Martine Sophie Lenders has been regularly participating in the IETF for over a decade, starting with the IETF 93 meeting in Prague in 2015. She has authored several Internet-Drafts—two of which recently were published as RFCs—and at the same time works on a PhD at FU Berlin and as a research associate at TU Dresden. We asked a few questions about what her experience in the IETF has been like while pursuing an academic journey.