The very first presentation I gave as a masters student, I was humilliated by a senior professor -a woman- in front of all my peers and other professors (~100 people). She told me my project was stupid & that I would never succeed in science because my ideas were ridiculous 1/n

I kept it together, addressed her questions, and then quitely left the big conference room and went to a private corner and cried. Someone saw me and they told her. Later that day, she approached me and told me again, that I would never succeed in science bc I was weak 2/n

She told me that science was very toxic and that if I couldn't stand her words, I wouldn't be able to stand reviewers' and peers' criticism. I haven't cried ever since when I get criticized but also, I've never experience that level of humilliation again 3/n

I will never understand why people feel the need to humilliate and be rude to people giving presentations and proudly showing their work. Providing feedback in a constructive way is not the same as humilliating and being rude 4/n

Plus, have you ever thought how ridiculous people are when they get upset about 1) a method 2) a result or 3) a conclusion... ?? I feel secondhand embarassment. Like, relax 5/n

I'm not into perpetuating toxic behaviors in academia. If I have a criticism of someone's work I will say it politely and kindly. I will not offend them and I will not humilliate them; that's just so deeply unkind. It's also very rude and gross 6/n

I was also fortunate to have a junior professor -also a woman- approached me the folllowing day to check in. She told me what the other professor did was wrong and that the way she acted was very unprofessional... it helped somehow 7/n

This was 13 years ago, I was doing soil community analyses using a clone library (nothing new in microbial ecology). For her, a traditional taxonomist, this was unthinkable. If anything, I feel sorry that she wasn't able to keep up with new methods. She lacked vision 8/n

Sadly impressed with the variety of insults people get in academia: "impressed by lack of curiosity", "poorly thought out science", "surprised by the intellectual flaws" Seems like toxic people put a lot time in finding fancy words to insult. You can call me I don't care 9/n