Exposing graduate students and post-docs to science writing
It is no secret that many STEM fields, especially physics and engineering, suffer from a lack of equal representation by race, ethnicity, and gender. Approximately 75% of all physics degrees go to white scientists, and 80% of those degrees to go men. While much of…
As a young woman in pursuit of a career in academia, I find the underrepresentation of women in STEM careers, and specifically scientific research, to be a daunting statistic to face. In STEM fields, the percentage of tenure-line faculty positions held by women has merely…
If I told you that a tumor DNA sequencing research study found 25% of lung cancer patients have a mutation in the gene KRAS, would that truly mean that if I were to gather together every person on this planet who has lung cancer, 25%…
Beverly Crusher. Roy Hinkley. Emmett Brown. Samantha Carter. Sheldon Cooper. The Doctor. Abby Sciuto. Temperance Brennan. What do each of these scientists have in common? From creating a Geiger counter out of bamboo, to discovering, identifying, and curing a disease in the nick of time,…
The votes are in, and to the surprise of pundits and pollsters everywhere, Donald J. Trump has been elected the 45th president of the United States. However, many scientists are concerned about what a Trump presidency would mean for important issues like climate change and…
With two months to go before election day, we’ve already seen numerous candidates in numerous debates. It seems like politicians will debate everything…except science. Science is all around us, and has wide reaching economic, health, and social implications. Despite this, science is conspicuously absent in…
Standing off to the side of the demonstration, I watched a six-year-old girl carefully pick up her paper airplane from the ground and bring it back to her work station. With intense concentration, she snipped away a part of each wing, making the plane more…
I’m standing in front of a long conference table, rubbing my clammy palms on my blazer. My committee is discussing my transcripts and research progress. One professor is questioning the importance of my project, someone is whispering that I have no idea how the laser…
In January 2015, my Ph.D. adviser invited me into her office at Rutgers University, where I was enrolled, for what I thought was a typical meeting. After the requisite small talk, she began alluding to possible research opportunities for me at the University of…
With the recent release of Pixar’s latest movie, The Good Dinosaur, I thought I would revisit their previous film, Inside Out. Inside Out follows the five main emotions (Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Anger, and Fear) of 11-year-old Riley as they guide her through her family’s move from…