BALANCING ACT “It is important to think more about what you want to do with your life and less about what you feel like studying. Once out in the world you have to face the real challenges of balancing your life with your job… and as a wife and mother it was terribly hard to find a position that allowed me that balance.”

Name: Daniella Nistenpover│Profession: Biomedical Researcher│Location: Jerusalem 

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s a child Daniella Nistenpover’s dream was to be a doctor. With maturity she realized that spending a decade on residencies and a grueling internship would be difficult to reconcile with the frum family life she envisioned for herself. Letting go of Dr. Daniella she chose the next best thing: studying biomedical engineering atIsrael’s Technion inHaifa. She wasn’t even sure what the term meant but hey — it had the desired medical connotation.
 

Daniella commenced her studies only several months after getting married and it wasn’t long before significant complications arose. “I gave birth the day before my first end-of-year final. It was a difficult exam on regular differential equations — not something I could take in the hospital!”

The course lecturers were very understanding and allowed her to make up the exam at a later date. They also provided additional assistance in covering missing material along with a Xerox card that enabled her to photocopy up to 500 pages of missing notes from her classmates.

Still with all the extra support it took a lot of determination to make it successfully to the finish line. “I was back at the lab five days after birth — I was that determined to complete my thesis.”

Asked whether she’d pull that kind of shtick today Daniella responds with an emphatic no. “Today I think I was crazy!”

Having said that Daniella can now look back at her five years of studies — during which she gave birth twice more — from the current comfort of a fulfilling job that brings in the income her family needs. “Of course my husband was very supportive and my mother came in sometimes to watch the kids. I also had friends who took notes for me when I was absent or studied with me at my house when I couldn’t go out.”

A degree in biomedical engineering opens doors to a range of vocational options. Some are more easily reconciled with motherhood and the frum lifestyle than others. As a result most women choose an academic route rather than laboratory work. Daniella experienced tremendous siyata d’Shmaya in finding a position that enables her to juggle her career with her domestic responsibilities without too much stress.

“I met someone at a biomedical engineering conference and showed great interest in what she was doing” Daniella recalls. “She took down my details and a few months later when an opening arose at her company she called me with a job proposal.”