Taviare Hawkins, assistant professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse, grew up on the Southside of Chicago. Her father was a mechanical engineer and her mother was an accountant. Hawkins and her siblings were all very math and science oriented as children. She read a book on comets at age six and knew then that she wanted to be an astronomer when she grew up. “NOVA and Carl Sagan’s Cosmos were always on TV at our house. We were heavily involved in science clubs and in taking STEM courses,” she shares. Hawkins also attended a math and science magnet high school, Von Steuben Metropolitan Science Center.
After high school, Hawkins attended the University of Iowa, where she received her bachelor of science degree in physics in 1992. Following her undergraduate years, Hawkins worked as a real estate asset manager at Greenthal Harlan Realty Services, as a subcontractor of the Resolutions Trust Corporation, to manage their assets in the Manhattan area. She liquidated their portfolio of New York City and surrounding New Jersey area condominiums and cooperatives during the housing crisis of the early 1990s. “After I had worked myself out of a job and was between vacations,” Hawkins says, “I got a call from my undergraduate mentor at Iowa, Vincent Rodgers, professor of physics, asking if I was ready to go back to school. He said he had found a project he thought I would be interested in—and no, it wasn’t in the basement with a bunch of smelly guys—doing some particle/nuclear physics experiments.”
Hawkins did return to school, to Syracuse University, where she earned master’s degrees in computer science and physics. She continued at Syracuse University to pursue her PhD in physics. While working on her dissertation, Hawkins accepted a faculty position. “At the time Hurricane Katrina hit, I was in a tenure-track position at Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans while ABD [all but dissertation] at Syracuse. I was spending all of my time teaching, mentoring, and working on my dissertation,” she says. “After the storm led to faculty layoffs, I returned to Syracuse and worked on my dissertation full time. Since I was a good teacher, Mt. Holyoke College recruited me for a visiting faculty position, but I wanted postdoc experience.” She asked that her position be a hybrid teaching and research position with Jennifer Ross, then an assistant professor of physics at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst. “I started working with her immediately and, in the following summer,” she says, “I defended my dissertation and I refocused my research from pure computational to also include experimental biophysics.”
Hawkins is one of a small number of African American women with a PhD in physics. “I admire Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson. She is a theoretical condensed matter physicist, the current president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and is the second African American woman to earn a PhD in physics,” she says. “My number is around 50, depending on how you count us. There are so few of us in this field. I admire her audacity and tenacity because I know it wasn’t easy.”
After completing her PhD, Hawkins began working with Ross, characterizing the mechanics of microtubules in vitro by measuring the rigidity of the filaments in the presence of various microtubule-stabilizing regulators, (including the chemotherapeutic drug Taxol, nucleotides GMPCPP and GTP-γ-S, and the associated proteins tau and MAP4). “We examined the effect of protein labeling, age, and purification methods on microtubule mechanics,” she explains. “We introduced the statistical analysis technique, bootstrapping, to the problem and provided baseline measurements for Taxol-stabilized microtubules.”
Ross admires Hawkins for her perseverance. “Tav taught me that I didn’t understand struggle or perseverance until I met her,” Ross says. “It’s not that I struggled [while working with her], but I learned how hard it is for a black woman—or man— in science from many discussions with her. There are fewer than 100 black women with PhDs in physics, and Tav is one of them. It is an elite club. I had advisor issues, but I don’t think I could have survived some of the struggles she went through to get her PhD. […] She inspires me every day.”
Hawkins’ lab is working on several projects, including studying the mechanics of microtubules with lattice defects, and how lattice defects, natural or otherwise, affect the rigidity of microtubules; the effect, if any, post-translational modifications such as high salt and acetylation have on microtubule mechanics; whether trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) affects the rigidity of microtubules, and if so, is it a better stabilizer than Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO)?
Hawkins’s colleague at the University of Wisconsin, Jennifer Klein, assistant professor of biology, was hired in the same year as a new biophysicist. “Tav is brave. She attacks problems with a fearlessness that I find inspiring,” Klein says. “She is a constant advocate for women in science and has led many initiatives on our campus to support female scientists. Tav has a way of seeing right through negativity to what needs to be done to succeed.” Klein and Hawkins are hoping to develop a project-based undergraduate biophysics course “that establishes foundational knowledge in students from diverse academic backgrounds and then quickly moves students into independent research projects in each of our fields,” Klein explains.
In her position at University of Wisconsin, Hawkins manages time between teaching and doing research. “I enjoy teaching and research,” she says. “This job affords me the opportunity to do both, but sometimes it is difficult to change modes quickly.” The challenges are worth it, however, because she finds teaching students to be the most rewarding part of her job. “I just love seeing their responses when they finally realize they understand or see connections in a project or topic they’ve been working on for a while,” Hawkins says. “I hope to continue to educate and train competent students for the biophysics field.”
She emphasizes how important it is, especially for young biophysicists, to stay engaged with their scientific community. “My biggest advice for young scientists would be for them to appreciate the importance of attending meetings for networking and for staying current in their research field,” Hawkins shares. “I attend the Biophysical Society Annual Meeting, and at the meeting I get the opportunity to see and discuss science with old collaborators and to meet new ones.”