In October, we sat down with Natalie Collins, Belinda Reyes, and Samantha Guigliemi, analysts in our Forensic Laboratory in Austin, TX. These three share a close friendship that has flourished in their time a Signature Science. We wanted to get them together to chat, pick their brains, and learn about that friendship, how it developed, and how it impacts their day-to-day in the lab.
Interviewer: Let’s get started. I’d like to hear about your backgrounds – where you grew up, went to school, those kinds of details. Let’s go around the horn on that.
Samantha: I grew up on Long Island, New York. I went to school in Springfield, MA to get my forensic biology degree and then after that I went back to Long Island to work at Suffolk County Crime Lab for about 2 1/2 years. When I decided to look at other opportunities, I interviewed at several other companies and when I got the offer from SigSci, I jumped on it.
Belinda: I went to school in Chicago, where I received my forensic science degree. A few months later, in November 2018, I got a job at AFDIL in Delaware. That’s actually where I met Natalie. I was there for two years and met her, I think, a few months after she got there. When Natalie left in 2020, I actually really missed her, and started looking for jobs elsewhere. I applied to about six places and got interviews, but [Forensic DNA Laboratory Director] Leslie [Parke] was the first to make an offer and I was so happy to accept.
Natalie: So I’m also from Long Island, from New York, and I went to College in Connecticut, though, and then I started working at AFDIL shortly after I graduated in 2017. I met Belinda there, and worked there for a little over three years, and then decided, in the middle of the pandemic, to move to Nebraska for a job. I lasted there for about a year and was ready to move on, so, knowing Belinda had relocated to Austin to work at SigSci, I asked if she knew about any openings. She seemed to really like it here and would always tell me that she liked the lab staff and leadership and was loving Austin.
Belinda: We luckily had an opening, Nat interviewed, and the rest is history!
Interviewer: So there are some commonalities in your background – Belinda and Natalie you’ve got history at a previous workplace, and there’s also a fun Long Island connection between Natalie and Samantha. How did this trio develop once you all got here? What kinds of things cemented this friendship?
Natalie: Yeah it’s crazy! Bel and I sort of picked up where we left off, and then when Sam joined SigSci I was actually assigned to train her. In the course of training her we started talking about our backgrounds and putting the pieces together that we knew some of the same people, and we actually grew up 30 minutes from each other. So that’s how the bonding started – this wild coincidence and series of events that brought us here. And, so I invited her to join Bel and I for my birthday celebration.
Belinda: Natalie said ‘Come to the dark side, new friend!” No, but in Delaware when Nat and I worked together, we found that the people we saw at work every day kind of became the people we hung out with outside of work. I’ve always been open to sort of blurring those lines and making friends where you’re at.
Natalie: A lot of game nights happened in Delaware!
Interviewer: And is that something that has continued here? Did game nights follow you to Austin, or are there other things you like to do together here?
Belinda: We definitely do the game nights still, but being in Austin now we’re big into being outside as much as possible, and specifically we love being in the water.
Natalie: Yeah we each have paddleboards and take those out on the lake in the summers, and do a lot of pool hopping. We’re always in the pool.
Belinda: We are travel buddies, too! Last year we traveled to see the Jonas Brothers in Las Vegas and it was EVERYTHING!
Samantha: We also do a lot of studying together. Not to plug working here too hard, but there are great advancement opportunities and we are pretty constantly training for something new or studying to obtain a new certification. Belinda and Natalie, because they’re analysts, are usually on the same track, and because I’m a DNA Technician training to be an analyst, there’s a lot of information sharing out of work and a ton of study nights.
Natalie: Yeah, we’re all in the same boat and we all want each other to advance and perform well, so we’ll get together and do flash cards and do a lot of refreshing each other on the math and subject matter expertise for tests for some of the trainings we do.
Belinda: And also, the work we do is very serious in nature. There are real people affected by whether or not we do our jobs well. The subject matter can be heavy, and not everyone knows what that is like. It can’t be overstated how nice it is to have people who get it, and who you can talk about, you know, “this case has really stuck with me” and it helps you to let it go a little.
Natalie: Yeah, having them has been really therapeutic in that sense.
Interviewer: That sounds really nice, it’s great you all have a way to decompress outside of work. To flip this around – how does the friendship show up in your day to day in the lab? Does this closeness affect how your work with your other coworkers?
Belinda: I think there’s a sense where, because we’re on the same page about a lot of stuff, there’s this kind of unspoken understanding of ‘I have support on this – I’m not alone in voicing this opinion,’ and I do think we’ve noticed that it has helped us speak up in meetings and defend our stances where we need to.
Natalie: Yeah, we’re definitely not acting as a solid voting block where we shoot down others’ ideas if they don’t align with ours, it just kind of feels good to know that there’s someone you’re close to in the room that you are honest with outside of work and helps you bring that honesty to the table.
Samantha: Also, I guess in the same way that we can deal with some of the more serious topics we take home with us, it helps us bring some of our personalities and the silliness we have around each other into our jobs.
Natalie: That’s true! And from the top down, there’s a sense that this is our job, this is a serious profession, and we are all professionals operating under standards and accreditations. We don’t lose sight of that, but there is also a top-down, lab-wide culture that we as coworkers are allowed to have a little fun together.
Belinda: It’s just a really good fit for our personalities.
Natalie: Oh! We should talk about our staff bonding – the stuff we do as a whole lab.
Interviewer: Oh yes! I’ve seen the holiday decorations you all have in your office spaces. Every single holiday there is something different going on – how did that start?
Natalie: We made mailboxes 1 or 2 Valentine’s ago – [Senior Analyst] Jamie Haas suggested we do that and bring in some of the fun of that elementary school thing where you’d get Valentine’s Day gifts from everyone in your class.
Belinda: Nat made everyone nametags and decorated the whole office area.
Natalie: And after that, everyone was in really wanting to keep it going – kind of like – what’s happening for St. Patrick’s Day? From there, I’ve kept it up and it has been so fun. And Bel and Sam give me ideas every year and help me curate the wall and it’s just getting bigger and bigger every holiday.
Samantha: It’s a little thing, but it seems to have a really big impact and it’s so fun to be a part of. Also, everyone is really good about getting the whole lab together. There is always something going on, like a staff dinner or happy hour when remote analysts come to town or new staff join. It’s just a fun group.
Interviewer: That’s awesome, this was a really fun peek inside the lab. Thank you all for being here and for chatting with me about your friendship!
