Prioritizing Mental Health in the Lab
Scott Cushing. Credit: Caltech
by Andrew Moseman
In 2022, Scott Cushing was named the inaugural winner of Caltech’s Shirley M. Malcom Prize for Excellence in Mentoring for his efforts as a vocal advocate for the LGBTQIA+ community, for work–life balance on campus, and for prioritizing mental health.
Cushing, an assistant professor of chemistry at the Institute, was recently interviewed by University of Connecticut graduate student Charlotte Fuqua for Chemical and Engineering News. Their conversation touched on his love of working with lasers, his personal struggles with disability and mental health, and how he has both found support and tried to provide support for others at Caltech:
One of the things I've advocated a lot for is just putting mental health front and center and taking the time to actually understand how mental or physical disabilities affect your mental health or thought processes.
When mentoring people with disabilities, I’m also not afraid to show my physical disabilities or talk about the consequences of them. After I started [being more open about that], I realized I could help other people by just being vocal.
But we’re still missing things on the level of national organization. National organization is critical not only to push for inclusion but also to create the specific communities and events that bring us together as scientists. Only those [of us] experiencing a disability can truly understand the issues and empathize with each other.