Speaker 1: I'm t T and I'm Zakiah, and this is Dope Labs.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore
Speaker 1: science with pop culture and a healthy dose of friendship.
Speaker 1: Me and as a Kia met back in what was
Speaker 1: that twenty e ten.
Speaker 2: To go about the outfits we were wearing, well, I
Speaker 2: was wearing dressed like business with bright pink lipstick.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of eyeshadow on from my eyebrow
Speaker 1: to my lash line, so it had to have been
Speaker 1: the twenty tens.
Speaker 2: I think you had.
Speaker 1: Great bangs, Thank you friend. The rest of it was
Speaker 1: not right. It was just fine. When I think about
Speaker 1: like us being in grad school and having a good time,
Speaker 1: but also being like, hey, we need to have some balance,
Speaker 1: you know, pushing each other said and remember I would
Speaker 1: set those crazy deadlines, and I was like, I have
Speaker 1: to sprint to get this done in the next three weeks.
Speaker 1: I'm going to get this many mutants into the chromosome.
Speaker 2: I was moving there. I was trying to do a
Speaker 2: lot of recombineering, doing a lot of genetic manipulation to
Speaker 2: your bacteria.
Speaker 1: These are a lot of words exactly how you're feeling
Speaker 1: right now. That exactly how I felt when she was
Speaker 1: explained it to me. Yes, girl, my friend is very,
Speaker 1: very smart. But if somebody would have told me, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, you and Zakia are going to have a
Speaker 1: podcast together in a few years, I would have believed them, honestly,
Speaker 1: because we we had been saying it. We had been
Speaker 1: since true, Like there is evidence on the Internet of
Speaker 1: where we were like, oh, we should do.
Speaker 2: A podcast together, we should do a podcast together.
Speaker 1: But you know, lots of people at that time were
Speaker 1: saying they wanted to do a podcast. We just actually
Speaker 1: did it, which is wild.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: And I think what makes it so wild is just
Speaker 1: how rewarding. It's been challenging and reporting, and I think
Speaker 1: that makes the reward so much sweeter. You know.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate everybody that has been riding with us.
Speaker 2: I can remember February fourteenth, twenty nineteen, our first episode
Speaker 2: and people were responding and finding us on social media
Speaker 2: and saying they liked the episode. Great price memory. Emory,
Speaker 2: I go.
Speaker 1: By everybody's Instagram name. Yes, everybody, Yes, I know you
Speaker 1: by your handle exactly. The Emory is my cousin in
Speaker 1: my head. Honestly. The key key sessions we have in
Speaker 1: DMS is just it's top tier.
Speaker 2: Kiki, well, we actually got to meet her in person.
Speaker 1: Oh Kiki, my ye, Yes, we did meet her in person.
Speaker 1: And it's crazy because when you say Kiky, I was
Speaker 1: like our friend Kiki, it's hard to remember that we
Speaker 1: did not know these people before the show, right, Cat Purcell,
Speaker 1: Cat Percell absolutely absolutely running to our episodes on her
Speaker 1: daily runs. Yeah, but even the new folks, the new
Speaker 1: folks that have been showing up and saying, hey, I
Speaker 1: just found your podcast, we really appreciate y'all as well,
Speaker 1: and so welcome, come on, get in here with us.
Speaker 1: We're gonna snuggle up real tight and close. But in
Speaker 1: this week's lab, we're gonna be talking about what we
Speaker 1: do here at DOPE last with just science communication, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking to some of our favorite science communicators.
Speaker 1: We have Raven the Science Maven, doctor Raven Baxter. She's
Speaker 1: a molecular biologist and a science educator. We also have
Speaker 1: Lindsay Edo who is a PhD student in neuroscience at
Speaker 1: the University of Pennsylvania researching pain. And then we have
Speaker 1: doctor Andre Isaacs, who is a chemistry professor at College
Speaker 1: of the Holy Cross, and if you are on TikTok
Speaker 1: you've seen doctor Isaacs.
Speaker 2: You've seen them, you absolutely have. He is one of
Speaker 2: my faves. I can't wait to share these folks stories
Speaker 2: because you know, I think people come to science and
Speaker 2: stem broadly through many different avenues, right.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I love t t when you share the story of
Speaker 1: your grandfather being an engineer. That was the first time
Speaker 1: I'd ever heard of engineering was when my I'd asked
Speaker 1: my mother, you know what my grandparents did, and she
Speaker 1: talked about my grandfather and said that he was an engineer.
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, then I shall be an engineer.
Speaker 2: Crowned yourself. That's right, yourself, that's right.
Speaker 1: I was like, let me tell you, Frederick Akufu, you
Speaker 1: did that. You did that, And so he blazed the
Speaker 1: trail and I just walked behind him.
Speaker 2: Very grateful.
Speaker 1: I love your stories about how you got involved in
Speaker 1: step because it's all over the place.
Speaker 2: He started it. You started wanting to be a nurse
Speaker 2: and then realized, yes, hey girl, you don't have the
Speaker 2: stomach for that. Okay, you don't. You said it was
Speaker 2: passing out. I was like, oh no, baby, I don't
Speaker 2: think I'm in the wrong place, and I went all
Speaker 2: the way to being a certified nursing assistant. I was
Speaker 2: a CNA, and so then I was like, I can't
Speaker 2: go to school for this. I switched to be in
Speaker 2: a biology major. But even before that program, summer exposure
Speaker 2: programs at North Carolina A and T. That was really
Speaker 2: my route into science broadly. That's why I was even
Speaker 2: in the nursing area. There was a woman, her name
Speaker 2: was Miss Manley. She ran a Saturday program that was
Speaker 2: called GAMSEK at North Carolina A and T. It was
Speaker 2: a Greensboro area math and science enrichment camp. And I
Speaker 2: went on Saturdays, but my mom was going back to school.
Speaker 2: I would go to that. We were doing SAT pre SAT,
Speaker 2: we were doing programs, We're doing stuff I wasn't even
Speaker 2: learning yet. And I was getting such exposure to so
Speaker 2: many different things. And in high school I went on
Speaker 2: and did I was doing civil engineering over at A
Speaker 2: and T, which is wild because you're the engineer exactly.
Speaker 1: I didn't know my friend was an engineer too, but
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised. She's very, very smart. She could do anything.
Speaker 1: But you know, what your story reminds me of is
Speaker 1: what doctor Isaac's andre. What he was saying was his
Speaker 1: first introduction into stem was also a similar experience where
Speaker 1: he got involved because someone else was teaching him chemistry
Speaker 1: and it happened to be his uncle.
Speaker 4: It started for me in high school.
Speaker 3: I will be the first to say I wanted to
Speaker 3: love chemistry so bad, but chemistry didn't love me. When
Speaker 3: I was in high school, I really struggled with specifically stoycheometry.
Speaker 1: And I.
Speaker 3: Know, I know, I'm like balancing equations, that's easy, but
Speaker 3: I really struggled, you know, as a high schooler. And
Speaker 3: it was my uncle, who back when I lived in Jamaica,
Speaker 3: by the way, I grew up in Kingston, Jamaica, who
Speaker 3: had this evening school that he taught adults who were
Speaker 3: going back to school for to get like high school degrees.
Speaker 3: So he said, come to my evening school. I'll help
Speaker 3: you with whatever you need. So I went and an
Speaker 3: hour later I was a master at stoycheometry. So I think, really,
Speaker 3: for me, what that showed there's no subject is impossible.
Speaker 4: You just need to write instruction or instructor.
Speaker 3: And someone who can explain it in a way that's
Speaker 3: accessible to you. And in that moment, I recognized that
Speaker 3: I could conquer.
Speaker 4: Anything, even chemistry, and so I really just took to it.
Speaker 3: Went to college, started doing research, was killing all my classes.
Speaker 4: My professors are like, dude, you need to do a PhD.
Speaker 4: Are too good at this, and I just kept going.
Speaker 3: And I think a lot of it really came back to,
Speaker 3: you know, that initial experience of seeing a hurdle that
Speaker 3: I didn't think I could cross and having someone just
Speaker 3: break it down for me in ways that were accessible
Speaker 3: to me, and then I was able to do it.
Speaker 3: And so for me, that's definitely key to my own pedagogy.
Speaker 3: When I see a student who was struggling, I'm like,
Speaker 3: I just need to find a way to make that
Speaker 3: student understand this sort of make it connect in a
Speaker 3: way that works for them. And I think that's one
Speaker 3: of the things many of us as educators need to
Speaker 3: really think about.
Speaker 2: I think this was one of the guiding principles for
Speaker 2: me when I was teaching. I was like, how can
Speaker 2: I make this connectment how you're already thinking, what you're
Speaker 2: already thinking about.
Speaker 1: When my friend was a professor, Okay, y'all didn't know
Speaker 1: the key when she was in her professor era, she
Speaker 1: was that girl. Okay, when I tell you I went
Speaker 1: to one of her classes, I'm not.
Speaker 2: Good at biology. You already know that.
Speaker 1: Okay, my friend holds my hand through every biology episode.
Speaker 1: I came out of that class like I think I
Speaker 1: might be able to be a geneticist. She makes it
Speaker 1: so accessible, she roots it and stuff that you're already
Speaker 1: thinking about talking about singing.
Speaker 2: And it was just so so good.
Speaker 1: And so you were teaching biology to non non majors,
Speaker 1: and so these are folks who don't have the background
Speaker 1: and they're trying to get their credits. But let me
Speaker 1: tell you something, those students are forever changed.
Speaker 2: I think that's one of the things I really loved.
Speaker 2: I saw a lot of non majors switch to be
Speaker 2: a major. Some of them ended up in my research lab.
Speaker 2: One of them is a science teacher right now, Kelly
Speaker 2: oh DiGeronimo. But it's so cool to see, you know
Speaker 2: how these kind of experiences. I had those experiences in
Speaker 2: my life. I had a biology teacher. I used to
Speaker 2: you know, I went into biology because I had a
Speaker 2: biology teacher that was like flowing what you know, and
Speaker 2: I said, this is hard, I'll do this. And I
Speaker 2: was like I don't know anything. I don't have anything
Speaker 2: to flow into.
Speaker 1: Hey, come on, I mean it's crazy how one minute
Speaker 1: you're just living your life and then you get an
Speaker 1: idea and that idea turns into something bigger that you
Speaker 1: probably could.
Speaker 2: Have never imagined.
Speaker 1: And Lindsey, Raven, and Andre had similar experiences to us,
Speaker 1: where it's like, how do we get here? We are
Speaker 1: doing this podcast, doing something that we really love. Raven,
Speaker 1: who you're gonna hear from first, she's a little bit
Speaker 1: of an og and so she uses music as a
Speaker 1: means to connect with folks.
Speaker 2: I remember first discovering Raven.
Speaker 1: Hey, it was a lot of feelings, a lot of fun.
Speaker 5: As far as I go.
Speaker 6: You know, music historically has and a means to share
Speaker 6: messages and at the same time, music is a language
Speaker 6: that unites us all and when it comes to blending
Speaker 6: science and music, it really was a no brainer for me.
Speaker 6: And so my first music video was called Big Old Geeks,
Speaker 6: and it is a rap video that like displays norms
Speaker 6: that you see in hip hop culture, you know, especially
Speaker 6: like contemporary hip hop culture. We're looking at fast cars,
Speaker 6: hot ladies, and bars, and that's what I was giving.
Speaker 6: And so it featured me. I was like the main character,
Speaker 6: but I also cast in my friends as dancers and
Speaker 6: just actresses in the background, and they were all black
Speaker 6: women of various shape, sizes, and colors. And the lyrics
Speaker 6: I was delivering were very technical, some big old geeks,
Speaker 6: but the tennis place was on my ytic sciences talking.
Speaker 5: I kind of like I'm doing both. I'm Biana nothing
Speaker 5: you buck periodic. I can like an enzigme and we're
Speaker 5: cutting it up. Proteens in the job and we're running.
Speaker 6: Them up the message like, the science is still the
Speaker 6: same no matter what I look like or act like.
Speaker 6: That video was the first video I put out, and
Speaker 6: I kind of took a chance. You know, as a
Speaker 6: black woman in science, you don't really get a lot
Speaker 6: of liberty right as far as self expression goes, and
Speaker 6: so I really took a gamble.
Speaker 5: I'm just like, I know in my.
Speaker 6: Heart that there are other people that need to see this,
Speaker 6: and so I'm just going to put this out there.
Speaker 6: And that's where my journey started. And I did release
Speaker 6: other music and music videos after that, but that's.
Speaker 5: Where it all began.
Speaker 1: Lindsey and Andre they both use their downtime during the
Speaker 1: pandemic to start creating science communication on their social media.
Speaker 5: It's funny.
Speaker 7: I started on TikTok twenty twenty one.
Speaker 8: And I don't know, it was just one of those
Speaker 8: like during the COVID, developing a technok things, you.
Speaker 5: Know, I had to do a lot of people.
Speaker 8: So I started watching all these data life videos and
Speaker 8: I figured, oh, let me try one, because I figured
Speaker 8: not many people know what the day in life of like.
Speaker 7: A neuroscientist is, or even a PhD student.
Speaker 8: So I tried one out and then it randomly got
Speaker 8: a lot of traction.
Speaker 7: So I was just like, oh, okay, I'll keep it going.
Speaker 8: And then over time people would ask questions about my
Speaker 8: science and my experiments, and that led me to like,
Speaker 8: you know, respond to.
Speaker 7: Them, think of other things to talk about.
Speaker 8: And eventually building this pretty big picon platform.
Speaker 3: Like many of us, the pandemic changed a lot of things.
Speaker 3: And I'll be honest, I had Instagram.
Speaker 4: I didn't have TikTok at an Instagram. I had a Twitter.
Speaker 3: I probably had a combined eleven hundred followers on all plastics.
Speaker 4: I just didn't really.
Speaker 3: Pulse like that, right, But the pandemic came and you know,
Speaker 3: the college was like, hey, faculty, you have a week
Speaker 3: to transition your courses to line learning. Go use this
Speaker 3: thing called zoom. We've never heard of it, but we
Speaker 3: hear it's good. So there I am a zoom and
Speaker 3: I went extroverts. So, you know, once you were teaching online,
Speaker 3: I got extremely bored and you know, I needed to
Speaker 3: get out. I needed to socialize. You know, my friends
Speaker 3: are sending me videos and they're like, oh, here's this video.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I don't have this app called TikTok. What
Speaker 3: am I supposed to do with this? And so I
Speaker 3: downloaded it and let me tell you, the rabbit hole
Speaker 3: was there. But what was really awesome for me was
Speaker 3: as a kid growing up in Jamaica, we have an
Speaker 3: affinity for dancing, right, and you all might be familiar
Speaker 3: with how it comes about. You know, some DJ creates
Speaker 3: a riddim and then the artists sing a song on it,
Speaker 3: and then someone creates a dance and pretty soon everyone
Speaker 3: in the island is doing the Willy Bones soor or whatever.
Speaker 3: And so for me, you know, you go to a
Speaker 3: party in Jamaica as a kid, everyone knew the dance
Speaker 3: moves and then I go on TikTok.
Speaker 4: And it's the same thing.
Speaker 6: Yes.
Speaker 3: So I was like immediately drawn back to my past
Speaker 3: as a kid growing up in jam and seeing the
Speaker 3: community that's built her own dance, shared experience of dance
Speaker 3: and the knowledge of the moves and all that stuff,
Speaker 3: and so.
Speaker 4: I was drawn into it.
Speaker 3: So I started making videos at home by myself, learning
Speaker 3: choreography to the Renegade.
Speaker 4: That one was hard. I didn't finish that one. And
Speaker 4: you know, one of.
Speaker 3: My students saw a video I posted on our for
Speaker 3: you page, and when we went back to campus, when
Speaker 3: we were allowed to go back to campus in person,
Speaker 3: she's like, Hey, we need to collaborate.
Speaker 4: You can dance. I didn't know you could dance. I'm like,
Speaker 4: I didn't know you could dance.
Speaker 3: And what that created was really this community of scientists
Speaker 3: who have interests outside of science, including dance, music, theater.
Speaker 3: And we built a little community in the lab and
Speaker 3: in my classes in the chemistry department, you know, where
Speaker 3: we all like learned dances and choreography and showed that
Speaker 3: as a scientist you can be multi facetating.
Speaker 4: You didn't have to just be the stereotypical.
Speaker 3: Hey, I'm in a basement in a white lab quote
Speaker 3: with no personality, no emotion, no skills.
Speaker 2: You know, dancing and science is not my ministry. It
Speaker 2: is also not mine.
Speaker 1: Okay, y'all don't need to see that, but doctor Isaac's
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, if you don't follow him on TikTok,
Speaker 1: get to it. You gotta get to it because he's
Speaker 1: got the moves, he's.
Speaker 2: Funny, smart, it's perfect. We me and my friends. You know,
Speaker 2: we are more of calckulers and science. That's true. That's true.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 1: And showing up as ourselves has been really really important
Speaker 1: to us. I don't know if we've told this story
Speaker 1: on the show, but Zaki, tell these folks about what
Speaker 1: happened after our first episode. We got a lot of love,
Speaker 1: but we did get a lot of a lot of love,
Speaker 1: but we got a little bit of hate.
Speaker 2: I know people say just ignore those things, but I
Speaker 2: also think those things are indicator when you get hate.
Speaker 2: That kind of hate is an indicator of where people
Speaker 2: have closed minds or where change needs to happen. When
Speaker 2: we first started Dope Labs, people like you said, I
Speaker 2: showed us a lot of love, but we diget an
Speaker 2: email and I will never forget this. The guy was like,
Speaker 2: you're using language like this, You're not sounding professional. Does
Speaker 2: it makes you less credible when you talk like this?
Speaker 2: I said, baby, this country grammar. You're gonna get it God,
Speaker 2: turning to Nelly. Yes, I'm going now, damn Dawn, baby Okay,
Speaker 2: I turned to Nelly in here all right? And so
Speaker 2: I think you know that also challenges what people think
Speaker 2: a scientist sounds like. And so showing up like this
Speaker 2: tells you exactly, But I am a scientist. So this
Speaker 2: is now what a scientist sounds like. I remember when
Speaker 2: you graduated. I'm not gonna point any fingers and name
Speaker 2: any names, but somebody said, a scientist doesn't dress like this.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, I always got a lot of well you,
Speaker 1: and I say a lot people have commented on the
Speaker 1: way that I dress and the way that I you know,
Speaker 1: the way that I do things for what feels like forever,
Speaker 1: because they just don't feel like it falls in line
Speaker 1: with what they feel like someone who's accomplished in this
Speaker 1: field looks like.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, here, I am right here, I
Speaker 2: am existing outside of what you imaginally look at that
Speaker 2: open your mind, open your mind.
Speaker 1: It really isn't that much of a stretch. It's just closed,
Speaker 1: it's just makeup, it's just hair like.
Speaker 2: These are just the accessories. But the brain is where
Speaker 2: it's at. No, that's that's the gym. Okay.
Speaker 1: Well, we hear similar stories from Raven and Andre too
Speaker 1: about how they had some negative reactions to them before
Speaker 1: they even started their science communication and during I.
Speaker 6: Had an incident at one of my former places of
Speaker 6: employment where I had a coworker tell me that she
Speaker 6: didn't believe that I worked there, and it was my
Speaker 6: first day and she threatened to call the police on
Speaker 6: me because I was in the faculty mail room.
Speaker 5: And I left that.
Speaker 6: Incident really feeling just charged with this mission to disrupt
Speaker 6: the notion of what a scientist looks like, and I
Speaker 6: wanted to do it in such an extreme way that
Speaker 6: just made the message very clear.
Speaker 4: I do get some pushback, you know.
Speaker 3: There are some folks who think that what I'm doing
Speaker 3: is not productive, and what they measure success on right,
Speaker 3: is really the number of publications you have instead of
Speaker 3: really the number of folks that you've brought into the field.
Speaker 3: And so for me, I don't mind the negative criticism,
Speaker 3: you know, because what I know for a fact that
Speaker 3: the work that I do has had a positive impact
Speaker 3: on young folks who emailed me.
Speaker 4: I've get like hundreds of emails.
Speaker 3: From high school kids, college kids, even professors were like,
Speaker 3: I didn't think a Korean commisary was for me until
Speaker 3: I saw your videos. So those are the people who
Speaker 3: I'm dotting for, and so the hitters can hit. I'm
Speaker 3: trying to bring new folks into the game.
Speaker 1: And with all of this, you know, with all of this, well,
Speaker 1: let me not say all of this, because honestly, we're
Speaker 1: all getting a lot of really positive feedback. But with
Speaker 1: the negative feedback, you know that those kind of thing.
Speaker 1: But we still continue to turn our microphones on because
Speaker 1: this space needs us, It needs more voices.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, we have such a long way to go. Where
Speaker 5: are my colleagues?
Speaker 6: You and I are both degreed scientists, experts. There are
Speaker 6: so many of us out there, but yet so many
Speaker 6: of us don't have platforms to stand on to demonstrate
Speaker 6: that expertise, to bring people into scientific conversations in a
Speaker 6: constructive way.
Speaker 5: And it's just annoying that.
Speaker 6: That Bill Kny, the science guy, is still the archetype
Speaker 6: of science communication in twenty twenty five. There are just
Speaker 6: so many opportunities for not only like current scientists, but
Speaker 6: aspiring science communicators to fill in that space.
Speaker 5: And carry us forward. So where are we right now?
Speaker 6: People are panicking, I think, especially now with the government,
Speaker 6: you know, US government administrations cuts to science and clear
Speaker 6: actions against the scientific community at large. We're really facing
Speaker 6: a text on science and people are panicking because they
Speaker 6: didn't I don't think that many of us could gauge
Speaker 6: how severe this would be, and now everyone's trying to
Speaker 6: scream into the void on no platform.
Speaker 5: So it is just like, oh.
Speaker 6: My gosh, we have a lot of work to do.
Speaker 6: But I'm optimistic, but it's just a daunting It's very daunting.
Speaker 8: I think that it seems like science feels so far
Speaker 8: away from so many people right now, especially when it
Speaker 8: comes to the cutting edge work that's being done, the
Speaker 8: new data that's coming out as we speak and continues
Speaker 8: to come out, and what the actual process going through
Speaker 8: a research project to get that data really is and
Speaker 8: the fact that this is so opaque definitely does not
Speaker 8: help the growing mistrust in scientists and the divestment from science.
Speaker 8: And it's so frustrating. But I think a lot of
Speaker 8: scientists just feel that frustration and just say, oh, this sucks,
Speaker 8: let's get back to work. But what if we instead said, Okay,
Speaker 8: how about we meet people where they are, share with
Speaker 8: them what we're doing and what strides we're making. It's
Speaker 8: easy to think that science is a waste of money
Speaker 8: when you don't know what's coming out of it.
Speaker 7: Right, it's not right in your face outside of like.
Speaker 8: Pharma, big pharma commercials exactly exactly. So, I think social
Speaker 8: media has its flaws, for sure, but it's a really
Speaker 8: effective way to show up in the spaces that unbiased,
Speaker 8: balanced science usually doesn't reach and spread that message.
Speaker 3: I think the way it falls short is in how
Speaker 3: it's communicated and the methods through which the information is related.
Speaker 3: So there's not a lot of us. I mentioned there's
Speaker 3: not a lot of culture in the way we communicate science,
Speaker 3: and that's because science is being communicated the way was
Speaker 3: communicated in the nineteen forties.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: I often say, if you look at any textbook, all
Speaker 3: the examples are like a baseball reference.
Speaker 4: Right. We've been throwing.
Speaker 3: Baseballs as a way to calculate wavelengths for the past
Speaker 3: eighty years, right, since the heyday of baseball. I'm like,
Speaker 3: we need to be able to throw something else. What
Speaker 3: are the kids nowadays culturally thrown? Throw a chankla throw,
Speaker 3: you know, throw something else, right, and let's let's bring
Speaker 3: some culture. So I think one of the ways we're
Speaker 3: falling short is people aren't seeing themselves. Their lived experiences
Speaker 3: are not reflected in the way science is communicated to them.
Speaker 3: And so I think something we need to really do
Speaker 3: is start teaching.
Speaker 4: In a more modern way.
Speaker 3: Are more modern examples that really bridge young folks who
Speaker 3: lived experiences with science, And if we can do that,
Speaker 3: I think we'll have better outcomes for folks.
Speaker 2: The KEYA.
Speaker 1: So when you think of science communication on the grand scheme,
Speaker 1: where do you feel like there's still some gaps? Like
Speaker 1: where do you feel like science communication is lacking?
Speaker 2: I think science communication is lacking in the it's too uptight.
Speaker 2: It still has a suit. I think, like, you know,
Speaker 2: it used to have on a three piece suit and
Speaker 2: a cumber bunch and now it just has on a
Speaker 2: regular suit, and I'm like, you need to put on
Speaker 2: basketball shorts and a tank top. I think some of
Speaker 2: my favorite science communicators are here in this episode. Some
Speaker 2: others are not and I'm going to share them, you know,
Speaker 2: in our social media, I'll spotlight some of the people
Speaker 2: I really like as well that are doing great work.
Speaker 2: But I think we forget just how many combos of
Speaker 2: identities there are and where people might find an inroad,
Speaker 2: do you know what I mean? Like, you don't have
Speaker 2: to make science your entire personality to enjoy it, to
Speaker 2: be a lover of science, to be a supporter of it, right,
Speaker 2: And I think so often science communication has been shoved
Speaker 2: into this like upright position and that's like, okay, now
Speaker 2: we must say this fact and this thing. And what
Speaker 2: the evidence shows us is that that's not the only
Speaker 2: road in. It's not a deficit model. It's not that
Speaker 2: people don't have enough information. Is that we're not bringing
Speaker 2: them enough narrative and connection points to make it feel
Speaker 2: relevant to their lives, to make it feel to even
Speaker 2: you know, hide the what do you call it, hide
Speaker 2: the medicine and the apple sauce, or to hide it
Speaker 2: in the candy or whatever. We don't do that enough
Speaker 2: with science communication, Like it should be fun. Sometimes people
Speaker 2: say to me like, oh, I listen to an episode,
Speaker 2: y'all just laughing. Yeah, we're laughing. You think, right, you
Speaker 2: don't want me to get a a haha, I think
Speaker 2: my facts like that's right to me, crazy, And so
Speaker 2: I do think that's a place where we're missing some
Speaker 2: things in science communication. What do you think we need
Speaker 2: more of? I think the same.
Speaker 1: I think we need just more folks being given an
Speaker 1: opportunity to talk. I think that we, for such a
Speaker 1: long time, have only listened to certain scientists that look
Speaker 1: and sound and fit this mold. And so it's just
Speaker 1: like when folks are looking for a scientists, they are
Speaker 1: looking for this very cookie cutter look and feel, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, but there's so many smart dope people out
Speaker 1: there that are doing such amazing work, and y'all are
Speaker 1: missing out on that amazing work just because they don't
Speaker 1: fit into your cookie cutter mold. Like they are people
Speaker 1: that are a part of the LGBTQ plus community. They
Speaker 1: are people that are differently abled, people who are coming from.
Speaker 2: All walks of life.
Speaker 1: There are deaf scientists, there are blind scientists, and we're
Speaker 1: missing out on those experiences because we're like, no, I
Speaker 1: want to see someone that looks like that guy that
Speaker 1: has been talking for the last thirty years.
Speaker 2: No shade but a little bit I heard it. We
Speaker 2: asked Raven, Andre and lindsay what they thought was missing
Speaker 2: from science communication.
Speaker 6: A healthy science communication ecosystem involves teaching science communication at
Speaker 6: the K twol level for sure, not only science communication
Speaker 6: but also science literacy, but focusing in on science communication,
Speaker 6: teaching these kids, Okay, well you learn science and you
Speaker 6: may not be able to become a science and tist
Speaker 6: right now, but you can talk about the things that
Speaker 6: you learned. And we have so many kids who want
Speaker 6: to become YouTubers, twitch streamers, all of that make money
Speaker 6: on social media, which is amazing.
Speaker 5: That could be a very great career.
Speaker 6: But science communication is a proven avenue to pursue that,
Speaker 6: so why not integrate that into a K twelve curriculum?
Speaker 6: And then, of course, as an educator, I'm always thinking
Speaker 6: education in front of mine. That needs to carry over
Speaker 6: into colleges and universities. We need science communication majors. We
Speaker 6: need like formal degree programs around building a science communication career,
Speaker 6: whether it's written art, fine arts, or like actual communications
Speaker 6: journal you know, like formal science writing, technical science writing,
Speaker 6: creative science writing, like science illustrating.
Speaker 5: It's an ecosystem. And then going out from that.
Speaker 6: We do now have professional science communication organizations, which is great,
Speaker 6: but I think that that ecosystem could be much more robust.
Speaker 5: I think that we can build out that.
Speaker 6: Network a lot more, and I think that's what it
Speaker 6: would look like. Probably the offshoots of this ecosystem would
Speaker 6: look like we have more presence virtually, we have more
Speaker 6: in person opportunities for science communicators. Also, all the currently
Speaker 6: established professional science professional organizations should have a strong science
Speaker 6: communication arm to their initiatives.
Speaker 3: I think one of the things I really hope to
Speaker 3: do is to really change the picture of a scientist.
Speaker 3: I think if you look at the data, we haven't
Speaker 3: increased the participation rates of people of color and folks
Speaker 3: with minoritized identities. And that's because science doesn't have a
Speaker 3: culture that's inviting to those folks, right. And so for me,
Speaker 3: I want to change a picture of a scientist. And
Speaker 3: if you want to engage on participation among folks in minoritized.
Speaker 4: Identities, we have to do things differently.
Speaker 3: We have to do it in a way that invites
Speaker 3: people in, right, So we have to make sure the
Speaker 3: culture of our academic spaces or labs or classrooms are
Speaker 3: inviting and one that ones that like allow folks to
Speaker 3: be their full cells. And so what I'm trying to
Speaker 3: do is really to say, hey, here's a different way
Speaker 3: of existing in the lab space that both student and faculty,
Speaker 3: and here's how you can bring your full authentic self
Speaker 3: to the lab and to the classroom.
Speaker 4: And there's data.
Speaker 3: Scientists believe in data, there's data to backness up. I
Speaker 3: love this beautiful references paper all the time in the
Speaker 3: Journal of Flavor Economics that really talked about the statistics
Speaker 3: around papers that are published by diverse co authors.
Speaker 4: So if you look at the citation.
Speaker 3: Numbers, right, papers that have a more diverse co authorship
Speaker 3: have more citations than those that are ethnically homogenous. And
Speaker 3: so diversity is important. But if we're not inviting people
Speaker 3: in who with different perspectives, who might need a different
Speaker 3: way of learning and understanding science, then we're not doing
Speaker 3: our collective selves any benefits. So so I'm trying my
Speaker 3: best to get folks into science any way I can.
Speaker 2: No matter what your background is, you can be involved
Speaker 2: in science communication. We need lots of perspectives, like we
Speaker 2: were just talking about, and so.
Speaker 1: You might be thinking, well, you know, what should I do.
Speaker 1: What are some of the steps I should take? What
Speaker 1: are some things that I should be thinking about if
Speaker 1: I do want to dip my toe into science communication.
Speaker 1: Lindsey and Andre gave us some advice.
Speaker 8: I would say, well, I would say just do it,
Speaker 8: but it's not that easy, right, I would say, like, really,
Speaker 8: brainthorn for yourself, what aspects of the research you're doing
Speaker 8: are most exciting? What things do you think are most relevant?
Speaker 8: And what would you want the public to know If
Speaker 8: you could make sure everybody in the world knew one
Speaker 8: part of your research, what would that be? Pick that
Speaker 8: topic and workshop how you talk about that? If you
Speaker 8: want to do it Instagram in three minutes max, right,
Speaker 8: And then this is the party is important. Draft it
Speaker 8: and then share it with a non scientist because we
Speaker 8: spend so little time training in how to communicate it
Speaker 8: on scientists. This is important because you can share with
Speaker 8: a friend, the family member, ask them like, what are
Speaker 8: you getting out of this? Are you getting enough from it?
Speaker 8: Or what do you think I should change that this
Speaker 8: can be accessible to you.
Speaker 2: Right right?
Speaker 3: You know, scientists can have talents too, you know, as
Speaker 3: a matter of fact, I read a paper recently that
Speaker 3: said some of the most successful scientists are ones that
Speaker 3: have artistic skills. And if you look at a number
Speaker 3: of scientists who have Nobel prizes, they disproportionately have more
Speaker 3: artistic skills than the average scientists. So yeah, if you
Speaker 3: want to do great science, they got to learn some choreography,
Speaker 3: play some music or something. So that's kind of how
Speaker 3: it started, and it blossomed from there. We just get
Speaker 3: more and more students. Majors are like.
Speaker 4: Listen, we want to dance too. We got dance mods.
Speaker 3: And was a really powerful way to connect with students,
Speaker 3: but also a way to flip the script, Like I've
Speaker 3: always been the one teaching them things, they were the
Speaker 3: ones teaching me. Moved so the teacher became the student
Speaker 3: and the student became the teacher, and I think what
Speaker 3: that made for was really better relationships across the board
Speaker 3: for all of us.
Speaker 2: I think what we're hearing from our friends here and
Speaker 2: what we know from our own lived experience, is that
Speaker 2: scientists want to be seen as multi dimensional. We want
Speaker 2: to be able to have some depth.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah, because I mean, who would we be without
Speaker 1: our many layers, right, We didn't just pop up out
Speaker 1: of nowhere, and we're like here I am as a scientist.
Speaker 1: Like we lived, honey, We have lived, and we have
Speaker 1: a lot of life experiences that we bring to the table,
Speaker 1: which makes us stronger scientists and it helps with our
Speaker 1: science communication because you know, I know how to communicate
Speaker 1: to folks from lots of walks of life. And it's
Speaker 1: not because oh I'm from that walk of life. Part
Speaker 1: of it is, you know, But then the other part
Speaker 1: is that I've lived, I've traveled, We've traveled, we've traveled together,
Speaker 1: We've talked to strangers. We've done a lot of things,
Speaker 1: and so I love to talk to stranger. My friend
Speaker 1: doesn't know a stranger. Okay, sometimes I'm like, hey, danger, danger, danger,
Speaker 1: stranger danger.
Speaker 2: She don't believe in it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean having all of these layers, like
Speaker 1: my friend, she's a wonderful artist, she's a beautiful piano player.
Speaker 1: She does all of these amazing things that you know,
Speaker 1: you stop it, that make her who she is. And
Speaker 1: I mean she wouldn't have been able to be the professor.
Speaker 1: She is, the friend, she is the scientist, she is
Speaker 1: the daughter that she is without all these experiences.
Speaker 2: When I think about what we try to do with dope, labs.
Speaker 2: I think there are people that gravitate to you, and
Speaker 2: I think that's just an example. This wouldn't be the
Speaker 2: same if it was just a Zakiah show or if
Speaker 2: it was just a T.
Speaker 4: T show.
Speaker 2: And I think what we see is that we reach
Speaker 2: different audiences and our friendship together is a thing to
Speaker 2: showcase because I also think so much of science gets painted,
Speaker 2: especially in the media, it's like a one person operation,
Speaker 2: one person in charge.
Speaker 1: That's not how it works. I mean, it's just so wild.
Speaker 1: People are like, oh, this is such and such scientist.
Speaker 1: I'm like, do you know the team that is behind
Speaker 1: you know, there are thirty people on that group, right
Speaker 1: down to undergrads lab tech. Yes, Like you have no
Speaker 1: idea people win in like Nobel Prizes and things like that.
Speaker 1: They are coming from massive labs with a lot of
Speaker 1: people doing a lot of work. And I think that
Speaker 1: also just highlights something we've talked about a couple of
Speaker 1: episodes ago about the entire enterprise of science, what it
Speaker 1: takes to do this kind of research, what it takes
Speaker 1: to keep driving this kind of innovation, and the money
Speaker 1: it takes, you know, to do that. Because if the
Speaker 1: lab tech is invisible to you, and the postdoc and
Speaker 1: the grad student and the senior scientists and the supporting
Speaker 1: the people washing the glass, where if everybody is invisible
Speaker 1: to you, then you think that those people don't need
Speaker 1: to be paid and that these things just happen magically,
Speaker 1: and they don't. And I think part of science communication
Speaker 1: for some people that are peeling the layers back and saying, hey,
Speaker 1: this is what the scientific enterprise looks like. Part of
Speaker 1: it is showing those parts that get hidden right. Part
Speaker 1: of it is showing the process, like we did in
Speaker 1: the episode weeks ago with Roberto Bowley who talked about
Speaker 1: the EBAR system where he was leaning on research from
Speaker 1: the eighties to help him prepare for an aging population
Speaker 1: right now, to help people understand that basic research has
Speaker 1: always been key to us advancing and moving forward. All
Speaker 1: of that's necessary for people that are in science communication
Speaker 1: to share with the world. I think the fun science
Speaker 1: communication is like look at this bird or this new species.
Speaker 2: You know, like that's fun. But that's not all it is, too,
Speaker 2: like everything that's going on, you know.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, let my friend cook I just shut.
Speaker 2: My mouth, you know.
Speaker 1: And all of that makes me think about when the
Speaker 1: pandemic first hit, and we were dying for good science
Speaker 1: communication because there was a lot of misinformation on a
Speaker 1: lot of people confused about what was going on, absolutely
Speaker 1: what this is, what this virus is, how it gets
Speaker 1: passed from person to person, how long it lives on
Speaker 1: a surface. And then when the vaccine came out, the
Speaker 1: vaccine mistrust, we were hungry, hungry, hungry for good science communication,
Speaker 1: and we hoped to add positive science communication to the
Speaker 1: ecosystem because it was such a tough time and people
Speaker 1: were reading headlines and not reading the articles. People were
Speaker 1: making like really sensational articles and really sensational headlines and
Speaker 1: just misleading a lot of folks, And it was just
Speaker 1: so unfortunate because I was just like, man, if folks
Speaker 1: were better trained in science communication, we would not be
Speaker 1: in the position that we are right now, where no
Speaker 1: one knows where to turn for facts.
Speaker 2: So true. I think all we can do is hope
Speaker 2: to continue to nurture our audience of science interested people,
Speaker 2: to try to bring the expert right to their front door,
Speaker 2: right to their ear drums, and to continue to try
Speaker 2: to find good stories and to share them in a
Speaker 2: way that's fun and that just leaves friendship and joy
Speaker 2: all throughout it. You know, yes, I loved this episode.
Speaker 1: It was basically the science of Dope Labs. You can
Speaker 1: find us on X and Instagram at Dope Labs podcast.
Speaker 2: Tt Is on X and Instagram at dr Underscore t Sho,
Speaker 2: and you can find Takiya at z said so. Dope
Speaker 2: Labs is a production of Lamanada Media.
Speaker 1: Our senior supervising producer is Kristin Lapour and our associate
Speaker 1: producer is Issara Svez.
Speaker 2: Dope Labs is sound designed, edited and mixed by James Farber.
Speaker 2: Lamanada Media is Vice President of Partnerships and Production is
Speaker 2: Jackie Danziger. Executive producer from iHeart Podcast is Katrina Norvil.
Speaker 2: Marketing lead is Alison Kanter.
Speaker 1: Original music composed and produced by Takayasuzawa and Alex sugi Ura,
Speaker 1: with additional music by Elijah Harvey. Dope Lab is executive
Speaker 1: produced by us T T Show Dia and Kia Wattlei