Jamie Turnbull - The Struggles of Balancing Work and Family Life in Academia

The Struggles of Balancing Work and Family Life continues with Jamie Turnbull, who offers a male perspective on work-life balance in academia. In this interview, Jamie reflects on his journey through biochemistry, from undergraduate study and industry experience to completing a PhD at Nottingham, and on how career mobility, job insecurity, and personal priorities shape decisions about family life.

Jamie shares thoughtful insights into academic culture, gender bias, and the structural challenges that make it difficult for many people to align long-term career progression with personal stability. His reflections highlight the importance of flexibility, supportive environments, and redefining success beyond traditional academic milestones.

Before we get into the more specific questions, please can you share your academic journey?

I did my undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at Sheffield Hallam University, which included a placement year in the pharmaceutical industry. During that year, I worked in bioanalytical and pharmacokinetic science, focusing on new drugs being brought to market.

After my placement, I returned to university for my final year and began applying for PhD positions. At Sheffield, our coursework and exams were all completed before Christmas, and from January to April we worked full-time on our research projects. I remember handing in my dissertation on my birthday in mid-May - it was on MALDI mass spectrometry, which uses a laser a bit like microscopy, except you’re looking at ions. My project involved studying peptides from proteins in both cancerous and control lung tissue.

I secured a PhD offer at Nottingham after also interviewing at Cambridge, which unfortunately was a terrible experience - I didn’t get in, but a friend did and ended up having a very difficult time with their PhD. At Nottingham, I had three years of funding and four years to submit, but we all received extensions due to COVID. In the end, I started in October 2018 and submitted my thesis in March 2023. As for starting a family, I haven’t seriously thought about it, but that’s not related to work - it’s more that I’m not sure I even like children.

What motivated you to pursue an academic career, and has that changed over time?

I wouldn’t say I pursued it - it pursued me. I never really planned to go into academia or do a PhD. After my placement year, I actually wanted to return to industry, but I noticed that many of the people in higher positions there had PhDs.

The company I worked for during my placement wanted me to come back, and they offered the option of doing a PhD with Cambridge, but it came with a 10-year work contract afterwards which I declined. At the time, I was young, single, and had no major commitments, so I thought I might as well do a PhD straight after undergrad. That way, I’d keep my options open rather than tie myself to one company for a decade.

Once I started my PhD, I fell in love with the research side of things and the freedom it offered. In academia, if you have a good idea, you can often find funding to explore it. In industry, science can still be very cool, but you don’t get to choose what you work on.

I’ve also spoken to people who found industry quite limiting in other ways. For example, one Bio Support Unit Manager told me that when she worked in industry, she was doing 60 surgeries a day and hundreds of injections, often without even knowing exactly what the drug was or what its side effects were because it was all protected by patents. She never got to see projects through from start to finish, which I think I’d find frustrating. In academia, there’s more space for creativity, problem-solving, and really understanding the “why” behind what you’re doing.

I completely agree. Industry is great for building technical skills to a very high standard. But if your motivation comes from curiosity and the freedom to explore, academia can be more fulfilling.

Do you think people’s motivation for being in academia changes after starting a family?

I think it can. Early in your career, you often feel like you have to prove yourself and work extremely hard, so work becomes a top priority. Having children would naturally make you reassess that. It might even help create a better work-life balance, because you can’t just be absorbed in research all the time when you’ve got children to care for.

In that sense, I think it can be a positive thing. It reminds you that while your work is important, it’s not everything. Taking time out to play with your kids or be with your family isn’t going to derail your research.

Of course, there can be logistical challenges (like attending conferences as a single parent) but overall, I think it’s more likely to be beneficial than detrimental.

In your experience, have you observed any biases or assumptions directed toward women in academia - particularly those who are mothers or considering starting a family? How have you responded to this? 

One story that really sticks with me is about my current PI. She started her position while pregnant and got quite a poor reception from some colleagues - people would just refer to her as “the pregnant one.” Personally, I don’t think I’ve seen or experienced a lot of bias directly toward women, at least not compared to the horror stories you hear from the past. I do think things have improved a lot. It’s also encouraging to see a good number of female academics around now, because it’s so important for younger scientists to have visible role models. That said, the experience can still vary a lot depending on the field.

I also think bias can sometimes work in complicated ways, maybe even in both directions. For example, I’ve seen situations where people applying for a workshop were told there were “too many women” already. And in some conferences, there are requirements to include certain demographics, such as  at least one woman, one international speaker, and so on. I believe in equal opportunities, but ultimately, I think the best person for the job should be chosen. If you can’t find a woman because all the recognised experts are men, then that’s a bigger problem that needs to be addressed earlier on - starting as early as sixth form, by encouraging more women into those fields.

It’s not just about getting women into a subject - it’s about keeping them there. In neuroscience, for example, there’s something called the “scissor effect.” You start with more women than men at undergraduate level, but their numbers drop sharply in later stages, so the graph looks like a pair of scissors. The challenge isn’t recruitment, it’s retention. We need to understand why so many women are leaving at those mid-career points, while the few men in the field seem to progress and stay. That’s the real issue.

From your perspective, how do issues like maternity leave, childcare availability, or flexible working arrangements impact women in academia?

I think academia is actually one of the better industries to be in when it comes to these issues. I’m not sure of the exact university policy on maternity leave, but from what I’ve heard, it’s quite good. Flexible working is also a big plus.

That said, I think flexibility needs to be more clearly embedded as an official university policy, rather than something that’s left to the interpretation of individual supervisors. Right now, it can really depend on who you’re working with. You might have one supervisor who says, “If you want to work from home two days a week, that’s fine,” and another who expects you to be in the office every day from nine to five simply because that’s what they do. That inconsistency can make a big difference to someone’s experience, especially for parents trying to balance work and family life.

Are there specific strategies or habits that have helped you maintain a balance between your academic work and family life?

For me, it’s about having little breaks and a clear separation between work and personal time. Even something simple like going for a coffee and chatting with people during the day can give you that mental reset. I find it much harder when everyone just eats lunch at their desks and keeps working.

I try to be very deliberate about switching off. If I’ve been in the office from nine to five, the moment I get in the car to go home, I’m not thinking about work and I won’t do any work at home. When I was writing my thesis, I’d set very clear boundaries. For example, I’d come in on a Sunday from nine until one, get as much done as I could, and then stop. Whatever I didn’t get done could wait until the next time - I wouldn’t let it spill over endlessly.

Some people don’t have work emails on their phones, and I think that’s a good habit. It’s similar to when I worked in industry: we couldn’t take anything home, and we weren’t allowed to access work emails outside the office. You could only reply if you were physically at your desk, and you couldn’t come in out of hours without a really good reason. That created a very clear boundary between work and home life. I think academia could benefit from a bit of that approach: offering flexibility, like the option to work from home, but also making sure people aren’t working themselves into the ground.

Looking back, would you do anything differently? 

I’m not sure. One thing I probably would have done differently is to spend time in different labs during my PhD or afterwards, just to see how they work. I never really did that, and I think it would have been helpful to experience different environments and approaches. If I’d been single, I think my career choices might have been very different. I probably wouldn’t have stayed here and might not have taken my current fellowship or postdoc. I’d likely have finished my PhD and then moved somewhere else.

Academia is great in the sense that the world is your oyster, but that’s also the downside - you feel like you should make the most of every opportunity, and that often means moving around. There’s this idea, sometimes called the “training spark,” that early-career researchers are expected to relocate to get experience in the best labs for their field. That’s fine if you’re on your own, but it’s a much bigger ask when you have a partner - you’re essentially asking them to uproot their life for something that may only last two years. It’s not like it used to be, when postdoc positions were well paid and more secure. Now, salaries are pretty average compared to other jobs, and the contracts are short-term. So, you might be saying to your partner, “Let’s move to this random city for two years, and then… who knows?” That uncertainty is one of the biggest things people overlook when thinking about starting a family in academia.

If you start a PhD at, say, 22 or 23, you might graduate around 26 - which is roughly the average age for becoming a parent in the UK. But if you follow the typical academic path, you could easily spend years in short-term positions before getting anything permanent. By the time you’ve done a few postdocs, you might be in your mid-30s, and in terms of fertility, that’s when you start getting labelled a “geriatric mother.” 

So, people face a choice: 

Do you wait until you have a permanent position before having kids, hoping fertility won’t be an issue?

Do you have children earlier, knowing you might still have to move around for work and uproot the family?

Or do you choose to stay in one place for stability, knowing it might limit career opportunities?

It’s a tough balance, and I think for many people in academia, the big question isn’t just if they want a family, but when in their career it’s actually possible.

What advice would you give to young women entering academia who are also considering starting a family? And what role do you think male colleagues or partners can play in supporting them?

I’d say - back yourself. Have confidence in your abilities and don’t let the harshness of academia knock you down. Try not to take negative comments about your work personally. Support each other, and make sure you have a network of people you can vent to. Sometimes it’s actually more helpful to talk to someone outside your immediate lab or department. They won’t have the exact same experience, but they can give you a different perspective, and sometimes just help you figure out what’s “normal” and what’s not. It’s also valuable to speak to people who’ve been through what you’re about to face. Hearing how they navigated things can give you a clearer sense of what’s possible and what challenges to expect.

As for what men (whether colleagues or partners) can do to support women, I think it starts with treating everyone as equals. That means avoiding assumptions about capability or commitment just because someone has children. And if a parent needs to leave early, don’t make throwaway comments like “Oh, heading off already?” Those little remarks can be more damaging than you think, because they imply a lack of dedication. At the end of the day, productivity and quality of work aren’t measured by hours spent in the building - they’re measured by what you actually produce.

Sometimes shorter, more focused working hours can be far more productive. When I was writing my thesis, I could achieve more in a four-hour Sunday session than in an entire week of office time with all its interruptions. Flexibility and understanding go a long way. And I don’t think the responsibility for creating a better environment lies only with men - women in senior positions also shape the culture. Many PIs progressed through their careers in a very different, often harsher academic environment, and that can influence how they treat early-career researchers. I hope that in 20 or 30 years’ time, we’ll see a shift toward a more supportive and flexible environment, because the next generation will have experienced a different way of working and leading.

Thank you to Jamie for sharing his thoughtful and honest reflections on academic life, career mobility, and family planning. His perspective adds an important male voice to the conversation about how we can create a more sustainable and supportive academic culture.

Keep an eye out for the next edition of the series, coming out at the start of next month.

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This interview was conducted by Neave Smith and edited by Rebecca Pope, with graphics produced by Shauna Angell. If you enjoyed this article, be the first to be notified about new posts by signing up to become a WiNUK member (top right of this page)! Interested in writing for WiNUK yourself? Contact us through the blog page and the editors will be in touch.