First up: Stephanie Dawson (@SDawsonBerlin) is CEO of ScienceOpen. Stephanie grew up in northern California and studied Biology at Yale University. She then worked at the labs of Susan Parkhurst at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle WA and Ralph Rupp, at the MPG Friedrich Miescher Laboratory, Tübingen, Germany before changing fields and getting a PhD in German Literature from the University of Washington under Jane Brown. From 2001-2012 she worked in various positions at the academic Publisher De Gruyter in Berlin in the fields of biology and chemistry in both journals and book publishing. In 2013 she joined ScienceOpen as CEO. Here’s Stephanie’s story.

Growing up as a smart girl in a small town in Northern California, science was the “hard” subject in school. So that was what I wanted to test myself against. I am still maybe most proud of the “Beaker Award” I won in the 7th grade (the other girl who won it became my best friend went on to get a PhD from CalTech and become a real scientist).

My career path is a bit complicated – I did my undergraduate studies in biology at Yale, worked in Drosophilia research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research center in Seattle and then after getting a severe allergy to fruit flies went on to get a PhD in German literature from U. Washington. I moved into a career in publishing in Berlin and spent 12 years as a journal editor, book acquisitions editor and editorial director for biology and chemistry before moving to ScienceOpen. I realized early on that I cared more about communicating about science than about working at the bench, but it was not easy to find my way to where I am today.

I have spent the last 4 years helping to create ScienceOpen. We are a freely-accessible discovery platform with 32 million articles and records open for public review and discussion. We have created a space for researchers to present the best research in their field in collections drawn from all publishers and journals to further support discovery and provide validation beyond the journal. We also support researchers in building up a digital profile and tracking usage of their work. ScienceOpen is a the resource that I would have liked to have used when I was working as an editor.

The lay public should care about the science that drives the technology and informs the political decisions that shape their lives. Now more than ever. We try to support this at ScienceOpen with our freely accessible discovery tools and by encouraging scientists to add lay summaries to thier articles. The general public should care about access to information – you never know what problem you may need to solve or who may solve your problem. I am really not a scientist myself any more, but I care very deeply about getting big problems solved as fast as possible.

I love advocating for Open Access both as part of my job and as an extracurricular activity – I find myself explaining the value of Open Access at least once at every party. I wrote in the mission statement for ScienceOpen: “We believe that free access to knowledge drives creativity, innovation and development. It starts a conversation and stimulates collaboration, discussion and dissent. Our mission is to facilitate open and public communication between academics and to allow ideas to be judged on their merit, regardless of where they come from – open, transparent and fair.” I believe every word of that and it is something of a guiding principle for me.

I have two kids, 10 and 12, so they keep me busy. I hike, dive, ski, and take as many exotic trips as my vacation days and budget allow. The kids have been to Vietnam, Panama, Sri Lanka and more and now we are off to Bali in a few weeks.

Ideal Day Off? A bike ride through the German countryside with the family, sunshine, a picnic, and a train ride home when we are all tired out.

Next for ScienceOpen, we meet Dr Jon Tennant (@protohedgehog). Jon Tennant recently completed his award-winning PhD at Imperial College London, and he now wanders the globe talking about fossils, Open Access, and brownies. His research investigates the deep time patterns of extinction and biodiversity in groups like dinosaurs, and the evolutionary history of crocodiles. He is currently continuing his research while working as the Communications Director for ScienceOpen. He is also a PLOS Paleo community editor, founder of the publishing platform paleorXiv, founder of the Open Science MOOC, part of the Mozilla Open Leadership Cohort, an ASAPbio ambassador, a freelance science writer and consultant, and author of the kids’ dinosaur book Excavate Dinosaurs!

Jon is well known for his advocacy of open access. We asked him how he ended up in science

I just wandered in one day and they haven’t kicked me out yet.

Why did you choose your current field? what keeps you there?

Dinosaurs. Dinosaurs.

We agree. Dinosaurs are dinosaurs, because dinosaurs. But – what specifically do you study, and why should it matter?

I study the co-evolution of life, the environment, and geology on Earth through time. I also apparently study the taxonomy and evolution of the extinct ancestors of modern crocodiles. I also am quite passionate about ‘open science.’  Because by learning about the past, we can learn about the future too. Besides, there’s not much cooler than learning about the evolution of life on Earth too.

In addition to his research, Jon has other sciencey commitments:

I run paleorXiv, the Open Science MOOC, work for ScienceOpen, am part of the Mozilla Open Leadership Cohort, a freelance science writer and consultant, an Editor for PLOS Paleo, and author of the kids book, Excavate Dinosaurs.

I spend all day every day doing the things I love. Science is my work, my hobby, and my life.

Amen, Jon. Finally, we asked him a critical question: how would he spend a day off?

What’s a day off?

Please welcome Jon and Stephanie to Real Scientists.

I became fascinated with nature and science at a young age. I loved the idea of experimentation and observation. I was active in clubs and camps that focused on teaching aspects of science and my passion for science stuck with me through high school and college.

While persuing my zoology degree has an undergraduate I had a student job in the library. Even though I had grown up using and visiting libraries, it was my first time experiencing the dynamic work of librarians and how impactful their work is among the community. At this point I shifted my career goals to focus on becoming a librarian. Since this time I have worked in both academic and public libraries. By the time I began perusing my Masters in Library and Information Science I knew that I wanted to focus more on scholarly communications and data. I was lucky to intern at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation where I first learned about the Open Access Movement. Now I have found myself submersed in the realm of scientific knowledge and research dissemination. I find this to be a perfect way to combine all my passions – science, knowledge, and service to others. I get to talk to amazing scientists and learn about their work, every day. I cannot imagine doing anything else!

The bulk of my work focuses on the foundation’s Open Access initiatives – the advocacy of our open access policy, supporting the publications of our grantees, and leading the implementation of Gates Open Research. In order to facilitate the payment of article processing fees on the behalf of our grantees and track their research outputs the foundation as created Chronos, which manages the whole publishing process. I have been part of the team who built and implemented Chronos and we continue to working on improving the process. Our goal is to make the arduous publishing process easier and more efficient for researchers. We are in the process of launching our Gates Open Research platform, which is another publishing option available to our grantees. Leveraging the technology created by F1000 this publishing model is accelerated and more transparent than traditional journals. I’m very excited to see the first set of articles published in the fall. We’ve recently joined the newly launched Open Research Funders Group (ORFG) to work with other research funders worldwide to adopt mandates like ours. I, also, enjoy speaking at events and conferences sharing the work that I do and sharing my passion for open access. Outside of open access at the foundation, I serve in a more traditional library role by supporting the research needs of foundation staff.

I believe that knowledge is power and knowledge should be a public good. Thus the public can access and reuse knowledge to empower themselves and their community. A bulk of scientific research is funded by tax payer funds and I believe that the public should have unpaywalled access to research articles. Especially, in a time where misinformation is so prevalent, it is important for the public to have unfettered access to primary research.

I love the topic of Open Access and enjoy learning and advocating openness outside of the office as well. During my Master’s I was lucky enough to work on a project within the University of Washington’s DataLab. I still work on the project, FlourishOA, which is a database of journal APC prices coupled with article influence scores. Combining and curating this data will empower authors to compare journals and make informed decisions on the best publishing option. As we have launched the project recently, we are still ingesting data and sharing FlourishOA with the scientific community.

In the last year I joined a barbell club and began learning Olympic Weightlifting. Several months ago I completed my first competition. It was scary, but lots of fun as well! I have an amazing coach and team who inspire me to keep improving. It’s a fantastic way to disconnect from using technology all day.

Ideal Day off? If it’s a nice, sunny Seattle day I would either be hiking or Standup Paddle boarding (SUP) in one of the many beautiful lakes nearby. If it’s a typical Seattle rainy day I would be relaxing inside with a great book or a zombie movie that I haven’t seen yet.

Please welcome Ashley to Real Scientists!

First up, we have Ashley Farley (@ashleydfarley) from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She’s Associate Officer of Knowledge & Research Services and works with grantees on making their research open access, as well as developing the Gates Open Science platform.

Next up are Stephanie Dawson (@SDawsonBerlin) and Jon Tennant (@protohedgehog) from Science Open. Stephanie started out in fruit fly research , did with a PhD in German literature before eventually becoming CEO of Science Open. Stephanie is committed to connecting academics with each other and the free dissemination of information. Jon is the Communications Director of Science Open as well as being a palaeontologist and advocate for open access.

Midweek we have Mike Taylor (@herrison); Head of Metrics Development at Digital Science. Mike has worked in publishing in various forms, Elsevier and now studies alternative metrics and the dissemination of information.

We close up the week with Jessica Polka (@jessicapolka), Director of ASAPBio, a scientist-driven organisation promoting the use of pre prints in the biological sciences. Jessia is also a visiting scholar at the Whitehead Institute.

We’ll post the usual introductory posts for each of the curators where you can read more about them and their work as editors.

We hope to see some great discussions around open science during OPEN ACCESS week!

It didn’t take long before Cheryl smashed out one of the best out-of-context tweets we’ve seen for a while

As in "hey, I'll be there soon. First I need to go collect virgins". Sometimes, I'd get some odd looks

— realscientists (@realscientists) April 16, 2017

We also got a blow-by-blow account of DNA sequencing which was very cool (yes, there is ice involved so pun totally intended)

Next, the buffer tray pic.twitter.com/ZEvQUc6y1R

— realscientists (@realscientists) April 18, 2017

And some gorgeous pics of the Penn State campus

pic.twitter.com/j9PbDcjfZM

— realscientists (@realscientists) April 18, 2017

We also asked Cheryl to reflect on her time at RealScientists, and you can read her interview below.

In general terms, how did you find your week as a curator?

I had a fantastic time tweeting for @realscientists! It was a such wonderful opportunity to talk about my research as well as other aspects of science. I also thought it was a valuable learning experience in terms of developing my science communication skills.

It can be a shock talking to so many. Did you find the sudden rush of interactions (good and bad) daunting?

The level of engagement was very high and was somewhat overwhelming at times, however, the large majority of responses were very positive and supportive, which made it very enjoyable and exciting.

What were the highlights? Were there any lowlights?

I think people really enjoyed my photo stories, and I had a lot fun doing them. In particular, I live-tweeted a DNA sequencing run as well as a tour of my lab. I included a ton of photos during both threads, which helped generate a lot of excitement and engagement.

Did you have a plan? If so, did you stick to it?

I did have a plan for my week as curator, and organized it such that I continued to build upon topics that I covered the day before. For example, I knew that I had to set up a DNA sequencing run on Tuesday morning, so I made sure to cover the basics of genomics and genomic technologies on Monday. I also saved the topic of pseudoscience for Friday as I felt that would be a good lead in to the March for Science on Saturday. For the most part, I stuck to my plan, but I also was not rigid about it either. I did tweet about a few unplanned topics based upon comments from followers.

What other people or accounts should people follow if they enjoyed your tweets this week?

@JacquelynGill ‏
@razibkhan
@thatdnaguy
@tjsmerritt
@MJBiercuk
@statnews

Thanks once again Cheryl from all of us here at RealScientists HQ. If you missed anything from her week, the tweets are all collated at the following link.

Pete Marchetto is still not quite certain how he got where he is today. He started out doing research on the physics of biomedical devices, swerved into clinical research, then magnetostrictive materials, and finally a BS from Ramapo College of New Jersey in physics. After doing a story-laden stint for an equipment calibration firm, a genomics software company, and a piezoelectric polymer lab at Penn State, he joined the engineering team of the Bioacoustics Research Program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology where, while working on recording devices for biologists, he got an MS and PhD. A postdoc in the Cornell Soil and Water Lab set him up to interact with citizen science groups on the topics of sensing and instrumentation. Now he’s at the University of Minnesota, teaching instrumentation and fluid dynamics while trying to figure out how to make the least. Expensive. Sensors. Ever. Want to know more about these sensors? Read about them here. Here’s Pete’s story.

When I was four and a half, I was walking down the street with my parents; I turned to them and said, “Mom, Dad, it’s my destiny to be a scientist.” After being encouraged by them and helped along through extracurricular activities (what with scientific education for the lower grades being drastically underemphasized here in the US) and going to a science-focused magnet school for high school, I got my BS in physics, and continued on into the calibration and metrology industry for a couple of years. I got back into academia as a lab tech in the materials research lab at Penn State, then as an engineer in the Bioacoustics Research Program at Cornell, where I got my MS and PhD. Long story short, I ended up in science because I’ve always wanted to, and because I have an insatiable curiosity about the way things work.

My journey to my current field of Biological/Environmental/Biosystems/Bioproducts/Agricultural Engineering is due to the caprice of the several professors that I approached in other departments during my time at Cornell. For example, I might have had a PhD in physics, but the professor doing acoustic work was of the opinion that I was too old at 24 to do anything of great enough importance to be associated with his lab. My PhD advisor, Todd Walter, was gracious enough to take me in, saying, “You’re an instrument maker? Well, I’m an instrument user! I’m sure this will work out fine.” He was right. I’ve found that people in the life sciences often aren’t trained to make the highly specialized equipment that they need, but, either because it doesn’t exist on the commercial market or is priced out of accessibility for no good reason other than greed, cannot acquire. So, I use my skills to help them by making the equipment and instrumentation that they can’t. It’s extremely rewarding collaborative work that allows me to use my skills as a generalist in physical science and engineering to help a part of the scientific community that needs them. Also, being married to an ecologist certainly helps to keep up my communication skills in biology.

I make, break, fix, document, test, and find use cases for instrumentation in the life sciences. I also try to make this instrumentation as inexpensively as possible so that anyone can replicate it.

Here’s one example: the US Geological Survey pays about $15,000 for a gauging station that will tell them only water level on a stream, creek, or river, and which then needs about $10,000 per year for installation and maintenance. Working with my students and colleagues, we’ve made a gauging station that can tell depth, temperature, turbidity, and conductivity, as well as having room to expand to other parameters, for $400 each, and about $100 a year, maximum, in data plan charges. The depth measurements from both systems are comparable. My work is focused on figuring out what’s worth sensing, and how to do it with the least wasted money possible, as well as involving everyone who might be interested in either the sensing systems themselves or their output data.

As a pre-tenure faculty member, I don’t get to have too much time for extracurriculars, but I used to be in wilderness search and rescue, and am looking forward to getting back into it with a SAR team here in Minnesota. I’m an avid birder, as well as an amateur radio operator. My ideal day off would involve hiking and/or canoeing/kayaking with my wife.

Please welcome Pete to Real Scientists!

I can trace my interest in science back to a specific science project in third grade. My teacher brought a skull into the classroom and challenged the students to identify the species of animal it belonged to. It turned out to be the skull of a deer, killed by her husband. My group wrongly identified it as a giraffe skull, but the process of making observations about the bone structure and proposing hypotheses about its origin triggered something in me that led to a sustained interest in science.

Later, one of my college professors who was impressed by the detail that I provided in an exam discussion question wrote a personal note on my paper. He suggested that I should consider pursuing a PhD. Prior to that I hadn’t considered a doctorate to be an option. His note inspired me to apply to graduate school, earn a PhD in cell and molecular biology, and, ultimately, seek a career in science.  In some ways, I feel that my current position found me. After completing graduate school, I started a postdoc at the National Institutes of Health, where I was helping to develop an HIV vaccine. To an outside observer, my career, thus far, would have appeared to be a run-of-the-mill research path. I was receiving great training in highly marketable research skills and after a few years I probably would have landed a job in industry. However, for at least 5 years prior, I had been working in parallel to develop as a science communicator by blogging, editing, and doing outreach. I had also taken an interest in science policy and applied for the AAAS science and technology policy fellowship. Upon receiving an offer from AAAS, I faced a major career decision. I had to choose between research and policy/communication. I chose the latter and went to work at the U.S. Department of Energy, where I focused on renewable energy and energy efficiency policies. I asked my supervisor for permission to use ten percent of my time to work on communications at the White House’s U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), where I helped develop strategies for communicating federal climate science. After a year at the USGCRP, I returned to the energy department as a full time policy analyst. Some of Sigma Xi’s board of directors subsequently visited the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. They asked for recommendations of people who could advise them on digital communications. Afterward, I was invited by Sigma Xi to participate in a discussion panel on 21st Century science communications, which led to some consulting opportunities with them. Eventually I was invited to apply for a job as director of science communications and publications and editor-in-chief of American Scientist. Again, I had to make a major career decision, but this was an easy one. On paper, it was the opportunity of a lifetime. I just had to take it and it has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

For the past three years, I’ve been the director of science communications and publications and editor-in-chief of American Scientist. My primary goals have been to expand the audience and increase revenue. I chose to achieve these objectives by modernizing the content strategies and enhancing the digital footprint. We have a small team of editors and artists producing this award-winning magazine, so it took tremendous effort from the entire staff to overhaul our operations to accommodate these new priorities. We’ve had to expand the team’s awareness of policy issues, increase our commitment to social media use, and develop a new work flow that incorporated more freelance editorial support. We’ve been successful at raising the awareness of the magazine among younger scientists and expanding our audience via social media. Traffic to the American Scientist website has consistently increased in recent years. In addition to these changes, I thought it was critical for us to redesign the American Scientist website, because we were constrained by cumbersome and outdated technology. Our new website design recently went live and we’re excited for our readers to experience it. This week I transitioned to a new position as executive director, CEO, and publisher at Sigma Xi. In this capacity, I plan to focus on more of the business aspects of the Society’s publications.

The lay public should care about my current work, because Sigma Xi is a leader in fostering integrity in scientific research as well as promoting public understanding of science. For those who are interested in science, we are advocates for good science and we want to make that science more accessible to everyone. During this period when science is being questioned and in some cases dismissed, Sigma Xi is working to regain the trust of the public and to make the case for investing in knowledge building. We also want to see evidence-based decision making in government. Science plays a vital role in policy making. We can use the knowledge we’ve gained through research to solve many of our most pressing challenges. The public should care that Sigma Xi is working hard to ensure these issues are being addressed. My wife might say that I’m a workaholic. I put in long hours at the office and I’m always thinking about science and how to do my job better. I enjoy traveling to give talks on careers outside of academia, science communication, and policy.

The most rewarding extracurricular activity I have is spending time with my family, especially my two daughters. We do a lot of science-related activities, e.g., bug collecting and bird watching. This summer, I plan to teach them how to do one of my favorite hobbies, surfing. My ideal day off would be spent by the sea. Whether I’m on a boat or on the shore, I get more inspiration from the ocean than any other setting. The ocean offers an opportunity to explore all the sciences, physics, biology, chemistry, geology, etc. It’s also a place where you can close your eyes and reconnect with the world.

Please welcome Jamie to Real Scientists!

I have always been fascinated with science, in particular health science, since I was young – quite different, since I come from a family of architects, designers, diplomats, and artists (everyone thought I would end up pursuing one of those professions). I attended a university open day during my last year of high school and saw some very enthusiastic lecturers talk about how exciting science is – in particular, it was the biochemistry and biology lecturers that convinced me.

I was half way through my PhD in Cardiovascular Molecular Medicine when I realized I didn’t want to pursue a career in research/ academia. I had a ‘light bulb moment”: I didn’t LOVE science, I LIKED it. I wasn’t thrilled (and am still not) about the “publish and perish” culture which still strongly persists in Academia today. I did a lot of research into different careers I could pursue with my science background – I even considered becoming a Patent Lawyer, but was turned down because I had “missed the biotech wave” and at that time, firms were keen on hiring people with engineering backgrounds. A good friend then mentioned science publishing and put me in contact with someone she knew in London – I sent my CV, got flown to London for an interview, got the job and there was no turning back.

I love working in science publishing – I love the fact that I can continue to be part of science, but not in the lab with the pressure of publishing. I enjoy interacting with researchers and authors, and have heard some amazing talks by science leaders. I love that I’m continuing to learn about different areas of research – plus the travel to various conferences around the world is a bonus! What keeps me in publishing is the fact that I work for a journal, GigaScience that has a mission which I strongly believe in – Open Science, and fighting the reproducible crisis; which unfortunately, science and publishing suffers from.

I’m an Editor at GigaScience. I handle manuscripts and find reviewers, but I also commission manuscripts and help with further developing the journal by finding and establishing new collaborations/projects with different research communities. I also establish marketing exchanges with conferences, as well as thematic series. I’m an advocate for open science and involved with the RRID and Annotate all Knowledge (Hypothes.is) working groups at FORCE11. Reproducibility in science is a huge and ongoing problem with huge impact (I can go on and on about this) – thanks to the growing number of studies (http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124) reporting the inability to reproduce previously published findings. One way to overcome the problem is changing the way people conduct and publish research – adopt open science. GigaScience is always trying to push the boundaries of reproducible research, adapting to the challenges presented by data-intensive research. Help us improve the reproducibility crisis and promote, practice and publish more open research objects (data, software tools and workflows).

My ideal day off would involve spending time with my family and young son, cooking/ baking up a storm, drinking wine and eating cheese, including time out with a good book.

Please welcome Nicole to Real Scientists!

I’ve wanted to be a scientist since I was three years old.  I was enthralled by the dinosaurs at the Museum of Natural History in New York City.  Soon I became interested in astronomy.  Since one can see few stars from Manhattan, I mostly explored astronomy and astrophysics via books.  What I really wanted was to “understand the Universe.” By the time I was in my mid teens, I knew I wanted to be a physicist. But you might want to know how I came to be an editor.  For that, you’ll have to read some of my tweets.

My PhD is in theoretical particle physics.  I chose that field of study in part because I thought it would be the best way to “understand the Universe”, and in part due to the spectrum of possibilities and people at my graduate institution. But as an Editor for PRL, my horizons have expanded.  I really think that all physicists, whether they are studying Higgs bosons, ultracold gases, or metamaterials, are probing the Universe.  It’s all good.  Being an editor for Physical Review Letters (@PhysRevLett), one of the leading physics journals, my main job is to decide which manuscripts submitted to us we will accept. For this I rely mostly on peer review – I ask experts to carefully evaluate papers and provide their perspectives on the importance and interest of the work.  I then weigh all the information I have, and reach a decision.

I also help pick which papers we highlight.  That is how I initially became involved in twitter – tweeting mostly about our highlighted papers.  I have also been involved with quite a few initiatives we have embarked on over the years, and help chart PRL’s course into the future.

I have had the great good fortune to have been involved with handling some truly momentous papers, including the observation of the top quark, the discovery that neutrinos have mass, and the first direct detection of gravitational waves by LIGO last year. Vetting is key to science.  Many papers are improved by the peer review process, and quite a number are found to be seriously flawed.  Science is self-corrective, and peer review is an important component of that. Further, at PRL we publish some of the best physics research around.  Many PRLs lead to stories in the science press – about one PRL a day is covered somewhere in the media. I have written some popular science pieces, and am slowly working on a book or two (the uncertainty in number gives you a sense of how far they are from completion). I give talks about PRL at conferences and when I visit institutions.  People do not know quite what to expect from an editor’s talk.  That is one reason I like to call my talks “Secrets of PRL.”

In my spare time, I like running, and occasionally run in 5K races, where I tend to be in the middle of the pack.  I vainly attempt to play the piano.  I love exploring places I visit around the world.  I have an 8″” telescope which is overmatched by the bright suburban lights.  I periodically convince myself to try gardening again—just yesterday I harvested one very carefully tended green bean.

I’m also a news junkie, but let’s not talk about that.  The only time I get to dabble in research, or work on a book, is on a day off.  So I would say accomplishing a little on such a project, eating a meal outdoors, going for a run to the beach, playing a little piano, reading something interesting, listening to some music, and indulging in some sci-fi or smart comedy.

Please welcome Robert to Real Scientists!

First up we have Robert Garisto (@RobertGaristo), theoretical particle physicist and editor for Physical Review Letters, an American Physical Society journal. This is a “traditional” scientific journal with peer-reviewed scientific articles.

Next curator is Nicole Nogoy (@Medi_Cole). Nicole has a background in cardiovascular molecular medicine and is now an editor at GigaScience, a journal that publishes articles using and/or generating large datasets.

Our last curator is Jamie Verner (@JLVernonPhD), a molecular biologist and executive director and CEO at Sigma Xi Society. He is also the editor-in-chief at American Scientist, Sigma XI’s journal written by scientists for a general audience.

We’ll post the usual introductory posts for each of the curators where you can read more about them and their work as editors.

We hope that you will enjoy interacting with our curators during Journal Week!

/Helena, on behalf of the @RealSciMods

I am Paulette Vincent-Ruz, I am Latinx, and identify as a person of color. I am an immigrant born and raised in Mexico, and English is my second language. I have a Mexican accent when I speak English. I am on a F1-Student visa. All of these pieces of my identity shape my way of understanding data and pursuing research. Quantitative methods are more than just a research tool; for me, they are a way to enact social justice. As an undergraduate, I was a chemical engineer who conducted research in organic chemistry. My experiences as a woman in STEM, in addition to my identities, motivated me to study the systemic inequities that drive the gender and race gap in STEM careers. My research is rooted in the desire to understand how people of different backgrounds experience science differently, often in ways that systemically disadvantage women and people of color. This concern with systematic disadvantages lends itself to quantitative research, which relies on statistical methods to create simplified representations of social systems and institutions to allow for clearer inferences. As a woman of color (a group that is also underrepresented in quantitative research), I aim to use my research to explain such inequities

I have always loved science! But I truly fell in love with Chemistry in middle school, I chose engineering as I saw it as a better career path. In college I fell in loved with research and organic chemistry and though I majored in Chemical Engineering did research on organic chemistry for 3 years. Well, I realized I didn’t want to go to an organic chemistry PhD, so I started teaching chemistry in middle school and became curious about how people learn. So, I came to the US to study science education and started a path towards understanding systemic inequities in science

My research is rooted in the desire to understand how people of different backgrounds experience science differently, often in ways that systematically disadvantage women and people of color. This concern with systematic disadvantages lends itself to quantitative research, which relies on statistical methods to create simplified representations of social systems and institutions to allow for clearer inferences. As a woman of color (a group that is also underrepresented in quantitative research), I aim to use my research to explain such inequities.

Traditionally we think of science learning in terms of cognitive aspects (IQ, learning strategies) and teaching aspects (conceptual change, teaching types) but understanding systemic inequities allows us to understand how people internalize messages and that affects their motivation, and way of learning. Better understanding how this small gaps add up over time is key to diversifying and improving science

I am a blog editor for the @wehumanities account. Outreach chair of the YCC Pittsburgh Run professional development for teachers in science. I lift weights and I am a fitness gal, I like reading. Ideal Day Off: Cuddling reading a book with my hubby on the porch while drinking wine and eating tacos. Also museum or musicals make me really happy.

Please welcome Paulette to Real Scientists!