Neurobiologist Lyl Tomlinson is startled when he's accused of stealing cocaine from his former lab.

Lyl Tomlinson is a Brooklyn native and a post-doctoral researcher and program coordinator at Stony Brook University. He is also a science communication fanatic who often asks: “Would my grandma understand this?” Using this question as a guiding principle, he won the 2014 NASA FameLab science communication competition and became the International final runner-up. In addition to making complex information understandable, he has a growing interest in science policy. Lyl meets with government representatives to advocate for science related issues and regularly develops programs to tackle problems ranging from scientific workforce issues to the Opioid Epidemic. Outside of his work and career passions, he seems to harbor an odd obsession with sprinkles and is a (not so secret) comic book and anime nerd.

This story originally aired on Apr. 13, 2018, in an episode titled Fight or Flight.

Story Transcript

It happened about two years after I graduated from college.  I was trying to get into a neuroscience PhD program so I was checking off all the boxes on the competitive candidate checklist.  I was working in the lab, I was learning new techniques and I was doing experiments to try and publish a research paper which is basically the currency of academic science.

And so as I was doing this, I was getting really invested in science.  I really wanted to sort of get into a bunch of different places but, really, the only place I was actually interested in was the institution I was currently working at.

One of the reasons why I really wanted to get there was because I really liked the environment, but there was a bit of a problem.  I had submitted an application months ago and it was taking a long time to hear back from them.  Honestly, like I wasn’t really worried because I had a great reputation in two of the labs that I was in, so Dr. Janice’s lab where I’d done a summer project with another undergrad.  I mean, I was doing really well there.

And then the lab that I was currently working in at that time, Dr. Balboa’s lab, I was also getting a great reputation.  I was working hard, I was doing like amazing things in that lab, so that was fine.

On top of that, I also had done really well in a biochemistry program or a biochemistry class that they give to their first year students in that same program.  

Then lastly, my boss or mentor or whatever you want to call them, Dr. Balboa actually had money for me to work for all the five years that I would be in the program, so I was pretty confident this would happen.

So basically, one of the issues that sort of came up was that, as I was trying to get into the program, again, as you know, like I hadn’t heard back, I had… even though I hadn’t heard back, I was still really obsessed with getting in.  One of the other reasons why I was obsessed with getting in was because I was really close with my mentor, Dr. Balboa.

Now, just so you know, he was the kind of boss who would call me in after shootings of unarmed black men and ask me how I was doing and how I was feeling, and it’s because he really cared.  He was really good at picking up on that global anxiety and that anger that happens after situations like this in the African-American community.  

I think that one of the reasons why he was particularly good at this was because, being a gay man in science, he had his own unjust situations and experiences to draw from.  Just for example, he was very bold in talking about these things and so we shared a deep connection on that.  He would go out to different audiences and speak about his lab and the interest that the lab was forwarding. 

And he was not ashamed in saying that the basis of his lab’s research was actually the brainchild of his husband, and depending on what audience we were in, you might hear the crowd get a little quieter when he said the word “husband."

So he would talk to me about this and we would share experiences back and forth.  And because we shared such a close bond, I definitely wanted to stay in that lab.  

One day, I was walking into the lab, totally normal day, and I opened the door to the corridor that the lab is in.  And just for context, the lab is housed in a corridor but it’s all the way down at the end and there are like two or three other labs in that same corridor.

So I’m opening the door to the lab and then, all of a sudden, I hear Dr. Balboa from all the way down there, saying, “What the fuck is this?  How can they believe this shit?  This is ridiculous!”

Honestly, I wasn’t really all that surprised because he cursed a lot in lab, but one of the reasons why I knew that this was actually uncharted territory was because he was doing this with the door open.  He usually had the peace of mind to close the door when he was upset about some careless or costly mistake that had been made in the lab, but at this point the door was wide open, everyone in the corridor could hear it.

But he and I were close so I wasn’t really afraid of walking into the lab and talking to him because, one thing, I wanted to know what was up, and the other thing is I wanted to see if I can make him feel better. 

So we have this normal, like caustic back and forth with jokes so I walk into his lab and I’m like, “So you finally found out science wasn’t gonna make you a millionaire?”

No response.  Then so I constantly throw out these one-liners that I would humbly describe as comedic gold and he was not amused, not at all.  

Eventually, I just get to the point and I’m like, “So what’s up?”

And he proceeds to say something that, for the rest of the day, I would think as a joke.  He says to me, “They think you stole cocaine.”  

And I promise you, I promise you, the first thing I did was I laughed because, to me, that is such a ridiculous statement.  Like, I am the guy who was staying in lab on the weekends and not going out just because I want to finish the project.  I am the kind of guy who has this borderline unhealthy obsession with anime.  I am also the guy… sorry, did I get too personal?  I’m also the guy who’s playing Dungeons and Dragons like every other weekend.

So yeah, yeah, I don’t want to get too involved in that, but, yes.  So I am the guy who’s playing Dungeons and Dragons every weekend and I’m not out stealing cocaine for parties.  Mind you, though, I am familiar with the concept of a party which, in my world, usually involves four people, somebody’s using magic and demons are being fought or whatever.  But I am familiar with the concept.

So one of the other reasons why I thought this was so ridiculous, and I have to give you some context to this, is that, basically, who thought I stole cocaine, which is probably one of the things that you guys are wondering, is that the person who made the decisions for the graduate school actually thought that I was the one who stole cocaine.  And the reason why he thought that was because Dr. Janice, the lab that I’d worked in over summer, had actually accused me of stealing cocaine from the lab.

So for context, Dr. Janice’s lab, they did a lot of really interesting experiments on how cocaine and marijuana affected the brains of rats.  They were trying to sort of model what teenagers might do at a party and see how it affected their cognitive processes and development. 

However, I, along with another undergrad, white dude from Staten Island, were hired on a separate project to figure out how novel experiences could enrich the brain and possibly make rat moms better parents.  So we were not anywhere near the cocaine.  The cocaine was locked up in a freezer.  We never had access to it.  And I don’t even think he and I ever even saw the cocaine.  But that did not prevent these accusations from being lobbed my way.

One of the other reasons that you guys have to know that one reason why I thought this was absolutely ridiculous was because they noticed the difference between my work ethic and his work ethic.  I was actually given a thousand dollar check at the end of the summer rotation, which he and I did the same exact amount of time in, because I had done more work than he had on this project.  I was also asked to give a presentation solely to the clinicians about all the research that we had done on the project.  But for some reason, this wasn’t enough to allay their concern so he and I, same amount of time, I did more work, the only real difference is he was white and I was black.

So I’m sure you guys are all thinking, because I was thinking it too, like, you know, was this racist.  I’m going to tell you right now I really don’t think it was racist, to be fair, but I do think that it was prejudice.  I don’t think there was intentional racism because, honestly, if anybody in that lab had like a concerted idea in order to keep me back in some way, shape, or form, I don’t even think they would have accepted me into the lab, but I do think there was prejudice involved.  Whether or not it’s because I was young and black or whatever the fact is that I may never know, I was actually stripped of an opportunity.

Basically, I felt powerless because nobody came to me and asked me for my side of the story.  I felt powerless because prejudice in these situations acts in such an insidious way where you kind of have to be a lawyer who is omnipotent and has all the evidence at the ready in order to prove to all of your accusers that you didn’t do this.

But most of all, I felt powerless because even in the minds of scientists, the most likely explanation was glossed over to rush to my guilt, which was that in light of the uncommon amount of rat deaths they were having that year, somebody was probably just giving the rats too much cocaine because they sucked at math or measure.

So the story isn’t all bad.  At the end of the day, I did get my power back because there was a rush of confidence and support that I felt from Dr. Balboa because he was just as angry as I was about the situation.  Furthermore, he even pushed me to apply to programs or accept the exceptions from other programs even though I was dead set on waiting to hear back from that institution.

Luckily, thanks to him, I did end up going to graduate school and I graduated in August.  I got my PhD in neuroscience, which is fantastic.  Thank you.  

Since my time in graduate school or during my time in graduate school, I actually got a number of different awards for research.  I also got an award that you guys heard about for Science Communication from NASA, and I did a bunch of other amazing things. 

But honestly, at the end of the day, from all the experiences that I had, I really learned from Dr. Balboa that it’s not actually the research that makes a good researcher but it’s the emotional support and confidence you provide to that research along the way.  Thank you.