Just Lu

I could start this by listing my credentials, my achievements, the institutions I’ve worked at, the awards, the papers—all the usual stuff people parade around to prove they’re worth listening to. But honestly? That’s not what I want this space to be about.

So let’s start again.

Hi, I’m Lu. 

​Just Lu. Not the accomplished scientist, not the overachieving girl from a small town who made it big, not the one who survived. I’m just me. If you asked my friends to describe me in one word, they’d say “resilient.” And sure, I get it. But in my head, I’ve always just been a survivor. The less glamorous cousin of resilience, right?

Survival is what I’ve done, not just in academia but in life. I’ve been through things I don’t often talk about—things that nearly ended me before I even turned twenty. And yet, here I am. Sixteen years later, still standing. Still fighting. And for a long time, I thought that was just… normal. That this daily battle in my head wasn’t anything special. But maybe, just maybe, I don’t give myself enough credit.

So why this blog? Why now?

Because at some point, I realised that being open about my struggles—my mental health, my experiences in academia, the sheer exhaustion of having to prove myself over and over—made a difference. Every time I spoke up, people thanked me. They felt seen. They felt less alone. And that’s when it hit me: I don’t need to be a therapist to help people. I just need to be real. I just need to say, “Hey, I see you. I get it. And I’m here.”

Science, as much as I love it, has a way of chewing people up and spitting them out. It convinces you that if you’re not working 24/7, you’re not dedicated enough. That if you care about your life outside the lab, you’re not a real scientist. That if you take a step back, someone else—someone more ruthless, more “serious”—will take your place.

And to that, I say: bullshit.

You can be a great scientist and still have a life. You can have boundaries. You can have hobbies. You can want more than just an h-index to define you. I know because I do. And I refuse to let anyone make me feel like that makes me less worthy of being here.

But I didn’t always feel this way. There was a time, not so long ago, when I let powerful, well-respected scientists—people from prestigious institutions around the world—convince me I wasn’t good enough. That fear was a better motivator than support. That I owed them my time, my energy, my well-being. That the only way to succeed was to give them everything.

And then one day (after lots of therapy), I stopped. I stood up to them. I chose myself. And in that moment, I realised: I don’t just belong here. I’m damn good at what I do.

So, here we are.

This blog is my way of reclaiming space—not just for me, but for anyone who’s ever felt like they don’t belong, like they’re not enough, like they have to fit into some impossible mold to make it in this world. It’s a place where science meets life, where honesty trumps perfection, where we can talk about the things that actually matter.

So, I’ll be writing about my life inside and outside academia, about the situations that made me who I am today, etc. If anything here resonates with you, stick around. Let’s have conversations that academia doesn’t always make room for. Let’s remind each other that we’re more than our CVs. And let’s prove that science doesn’t have to be a brutal, joyless grind to be worth it.

You in?