Hi, you're listening to Cultivate
Curiosity, a.
Podcast that inspires the next generation
to stay curious.
Cultivate Curiosity is brought to you by
the Emerald Coast Science Center, a
nonprofit.
Interactive science museum and steam
educational facility in Fort Walton Beach,
Florida.
This podcast is perfect for anyone curious
about the world we live in, because.
You never know what we'll talk about
next. Hey, this is Diane. I'm the
director of the Emerald Coast Science
Center.
Hi, this is Jacie, and I'm the social
media coordinator at the Science Center.
And.
Hi, I'm Harley. I'm an educator and
the community affairs coordinator here at
the Science Center as well. Today's topic
is Black History Month. Specifically,
we're going to be talking about black
scientists and black people that are in
the stem field. So we've got a
couple of animals here. Again, we're going
back to our animals. We've got a
couple of animals here that we have
named after black scientists. And then
also just some interesting facts that we
would also like to mention because it
is Black History Month. So to start
us off with, I'd like to mention
one female black scientist. Her name is
Kizzmekia Corbett. She is who we named
our yellow belly ball python after.
Kizzmekia is an American viral immunologist,
an assistant professor of immunology and
infectious disease at Harvard Chan School
of Public Health and the schutzer
assistant professor at the Harvard
Radcliffe Institute. She earned a PhD in
microbiology and immunology from the
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill in 2014. She was appointed to
the Vaccine Research Center in 2014, and
she was a postdoctoral scientist of the
COVID-19 team. Her research efforts aimed
at the COVID-19 vaccines, and in February
2021, she was highlighted in the Times
Time 100 Next list under the category
of innovators. She was also part of
the National Institute of Health team who
helped solve the cyrogenic electron
microscopy structure of the Sar-CoV-2
spike protein. And her prior research
suggested that messenger RNA encoding S
protein could be used to excite the
immune response to produce protective
antibodies against the COVID-19. So
basically, she was super duper important
to help us get that COVID-19 vaccine,
which we all love dearly.
And I'd like to tell you a
little bit about Ayana Elizabeth Johnson.
She's who our Savannah Monitor is named
after. And if you listen to our
last podcast, you know, Ayana and I
were road buddies. We were traveling
buddies. So she is a marine biologist,
policy expert, and a conservation
strategist. She's the founder and
president of Ocean Collective, a
consulting firm that helps find ocean
conservation solutions that are grounded
in social justice. She's also the founder
of the Urban Ocean Lab, a think
tank for climate change and ocean
conservation policy in coastal cities.
Ayana is an adjunct professor at New
York University in the Department of
Environmental Studies, and previously
worked for the US. Environmental
Protection Agency, the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration, and she's
earned a PhD in marine biology from
Scripps Institution of Oceanography in
2011. Her research focused on
understanding multidisciplinary
sustainable management approaches for
coral reef resources. And we all know
how important that is because as water
temperatures rise, that has an adverse
effect on coral reefs. So we want
to make sure that we are all
paying attention to that as well.
And I'm going to talk about Tiera
Fletcher. Fletcher, one of our crested
geckos, is named after her. So Tiera
is an American engineer who graduated and
works for Boeing. Now in June 2015
through June 2016, she was a Systems
Engineering intern at Boeing, where she
helped design, test, and collaborate with
other professionals on Boeing products
while she was a student at MIT
the following year. From June 2016 to
June 2017, she was a design engineer
and stress analyst intern at Boeing, where
she helped with the design, process and
analysis of the Space Lamb system for
NASA. She received her Bachelor of Science
in Aerospace Engineering degree in June of
2017 from MIT with a GPA of
5.0, which is perfect, plus extra credit.
That's crazy to get that. So after
graduating, she took up a position at
Boeing as a Structural Analysis Engineer.
She is one of the lead designers
and structural analysts building the Space
Launch System for NASA, which is set
to send people to Mars. So that's
pretty cool.
She also got this 5.0 GPA at
MIT.
Yeah, that when I saw that, I
was like, that's crazy. And she's kind
of, I think, about the same age
as me right now. So she's very
young too.
Wow.
And then I'll talk about Ruth Ella
Moore as well. Ella, one of her
hedgehogs, is named after her. So Ruth
was an American Bacteriologist and
microbiologist who in 1933 became the
first black woman to be awarded a
PhD in a Natural Science. She received
it from Ohio State University in
Bacteriology. She was a professor of
Bacteriology at Howard University. A
decade later, she was installed as the
head of the Department of Bacteriology,
which she renamed to the Department of
Microbiology. During that period, she was
promoted to Associate Professor of
Microbiology. She published her research
on tuberculosis, immunology, dental
carries or cavities, the response of gut
microorganisms to antibiotics and the
blood types of Black Americans. She also
gained recognition as a fashion designer,
and her passion for a fashion design
was evident throughout her life. She loved
elegant classic styles of clothing and
designed and constructed her own garments
for most occasions.
Okay, and I'm going to tell you
about one of my favorite science
communicators who's actually a scientist,
but does a really good job of
explaining science in terms that lay
people can understand or non scientists
can understand. And that, of course, is
Neil degrasse Tyson. He is an American
astrophysicist, author and science
communicator. He under PhD degree in
astrophysics in 1991 at Columbia
University. His research has focused on
observations in cosmology stellar
evolution, galactic astronomy, and
cellular formation. He has held numerous
positions at institutions including the
University of Maryland, Princeton
University and the American Museum of
Natural History and the Hayden
Planetarium. He also has many honorary
doctorate degrees, too many to list here
but he has appeared in a variety
of shows and documentaries, including
Cosmos, Possible Worlds in 2020, and Star
Talk, which is started in 2015 and
is currently still happening. And I think
that one of the great things is
he has written several books and they
are very readable, they're very relatable,
and they kind of go into some
of the great funny stories of how
science happens. So it's a lot of
science history. And that's one of the
things that I love to really dig
into is science history. And he's just
an all around, very genuine person. And
you will see him in a lot
of television interviews where they need a
go to person to explain some sort
of scientific technology or something like
that. And he's probably one of those
go to people so very active science
communicator.
And he does a really good job
of communicating the really hard concepts
at a nice level for a lot
of people to understand, not just like
I've.
Seen science TikTok too. He ought to
be good if he's a TikTok talking
to the gen z.
Another person we would like to talk
about is Mae Jemison. Mae is an
American engineer, physician, and former
NASA astronaut. She graduated from
Stanford University with degrees in
chemical engineering as well as African
and African American studies. She was a
doctor for the Peace Corps in Liberia
and Sierra Leone from 1983 until 1985
and worked as a general practitioner. She
became the first black woman to travel
in space when she served as a
mission specialist abroad, the space
shuttle Endeavor, in 1992. She left NASA
in 1993 and founded a technology research
company. She later formed a nonprofit
educational foundation and through the
foundation is the principal of the 100
Year Starship Project, funded by DARPA.
She was written several books for
children, told several honorary
doctorates, and has been inducted into the
National Women's Hall of Fame and the
International Space Hall of Fame. She also
is somebody that we did one of
our gyms programs on. Our gyms program
is Girls Empowered With Math and Science,
where we talk about a different female
scientist each month at the Fort Walton
Beach Library. And back in November of
2021, the month we did was on
Mae Jemison and we did some chemistry
activities where we did like, cabbage
juice, PH indicators, and then we also
built some rockets with the kids. So
a little bit of both to kind
of honor Mae Jemison. So that was
super fun.
And it's perfect because she was a
role model for the next scientist that
we're going to talk about, and that's
Clarice Phelps. And we first were
introduced to her, I guess it was
on Instagram about a week or so
ago, there was a post about the
black American scientist that was getting
her name associated with the periodic
table in element 117. And I am
a huge periodic table nerd. I mean,
we're going to do a.
Whole podcast on the periodic table.
It's going to be such fun. I
absolutely adore the periodic table, so I
was super excited when I saw that.
And I, of course, immediately shared it
with Jacie and Harley and like this
one. We need to talk about her.
Yes, there's a great article on CNN.
They're doing a series on Black History
Month as well, and they happen to
do an article on her. I think
one of the things that we think
about, we know that women are
underrepresented in the Stem careers. So
about 27% of people in Stem careers
are female, but only 2% of people
in Stem careers are black females.
So if you can imagine how small
that number is. In the article by
CNN, she talks about how unusual it
was for her to be in these
laboratories with all of these men and
even mentioned that at one point in
time, somebody thought she was a janitor
and asked her to take the trash
out. So I can't imagine how that
would feel. And it's so great that
now she's like, hey, you know what?
I'm working on element 117. How many
people in the whole entire world can
say my name is going to be
associated with an element? An element,
the production of this element? So she
an American nuclear chemist researching
the processing of radioactive transuranic
elements at the US. Department of Energy's
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and she was
part of their team that collaborated with
the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research
to discover Tennessean, the 100th and 17th
element. The International Union of Pure
and Applied Chemistry recognizes her as
the first African American woman to be
involved with the discovery of a chemical
element. So she is a rock star.
In the article in CNN, they talk
about she grew up, she had two
sisters and a single mom and that
she also played the violin. And so
she had like, a violin that she
had bought from a pawn shop is
what she played on. And one of
her violin music teachers made fun of
her for having such not a great
violin. And she was like, okay, that's
it. And so she's like, she practiced
the violin and played the violin and
made it into the youth symphony because
she was like, I am not going
to let that person define who I
am based on the musical instrument that
I have. And I think that that
is incredible because I think a lot
of times people that will will have
somebody say something negative to them
like that, and then they'll just they'll
just give up.
Instead of letting it empower you to,
yes, show them.
And she was like, no, this is
not who I am. This is maybe
who I am right now, but it's
not who I'm going to be. And
so she really took that and turned
that around. So, great role model.
Absolutely wonderful. In addition to some
of the cool scientists that we just
mentioned, there are also tons of black
scientists and inventors that haven't
invented things that you may not have
known were invented by black people. So
one of those things is the home
security system. We all like to be
safe. So before the modern home security
system was made available in our homes,
the first home security system was co
invented by an American inventor, mary Van
Britton Brown, in 1966. With the help
of her husband, they developed the first
closed circuit television security system
that used the camera to survey any
potentially unwanted guests due to the
rising crime rates in their neighborhood.
In addition to the monitor, they also
added a microphone to quickly speak to
anyone at their front door without opening
it, and a button that could contact
the police in case of an emergency.
Another thing that was pretty cool that
was invented is the laserphaco probe.
This was invented by Dr. Patricia Bath.
She was also the first black woman
to complete a residency in ophthalmology
in 1973. And ophthalmology is a surgical
sub-specialty within medicine that deals
with the diagnosis and treatment of
specific eye disorders. So this specific
device harnesses the power of laser
technology and offers a less painful but
more precise treatment for patients with
cataracts. With this invention, Dr. Bath
was able to restore the sight of
individuals who had blindness, even those
who have been blind for years. Another
cool invention was the automatic elevator
doors. This was invented by Alexander
Miles. Before, elevator doors, as well as
the shaft would have to be shut
manually before riding. However, if one
forgets to close either one of them
before riding the elevator, they were at
risk of falling down the elevator shaft.
So to prevent those unfortunate accidents,
Alexander Miles invented those automatic
elevator doors, which are used in today's
modern elevators. Also another invention
blood banks. This was invented by Charles
Richard Drew, and at the beginning of
World War II, he was at the
forefront of blood banks that helped saved
millions of soldiers lives. So important,
black inventors and their inventions have
made remarkable impacts on society. And
thanks to their skills and contributions,
they've made our life that much more
convenient.
So, Harley, you were going to talk
about a periodic table that you found.
Yes.
So I'm a part of a couple
of different Facebook groups, and one of
them is the national chemistry teachers,
just to see what other teachers around
our nation are doing. And Cheryl Zurbrick,
just some lady that is also on
the page, felt like it was important
to shout her out because she made
this presentation. She created a
PowerPoint, and it was the periodic table
of black Americans in STEM. And so
within that PowerPoint, you can look at
just a list of different black Americans
in STEM that she had and a
lot of other teachers shared that they
had printed it out and had their
kids place them in order of how
Cheryl Zurbrick had made the PowerPoint. So
it was just a super cool idea
that I had never really seen a
teacher do before and associate that with
the periodic table is just that much
cooler.
And we will link that link in
the description so you guys can see
that and view it because that's really
cool. And if you guys are interested
in learning about more black scientists or
inventors, we do have our blog for
this month on our website that you
guys can see. There's a couple there.
We'll also be posting those scientists on
our Facebook as well. And then if
you want to scroll back a little
bit on our Instagram and view our
Curiosity live videos from last February,
we did discuss black inventors then as
well. And then you can also visit
our museum. We have things all over
the place that talk about black scientists
and inventors. We have some close to
the front desk in the bathroom as
well.
NASA also has a series on Black
History Month. So you just go to
NASA.gov and you'll find it right
there. And they talk about all the
different scientists that have worked at
NASA and the inventions and contributions
they have made over the years as
well.
And we will be naming our two
new guinea pigs, which we haven't talked
about yet, after two male black
scientists. We don't know the names yet,
but if you have any ideas you
can let us know. I'm Facebook, Instagram,
or even just email us. Yeah, I
think that's all for today. We'll see
you guys in two weeks.
Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's
episode of Cultivate Curiosity.
If you have any questions, feel free
to email us at socialmedia@ecscience.org.
Tune in for our next episode in
two weeks!