We have some cute pictures up there if you want to scroll through.

Michele Ong

Yeah, absolutely, and I saw that you do a gulab jamun cheesecake, which sounds delicious.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Oh, yes. Oh, I'm so proud of that. Like going back to culture and fusions. What better way to show that than through food? 'Cause that's Indian and not quite at the same time.

Michele Ong

It's an incredible blend of flavours and cultures. It's delicious. Cool. All right. So again, thank you so much Jaya for speaking with me and I hope you have an incredible rest of your day.

Jayashree Srinivasan

Thank you, you too, Michele. Thanks for having me.

Michele Ong

If you enjoyed this conversation, please let me know. Subscribe to this show, leave us a rating, and share this with your geeky or geek-curious friends. You can also support STEAM Powered on Patreon under steampoweredshow, the link for which will also be in the show notes. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you next time.