Made In Puerto Rico – Collaboratory, Our Origin Story
In a world where science is dominated by white, male voices, Collaboratory was founded in Puerto Rico by a wife and husband team so that their son could grow up in a place where science is done differently — by diverse people.
When Wilson Dávalos-Nieves left a life of New York City tech startups to open his own restaurant in Isabela, Puerto Rico, he brought with him a vision: to create a welcoming space for the community and serve up fresh, delicious food. And that’s exactly what he did.
Wilson was at the pinnacle of his culinary career. His restaurant CLMDO had been featured in the New York Times, Eater and GQ Magazine. Wilson was honored to be a member of the James Beard Foundation and has cooked at the Culinary Institute of America.
In 2017, Hurricane Maria flooded CLMDO and forced it to close. A fire, six weeks after reopening closed it again. And COVID-19 shuttered it for good.
When Wilson left the restaurant industry last year, he knew it was time to go back to his roots. He wanted to create a tech start-up in Puerto Rico, but before he could do that, he had to find a problem to solve.
Catherine Hulshof, a PhD Chicana from San Antonio and salutatorian of her high school class, received a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania. For Catherine and Wilson, the long process of rebuilding their lives after losing everything in Hurricane Maria began with a move from Puerto Rico to Richmond, Virginia.
Back in Puerto Rico, Catherine was an assistant professor at the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez. Specializing in Tropical Ecology. Her research focused on how biodiversity would be affected by climate change in tropical and temperate forests, but when Hurricane Maria hit in 2017, all that was lost.
She had no choice but to start over again. For Catherine and Wilson, however, this meant more than just rebuilding her lab — it also meant leaving behind their home in Puerto Rico.
Catherine started a new lab at Virginia Commonwealth University as an assistant professor. As minority faculty, she has had to confront systemic racism and implicit bias from colleagues and students.
Back at VCU, Catherine was eager to get to work. The National Science Foundation had just awarded her — a major grant. She was determined to find collaborators and start putting the grant money to use on science that would change lives. But she had no luck. She shared her frustration with her husband.
Catherine Was On A Mission — Wilson Wanted To Help
As a child, Wilson dreamed of becoming a scientist. But instead of pursuing that dream, he started his career in technology and computer science. It wasn’t until he read the NSF’s most recent report on representation in research that he realized why: Only 6% of researchers are Hispanic, and only 2% are Hispanic females. He found this shocking — because while Wilson was dreaming of becoming a scientist, he never saw anyone like himself represented in those roles.
Throughout the world, there has been a significant shift in favor of collaborative research. Teams produce work that is cited more often, and diverse teams outperform homogeneous ones. Yet only 10 percent of U.S. STEM faculty are underrepresented minorities, and minorities receive fewer invitations to highly regarded research networks.
Diversity in STEM is a problem that can’t be ignored. By excluding certain voices from STEM fields, the scientific community is losing out on the best research. It’s also hurting underrepresented communities by making it more difficult to gain access to opportunities in STEM.
One possible solution was to create a platform where you can find potential collaborators. After discussing the idea in detail with Catherine, they agreed that they wanted to create this platform together.
They decided on the name Collaboratory for their start-up and gained invaluable insight from Catherine’s background as a researcher and scientist.
Before the January 2022 launch of the Collaboratory beta, Wilson conducted interviews with about a dozen scientists from around the world, spanning all ages and career stages.
Along with Catherine’s input, all data collected — from interviews to surveys — showed the need for a collaboration platform. These scientists shared their frustration in finding collaborators, indicating an overall need for a collaboration platform. Collaboratory was about to be launched.
Scientists have long-faced the challenge of connecting with other scientists in order to effectively collaborate on research. Collaboratory changes this.
With Collaboratory, scientists can be more effective at finding the right collaborator for their project and also more effective at navigating the challenges of setting up and implementing an interdisciplinary collaboration.
NOTE:
Every one of us has a story that got us here. For me, it’s the story of losing my restaurant, CLMDO — three times in Puerto Rico. And then my wife Catherine getting awarded an important grant, losing her lab in Puerto Rico and her hardship finding collaborators.
It’s one thing to tell your origin story in the 3rd person — it makes you step back from it, and distance yourself from it just a little bit. But even so, I found it strange writing this out. It’s such a personal thing. But I wanted to share the story with all of you because I think it might help you see what inspired us to do this and why I’m so excited about Collaboratory.
I love our tag line for Collaboratory. We connect scientists. We hope that you’ll use and enjoy Collaboratory.