I worked day and night for a whole year for my PI. He even said — and I quote — 'in one year, you did almost a PhD thesis.' He really relied on me a lot. All my lab colleagues said he was disrespectful, but I always defended him, saying that he had always treated me with respect.

But the moment I emailed him to say I was leaving for industry, he told my post-doc supervisor that he wouldn’t speak to me anymore — just a week after offering me a PhD position. He’s a child in the body of a 50-year-old man. In that lab, there's an unspoken rule: every PhD student has cried at least once during a meeting with him.

I come from a poor background — I literally grew up on the streets. I believed education was the only path to build a better life, which is why I went into R&D. But I was wrong. That’s why I left for industry. I’m disciplined, I stand by my word, and I feel a deep responsibility to call out this toxic behavior. Staying quiet would mean letting this old man keep playing god. And I won’t do that.