Emily Graslie promises.
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Category Archives: DoubleXpression
Girls who grew up to be scientists
This just in: We looked like little girls.
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DoubleXpressions — Nazneen Rahman, Cancer Doctor and Jazz Singer
Nazneen Rahman is an accomplished cancer researcher and physician, and in the past few years, a singer with a following on SoundCloud. She spoke with our Chris Gunter about “coming out” with her passion for music.
DXS: First, can you please give us a quick overview of what your scientific background is and your current connection to science? Continue reading
Double Xpressions: Jennifer Canale, the self-proclaimed "Flamboyant Scientist"
Jennifer Canale is a Senior Microbiologist for the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Queens, NY, as well as an adjunct microbiology lecturer for City University of NY (York College and College of Staten Island). Jennifer is also passionate about promoting women in science and leads an annual women in science event at the FDA as a means to promote awareness about gender discrimination in the workplace.
[DXS] First, can you give me a quick overview of what your scientific background is and your current connection to science?
[JC] I have always been interested in science, and since most of my family worked in Bellvue Hospital, I was very comfortable around people in lab coats. In the early seventies, at the age of 5, I announced to my grandfather, the X-ray technician, and his brothers (my great uncles) that I wanted to become a doctor, specifically a doctor that delivers babies.
My grandfather was proud and my uncles were dismayed. My uncle Joe said to me, “Jennifer, you mean a nurse like your cousin Joanie, right?” My cousin Joan applied to Medical School in the sixties and the same group of uncles convinced her that her fiancé, Warren, wouldn’t wait 4 years to get married and it was more lady-like to be a nurse. Today she is a retired left-handed OR nurse that specializes in cracking open chests for cardiac surgery, not so lady-like after all. So in an attempt to not have a repeat of Joanie, my grandfather jumped to my defense against his brothers and said that ‘she can be a doctor if she wanted to be’, and, furthermore, his niece Joanie was smarter and more capable than most of the doctors he worked with and shouldn’t have had to take orders from them.
My uncles agreed that there was no question of the intellectual prowess possessed by both Joanie and myself, and their reluctance came out of concern for me. They worked in the hospital, too, and saw how male doctors would abuse the female ones and make their lives more difficult because they didn’t want to allow girls in the all-boys club. “Do you want our baby – our most precious blood – to have to fight her whole life for this? What about the family – how will she find a husband and bring us more children if she sticks her nose in a book the rest of her life?” These arguments sounded a lot better when they were stated in Sicilian. Back then, the concept of ‘women can have it all’ – work and family – was not the norm like it is today.
My grandfather came back with his final answers to them. I was his granddaughter, I looked just like him, I was a fighter just like him, and this is America and she will be what she wants to be, ‘End of Story’. My uncles agreed that I was his granddaughter, I looked just like him, and I was a stubborn mule just like him, so he was probably right and they would pray for me and secretly hope I would change my mind.
Now this all transpired in front of me in a combination of English and Sicilian while I stood there in my denim overalls with a Tweety Bird patch. I was listening, and since I was only beginning to learn Sicilian, I only caught a couple of words: blood, children, book, change, and I misunderstood the word for fighter as “afraid.” I added to my grandfather’s “end of story” remark that I was not afraid of blood, I can learn how to deliver children from a book, and questioned why they wanted me to change- those overalls were my favorite!
My family was supportive to a point, but when I asked for an erector set for Christmas, I got a Barbie town house. When I wanted to go camping with the Girl Scouts, I was sent to dance school (but, much to my amazement, I enjoyed that until I was 17). My parents started giving in around 3rdgrade, and I got the panda bear-shaped calculator I wanted, as well as the robot toy 2XL featuring the 8-track tape. My mom would beg me to watch Little House On the Prairie, but I preferred Star Trek (the original Kirk version), Lost in Space (Danger Will Robinson), and Land of the Lost. Of course this was all my dad’s fault according to mom – he was the sci-fi guy, but he always said, “Jen was born this way!” My parents eventually gave up, and my uncles kept praying for that change of mind, but I spent the late seventies and early eighties winning science fairs with experiments my Uncle Ben, the electrician, rigged for me. They thought there was hope for me to be more “lady-like” in 1984 when I started high school and wanted to try out for the cheerleading squad, but the teachers advised me that “the cheer squad” was no place for an “honor student” like me. So it was off to advanced placement Biology and Chemistry, and by graduation in 1988, I was accepted to the pre-med program at NYU.
I graduated from NYU with honors, and my parents got me two presents: my name in diamonds and a stethoscope. My grandfather bought me a set of crisp white lab coats and gloated to his brothers with a cigar in his mouth. Apparently a bet was made amongst them and from hence forward they had to call me “doctoressa,” the hybrid feminized version of doctor in Italian. The NYU pre-med was highly competitive – a constant process of elimination from 500 students (1:3, female:male) down to only 109 of us actually completing the program. The men thought it was strategic to flirt with the girls and convince us that we shouldn’t become doctors but instead should marry them. The guy that told me that got a punch in the stomach – in the name of the other women that worked. It was also apparent that many were planting the seeds of doubt in the pre-med females, stating that if we became doctors, then we wouldn’t be able to have a family. In essence, we were being told that we would be giving up the chance to have children. You had to go against your “true female nature” to breed and nurture and (instead) become a selfish and testosterone-like human to make it in this field. That was the nail in the coffin for a lot of the women in my program. The most brutal tactic and final blow to confidence was when I heard someone say that “only the ugly girls become doctors because no man would want them.”
In the nineties – halfway through college – I did change my mind, and my uncles were dancing in the streets. They thought I met a nice boy in college and I was going to settle down, give them more kids, and make sauce and meatballs on a Sunday like the good Paesana I was supposed to be. I announced I didn’t want to be an MD anymore, I wanted to be a PhD, instead. I wanted to be a SCIENTIST, do research, and maybe teach in a university. A “Scientista”-“Professoressa” “Aiuta Dio” (which means help us god)! Back to church and the rosary beads. When I got my master’s degree in microbiology, the family was just convinced I liked to collect graduation hats. 
There was a feeling among my family members that science was a “boy thing,” and my cousins teased me as a result. They considered me a nerd and less feminine than my other girl cousins. I was told that I would never get married and have kids because I am a bookworm. Even in the mid-’90s, I had friends that told me not to tell guys that I was a scientist because they wouldn’t ask me out. I was kind of cute and only told a guy the truth about my profession if we got serious. As an experiment, I told one guy I met that I was a scientist and he said I looked too sexy to be that smart – and then he walked away. I met discrimination on both sides of the stereotypical coin, in academia and in the work force. I was told when I was interviewing for graduate schools (and then for science jobs) that I had several strikes against me. First, strike one, my thick Staten Island/ Brooklyn accent supposedly made me sound less intelligent. My mentor in graduate school, Dr. Mark Albano, said to tell people to kiss your “you know what” because as long as I could discuss topics like “molecular genetics” who cares how it sounds. Besides he found my accent endearing, especially because it made boring topics sound more interesting.
Strike two was my long hair. I was told that my long hair was not practical in a scientific environment, and if I looked too glamorous on interviews I would not be taken seriously. I put my hair in a bun and toned down my make-up, but I didn’t cut it. Apparently, I looked too feminine, especially given my major curves, and even my power suits could not hide that. Women at the time were dressing very masculine (think early Miranda on Sex in the City) to compete with men for jobs. When I got the interview for my first job with Dr. Moretti in the Reproductive Immunology Lab at St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Staten Island, I remember wearing a black and white houndstooth print sheath dress with a matching short suit jacket, accessorized with pearls. Dr. Moretti said I was like Rosalind Franklin and Jackie Kennedy all rolled up into one, with a side order of cannoli.
The early 2000s arrived, and attitudes toward science changed. Shows like CSI became wildly popular. Science fiction movies about transforming robots became blockbusters. People began to use technology in their everyday lives, such as smart phones, tablets, and car navigation systems, and it suddenly became “cool.” I met my husband in 1999, and since I really was into him, I told him the truth about being a “microbiologist” from the start. He said, and I quote, “Wow, your smart, sexy, and Sicilian – it’s like I hit the Lotto!”
My wedding was the most joyful event in our family’s history because most of them thought that would never happen. I still get teased by my family when I give a long, drawn out scientific explanation of something or when I bake and make exact measurements of ingredients with my Pyrex bakeware with both the ounces and metric conversions. My husband responds for me and says “he learns something new everyday and hopes that our son becomes a nerd just like his mommy.” So now I have it all: I am a female scientist, a wife, and a mother, even though others didn’t think that would be possible. But I always knew it would happen. I understood and forgave my uncles because I knew that they wanted to protect me, not hinder me. As for all my doubters I regularly take Dr. Albano’s advise and tell them to kiss my “you know what!”
Even my current supervisor, Maureen Coakley, recently told me in an interview that I am an “anomaly,” meaning that I am a flamboyant scientist. That was one of the best compliments I ever received. I am who I am, and that is why my playlist on my iPhone has the “Big Bang Theory Theme Song” followed by “I’m sexy and I know it!”
Times have changed. Perceptions have altered in a good way, but not entirely. Lesson learned from both academia and the school of life is that some people will get you and some people won’t. If they don’t, don’t take it personally because it is their loss and their ignorance. Some people see the person, and some see the stereotype. All you can do is try to educate them in an attempt to bust the stereotype. The only perception that matters is how you perceive yourself and use that perception as a means to become the woman that you were meant to be.
[DXS] What ways do you express yourself creatively that may not have a single thing to do with science?
[JC]Ever since planning my wedding in 2004, I have been interested in event planning. I have a knack at coordinating events, which I do as part of my collateral duties at FDA, where I have served as the Women’s Program Coordinator for the past 9 years. People call me the “Fun Fairy” because I can be very creative and take any topic, put a different and interesting spin on it, and present it to a group in very entertaining ways. My creativity is driven by my intellectualism, and I incorporate that into something fun and memorable. I always make little inexpensive favors – buy them to give out to my audience – that are”theme oriented,” and they keep them as a reminder of the event.
The people I work with have whole collections of these favors, and they remember what each one stands for. For instance, the Women’s History Month theme for one year was “Our History is Our Strength.” Before planning this event, I had attended at NYU the Satellite Summit of National Women’s Conference hosted by Maria Shriver (then 1st Lady of California) and the First Lady, Michelle Obama. So I thought I would highlight the contributions of the First Ladies to US history. I found an educational video on the history of the First Ladies, did a presentation on the Satellite Summit, and even had a fashion show featuring of reproductions of Jacqueline Kennedy jewelry collection (my favorite first lady). I used the symbol of a “Cameo” to represent the first ladies, and so I made a huge paper one with beads on tulle on my bulletin board with pictures of the first ladies around it and gave out cameo bracelets that I made from gluing plastic cameo buttons on ribbon. Everyone still has a cameo on their desk at work, occasionally conjuring up memories of my First Ladies event.
[DXS] Do you find that your scientific background informs your creativity, even though what you do may not specifically be scientific?
[JC]My entire life is influenced by, or even revolves around, “Science.” I love science fiction movies, books, comic books, etc. Any inspiration I get for any of my creative projects always has some root in something “science-related.” I also think that my background in science helps make my visions come to life. Even the smallest details like the stemware I chose for my wedding was a Mikasa pattern that resembled a DNA double helix, or a hexagonal candleholder that looked like a benzene ring (at least it did to me!). Another example comes from my Women’s Program, when the theme was “Writing Women Back Into History.” So I found a book called The Women of Apollo, which gave the untold story of the women engineers who had critical contributions to the Apollo Space programs. For me, all roads lead back to science.
[DXS] Have you encountered situations in which your expression of yourself outside the bounds of science has led to people viewing you differently-either more positively or more negatively?
[JC]I have experienced both negative and positive views by others when I am expressing my self creatively. On one hand, there were people that associate planning events with a negative stereotype of being a “party-girl” or “bimbo” type that cares more about the “girly fun” stuff than the serious business of science. On the other hand, there have been people who constantly praise me for presenting science-related topics in entertaining ways. The latter view me as a “flamboyant scientist” who shares her knowledge in an interesting manner. In this life you will never please everyone; only seek to please yourself and your loved ones because those are the only opinions that matter. [DXS] Have you found that your non-science expression of creativity/activity/etc. has in any way informed your understanding of science or how you may talk about it or present it to others?
[JC]In planning these events, I have come up with a formula of sorts to create a successful soirée. Of course, this formula is an entire science in itself. I have to consider things like timing, lighting, printed materials (programs, table cards, menus, etc.) and a gamut of other things that involve an understanding of science. I am a biologist with a minor in chemistry, but the more I do these events, the more I get into things like astronomy (for a celestial-themed wedding, for instance). I mention lighting, which seems so simple, because it is actually quite complicated – getting the right reflections and materials to use (i.e.- LEDs, wax candles vs. battery operated, the limitations of pyrotechnics in party venues) is critical. Even in doing crafts for favors and printed materials, like event programs, I’ve learned different scientific techniques, such the right kind of bonding agent to use to attach ribbons, charms, or vinyl decorations, or even the use of edible ink in printers to make fondant or wafer decorations to put on cupcakes or cakes. It is a continuous learning experience.
[DXS] How comfortable are you expressing your femininity and in what ways? How does this expression influence people’s perception of you in, say, a scientifically oriented context?
[JC]I am comfortable with expressing my femininity in the way I dress and conduct myself in any setting. Although, many years ago, I was advised to dress in suits and tailored shirts similar to a man and wear neutral make-up or none at all if I wanted to be taken seriously in the scientific world, I went against the grain. I am a curvy girl, and there is no hiding my femininity. So I embrace it. I wore suits, but nothing drab – always something like a red or purple skirt suit with heels. I adhere to work environment rules like no open toe shoes in the lab, which is a safety concern, but I do not downplay my female attributes to fit in, or to present a more palatable image to my scientific peers. I do not concern myself with people’s perceptions of me based on my looks because once I “speak” and “communicate” scientific concepts, there is no question of my prowess. I am what I am, and that is a female scientist, and I pride myself in being a “stereotype buster.” [DXS] Do you think that the combination of your non-science creativity and scientific-related activity shifts people’s perspectives or ideas about what a scientist or science communicator is? If you’re aware of such an influence, in what way, if any, do you use it to (for example) reach a different corner of your audience or present science in a different sort of way?
[JC]I think that being the “flamboyant scientist” works in my favor, and as a science communicator, it is effective all aspects of my life. As an adjunct professor, my students often thank me for making science fun and understandable. As a scientist, my colleagues and interns find my training methods to be memorable and actually increase their understanding of the job. As the Women’s Program Coordinator at the FDA, I create unforgettable events that people look forward to and learn a lot from. As a wife, mother, daughter, aunt, cousin, and friend, I am the “Fun Fairy” (pictured with wings and a lab coat), and their lovable nerdy girl. I feel my true gift is being able to communicate science. My mentor in graduate school always told me I had the talent of taking complicated scientific ideas and expressing them in a way that anyone could understand. I have some ideas brewing involving science books for children and teens, and I would like to explore these avenues in order to share this gift with others. I would also like to get involved in maybe writing for popular science publications, if given the opportunity.
[DXS] If you had something you could say to the younger you about the role of expression and creativity in your chosen career path, what would you say?
[JC]I would say be true to yourself. Whatever path you take career-wise, always remember that is could be something you will be doing the rest of your life. Yes, there are financial considerations to make, but if you do not have that creative outlet incorporated into your career, then you will be miserable. I am the happiest at work when I am planning a Women’s Program alongside doing experiments or going to my second job as a professor at York College. You need the creativity to keep the blood flowing. Where would science be without creativity? Find what your talent is and what makes you happy, and then apply it to your career. That is the secret to success.
Leah Gerber, conservation biologist and lover of sushi
Leah Gerber is an Associate Professor of ecology at Arizona State University. Her research is motivated by a desire to connect academic pursuits in conservation science to decision tools and effective conservation solutions. This approach includes a solid grounding in natural history and primary data collection, quantitative methods and an appreciation for the interactions between humans and the environment. She is keenly aware of the need for the communication of scientific results to the public and to government and non-governmental agencies. This communication is essential for the translation of scientific results into tenable conservation solutions.
DXS: First, can you give me a quick overview of what your scientific background is and your current connection to science?
LG: I learned about ecology and environmental conservation as an undergraduate and quickly became motivated to do science that impacted the real world of conservation. Learning about the impacts of humans on nature was a wake-up call for me, and inspired me to channel my feeling of concern for the demise of nature in a positive way.
From there, I have walked the tightrope between science and policy. After getting my undergraduate degree in environmental biology, I wanted to do more than just the science. So I enrolled in a masters program at the University of Washington – an interdisciplinary program called Marine Affairs. It was a great experience, but I wanted to have more substance to my science background – I wanted to know how to do the science in addition to how to apply the science.
This compelled me to enter a PhD at the University of Washington, which was largely funded by NOAA. My thesis involved trying to figure out how to make decisions about endangered species – how to determine which were endangered and which were threatened. This was a perfect project given my interest in developing tools to solve problems. After finishing my PhD, I did a postdoc at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) and developed approaches for marine reserve design and endangered species recovery. I was at NCEAS for three years before starting on the tenure track at Arizona State University. I’ve been at ASU for about 10 years now.
A major theme in my work has remained constant – that is, how to use the information we are generating in the natural and social sciences to better manage our natural world. Pre-tenure I focused a lot more on doing the science, publishing in good journals, and hoping that it made its way into good policy. Now that I am midcareer, meaning that I have a good amount of papers and tenure, I am enjoying the opportunity to work with practitioners outside of academia. For instance, I just got off the phone with someone from National Geographic regarding my recent publicationon seafood health and sustainability. In that study, we performed an analysis regarding seafood in the context of health and sustainability, to answer simple questions like, what to order when out to sushi? How do we educate about health benefits and risks? We will be organizing a workshop to help restaurant chains, grocery stores, as well as environmental NGOs identify a path forward in informing consumers about healthy and sustainable seafood choices. As a tenured professor, I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to work at the science-policy interface and to give society some science that is truly applicable.
DXS: It is too bad that you have to wait until you are more established and have tenure to go out and engage with the public, because this type of thing is just so important!
LG: Yes, I agree. There isn’t a clear path in academia when it comes to public engagement. But in recent years I have felt optimistic – the landscape within academia is starting to change, and at ASU this change is noticeable. We have a fabulous president, Michael Crow, who has really transformed ASU from just another state institution to a leader in sustainability. Part of this is the establishment of the Global Institute for Sustainability, and one of Michael Crow’s mantras is “community embeddedness.” He is really on board with this type of thing and I have seen evidence of his commitment trickle down throughout the University. For instance, when I first arrived, I had to justify and explain why I was serving on these federal recovery teams for endangered species. Now I feel that there is no justification needed. Developing solutions is not only so important for society, but should also be a key aspect of what we do at Universities.
DXS: We were introduced by another fantastic science communicator, Liz Neeley, who you met at a communications workshop. Why is it important to take part in this type of training?
LG: I met the Fantastic and Fashionable Liz through the Leopold Leadership Program, offered through the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. The Leopold Leadership training was the best professional development experience of my career, and has made me a better translator and communicator of science to policy. Pre-Leopold, I had little training in communications, and there I was, in a teaching position where I taught hundreds students. I thought to myself, well, how do I do this? The Leopold experience has solidified my commitment to teaching students about communication and engaging in policy.
One development emerging from this training is a science communication symposium at the AAAS meeting. Elena Bennett and I are giving a talk on overcoming institutional barriers for community engagement, and we will address the issues head on. We put out a survey asking others if they faced institutional barriers, and how they might work to engage more.
DXS: What ways do you express yourself creatively that may not have a single thing to do with science?
LG: I have 2 young kids, a 3yo and a 7yo. Being a mom helps me keep it real – I love that I get to enjoy the awe of discovering the world with my girls. We just got a puppy this weekend and we are having fun dressing her up and painting her nails (only partly joking). Other things that I do that are creative – truthfully, I am uninteresting – I don’t bake bread or go to the opera. I just work and take care of my kids. I practice yoga for my own sanity and also love to work in the garden. Doing these things gives me a reason to pause and step off the treadmill of keeping up with everything.
DXS: Do you find that your scientific background informs the creativity you have with your kids or your yoga practice, even though what you do may not specifically be scientific?
LG: I think there is synergy with my science and my kids and my yoga practice in helping me to accept things and be mindful – but not in any conscious way. For instance, when doing my science, the type A person that I am, I have an inclination to keep pushing, pushing, pushing. My kids and my yoga help me to shift gears and accept that things are going to happen when they happen. I try to let the kids be kids, including the associated chaos, and accept that this is a snapshot in time that they will be little. Now I find joy in that chaos. Having kids and yoga gives me a little more perspective, and the knowledge that things aren’t lined up and neatly placed in a box. It rounds me out.
DXS: Are your kids are major influencers in your career?
LG: My first child, Gabriella, was born just after I submitted my application for tenure – so it was good timing. And I was able to slow down. I quickly realized that I wasn’t able to work a 60+hour week. Before kids, I lived to work. Now, I work to live. I absolutely love my job and I feel so lucky that I have a career that I believe in and that I am actually paid to do it – it’s not just a hobby. But having kids made me chill out a little. If I get a paper rejected, I can let it go instead of lamenting about it for weeks. It has made me healthier. I don’t necessarily know if it has had positive impact on my career – time will tell. While my publication rate may be slightly smaller, I think my work now has different dimensions, and greater depth.
I am still pretty passionate about my work, and my kids know what I do and are proud of it. They share it with their classmates, and take every opportunity to wax poetic about how their mom saves animals in the ocean. They also have a built in conservation effort – my 7YO gets irritated when she can’t find a compost bin, and her new thing is to only fill her cup half way because she will only drink a little bit of water.
DXS: When you decided to have children, did your colleagues view you differently? Did they consider that you were sending your career down the tubes or was it a supportive environment?
LG: I honestly had a really positive experience. I can’t think of any negative sentiments from my colleagues, and they were actually really supportive. For instance, when I was pregnant with my first daughter, ASU did not have a maternity leave policy. Before that, you would have to take sick leave. So my colleague worked within the parameters of the unit to give me maternity leave. And then with my second daughter, our new president had established a maternity policy.
The support of my colleagues at ASU has made me feel loyal to my institution. Normally, I am loyal to people and not institutions, but overall, the support has been fabulous. Of course, with having the kids in each case, I did decline a lot of invitations – some pretty significant ones – but I did not have a desire to drag a newborn to give a talk, especially when I was nursing. And it was hard for me to do this at times, especially given my career driven nature, and I had to learn to accept that there would be other opportunities.
I had to shift it down a notch and realize that the world wasn’t going to freeze over, and that I could shift it back to high gear later. With “mommy brain”, I knew I wasn’t going to be at the top of my game at that point in my life. But I have incredible role models. Most notable is Jane Lubchenco, currently the Director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. During the first part of her career, she shared a position with her husband – each did 50% – and they did that on purpose so they’d be able to enjoy having children and effectively take care of them. Now, she is in the National Academy, is having major scientific impacts, and she did it all despite having kids. If she can do it, why cant the rest of us?
DXS: Given your experiences as a researcher, as a mother, and now as a major science communicator, do you feel that your ability to talk to people has evolved?
LG: Absolutely. I think that the Leopold Training Program, which selects 20 academics from North America to participate in retreats to learn how to be better communicate and lead, has re-inspired all who attended. It has recharged our batteries and allowed us to make realizations that doing good science and putting it out there via scientific publication is just not enough. We also have to push it out there and make it available to a broader, more diverse population. As part of the training, we also learned about different thinking styles – super analytical or super emotional – and after I returned, I had my lab group participate in this type of exercise. And now I feel like I can better assess a persons thinking style and adjust the way I communicate accordingly.
DXS: Did you always have the ability to talk to the general public or does having kids help you to better understand some of the nuances associated with science communication?
LG: I think so. In fact, I am thinking back to when I had a paper in Sciencecome out around the time that I had my first child. It got a lot of news coverage and was featured in Time magazine. I thought it was so cool at the time, but looking back on it I realized that have come a long way. I said something to a journalist, who then asked me to translate it into “plain English.” It was a little bit of a jab.
Now, with kids, I can tell you a lot more about my research and can better see the broader impact. Talking to them helps me to do that. Here is a conversation about my research with my daughter:
L: Mama is working on figuring out how to help the whales that people like to eat. It’s a big problem because some people like to eat whales and some like to see them swimming in the ocean.
G: What we have to do is let the people eat the whales in the ocean, and buy some whales from the pet store to put back in the ocean. How much do whales cost?
L: Good idea. But you can’t buy whales at the store. They are too big. And if we take them all out of the ocean there will be none left.
G: Well instead we should ask the people to eat bad things like sharks.
L: Another good idea. But if we take sharks out there will be no predators to eat the big fish. And the whole ecosystem would collapse.=
G: Well then the people should eat other things like fish instead of whales. They should buy a fishing pole and catch a fish and eat those instead of whales.
L: What about chicken, shouldn’t people just eat chicken?
G: Mama, we can’t kill chickens. Chickens are nicer than fish, so that’s why we have to eat fish.
L: What about just eating vegetables?
G: Oh mama, some people are meat-eaters. And there are no more dinosaurs. They all got extinct. They should have saved some of the dinosaur meat in the freezer for the meat-eaters. When the dinosaurs come back, there will be enough meat to eat and people won’t want to eat whales.
The simplicity of taking myself out of my research bubble and engaging with a creative (and nonlinear?) 7YO has taught me how to be a better communicator – with the media, with my students, and with the general population.
DXS: Do you think these efforts in science communication are helping to shift other peoples perspectives about who a scientist actually is? For instance, are we changing the old crazy haired white guy stereotype?
LG: Well, I hope so. A couple of examples – again, as a mom, one of my daughters a Girl Scout and I get to help with the troop. One of the themes was to teach about environmental and conservations awareness. We did this Crayola molding experiment where we put our fingers into cold water. We then did the same thing except we put modeling clay over our fingers before putting them into the cold water and to learn about adaptations to extreme environments. Also, we play games where they simulate fishing – what if there is plastic? What happens to you if you eat that? My hope is that this shows these young girls that science is both interesting and fun.
Another thing that just happened today is that I was contacted by Martha Stewart’s office, and it seems that some of my research results will be featured in the October issue of Martha Stewart Living. The message here is that I happen to care about the ocean, but I also love sushi. I also I care about health. I am not just a nerd in a lab coat. I am a mom, I do yoga, I have wonderful friends, and here is the kind of science that I do. It seems to me that it is better to connect with others when I can give them something that is relevant to their lives instead of a more abstract ecological theory.
DXS: If you had something you could say to the younger you about getting on your chosen career path, what would you say?
LG: I feel like I have been very effective at figuring out how to get from point A to point B, but less successful at savoring the process. I think that I’d tell myself to make time to celebrate the small victories. I have also learned to identify what kind of research is most exciting, and I would tell myself to say “no” to everything that is only moderately interesting. I tell my grad students that if you don’t dive in head first, you won’t ever know. So why just not give it a try! And if it doesn’t work, move on. Also, if something isn’t making you happy, change! Academia isn’t for everyone, and there is a lot more to life than science.
Double Xpression: Liz Neeley, Science Communicator Extraordinaire
| Liz Neeley: Science communicator extraordinaire and lover of fine fashion… and bread. |
Liz Neeley is the assistant director at COMPASS where she helps develop and lead the communications trainings for scientists, and specializes in the social media and multimedia components of their workshops and outreach efforts. Before joining COMPASS, Liz studied the evolution and visual systems of tropical reef fishes at Boston University. After grad school, she helped communities and researchers in Fiji and Papua New Guinea connect their knowledge of local coral reefs ecosystems to the media. She also dabbled in international science policy while working on trade in deep-sea corals. Liz is currently based in Seattle, at the University of Washington. You can find Liz on Twitter. Also check our her passion projects, ScienceOnline Seattle and her SciLingual hangout series.
DXS: First, can you give us a quick overview of what your scientific background is and your current connection to science?
I was one of those kids who knew from a really young age what they wanted to be, and that was a fish biologist. Sea turtles, dolphins – no way – I wanted to study fish. My mom actually found an old picture I drew when I was in third grade about what I wanted to be when I grew up: it was me in a lab coat, holding a clipboard, and tanks of aquaria behind me.
You combine this with the fact that I am also a really stubborn person, and I just wanted to do science straight through all my schooling. Not just the coursework either – I did an NSF young scholars program in high school, was the captain of the engineering team, and, of course, was a mathlete.
I did my undergraduate work in marine biology at the University of Maryland. I did three years of research there on oyster reef restoration, and then went straight into my PhD at Boston University, where I studied the evolution of color patterns and visual systems in wrasses and parrotfish.
I actually did not finish my PhD. Life sort of knocked me sideways, and instead of finishing my PhD, I ended up taking a masters, and then going into the non-profit world. At first, I mostly worked on coral conservation in Fiji and Papua New Guinea, and I did a big project on deep sea corals.
After I left grad school, I started a 20-hour per week internship at an NGO called SeaWeb. Vikki Spruill, who was the founder and president, has killer instincts and a passion for women’s high fashion that I share. She had noticed coral jewelry coming down the runway in Milan, Paris, and NY. People just didn’t have any idea that these pieces of jewelry were actually animals, much less that they were deep sea corals.
So we launched a campaign called “Too Precious to Wear,” which partnered with high-end fashion and luxury designer to create alternatives to these deep sea corals – celebrating coral but not actually using it. The Tiffany & Co. Foundation was our major partner, and we got to throw a breakfast at Tiffany’s that brought in fashion editors from Mademoiselle and Vogue.
Everyone always dismisses women’s fashions as shallow and meaningless, but this ended up being this huge lever that got a lot of attention for deep sea coral conservation, and my piece was the science that pinned it all together. I got a taste of the international policy component of that as well, and headed to the Netherlands for CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) as part of the work. I knew the science, but certainly helped that I knew how to pronounce the names of the designers too – opportunities like that to bridge cultures that seem foreign to each other are tremendously powerful.
I currently work at COMPASS, which is an organization that works at the intersection of science, policy, and communication/media. Our tagline is “helping scientists find their voices and bringing science into the conversation.” For my part, this means, I teach science communications trainings around the country, helping researchers understand how social media works, how reporters find their stories, and how to overcome some of the obstacles that scientists often put in their own way when they talk about their work.
What I love about this work so much is that it keeps me in the science community – around people who are pursuing tough questions. That is how my brain works, it is how my soul works, and I want to be a part of it. The power of this for me is to be able to take in all of this knowledge that is generated by these scientists and help connect it to the broader world. I feel like this is the best contribution I can make.
DXS: What ways do you express yourself creatively that may not have a single thing to do with science?
I am a pretty artistic person – or at least I think of myself as a pretty artistic person! My creative outlets usually involve some kind of graphic design. I am always giving presentations for my work, and I constantly ask “what do my slides look like, and am I telling a good story?” I so lucky that I get to spend a lot of time thinking about imagery, visual storytelling, and how people react to art or data visualization.
I also paint and draw (though I wouldn’t really share those) and I cook. I am actually doing a bread baking experiment this year where I am trying out a different type of bread recipe every weekend.
It can be really funny because sometimes, if it has been a really stressful week, I will look for a recipe that really needs to be punched down or kneaded for a long time. It’s a good workout too! And then we have this amazing bread every weekend. It is all about the aesthetics for me – I host dinner parties, bake, have a great garden – all of that is sort of my own creative outlet.
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| Some experimental results from Liz’s bread project. |
DXS: What is your favorite bread?
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| The delicious baguette |
LN: Oh, the baguette. I made my own for the first time last weekend and it was really fantastic! I realize that baking is one of these things that, if you want to do it properly, you have to be very precise. You should weigh the ingredients. But I’m precise in the rest of my life. When it is the weekend and I am having fun, I kind of love it when the flour is just flying everywhere. As a result, my loaves are a little bit mutated, or just not quite right, but they are delicious! Some of my other favorites also includes a great focaccia (the recipe for it is below!).
DXS: Do you find that your scientific background informs your creativity, even though what you do may not specifically be scientific?
Yes, absolutely. It’s funny because when you asked the question about my creative outlets that have nothing to do with science, it was not entirely easy to answer. You know, science is who I am – it permeates everything I do. When I am baking the bread, I am thinking about the yeast and fermentation. When I am painting, I am thinking about color theory and visual perception – after all that would have been what my PhD was in!
Speaking of color theory, Joanne Manaster recently shared a “how good is your color vision?” quiz. I took that test immediately to see how I would do. That lead me on this interesting exploration around the literature, and I read one theory that Van Gogh might have had a certain type of color blindness. I love this question of how our brains interact with the world. In animal behavior the concept is called “umwelt” – each species has a unique sensory experience of the environment. I like to think about how that applies to individual people to a smaller degree.
I think about this all the time – science, creativity, art, aesthetics – it is all one beautiful and amazing thing to me.
DXS: Have you encountered situations in which your expression of yourself outside the bounds of science has led to people viewing you differently-either more positively or more negatively?
I accept the fact that, especially when it comes to strangers, we make up stories based on what we see – clothes, hair, etc. I know that this happens to me as well. When we talk about femininity, it’s no secret that I am a girly girl. I wear makeup and heels. That’s how I feel most like myself, how I feel best. I know that this doesn’t sit well with everybody, but that’s ok. I like to think that I hold my own. Give me enough time to speak my piece and I can back it up. I’ve got an interesting career, I am a geek, and it is not hard for me to connect with people once we start talking.
In science we say that we don’t have a dress code, but the reality is that we do. Maybe it’s unspoken, and sure it is not the same as you see in the business world, but when you look different from how everyone else looks, people do want comment on it. I don’t feel like it is particularly negative in my case, and I feel that it doesn’t impede me. What is most exciting is that it often opens up conversation – mostly with other women who say “oh I really like your dress, I’ve been wearing more dresses lately!”
When I was an undergrad, I was kind of oblivious to the whole dress code thing. One day, when I was in the lab, I was wearing this pink, strappy sundress, tied up the back, and these stupid platform sandals that were really tall (clearly not appropriate lab gear). I was scrubbing out this 100-gallon oyster tank and my advisor happened to walk by and he sees me doing this. I remember freezing – all of the sudden I was afraid he was going to mock me or lecture me, but he just said, “Oh, Liz… Keep on.”
My graduate advisor was the same way – he acknowledged who I am and didn’t bother about how I dress. We didn’t avoid the topic. It just wasn’t an issue. I hope that other women can have that same experience. It doesn’t matter if you are a tomboy or a girly-girl. I don’t care – I am not judging you. You don’t have to look like me because I am in a dress.
This is why I love this #IAmSciencememe, and the whole “be yourself” mentality. And that is what I am going to do. I’ve decided to be myself. I accept the fact that not everyone will like the look of me. But, I think that we will eventually get to the point where we understand that science can be presented in lots of different ways.
DXS: Have you found that your non-science expression of creativity/activity/etc. has in any way informed your understanding of science or how you may talk about it or present it to others?
For me, my job with COMPASS really is sitting at this nexus of asking how we share science with people who aren’t intrinsically fascinated by it or connected to it. This is very much a ripe field for thinking about creative expression. Mostly, we come at it in terms of verbal presentations, storytelling and written materials, but then I specialize in the social media and multimedia components. I am always thinking about everything I am reading and seeing – news, art, music, fiction – and how we can apply what resonates with others in these non-science realms. It is very much a two-way thing; my science informs my creativity and my creativity informs my science. That makes it really fulfilling and exciting for me.
I see this in terms of the ability to make connections. When I am standing up in front of a group of researchers doing a social media training, I am making pop-culture references, alluding to literary works, quoting song lyrics. When you get it right, you can see someone’s eyes light up. It’s just another way to connect – people sit up and pay attention if you can make a meaningful reference to the artist they love or the book they just read.
One of the questions we always use in our trainings is “so what?” So you are telling me about your science, but why should I care? Miles Davis has a famous song “So What?” and we play that in the background. It makes people smile. It makes it memorable. I love that. I really like this idea that we should be using the fullness of who we are and our creative selves, including all of the sensory modalities, to talk about the very abstract and difficult scientific topics we care about so much.
(DXS editor’s side note: A portion of the previous paragraph was delivered to me in song. What’s not to smile about?!?!)
DXS: How comfortable are you expressing your femininity and in what ways? How does this expression influence people’s perception of you in, say, a scientifically oriented context?
I feel very comfortable in my own skin, and who I am and where I come from does tend to be a classically feminine look (at least in terms of clothing choices and how I wear my hair). I am never quite certain the exact definition of “femininity”, but I don’t think how I look so much influences people’s perception of me as much as it opens up opportunities for us to discuss gender and personality and science.
Part of what I do for my work is to help scientists understand that in journalism, we need characters. So, I have the obligation to walk my talk – we are all the main characters in our own lives and we have to live with that and be true to that.
It brings up interesting questions of personality and privacy. I feel pretty comfortable talking about my clothes and my art and my dogs and my bread baking – but I also know that a lot of people don’t want that type of stuff out there. I like the challenge of helping them tell their own science stories and shine through as interesting people in a way that is authentic and represents who they are in a way that works for them.
DXS: Do you think that the combination of your non-science creativity and scientific-related activity shifts people’s perspectives or ideas about what a scientist or science communicator is? If you’re aware of such an influence, in what way, if any, do you use it to (for example) reach a different corner of your audience or present science in a different sort of way?
Sure, I think that I sometimes surprise people. For example, in the world of communications and journalism, we are seeing more and more that coding and programming has great value. To just look at me, you might not believe that I geek out over altmetrics and that I miss using MatLab.
It suprises people when they find this out, and I sort of like that. I know what it feels like to walk into a room and to be dismissed. I relish these opportunities because I consider them a challenge. Instead of feeling offended (though it can get tiring), my approach is thinking, “Guess what! I have something interesting to say, and you and I are actually going to connect, even though you don’t see it yet.”
I think that this sort of willingness to interact is something I try to help the scientists that I work with to understand. Maybe you think that you are going to be met with great opposition toward some subject like climate change, but if you have the willingness to approach it without assuming the worst, it opens new opportunties. I’m no Pollyanna, but I think relentless optimism and a commitment to finding common ground with others is very effective.
When I introduce social media to scientists, it has changed a lot over the last three years, but there is still a lot of skepticism and some outright scorn for “all those people online.” I like to encourage taking a step back from that in order to reveal all of the awesome things going on online and the ways you might engage. I truly enjoy the process of turning skeptics into something other than skeptics – I might not change them into believers, but they will at least be surprised and interested onlookers.
Liz Neeley’s Favorite Focaccia
INGREDIENTS:
Scant 4 cups white bread flour
1 tablespoon salt
Scant 1/2 cup olive oil
1 packet of active dry yeast
1 1/4 cups warm water
Favorite olives, roughly chopped if you prefer
Handful of fresh basil
TIME:
Start this mid-afternoon (between 3 and 4 hours before you want to eat it, depending on how fast you are in the kitchen)
RECIPE:
1. In a large bowl, combine the flour and salt with 1Ž4 cup of the olive oil, the yeast & the water. Mix with your hands for about 3 minutes.
2. Lightly dust your countertop with flour and knead your dough for 6 minutes. Enjoy your arm workout and stress relief exercise!
3. The dough will be pretty sticky. Put it back in the bowl, cover it with a damp cloth, and let stand at room temperature for 2 hours.
4. Mix 1Ž2 or more of your olives and all the basil into the dough, and try to get them evenly distributed. It won’t be perfect, but it will be delicious.
5. Dump the dough onto a lined baking sheet. Flatten it with your hands until it’s a big rectangle about 1″/2.5cm thick. Slather with olive oil. Let rise for 1 hour.
6. Preheat your oven to 425°F/220°C
7. Sprinkle with flaky sea salt and drizzle with more olive oil if you want. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden.
8. Make your neighbors jealous with the amazing smell of baked bread wafting from your house.
9. Enjoy!
Double Xpression: Debbie Berebichez, PhD Physicist
Deborah is the first Mexican woman to graduate with a physics PhD from Stanford University. She is a physicist, author, and media personality whose initiatives to popularize science have impacted thousands of people around the world. Her passion is to popularize science and motivate young minds to think analytically about the world. This has led her to pioneer learning initiatives in schools and universities in Mexico, Africa, the US and Israel. She is a frequent public speaker and has been recognized by numerous media outlets such as Oprah, CNN, WSJ, TED, DLD, WIRED, Martha Stewart, City of Ideas, Dr. Oz Show, Celebrity Scientist and others. She regularly appears as a science expert on different international TV networks; currently she is the TV host of National Geographic’s “Humanly Impossible” show. And she will appear on the Discovery Channel’s upcoming show ‘You’ve Been Warned.’ You can find Deborah on , or on her blog, Science With Debbie. You can also find Deborah telling her story for The Story Collider.
DXS: First, can you give me a quick overview of what your scientific background is and your current connection to science?
I grew up in Mexico City in a fairly conservative community, and as a child, I was discouraged from doing and studying science. My parents, family, and peers would all ask, “oh, why don’t you study a more feminine career?” Although I was pretty good in school, I wasn’t exactly a math wizard. I used to say that I loved philosophy and physics – because philosophy was a deep discipline of asking questions about the world. And physics studied the world itself.
It was clear when I was born that my personality was was quite different to the one of my mom. When I was growing up, my mom was scared because she didn’t know what to do with this little girl that was smart and always asking questions. She is not a naturally curious person, so she kept trying to tame down my curiosity and kept telling me not to tell boys that I was interested in math and science because I would never find a husband. According to her, the life goal for a girl was to find a husband, have kids, and that’s it. Women didn’t have to have a career. (Not that there is anything wrong with not having a career.) My high school teachers and counselors were not so different and encouraged me to go into philosophy or literature, not into math or physics. And my friends in school told me I literally had to be an out of the world genius to be able to study physics. Given the circumstances, I started studying philosophy in Mexico. There were some classes with logic, and some with a little bit more math, and those were the ones I just devoured! And, at the same time – secretly – I was reading the biographies of scientists. For some bizarre reason, I was hugely attracted to their life stories. I didn’t have any family members, or anyone else for that matter, that had pursued a career in science, so I didn’t have a mentor or a role model. I felt an extreme kinship with Tycho Brahe, who in the late 1500’s was locked in a tower, doing all of these calculations for years, hated by everyone in the town. Go figure! I felt some kinship with these scientists. But I didn’t have the courage nor the means to switch majors. I did confess that I wanted to study another area (physics), but in Mexico one cannot study two majors. So, I studied philosophy for two years.
In the middle of it, I felt way too curious about science and I decided to apply to schools in the US. It was hard at the time because college in Mexico was a lot cheaper than in the states. At the private school where I was attending, my tuition was about $5,000 per year. If I were to come to the US, I would be looking at costs exceeding $35,000 per year. I couldn’t really ask my dad to help me with that price tag so I started to apply everywhere and anywhere that had scholarship opportunities.
I ended up getting a letter from Brandeis
University saying that they would let me take this advanced placement test and write an essay, which, if I did well, would give me a full scholarship. I received a full Wien Scholarship and was to continue studying philosophy in the US. This was probably the nicest thing that has ever happened to me because it opened the path of opportunity.Brandeis transformed me as a person – I saw females doing science! But, the bravado moment that changed my life was a very general course called Astronomy 101. The teaching assistant, Roopesh, was a very sweet man from India and he saw that my eyes would just light up when I was in that class – I was much more curious than the random student that was just taking it to fulfill some requirement.
At the end of that year, Roopesh and I
were walking around Harvard Square and stopped to sit under a tree. I started to tell him, with tears in my eyes, that I just don’t want to die without trying. What I meant by that is I don’t want to die without trying to do physics. Everyone’s questioning of my decision made me question my actual ability. Everyone telling me ‘no’ hampered my development. I mean, I was good at math, but I definitely didn’t have the same background as all the kids coming in with advanced math and physics courses. I told Roopesh that I don’t even remember how to solve the equation (a+b)2 – even my algebra was rusty! But, he believed in me and went back to his professor and told him my story. This professor decided to meet with me and ends up telling me about someone who had done this sort of thing in the past. His name was Ed Witten and he went on to become the father of string theory.
He said “Witten had switched from history to physics, and I will let you try too.” With that, he handed me a book on vector calculus called ‘Div, Grad and Curl’ and told me that If I could master it in three months by the end of the summer, they would let me switch my major to physics and also let me bypass the first two years of course work. This would allow me to graduate by the time my scholarship ran out.
I have never in my life experienced the level of scientific passion condensed into such a short amount of time and I am jealous of the person I was that summer. I had so much perseverance and focus. I don’t think I can ever reproduce that intensity again. From the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep, and even in my dreams, I only thought about physics. Roopesh, who became my mentor for the summer, taught me.
I always wanted to pay Roopesh for his tutoring, but he would never accept any money. He told me that when he was growing up in the mountains of Darjeeling in India, there was this old man who would climb up to his home and teach him and his sisters English, the musical instrument Tabla, and math. Roopesh’s father always wanted to pay the old man for his tutoring, but the man always declined. The man said that the only way he could ever pay him back was if Roopesh did the same thing with someone else in the world. And by mentoring me, Roopesh fulfilled his payment to the old man.
Out of that, that became a seed for my physics journey and purpose. It is now my life’s mission to do the same for other people in the world – especially women – who feel attracted to science but feel trapped. They for some reason, whether it is social, financial, etc., just can’t find the way toward science. That is the motivation that dictates my actions.I was able to pull it off and graduated Brandeis Summa Cum Laude with highest honors in physics and philosophy. I went back to Mexico afterwards to figure out what to do next and to spend some time with my family. At the same time, I did a master’s degree in physics at the largest university in Mexico UNAM. My curiosity for physics didn’t diminish and in 1998, I randomly applied to two physics PhD programs in the US. I applied very, very late, but, fortunately, I won a merit-based full scholarship from the Mexican government who provided me with funding, which made it easier for me.
Because I loved biophysics, I did a search on who was doing this line of research. I came across Steven Chu, who is currently the secretary of energy. At the time I was applying, he was at Stanford and was one of the first to manipulate a single strand of DNA with his ‘optical tweezers.’ To me, his story was fascinating! Without really knowing who he was other than what I found on the web, I wrote him an email asking him if I could work in his lab. Had I known who he was – that he had just won the Nobel prize in 1997 – I would have been too intimidated.
Because I loved biophysics, I did a search on who was doing this line of research. I came across Steven Chu, who is currently the secretary of energy. At the time I was applying, he was at Stanford and was one of the first to manipulate a single strand of DNA with his ‘optical tweezers.’ To me, his story was fascinating! Without really knowing who he was other than what I found on the web, I wrote him an email asking him if I could work in his lab. Had I known who he was – that he had just won the Nobel prize in 1997 – I would have been too intimidated.
I was admitted to Stanford and was invited to work with Dr. Chu, but after two years I decided to switch labs. As expected, it was a very challenging environment and having only studied two years of physics at Brandeis, I wasn’t as prepared as most of the other students. I struggled for the first two years. Everyone worked so extremely hard at Stanford and there I was, struggling to be the best, but, in the beginning, I couldn’t even be average.
Fast forward four years. I had worked my butt off and ended up becoming the first Mexican woman to graduate with a PhD in physics from Stanford. It was the best day of my life – I kept thinking that I was so blessed to have my parents live to see this! It was so moving, I was crying so much and I couldn’t believe what had happened. My friends had flown in from all over the world to be with me. It was amazing.
When people hear what I do, they – especially teenage girls – feel intimidated. But, when they hear the whole story, their tune changes. I tell them that I know what it is like to not understand something. I was not the kind of person where comprehension of my science came naturally. But I did it. And if I can do it, anyone can do it! My story can be inspirational to someone who comes from a background completely lacking in science because they, like me, can reach their goal.
DXS: What ways do you express yourself creatively that may not have a single thing to do with science?
I was always a very curious girl growing up. I had a lot of interests, one of which being theatre. I wanted to be an actress when I was young, but my father didn’t let me pursue that as a career, which was probably a good idea. But, during high school, I went to an after school drama program. I wrote my own plays – three of them – and performed one of them. I was in heaven when I was on stage.
In NY, I have tried to do a little bit of that. Of course, I’ve never done any big roles, but I will be an extra in a film, or if there is a small production being made in Spanish, I will play a part. It doesn’t matter how big the role is – I just love doing something creative and getting into a character.
DXS: What types of productions and/or films have you done?
I don’t think I would come up in the credits as an extra, but I did a movie with Simon Pegg, Kirsten Dunst and Megan Fox in the movie “How to lose Friends and Alienate People.” It was a very, very fun film! In theatre, Jean Genet, who is a French playwright, has a play called The Maids, and I was the madame.
DXS: Do you find that your scientific background informs your creativity, even though what you do may not specifically be scientific?
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| Debbie talking to the TEDYouth audience about waves. |
I have a concept that I call “physics glasses.” And what I mean by that is, for me, physics is not a subject that you just teach in a complex way in a classroom. Rather, physics is something that is related to everyday life. From the moment you wake up, you can just put on your physics glasses. It is a mode of thinking – it is a way where although reality can be very rich and diverse, physics goes very deep and it abstracts commonalities, general principles that apply to many things. To give you an example, I asked the kids in the audience of my TEDYouth talk, “what do the sun, the ocean, and a symphony orchestra have in common?” When just looking at them on the surface, there isn’t much in common. I mean, they are all beautiful things but they are not obviously related. But, to a physicist, they are all waves. You have sound waves, light waves, and water waves and you can interchange many of the concepts in physics to explain all three.
Where most of us see the world with our eyes through light waves, other might see the world differently. Take, for example, my friend Juan, who is blind. He “sees” the world with sound waves – he senses sound as it bounces off the objects around him. Through this, he can bike, play basketball, and do a load of activities using sound as a guide. This is one of my favorite analogies because, really, physics “infects” the way I see the world.
| Deborah the Physicist model |
To give you a more specific example in the creativity realm, when I got to NY, I felt really un-feminine. When I was studying physics, I felt that if I was even slightly feminine, I wouldn’t be respected. It didn’t help that some of the other women in the physics program at Stanford were more of a “guys girl,” always wearing a baseball cap and t-shirts. Now, since I am Latin, I first showed up wearing a skirt to class, but I quickly learned to dress down. Looking feminine would assure that no one would talk to me in class.
So, when I got to NY, I had an explosion. I wanted to know what it was like to express myself as a woman and my friend suggested that I do some modeling. So I did. It was a brief, lasting about a year. But during that time, my friend, who was a designer from Mexico, asked me to work with her and I wrote and did some videos about the physics of fashion, which also included the physics of high heels video.
Some people could consider fashion to be superficial, but not me. I love fashion and color. But, other scientists generally looked down upon you for liking this sort of thing. This fueled my desire to prove to everyone that there actually is science everywhere, including fashion, and that they shouldn’t be snobs about it. There is complex science in how different materials work, how they interact with the environment and you can prove to the women, like my mother and friends back home who think that science has nothing to do with their everyday lives, that it has EVERYTHING to do with it. So I talked about a Newtonian theory for color – how to pick the right color for you based on how much light the color would reflect on that day, etc.
DXS: Like a more sophisticated version of colors based on your “season?”
DB: Exactly!
I also did pieces on the materials, including some of the newest engineering accomplishments with fabric. For example, I hooked up with a woman and helped her to design a fashionable and very scientific coat. It ended up costing $11,000, but it was made up of nano fibers and it had a patch in it that could detect the temperature and the probability of rain. Based on this probability, it could change permeability of the fabric. It was a very light coat that was comfortable in nice weather, but when it would rain, it would become impermeable to water once it detected a high probability of rain, transforming into a raincoat.
DXS: That’s incredible! I wish it wasn’t $11,000!
DB: Yeah, that’s usually the problems with these technologies. They are often so novel, but one day I’m sure we can figure out how to make things like this scalable.
Science is very much what guides my thinking when I am being creative and I wish I had more time to do creative things while being influenced by a scientific mindset.
DXS: It is so cool that physics has such an incredible overlap with everyday living. Like, when we take a shower, I want to know “how is the water getting pumped from the ground or through pipes and make its way out of the showerhead?” But, as a biochemist, I often find it hard to relate everyday things to biochemistry, but I would like to!
DB: Its funny that you say that. When I try to teach girls that the worst thing they can do is memorize. Critical thinking is so important and they shouldn’t take anything at face value, and they should even question teachers and authoritative figures in their lives. Always ask: what goes into making this? Why is this here? Why is it this way and not another? Constantly ask questions. That s the gift that physics will give you.
DXS: Have you encountered situations in which your expression of yourself outside the bounds of science has led to people viewing you differently-either more positively or more negatively?
Without saying I am a scientist, I can tell you that people have come up to me and told me that before they even hear me speak, they think I am dumb. They are usually surprised that I am smart! I think it is because I am bubbly and friendly and that often makes an impression as being unintelligent. For them it seems that if a woman is intelligent, she is very cold and distant and serious.
I’ve met a lot of physicists, and yes, some of them do tend to be that way, often as a reaction to how others treat them. Or, people would say to me that, because I am Latin, my cultural identity comes across as being warm and the last thing they’d expect me to be into was something as cold as physics. So yeah, I have definitely been judged so many times!
It even happens in my current job on Wall Street, especially with my male peers. When there are off site client meetings, I’m often accompanied by my male sales colleague. Sales people are generally required to know less about the complexities behind our risk models compared to someone on a more research-oriented role, like me and he will bring me along to these sales meetings in case the potential client has more sophisticated questions that go beyond what he can comfortably answer. Many times upon meeting the clients for the first time they think that I am the sales person, there to be the smiling face to sell them something, and that he is the risk modeler. They always direct their mathematical questions to him.
I’ve met a lot of physicists, and yes, some of them do tend to be that way, often as a reaction to how others treat them. Or, people would say to me that, because I am Latin, my cultural identity comes across as being warm and the last thing they’d expect me to be into was something as cold as physics. So yeah, I have definitely been judged so many times!
It even happens in my current job on Wall Street, especially with my male peers. When there are off site client meetings, I’m often accompanied by my male sales colleague. Sales people are generally required to know less about the complexities behind our risk models compared to someone on a more research-oriented role, like me and he will bring me along to these sales meetings in case the potential client has more sophisticated questions that go beyond what he can comfortably answer. Many times upon meeting the clients for the first time they think that I am the sales person, there to be the smiling face to sell them something, and that he is the risk modeler. They always direct their mathematical questions to him. It came to a point where I became so annoyed that I decided to stop caring. Now, my sales colleague goes out for drinks with the clients and I know that I am going to be invisible. So I don’t go anymore. I know that I am always going to struggle to get the full intellectual respect in that industry – it will always be a challenge.
DXS: Have you found that your non-science expression of creativity/activity/etc. has in any way informed your understanding of science or how you may talk about it or present it to others?
Yes, absolutely. For example in Mexico, unlike the US, you absolutely have to do an honors thesis project as an undergrad in science. Because I had already studied philosophy for four years, I wanted to do a thesis project in philosophy. But I also wanted to do one in physics. I recall that back in 1997, when you presented a dissertation in front of the physics community, if you had any power point, forget it. You would be immediately be called dumb or not a good physicist. Because, who takes the time to do something fancy! If you had any color in your presentation, forget it!
So, literally, the smartest students in physics were people who didn’t really communicate that well, or didn’t really speak English that well, or just didn’t really make an effort. Their slides were on those overhead projector things with those rolls of plastic sheets, and most of their talks were so confusing and couldn’t be interpreted! But they were respected! It was just assumed that if the formula looked complex, they were probably right.
So, literally, the smartest students in physics were people who didn’t really communicate that well, or didn’t really speak English that well, or just didn’t really make an effort. Their slides were on those overhead projector things with those rolls of plastic sheets, and most of their talks were so confusing and couldn’t be interpreted! But they were respected! It was just assumed that if the formula looked complex, they were probably right.
So what I did was completely different. I infused my talk with my spiciness and color. I did an artwork of liquid crystals, which was my research at Brandeis. Liquid crystals are little cigar-shaped molecules that actually make up the screen of your laptop. If you pass an electric field through them, they all orient themselves and that is how we can use them for displays in our laptops and TVs.
I colored these cigar-shaped molecules with purples and reds and greens, and I tried to explain it at the most basic level. This is because of one my philosophy professors in Mexico, who told me that if you cannot explain what you do to your grandmother or 6 year old niece, you don’t understand what you are doing – I loved it!
And I said to myself that I shouldn’t care what they think. I pretty much expected to not gain a lot of respect from the physics department, but it had the opposite effect! I actually had one of the professors from that department come up to me and tell me that he had never really understood what a liquid crystal looked like or what it really was! He said that “finally I understand [liquid crystals] because of your drawing. Thank you!” It was incredible!
To see the effect on people and from then on, I bounced up in down, I made jokes, I put in creativity. It doesn’t always have a great effect on very serious audiences, but the younger generation is definitely appreciative. When it keeps going well, you gain confidence. And, for me, I even started wearing high heels to the next talk. When someone commented about my attire, I would counter, hey I have a PhD!
And I said to myself that I shouldn’t care what they think. I pretty much expected to not gain a lot of respect from the physics department, but it had the opposite effect! I actually had one of the professors from that department come up to me and tell me that he had never really understood what a liquid crystal looked like or what it really was! He said that “finally I understand [liquid crystals] because of your drawing. Thank you!” It was incredible!
To see the effect on people and from then on, I bounced up in down, I made jokes, I put in creativity. It doesn’t always have a great effect on very serious audiences, but the younger generation is definitely appreciative. When it keeps going well, you gain confidence. And, for me, I even started wearing high heels to the next talk. When someone commented about my attire, I would counter, hey I have a PhD!
DXS: How comfortable are you expressing your femininity and in what ways? How does this expression influence people’s perception of you in, say, a scientifically oriented context?
This question is deep and a little bit of a struggle at the moment. This is because I still have that fear – when I arrived in NY, I did that short stint in modeling and I expressed myself and I would dress very creatively – just like my other girlfriends who were not scientists. But I did feel a little bit of a backlash. By that I mean that I would post a photo of myself on Facebook or something like that. They were pretty pictures, not at all seductive or provocative, and my high school mates, usually male, would write me saying: “I always knew you as a serious person and you have achieved so many things – I am just telling you for your own good that this can really damage your image.” That made me reply with “so you’re telling me that being smart is actually kind of a bummer?” That actually means that I have to dress very differently from what other women wear for the rest of my life?
I remember feeling very upset about all of that. I think that not being taken seriously is still a little bit of a fear of and I think my website has damaged my serious image a little bit. As a scientist, I was very secluded from the outside world. I didn’t have a lot of friends when I moved here, but I did know an amazing and powerful woman who happened to be the CEO of Blip TV. She was insisting that I do videos! So she invited me to her place and showed me how to do video. Being the quick woman that she was, she asked me to make up a name for myself on the spot. When I didn’t answer, she instantly coined “The Science Babe” for me. I was like, sure, what a cool idea!
It was kind of a cute name, but because English is not my first language, I don’t always understand some of the cultural connotations associated with some English words. A few months later, I started to get a few emails from mothers who were upset that I was using my looks. They would say things like “Are you saying that women have to be in the kitchen or wear short skirts to be scientists?” I would answer that no, that was not it at all. I would further explain that I was trying to change the definition of “babe.” If you are smart, if you are empowered, you will be a babe no matter how you look. I am trying to shift what people think of when they think “scientist.”
I don’t feel quite successful with The Science Babe. It seems like there are quite a few people, especially some from the older generation, who say that they’d love to introduce me to fancy science organizations but are worried that the name “the science babe” will make it difficult. Also, I had the BBC wanted to talk to me about doing a TV show in NY, and then they said but there’s so much bad stuff out there about you! And I was like, what do you mean? They answered “All these things with the “science babe” brand…”
It doesn’t happen all the time, but some people are really critical about the science babe theme, citing that its way too feminine. Other female scientists that haven’t gone that route have perhaps discounted my seriousness about science. They assume that what I am doing is not really that important because I do focus on the science everyday life, which is simpler, and it is too much color and too much vivaciousness for our field. I feel like my femininity has decreased over the last few years because I’ve been too nervous about not being taken seriously. It s almost like the balance tipped the other way. I feel like perhaps I’ve feminized things to a fault and now I want to appear more serious. So, I am changing my website to “Science With Debbie” because I really felt the backlash.
It is a struggle to find the balance between being able to express my femininity and presenting myself in a way that people will take me seriously. In a way, I wish I had a little more courage to not care that much about what people have to say about the science babe but, unfortunately, agents have told me that if I don’t go to the “dumbed down version of femininity” I would get better speaking engagements. Being feminine has literally affected my career, and it’s because of other people’s perceptions. I’m never going to be bland, but I will try to change things so I am more serious
DXS: Do you think that the combination of your non-science creativity and scientific-related activity shifts people’s perspectives or ideas about what a scientist or science communicator is? If you’re aware of such an influence, in what way, if any, do you use it to (for example) reach a different corner of your audience or present science in a different sort of way?
The fact that I am approachable and pretty down to earth has allowed me to reach corners of society that more distant and fancy scientists would never even consider. For instance, I am going to a small university to give a talk. Some of my friends ask why I even bother, especially considering that this insitution is not the most renowned university. But, I feel the opposite – it is these corners that need the influence the most! Similarly, when I go to Hispanic high schools, many of the mothers have never seen a scientist. And there I am, a scientist from Mexico, speaking to them and their kids. It is that powerful combination of being a smart and warm female that can be shocking, which is cool.
In line with this, there was an experiment where women were asked to draw a female scientist. Most drew a plain, relatively unattractive woman. Immediately when you break that mold, it has an incredible effect. People say, “Hey! She kind of looks like me and she dresses like me. Maybe I can do science too!” Some girls are afraid that by being smart, boys won’t talk to them. My femininity allows me to be a voice in a field that has tended to isolate themselves from the public, which is bad. Some of my colleagues have become a little snobbish. The fact that I have serious credentials (PhD and 2 postdocs) shows that I had to work like crazy – looks and personality can only go so far. It s hard work that gets you there! Serious science communication has a lot of math and problem solving in order to explain things accurately to the public. So I still feel like I am doing science!
Double Xpression: Darlene Cavalier of Science Cheerleader and SciStarter
| Darlene Cavalier (source) |
Darlene Cavalier is the hard-working and seemingly tireless founder of Science Cheerleader and SciStarter. She has held executive positions at Walt Disney Publishing and worked at Discover Magazine for more than 10 years. Darlene incorporated her experience and knowledge in serving as the prinicple investigator of a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to promote basic research through partnerships with Disney and ABC TV and also has collaborated with the NSF, NBC Sports, and the NFL to produce the Science of NFL Football series. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania where she studied the role of the citizen in science and is herself a former Philadelphia 76ers cheerleader. In addition, she is a writer and senior adviser to Discover Magazine. You can find her full biography here.
On top of all of that, she is also mother to four children. You might be able to blame them for the two-day stomach flu Darlene was just getting over when she talked with Double X Science Managing Editor Emily Willingham about why women pursue professional cheerleading (hint: it’s much more about passion than pay), why cheerleader stereotypes are “bunk,” and why even if Science Cheerleader doesn’t lead all little girls into science, it leaves them with a message about being secure in who they are.
DXS: First, can you give me a quick overview of what your scientific background is and your current connection to science?
A: So I have no formal science degree. My connection to science is that I work and continue to work at Discover magazine. I worked there as business development coordinator, and that’s how I became reintroduced to science. I became a fan of science later in life. After working at Discover for a couple of years and having some children [Cavalier is the mother of four children], I wondered if there was a more significant role for someone like me without a formal science degree. My role at Discover had become curating science on behalf of the magazine. How do we get average public to move in the direction of science literacy?
I went to grad school at the University of Pennsylvania to look at those issues. When I met with an advisor (there), he recommended that I go for a masters in liberal arts, which made sense to me at the time. They created a curriculum for me. Most was in the history and sociology of science and some was in school of education. Piecing all of this together was a turning point for me in my life both prof and personally, I started to learn about these citizen scientists to engage nonscientific members of the public in real scientific research.
I saw huge gaps in getting people to move in that direction. Other countries were enabling citizens to take part in conversations about science policy on national levels. The U.S. didn’t have mechanism for that. That was one gap I saw. Another was people weren’t getting involved in citizen science projects…(they were) hard to find and scattered all over websites. It was a mechanism problem, not philosophical or societal. In grad school, I created a matchmaking site of all citizen science projects I was coming across. I decided to make that database public for people to add their projects, and made it searchable. There were no cheerleaders involved in science cheerleaders when I started the blog…it was about the citizen science projects and reopening this agency for public input. (It was not about) cheerleaders specifically.
DXS: So how did you end up incorporating the cheerleader aspect?
A: That was basically a fun way of using my background-it is surprising to people that I was a (Philadelphia) 76ers cheerleader. I kept it secret for long time at Discover, fearing I wouldn’t be taken seriously. I wish I hadn’t attempted (to keep it) secret; when it was “exposed” at Discover people were great about it. They thought it was pretty neat. So I became more comfortable in that role. I wanted to do a tongue-in-cheek look at this when I was starting the blog that this site really is for everyone. Citizen science projects are for everyone; it doesn’t matter if even a quote–unquote “ditzy blonde cheerleader” can do it, surely the scientists could figure it out, and the politicians.
(When the concept of Science Cheerleader really took off), we thought, “We’re on to something.” Most people loved it. Criticism came from feminist science bloggers, which I totally understand…I learned something there, too… (this idea of), “these women aren’t scientists, what are they doing?” Then I started getting emails from actual NFL NBA cheerleaders, (telling me) “I’m getting PhD in chemistry,” (and saw it as) a great way to merge two parts of my life. I could hardly believe it. I never even had thought to ask cheerleaders if they were studying any of the STEM fields.
It became cyclical. The founder of the U.S. Science and Engineering Festival called and asked Science Cheerleader to come to that festival and perform. I had to tell him I’d never met them. We got a grant from the Burroughs Wellcome fund to cover travel for 11 science cheerleaders to come to Washington and perform. They had awesome outfits, speaking roles. It was more or less an experiment. Amazing performers against a science theme routine and incredible public spokespeople. Applying their talents of being enthusiastic about their team to science and tech careers. They were a huge hit at the festival.
We left each one speak their own language. They’re very diverse. It helped to have that diverse makeup and watching them talk to little kids. Little girls would come up to them, almost like when you see Cinderella, would want their autographs, to touch their uniforms, feel their pompoms. It was a great opportunity to say, “We love cheerleading, but in the daytime I make cars, I’m what you call an engineer.” Some of the dads and the moms were more attracted to the team (the cheerleaders) represented, and they learned that no cheerleader makes a living on 35 bucks a game…they have professions.
We started to realize we were challenging stereotypes of scientists, cheerleaders, engineers. We have so many science cheerleaders in the database, working now with the NFL and NBA, (that) when a local event is happening, I can contact science cheerleaders in the Boston area tell them, and they can go if they want. They don’t have talking points … they say what they want to say. A Patriots cheerleader says cheerleading was great for her professional career, standards were super high for her in college. (You have to maintain) a GPA to be cheerleader and athlete, (and that) was helpful.
DXS: And you’ve encountered some criticism from feminists or women in science. How do you handle that?
A: You can’t be a science cheerleader unless you have science connection. I’m the only fraud in the group. That’s the criterion. What is different, there was so much media play…NPR, CNN, TODAY Show, you can only get across so much in a video. A couple of people took a video where someone says “go science” and assumed we’re just dressing people up as cheerleaders and sending them around to yell that. (But) there’s a lot of depth with what they do.
Many are very accomplished in their fields, going on to do research. One is getting her PhD in chemistry, working on gold nanoparticles to treat pancreatic cancer. That criticism that’s ill informed is the worst type. Putting them in a bad light and they don’t deserve it. They volunteer to do this. They do it because they really believe in it. There are an estimated 3 to 4 million cheerleaders in the US. They want to reach that group, let them know it’s OK to love math and science, (to say) here’s my experience, here’s how I learned what an engineer is, here’s what my day is like. They’re all available to be pen-pal partners. As much as we preach “don’t let other people bother you or criticism bother you,” I don’t like to see ill-informed or misinformed statements.
Q: Have you encountered situations in which your expression of yourself outside the bounds of science has led to people viewing you differently-either more positively or more negatively?
A: Yes. (What) we have is mostly anecdotal…have a number for people coming to site, watching video, we try to save emails and letters that come in from moms of little girls who just want to be cheerleaders but also are talented, and the moms feel they’re talented in math and science and grow concerned about their daughters losing that for their love of cheerleading and dance and are happy to see these role models on the site.
In terms of other positive impacts, if we just look at it from public outreach, it’s been incredible because of the media’s interest. Media interest in this, the teams themselves…it’s not easy to reach Baltimore Ravens fans w positive messages about science and tech or women and science and tech, so when the Ravens repost the interviews and tweet it to their fan base, that’s very positive.
Lines at live events are pretty long with kids lining up to get autographs from the Science Cheerleaders. We always look for local or regional citizen science activity to capitalize on that attention to get those people to do something. For example in South Texas a science and engineering festival. We did our routine, a bunch of people line up for autographs, our choreographer is the reigning Miss United States. That attracts people as I talk about a local researcher who needs their help for citizen science project. (It’s) super simple to use that attention to say “hey, by the way, you’re needed. When you see this crayfish-hold up a picture-it’s considered invasive. Here’s Dr. Zen!” He (Dr. Zen) came out and talked, while they’re waiting inline, a captive audience, and we give the Website where they can get involved.
Our sister site, is now a full-size website called SciStarter, a startup company. That was named one of Philly’s top-10 tech startups last year! It aggregates all of the citizen science projects out there. We rely on that at all of the Science Cheerleader appearances.
I can do what I know how to do, but I would love some grad student or organization that does evaluations or measures outcomes and help me learn more about the metrics, direct outcomes that can be measured, and how do I do that.
DXS: Have you found that your non-science expression of creativity/activity/etc. has in any way informed your understanding of science or how you may talk about it or present it to others?
A: It’s a great question. It’s interesting because that Science Cheerleader blog that I started with and still have-it’s a very diverse audience. There are people who came because they’re reading about their favorite teams’ cheerleaders doing cool things and that ‘s great. I’d have a lot of those types coming to the site, and they’d learn, “hmm that’s interesting I didn’t realize that’s what a chemical engineer does,” then look to their right and see, “hmmm this is happening in Boston”… and take next step from passive reader to getting involved in a citizen science project. The goal is to move them to being actively engaged citizens getting them prepared aware involved in the science policy conversation. I know that sounds so farfetched but not nearly as much as a couple of years ago.
It is not easy to talk to different audiences. I used to preach “know your audience,” but I’ve learned more from my audience than they may have from me. I consider some of the science bloggers, and they’re a part of the audience. I learned they don’t like 76ers involved without science degrees, and we responded to that. What one group likes another won’t. There’s no “one size fits all.” We try to (appeal) to a wide variety of audiences coming to site….from those interested in science policy to people who come because they want more about citizen science efforts. We can point them to these things through SciStarter.
DXS: How comfortable are you expressing your femininity and in what ways? How does this expression influence people’s perception of you in, say, a scientifically oriented context? And does that impression evolve at all?
The initial impression, even through me-and I think the Science Cheerleaders would say this too, even when I was of the Sixers…(pauses)… let’s talk motivation for a minute, why most of these women choose to become professional cheerleaders, why would you do that? The bottom line is that there are very few opportunities to continue dancing and performing once you’re out of college. My personal experience-and you’ll see this in interviews-your options are so limited, and we wanted to continue performing, usually it’s dancing. We see an audition in paper, and they’re looking for people who know how to do triple pirouettes, and the opportunity to continue to perform is there.
I wish we didn’t have to wear those uniforms when I was on the Sixers. I loved every single thing about it except for some of the uniforms. I would love for the NFL and NBA to look and say, “We didn’t realize cheerleaders felt that way and tone it down,” (but) it’s not going to happen. I encourage people to read interviews to see what motivated some of the cheerleaders. I wasn’t a gung-ho Sixers fan who wanted to do this for the team, but some people almost their whole lives dreamed of being a cheerleader for their team.
In terms of embracing being feminine, I don’t know anyone who is that 100% of the time. My hair looked decent, I wore OK clothes, but I don’t walk around like that all the time. I think that the reality of the situation is there’s no one walking around looking like a professional cheerleader all the time. I doubt that the Science Cheerleaders look like that when they go into the lab, not because they want to be taken seriously but for convenience. It s a lot of work to look like that.
I wish that the people who pave the way for these Science Cheerleaders to be exploring the careers they have now-lots are supportive and embrace them but that also happens to be where the toughest critics are embedded. They know better than anyone what it feels like to have somebody work against you. I wish they’d ease up on Science Cheerleaders and let them be all that they can be. They can relate to an audience it’s not easy for us to reach. I can’t reach those little cheerleaders out there myself, but they can, maybe through pom-poms or uniforms or a connection with the moms. It does evolve
Some teams require you to be in school full time or have a full-time job. They want smart cheerleaders because you have to be out doing public speaking so if you’re not articulate or bright…pretty girls and good dancers are a dime a dozen…your success comes down to your interview.
These Science Cheerleaders are by far way more secure in their dual roles than I was. I’m not sure why or how, but when you see them at appearances, they’re looking for ways to embrace these two roles. They’ll say in their interview, I don’t care what people in my lab think about my wearing makeup and so on, and they mean it. These women walk the walk.
DXS: If you had something you could say to the younger you, back when you weren’t so comfortable with yourself about the role of expression and creativity in your chosen career path, what would you say?
A: If I had read one of these interviews when I was, say, in fifth grade, and I read one of those Science Cheerleader interviews, it would resonate w me in a different way. It might not have an impact on me personally when I was a kid…the cheerleaders on our team, we were athletes. Most cheerleaders are leaders in their schools, involved in leadership and academics, student government. The stereotype is total bunk.
I can tell you that in some point in my life, I can think back to times, like my first big job at Discover, had I read these interviews as a kid, I may have felt more comfortable about being authentic about every aspect of me.
To use the Pop Warner example, we set a world record with them, 1300 little cheerleaders cheering for science for five minutes. I have a sneaking suspicion that fast forward 10 years from now, they might be interviewed, by you maybe, about how they got interested in science, and they might say, when I as in 8th grade, I got called in to do this science cheer thing, and it opened my eyes to science as a valid career. If it doesn’t happen at a young age for some of these girls, they might reflect back to something they experienced science cheerleading and feel entitled to embrace all that they are and feel good about that.
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See the Science Cheerleaders in action at the Science and Engineering Festival:
By Emily Willingham, DXS managing editor
Mariette DiChristina
| Mariette DiChristina is editor in chief of Scientific American. |
[Ed. note: This interview is the second installment in our new series, Double Xpression: Profiles of Women into Science. The focus of these profiles is how women in science express themselves in ways that aren’t necessarily scientific, how their ways of expression inform their scientific activities and vice-versa, and the reactions they encounter.]
Today’s profile is an interview with Mariette DiChristina, editor in chief, Scientific American, who answered our questions via email with DXS Biology Editor Jeanne Garbarino. Read on to find out what a Marx Brothers movie has to do with communicating science.
DXS: First, can you give me a quick overview of what your scientific background is and your current connection to science?
MD: Like most kids, I was born a scientist. What I mean is, I wanted to know how everything worked, and I wanted to learn about it firsthand. At a tag sale, for instance, I remember buying a second-hand biology book called The Body along with my second-hand Barbie for 50 cents. “Are you sure your mom is going to be OK with you buying that?” asked the concerned neighbor, eyeing the biology book.
I memorized the names and orbital periods of the planets and of dinosaurs like some kids spout baseball stats (which I could also do as a kid, by the way). We didn’t have a lot of money, so I caught my own pet fish from a nearby pond by using my little finger as a pretend worm. I scooped up my fish with an old plastic container and put it on my nightstand. If it died, I buried it and dug it up later so I could look at the bones. My proudest birthday gifts were when I got a chemistry set and a microscope with 750x. A girlfriend and I got the idea to pick up a gerbil that had a bad habit of biting fingers, just so we could get blood to squeeze on a glass slide. (She was braver than I was about being the one to get bitten.)
In middle school, I was a proud member of the Alchemists—an after-school science club—so I could do extra labs and clean the beakers and put away Bunsen burners for fun. I knew I would be a scientist when I grew up.
But somewhere during my high school courses, I came to believe that being a scientist meant I’d have to pick one narrow discipline and stick to it. I felt that I liked everything too much to do that, however. As an undergraduate, I eventually figured out that what I really wanted was to be a student of many different things for life, and then share those things I learned with others. That led me to a journalism degree. It also means that, as far as knowledge about science goes, I fit the cliché of being “an inch deep and a mile wide.”
DXS: What ways do you express yourself creatively that may not have a single thing to do with science?
MD: This one is a tough one for me to answer because I am always trying to convince people that pretty much everything they care about in the headlines actually has to do with science! In my case, I’ve also always been interested in drawing and in visuals in general. I was a pretty serious art student in high school as well, although I later decided that I didn’t have enough passion for it to make that my career choice. My interest in art partly led me to work at magazines like Scientific American and Popular Science, where the ability to storyboard an informational graphic and otherwise think visually is very helpful.
When I’m home, I really enjoy making things with my two daughters, such as helping them with crafts or scrapbooks, although I definitely spend a lot more time on planning dinners and cooking for (and with) the family than anything else. I like the puzzle solving of setting up the meals for the week during the weekend, so it’s easier for my husband to get things ready weeknights. We’re big on eating dinner together as a family every night. I like gardening and mapping out planting beds. I’m better at planting than at keeping up with tending, however, because of my intense work schedule and travel. In short, if I have free time at all, I’m enjoying it with my family. And if we’re doing some creative expression while we’re at it, great!
DXS: Do you find that your connection to science informs your creativity, even though what you do may not specifically be scientific?
MD: My connection to science informs most things that I do in one way or another. When I’m making dinner, I sometimes find myself talking about the chemistry of cooking with the girls. Especially when our daughters were smaller, if one of them had a question, I’d try to come up with ways to make finding the answer together into a kind of science adventure or project.
I suppose that since I spend most of my waking hours thinking about how best to present science to the public, it’s just a mental routine, or a lens through which I tend to view the world.
DXS: Have you encountered situations in which your expression of yourself outside the bounds of science has led to people viewing you differently-either more positively or more negatively?
MD: It’s more the other way around. I get amusing reactions from people once they find out what I do. How could I seem so normal and yet work in a field that relates to…shudder…science? An attorney friend has sometimes kidded me, saying there’s no way he can understand what’s in Scientific American, so I must be incredibly smart. I don’t feel that way at all! Anybody who has a high school degree and an interest in the topic can understand a feature article in Scientific American. Science is for everyone. And science isn’t only for people who work in labs. It’s just a rational way of looking at life. I also believe science is the engine of human prosperity. And if I sound a little evangelistic about that, well, I am.
DXS: Have you found that your non-science expression of creativity/activity/etc. has in any way informed your understanding of science or how you may talk about it or present it to others?
MD: I think it’s helpful to look to non-science areas for ideas about ways to help make science appealing, especially for people who might be intimidated by the subject. My main job is to try to make a connection for people to the science we cover in Scientific American. I once had a boss at Popular Sciencewho made all us editors take an intensive, three-day screenwriting course that culminated in the showing and exposition, scene by scene, of the structure and writing techniques of Casablanca. When I came back, he gave me a big grin and said, “So, what did you think?” I got his point about bringing narrative techniques into feature articles. Like most people, I enjoy movies and plays; now I also look at them for storytelling tips. And there are lots of creative ways to tell science stories beyond words: pictures, slide shows, videos, songs. Digital media are so flexible.
DXS: How comfortable are you expressing your femininity and in what ways? How does this expression influence people’s perception of you in, say, a scientifically oriented context?
MD: I was the oldest of three daughters raised by a single dad (my mom died when I was 12) and I was always a tomboy, playing softball through college and so on. So I can’t say I’ve ever been terribly feminine, at least in the stereotypical ways. At the same time, I’m obviously a wife and a mother who, like most parents, tries not to talk about my kids so often that it’s irritating to friends and coworkers. I once was scolded in a letter from an irritated reader after I had mentioned my kids in a “From the Editor” column about education. He wrote that if I was so interested in science education and kids, I should go back home and “bake cookies.” I laughed pretty hard at that.
DXS: Do you think that the combination of your non-science creativity and scientific-related activity shifts people’s perspectives or ideas about what a scientist or science communicator is? If you’re aware of such an influence, in what way, if any, do you use it to (for example) reach a different corner of your audience or present science in a different sort of way?
MD: I’m sure that’s true. I think personality and approach also might shift perspectives. A girlfriend of mine once called me “the friendly face of science.” I guess I smile a lot, and I like to meet people and try to get to know them. That ability—being able to make a personal connection to different people—is important for every good editor. My job, essentially, is to understand your interests well enough to make sure Scientific American is something that you’ll enjoy each day, week, month.
Increasingly, also, the audiences are different in different media, so we need to understand how to flex the approach a bit to appeal to those different audiences. In print, for instance, according to the most recent data we have from MRI, the median age of Scientific American readers is 47, with 70 percent men and 30 percent women. The picture is quite different online, where, according to Nielsen, our median age is 40 and the male/female ratio is closer to half and half, with 56.5 percent men to 43.5 percent women. You need to bring a lot of creative thinking to the task of how to make one brand serve rather different sets of people.
Fortunately, I have terrific, creative staff! And another part of the way you do that, I think, is to invite your readers in to collaborate; we’ve done a bit of that in the past year on http://www.scientificamerican.com/, and I’m looking forward to experimenting further in the coming months. Ultimately, I’d like to turn Scientific American from a magazine with an amazing 166-year tradition of being a conduit of authoritative information about science and technology into a platform where curious minds can gather and share.
DXS: If you had something you could say to the younger you about the role of expression and creativity in your chosen career path, what would you say?
MD: I was pretty determined to do something—whatever it was—that would let me satisfy my curiosity and passion about science. I would tell younger me, who, by the way, never intended to go into magazine management: It’s just as fun, rewarding and creative to be a science writer as you suspect it might be. I’d also tell the younger me something that didn’t occur to me early enough to pull it off—that a double major in journalism and science might be a good idea. And, I would add, it’s also a good idea to take some business classes, so you’ll be better armed for dealing with the working world.
Also on Double X Science
- Chemistry sets and the power of hands-on science
- Notable Women in Science Series
- Double Xpression: Interview with Meghan Groome, PhD, Director of K12 Education and Science & the City, New York Academy of Sciences
More about Mariette DiChristina
Mariette DiChristina oversees Scientific American Continue reading
Double Xpression: Meghan Groome
| Meghan Groome, PhD, Director of K12 Education and Science & the City, New York Academy of Sciences |
[Ed. note: Double X Science has started a new series: Double Xpression: Profiles of Women into Science. The focus of these profiles is how women in science express themselves in ways that aren’t necessarily scientific, how their ways of expression inform their scientific activities and vice-versa, and the reactions they encounter.]
Today’s profile is an interview with Meghan Groome, PhD, New York Academy of SciencesDirector of K12 Education and Science & The City, who answered our questions via email with DXS Biology Editor Jeanne Garbarino.
DXS: First, can you give me a quick overview of what your scientific background is and your current connection to science?
MG: I was a bio major since age two. Growing up (and still today) I had a deep love of all things gross, icky, creepy, and crawly and a deep dislike of anything math related. My parents didn’t really know what to do with me, so a theme to my scientific background is that although I was a straight-A student in my bio classes, no one had any idea that I should be doing enrichment programs or making an effort to learn math. I figured that by being a great bio major, I would become a great scientist. So I was an excellent consumer of scientific knowledge but only realized late in life that I needed to be a producer to actually become a scientist.
Being a straight-A student doesn’t actually get you a job when you graduate from a small liberal arts college with a degree in biology and theater, and out of desperation, I took a job teaching. While I wasn’t a good scientist, I turned out to be an excellent teacher and loved the creativity, energy, and never-ending questions that go along with being a science teacher. If you teach from the perspective that science is an endless quest for knowledge, you’ll never get bored taking kids on that journey.
While my background is in biology, my graduate degree is in science education, and I study gender dynamics and student questioning the middle-school classrooms. I currently work for the New York Academy of Sciences as the Director of K12 Education and public programs and spend most of my day convincing scientists that education outreach is not only part of their jobs but a lot of fun.
DXS: What ways do you express yourself creatively that may not have a single thing to do with science?
MG: I’m also a photographer and spend a lot of time wandering around neighborhoods in Brooklyn with a special love of decaying buildings and empty lots. I love how nature conquers things that we humans consider to be permanent – like how we have to constantly beat back the invading hordes of plants and animals even in one of the most man-made environments in the world.
I was also a theater major, so (I) have a strong background in costume design and stage directing. I hate acting but love dance. If I had any talent I would have become a musical theater star but unfortunately enthusiasm and determination can only get you so far.
DXS: Do you find that your scientific background informs your creativity, even though what you do may not specifically be scientific?
MG: I find great joy in seeing how nature conquers human engineering. When I learned about Lynn Margulis’ Gaia hypothesis, I began seeing it everywhere and I think I love photography because I’m documenting the Earth fighting back.
Most of my creative energy comes from working with kids and listening to the wonderful way in which they think about the natural world. Adults can be so rigid in their thinking and are often afraid to say ideas that are out of the mainstream thinking. The older a kid gets, the more we expect them to conform to the adult way of thinking. Middle-school kids are old enough to express their wacky ideas, and young enough to not recognize that their ideas are considered “wrong.”
DXS: Have you encountered situations in which your expression of yourself outside the bounds of science has led to people viewing you differently-either more positively or more negatively?
MG: People tell me all the time “You’re not what we expected” and I’m not really sure how to respond.
In the science education world, my research is informed by my experiences teaching in a very poor district and from a social justice perspective. It’s a rather controversial theoretical framework because it says, “I have an agenda to use my research to bring about equity in an unequal world.” From a research perspective, it means you need to be explicit in your point of view and your biases and have much greater validity and reliability to show that your research is solid. My work is very passion driven so I’ve had to learn when it’s appropriate to pull out my soap box and go full-out social justice to them.
This is changing, but for a long time I kept my personality under wraps in a professional setting. It’s only now — with 10 years professional experience, great organizations on my resume, and a PhD — that I can be clever, confront those I disagree with, and even smile. Anyone who’s ever had a beer with me knows that I’m a goofball and will do just about anything to make someone laugh. I’m a science person, a theater person, a teacher, researcher, policy maker, consultant, and have seen a lot of exquisitely bad and good stuff in my life and so I am frequently the voice of an outsider even though I look and sound like a total insider. That can really freak people out especially if they’ve only read my bio or seen me in my most professional mode.
DXS: Have you found that your non-science expression of creativity/activity/etc. has in any way informed your understanding of science or how you may talk about it or present it to others?
MG: I approach teaching science from a fairly theatrical perspective. In my class we dance, sing, laugh, talk about the real world. I’ve never used the textbook, and I’m very insistent that everything be in the first person when writing or speaking about science. I much prefer teaching regular classes — not honors or AP — and can’t stand kids who remind me of myself in high school.
I approach scientists in the same way and try to make them comfortable admitting that their more than a brain on a stick. I’ve found one of the biggest fears of young scientists is that their PI will find out that they’re interested in something more than life in the lab so I always try to work within the existing power structure and make sure the PIs and Deans indicate to them that working with the (New York) Academy (of Sciences) is okay.
DXS: How comfortable are you expressing your femininity and in what ways? How does this expression influence people’s perception of you in, say, a scientifically oriented context?
MG: This question confounds the heck out of me. I am still such a tomboy and have always chosen to present myself as a somewhat genderless individual. I’ve always considered myself “smart not pretty” because I can control how smart I am but not how pretty. A few years ago, my sisters pulled me aside and told me I needed to stop dressing like such a slob. They started buying me pretty, fashionable clothes and insisting that I wear skirts above the knee and get a real hair cut.
Since I started working at the Academy, I have a very public facing role and have grown to accept that I should look nice. This goes along with slowly feeling comfortable letting my personality out in professional settings but I still consider myself a tomboy and consider my outward appearance to be a costume designed to do a job.
So I guess the answer is, femininity, what femininity?
DXS: Do you think that the combination of your non-science creativity and scientific-related activity shifts people’s perspectives or ideas about what a scientist or science communicator is? If you’re aware of such an influence, in what way, if any, do you use it to (for example) reach a different corner of your audience or present science in a different sort of way?
MG: I think very few people are brains on a stick but that being a scientist often requires us to pretend we have no life outside the lab. I’ve now worked with hundreds of young scientists who spend time working with kids and I’m so pleased to see how quickly they shift from lab geek to real person when talking with a 4th grader. I want scientists to be evangelicals for science, and I want that to include the fact that scientists are real, fallible, wacky, wonderful people too.
DXS: If you had something you could say to the younger you about the role of expression and creativity in your chosen career path, what would you say?
MG: I was always encouraged to be an individual and be myself. I credit my parents with allowing me to pursue my passion and not try to box me in to one identity. It’s never been easy to forge my own path, and I dedicate a lot of myself to my work.
My advice to my younger self would be to slow down a bit, know that you don’t have to get 100% on everything, and know that the problems of the world don’t have to be solved right now.
And perhaps to learn how to be a bit more like a girl. It’s incredibly powerful to see yourself as smart and pretty.
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Meghan Groome is the Director of K12 Education and Science & the City at the New York Academy of Sciences, an organization with the mission to advance scientific research and knowledge, support scientific literacy, and promote the resolution of society’s global challenges through science-based solutions. After graduating from Colorado College in Biology and Theatre, she desperately needed a job and took one as a substitute teacher at a middle school in Ridgewood, NJ. She discovered that she had a knack for making science interesting and enjoyable, mostly through bringing in gross things, lighting things on fire (but always in a safe manner), and having a large library of the world’s best science writing and science fiction. After teaching in both Ridgewood and Paterson, NJ, she completed her PhD at Teachers College (TC) Columbia University with a focus on student question-asking in the classroom. While at TC, she was a founding member of an international education consulting firm and worked on projects from Kenya to Jordan with a focus on designing new schools and school systems in the developing world.
Meghan Groome is the Director of K12 Education and Science & the City at the New York Academy of Sciences, an organization with the mission to advance scientific research and knowledge, support scientific literacy, and promote the resolution of society’s global challenges through science-based solutions. After graduating from Colorado College in Biology and Theatre, she desperately needed a job and took one as a substitute teacher at a middle school in Ridgewood, NJ. She discovered that she had a knack for making science interesting and enjoyable, mostly through bringing in gross things, lighting things on fire (but always in a safe manner), and having a large library of the world’s best science writing and science fiction. After teaching in both Ridgewood and Paterson, NJ, she completed her PhD at Teachers College (TC) Columbia University with a focus on student question-asking in the classroom. While at TC, she was a founding member of an international education consulting firm and worked on projects from Kenya to Jordan with a focus on designing new schools and school systems in the developing world.
After graduating, Dr. Groome became a Senior Policy Analyst at the National Governors Association on Governor Janet Napolitano’s Innovation America Initiative. Prior to her work at the Academy, Dr. Groome worked at the American Museum of Natural History and authored the policy roadmap for the Empire State STEM Education Network and taught urban biodiversity in the Education Department. At the Academy, she is responsible for the Afterschool STEM Mentoring program, which places graduate students and postdocs in the City’s afterschool programs, and the Science Teacher program, where she designs field trips and content talks to the City’s STEM teachers. Connect with her on , and read her NYAS blog!