Navigating, Negotiating, and Normalizing Your STEM Journey with Jayshree Seth of 3M
The 2025 AdaMarie Career Navigation Summit opened with an inspiring keynote from Jayshree Seth, Corporate Scientist at 3M and the company’s first-ever Chief Science Advocate. With over 30 years at 3M, Jayshree brought a wealth of experience, lessons, and perspective to the virtual stage, encouraging participants to embrace their journeys with curiosity, resilience, and purpose.
Framing her talk around the three elements of every STEM journey—navigating, negotiating, and normalizing—Jayshree offered a holistic approach to career growth, rooted in both personal stories and hard-earned insights.
A Career Shaped by Questions
Jayshree structured her talk around the questions she’s asked most often:
How did you navigate your career transitions?
What skills matter most in STEM leadership?
What does it mean to be a “Chief Science Advocate”?
Why stay at one company for more than 30 years?
Her own story began in India, in a family steeped in STEM—her father an engineering professor, her upbringing surrounded by science and academia. Though she initially didn’t see herself in STEM, her journey eventually brought her to the U.S. for graduate school. It was there that she hit what she described as “rock bottom,” questioning whether her research aligned with her childhood dream of making the world a better place.
That tension—between science and its human impact—became a defining theme of her career and her advocacy.
The Tools for Perspective: Telescope, Microscope, Periscope
Jayshree offered a powerful framework for approaching career decisions, challenges, and opportunities:
The Telescope → Helps you see the big picture, anticipate change, and chart where you’re going.
The Microscope → Allows you to dive into details, refine your craft, and execute in the short term.
The Periscope → Enables you to look around, over, and back—building awareness of context, people, and possibilities.
Looking Within → Reminds you to listen to your own heart, cultivate humility, and recognize the role of chance in your journey.
Too often, she explained, professionals get “stuck in the microscope,” focused only on immediate execution. True leadership requires balancing all perspectives—seeing ahead, reflecting deeply, and noticing what others may overlook.
Lessons in Navigating and Negotiating
Throughout her keynote, Jayshree returned to the idea that careers aren’t linear. They require constant navigation—adapting to change, seizing unexpected opportunities, and staying grounded in your values.
Negotiation, she noted, isn’t just about promotions or pay. It’s also about negotiating with yourself—clarifying priorities, choosing where to invest your energy, and advocating for your own path.
A Call to Leaders in STEM
As the opening speaker, Jayshree set the tone for the entire summit: STEM careers are about more than technical expertise. They’re about learning mindsets, advocacy, and perspective—knowing when to zoom in, zoom out, and listen within.
✨ Watch Jayshree Seth’s full keynote inside the AdaMarie Professional Network and learn how to navigate, negotiate, and normalize your own STEM journey.
📚 Continue Learning with Jayshree Seth
Want to dive deeper into Jayshree’s insights on science, advocacy, and leadership? Jayshree Seth is the author of the The Heart of Science – Engineering Footprints, Fingerprints, & Imprints, The Heart of Science – Engineering Fine Print and The Heart of Science – Engineering Blueprint, which includes more than 50 actionable frameworks for corporate innovators, managers, and leaders. All proceeds from her books support a SWE-administered scholarship for women in STEM.
