Lab 066 - Pride in STEM

Titi [00:00:00] Happy Pride Month, everybody.

Zakiya [00:00:01] June feels like it's the month for all the celebration. Pride. Juneteenth is this month.

Titi [00:00:08] Yes.

Zakiya [00:00:08] It's Black Music Month. It just feels like June is just full of joy and it feels like it's really summer. That's when summer officially starts.

Titi [00:00:15] Yes.

Zakiya [00:00:16] June's that girl.

Titi [00:00:17] It really is the perfect time for celebration. And we're continuing the celebration right here on Dope Labs, celebrating all of our LGBTQ+ friends and family in STEM.

Titi [00:00:38] Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore science, pop culture and a healthy dose of friendship.

Zakiya [00:01:00] In the United States and many places around the world. June is when we celebrate Pride Month in the LGBTQIA+ community.

Titi [00:01:08] So LGBTQIA+ encompasses a lot of different identities in the queer community. It stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer Questioning, intersex, asexual, or ally, depending on who you ask. Identity is complicated, and these words don't mean the same thing to every person. The meaning of some of these words have changed over time. Queer in the beginning was used to be a slur, but has been reclaimed today as a way for many people to celebrate their sexuality. And we are so excited to celebrate Pride Month on the show.

Zakiya [00:01:43] Yes. And for this lab, we wanted to hear perspectives from queer voices in science. So we reached out and y'all gave us some awesome clips on what you're doing.

Titi [00:01:52] And if you've been following Dope Labs for a while, you might recognize this type of lab. We took a similar approach and we did the Black scientists in STEM for Black History Month back in 2020.

Zakiya [00:02:02] Yes, visibility in any field, including STEM, is crucial. And this is also a time for us to celebrate how far queer rights have come, especially in the face of efforts to roll those rights back, and for us to take a critical look at what we still have left to do. This episode, we're going to hear from some queer scientists about their research, passion projects, and why they love science.

Titi [00:02:22] We only have 30 minutes and so we couldn't get to everybody. But we were so happy to hear from so many of you about your work.

Zakiya [00:02:30] But before we hear from all these brilliant scientists, let's rewind a little bit to get some context around pride and why queer representation in STEM is so important.

Titi [00:02:37] While there have always been efforts for gay rights, Pride Month was sparked by the Stonewall riots, also known as the Stonewall uprisings. And this was in June of 1969 when police raided the Stonewall Inn. The Stonewall Inn was a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village in New York, and at the time, cops would routinely arrest queer people for just being outside in public, living their lives.

Zakiya [00:03:02] Very similar to what we saw with Black Lives Matter. We saw a space that was considered safe for gay and queer people in New York, right? This was their bar. And what would have been a minor infraction, a liquor license charge, becomes people getting abused, beat up, harassed. So we see increased police violence to something that is a nonviolent offense, which is not a new tactic for the police. Right. And this isn't the first time that the queer community stood up against that type of police violence, but it was kind of consider the hairpin drop heard around the world and that everybody kind of getting involved. And a huge response to this one event is what led to the creation of Pride Month, which we continue to celebrate now. All right. So now that we have a little bit of history, let's get into the recitation.

Titi [00:03:58] All right. So what do we know?

Zakiya [00:04:00] Well, we know that there has been a lot of progress in the year since Stonewall, but don't get it twisted. There is a long way to go and there is particularly a long way to go in STEM, too.

Titi [00:04:10] And we know that STEM as a whole is advanced by having diversity of thought. Diversity of experience. All of these unique characteristics of each person help advance science.

Zakiya [00:04:24] The things we've seen pop up in our labs with doctors Barbara Hofer and Gill Sinatra, our HIV Episode with Dr. Christine Daniels, and our episode about racism in science with Dr. Angela Saini is that science is not done in a vacuum, right? And people bring their whole selves to science. And so the variety of experience also informs what gets pursued in the sciences, what's deemed as worthy of research, and which communities we prioritized to make our technology and scientific advances work on behalf of.

Titi [00:04:53] Right. And to create these environments where you can have that type of robust science, you have to have people from all different types of backgrounds and representation matters. If you can see it, you can be it. So that's what we hope to do today, highlighting queer folks in STEM. So what do we want to know?

Zakiya [00:05:10] Well, we want to hear from our LGBTQ+ community in STEM. Right. We want to know what they're working on.

Titi [00:05:16] Yes. And I would love to hear their experiences, their personal experiences about what it's like being in STEM. You and I have a unique perspective as Black women in STEM in our experiences, but it's always good to know where other people feel like there are pitfalls that we might not be aware of.

Zakiya [00:05:37] Absolutely. Let's jump into the dissection.

Titi [00:05:52] We put a call out to hear from our queer friends that are in STEM, to find out more about the things that you all are loving, the work that you're doing, where you are in your career, and the things that are important to you. And we got so many responses. It made us so happy. Our first caller is an astronomer who studies tides on stars. We love talking about space because there's so much that's always being learned every single day. Space and the ocean. I mean, give me a break. There's no limit.

Rewa [00:06:26] Hey Titi and Zakiya. I'm currently standing in the sand in ancestral Ipai territory on the central California coast under the moonlight. My name is Rewa, I use she/ her pronouns. And this fall, I will be starting graduate school for astronomy. Anyone who's been to the ocean knows about tides. Right? The water level rises and falls because the moon's gravity pulls on the earth's ocean. And turns out tides can happen on stars, too. Especially if that star veers super close to a very, very dense object like a supermassive black hole. So that's what I study. I used the Lux supercomputer at UC Santa Cruz to run simulations of highly tidally stars, trying to find any telltale fingerprints so that we'd know how to go look for them in the wild. I love the feeling of wonder as I explore phenomena so much faster than my imagination can hold. And I love the people I work with, people who are invested in making STEM spaces that are decolonial, feminist, anti-racist, that we can all participate in as our full selves.

Zakiya [00:07:36] You know, when I start thinking about space, it makes me feel like we're so small.

Titi [00:07:42] I know. Insignificant.

Zakiya [00:07:45] And Rewa was talking about tidal disruptions in space.

Titi [00:07:49] Yeah. So just like how the moon interacts with the earth and how it pulls the tides in the ocean, that's exactly what Rewa is saying is happening with stars. As stars get close to a dense object like a black hole, they also feel that tidal pull. And, you know, that's kind of like what happens in the beginning part. But if stars get too close to that dense object, too close to that black hole, then you have a catastrophic event.

Zakiya [00:08:11] Yes, that is so cool. I didn't even think about tides happening on things other than planets, honestly. But it makes sense.

Titi [00:08:19] It does make sense that all of these things should have tides. There's a lot going on in space.

Zakiya [00:08:24] Yes. And you know, anytime I can tap something back to some biology, I'm game for it. Did you hear her say star fingerprinting?

Titi [00:08:31] I did. I did.

Zakiya [00:08:32] And so just like our fingerprints are supposed to be, you know, unique to us to help you identify individuals, star fingerprinting is a term for identifying and distinguishing between the millions of stars in the sky. So astronomers like Rewa identify a star's colored to find out the gas it's made of and its temperature. So it's own sort of fingerprinting.

Titi [00:08:50] That's really cool.

Zakiya [00:08:51] Kind of cool. Yeah.

Zakiya [00:09:00] You know, we love space and we can call back to the StarChella episode where we talked about space and just how small we all are when we consider the grand scale of, you know, just the earth to the moon. But that's just our little planet and what's orbiting around it. Then we start thinking about orbiting around the sun, and that's just our little solar system. And solar system is in the galaxy. Girl, it's too much. But we still celebrate astronomers because they're able to take all that in. And, you know, another type of scientist I really celebrate, but I know it's not for me?

Titi [00:09:29] What?

Zakiya [00:09:29] An entomologist.

Titi [00:09:31] Oh, that's my friend's worst nightmare. Entomologists study insects.

Zakiya [00:09:38] It's a no for me, dog.

Titi [00:09:39] Listen, I have had to rescue my friend a number of times from a variety of insects, and I'll be there every time. But this is a real fear. Do you think you ever could have been an entomologist or what if, like, your research veered that direction a little bit?

Zakiya [00:09:55] Couldn't have. I don't even like when people call bacteria "bugs." Just the word itself. Because they're not, A. But, B, I don't want to think about them having little legs, you know. Cilia and flagella, that's fine, but little insect legs? No, no, no.

Titi [00:10:14] So clearly, entomology is not for you. But our next caller, Dr. Perry Beasley-Hall, is someone who loves bugs.

Perry [00:10:22] Hi, everyone. My name's Dr. Perry Beasley-Hall and I'm a researcher at the South Australian Museum and the University of Adelaide here in Australia. I use she/ her or they/ them pronouns. I'm a lesbian biologist and I'm passionate about increasing the visibility of LGBTQ people in STEM fields. At the moment I'm working on cataloging the biodiversity in many oases of the South Australian desert, also called mound springs. But my background is in entomology, the study of insects, and evolutionary biology. Much of my work focuses on untangling the insect tree of life using DNA. I have a particular interest in subterranean or underground insects because of the weird adaptations they often have to face the challenges of a completely dark environment cut off from the world. I'm passionate about the work I do because I love solving evolutionary puzzles and figuring out which species go where when it comes to an evolutionary tree. My job allows me to turn people into defenders of insects and show them some fascinating animals they've never seen before.

Titi [00:11:15] All right, Zakia, has Dr. Beasley-Hall turned you into a defender of insects?

Zakiya [00:11:20] I understand the importance of insects, and I defend them away from me. Right? Like that is where I'm the strongest defender.

Titi [00:11:31] You go be buggy over there, over there.

Zakiya [00:11:35] And, you know, but I do think the work that Dr. Beasley Hall is doing right now, you know, documenting biodiversity in the South Australian desert, that type of work is incredibly important because whether I like it or not, insects are vital to our world and many insect populations are going extinct at alarming rates.

Titi [00:11:53] Right. And we just had a lab all about that conversation on biodiversity with Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant where we talked about how important data collection is for conservation.

Zakiya [00:12:03] Yeah. And insects are a part of that. But you know, what we realized is that there's a huge lack of data on insects, and so we're losing them, but we don't even know that we're losing them. What does Shannon Sharpe say? We're losing recipes. And I recently saw in somebody's yard where they had a sign that said, don't do those mosquito treatments because they affect other flying bugs and other pollinators that are really important. And a recent study from the UK show that they had a 60% drop in flying bugs from 2004 to 2022.

Titi [00:12:38] Wow, that's crazy.

Zakiya [00:12:39] That sounds good for me as a person outside, but I know that's not good for our environment.

Zakiya [00:12:51] We're already under the biology umbrella, so let's stay under there a little bit. But shift to neuroscience, studying the brain. Our next caller is Dr. Kaela Singleton, a neuroscientist who researches Menkes disease.

Kaela [00:13:04] So hello, my name is Dr. Kaela S. Singleton. My pronouns are she/ her. I'm a Black, Samoan, and queer developmental neuroscientist, and I'm a postdoctoral fellow at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm from Grayson, Georgia. And my current research focuses on understanding how the brain develops in normal and pathological conditions by studying rare genetic diseases, specifically Menkes disease. My current project is funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and what it really tries to understand is how copper affects brain development, but also how copper affects mitochondrial function and metabolic function. Most of the research that I do relies on confocal microscopy. It relies on using Drosophila or fruit fly as well as cell lines as a model. And one of the reasons that I love my research so much is because it has direct implications to help the Menkes disease population. Another reason that I love my work is because I get to mentor and teach and train the next upcoming generation of scientists. And I think that that's really wonderful.

Zakiya [00:14:11] Dr. Singleton's work has implications for people who have Menkes disease, and that leads to the deterioration of the nervous system, and that's directly related to copper in the body.

Titi [00:14:22] And the result of that is you would have sparse or kinky hair textures, difficulty gaining weight, weak muscle tone, sagging facial features, seizures, developmental delay and an intellectual disability.

Zakiya [00:14:37] And all of this is related to copper levels in the body. You know, I think we've kind of touched on some of these things in other labs. So when we talked about nutrition earlier back in January, that lab with Dr. Lichtenstein, and then more recently our episode with Dr. Buettner, where we talked about metals and their importance in different developmental stages. Here we're seeing that exact same thing.

Titi [00:14:57] This is such important work that will help a lot of people that are struggling with this disease.

Zakiya [00:15:02] Absolutely, Titi. Let's take a break. And when we get back, we'll hear some more from queer scientists.

Titi [00:15:26] We're back and we're celebrating Pride Month in STEM and listening to queer scientists share their research, stories, and experiences.

Zakiya [00:15:35] Not only is June Pride Month, but it's also Black Music Month. And next week we're talking all about it with Mark Anthony Neal and 9th Wonder. This lab is going to be great and I can't wait for you guys to listen. Let's get back to today's lab.

Titi [00:15:47] So far, we've heard from an astronomer studying tides on stars, an entomologist exploring biodiversity in the Australian desert, and a neurobiologist who's working to address Menkes disease.

Zakiya [00:15:59] Our next caller is a biochemist who is studying an unstoppable force: aging.

Melanie [00:16:04] Dope Labs podcast, what's good? So I am Dr. Melanie McReynolds. She/ her/ hers. I'm originally from Lewisville, Mississippi. I'm a biochemist. I study the biochemistry of aging. Right. So the intersection of metabolic decline and really asking those questions of how can we age healthier, how can we protect the resiliency of my metabolism. In particular, I'm an NAD scientist, so nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide. It's a key redox regulator. It drives energy production, but it also controls a lot of signaling processes.

Zakiya [00:16:48] So Dr. McReynolds might not be working to create the fountain of youth, but her work is central to finding ways for people to have a better quality of life as they age. Her work is on NAD, which is nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide. It's a molecule that supports cellular function across a couple of different categories. So think metabolism, DNA damage repair, gene expression, stress responses. These are some things we've talked about in earlier episodes. And this signaling molecule she studies is involved in all of them. When we age, our body produces less NAD and it also uses more of it. So now we're getting into supply and demand. Those declines can lead to a lot of diseases associated with getting older, like cancer and cognitive decline. There's been a lot of hype over the years about anti-aging supplements. But it's scientists like Dr. McReynolds, who are doing the work to tease apart these really complex systems, to understand how to help people as they age.

Titi [00:17:49] In the same vein of ensuring the quality of life for folks. There are scientists that look at specific diseases and do a ton of research on what factors may be causing certain groups to have a lower quality of life.

Zakiya [00:17:59] And this is disparities. We've talked about disparities across a couple of topics, including sleep, housing, health care, you name it.

Titi [00:18:06] Our next caller is a med student who hopes to help patients with HIV who are also experiencing another serious condition.

Derek [00:18:13] Hi there. My name is Derek Tran. I'm going to be a first year medical student coming up this summer. And I'm currently doing a research project on patients with HIV and depression, co-morbidity, and how different types of interventions can hopefully help that in the future.

Zakiya [00:18:29] The work that Derek is doing is so important, and when you consider what we know, which is that nothing happens really in isolation, right? So a co-morbidity is the presence of one or more conditions in addition to the primary condition you're being treated for. So in the cases that Derek is studying or hoping to help out with, the primary condition is HIV and the co-morbidity they're interested in is depression.

Titi [00:18:56] If you're sick or dealing with an illness that can create or exacerbate other things. And of course, mental health is just as important as physical health. The work that Derek is doing and will probably continue to do after they achieve their medical degree is so important. If we think back to what Dr. Christine Daniels was telling us from our HIV episodes, it is very important to have resources available to folks that are living with HIV in order to ensure that they are having a high quality of life.

Zakiya [00:19:33] One of the things that we've talked about, Titi, is the experience that individuals have going through the STEM pipeline of training and, you know, post-doc training and then being in their fields. And we heard from scientists who both have felt confined or like they can't be their full selves in their field and folks who are studying people having those experiences.

Titi [00:19:58] So we got a voice memo from a civil engineer named Albert who reflected on what it means to be queer and working in engineering.

Albert [00:20:05] Hi, this is Albert and I live in Austin. I work in civil engineering slash construction management, so it's kind of science slash math here in Austin. And, you know, I grew up being a want to be engineer, but the engineering world is, as it is, it's very, very anti-feminine energy. If that makes sense. I don't know that it's going to be like in other types of fields, but for me, that's how I feel. You have to have this masculine approach in how you dress, how you talk, how you pretty much carry yourself. It's a side of me that I have to show up at work looking very masculine. I do have a side of me that I tend to show differently with my friends that are in the LGBTQ+ community. But not that I'm comfortable to show in my workplace or my colleagues in the civil construction work here in Austin. I've always wondered how much of a mental toll that takes for me. I know some friends that have come out in their workplace, but to me that's something that I have to work on and I had to guard my heart on that.

Zakiya [00:21:34] That's such an important point that Albert made about the mental toll of hiding a part of yourself and having to think about what you feel comfortable or safe telling people about. And then you have to kind of consider, what does it take to kind of box yourself in for one part of a day and try to retrieve that part of you for the rest of it?

Titi [00:21:51] Exactly. And there are people who never have to think about these things. They move through their jobs, through life and just are themselves. And there are folks that have to constantly be policing themselves, like self-policing and correcting and saying, oh, let me not say this this way. Let me not dress this way. Let me not talk in this certain way, let me not talk about my experiences. Or if somebody says, How was your weekend? Oh, I can't tell them what I was doing because it is unique to my culture, is unique to who I am as a person. And you feel like, Oh, they may treat me differently. All of that psychology, all of those mental gymnastics that you have to go through in order to just feel like you are fitting in, quote unquote, and so that people won't mistreat you, is exhausting.

Zakiya [00:22:36] Yeah, the STEM field has a lot of room to grow so that everyone can show up as their full selves. One of the people that we heard from works on this very issue. Let's turn it over to Dr. Barthelemy.

Ramon [00:22:48] I'm Dr. Ramon Barthelemy, and I'm an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Utah. I'm a physics education researcher conducting studies on the lives, experiences, and career trajectories of LGBT+physicists with a strong intersectional focus on physicists who also might be people of color or women. Currently, I am working on a social network analysis project to understand how LGBT+ physicists at the intersections of gender and race build and navigate their professional networks to successfully launch and continue in their careers. This is important knowledge to understand in order to support graduate students in building robust and strong networks early in their educations in order to find whatever their definition of success is within their field. As a physicist, I truly believe that this is a science that everybody can learn about and enjoy, and I hope that I can improve it in some small way.

Titi [00:23:41] I love what Dr. Barthélemy has to say, and I know that they said that they were going to be improving the space in a small way. But those small changes make a big difference in a lot of people's lives. And just like all of the work that we've heard today, these are all advances in spaces that are going to have a large impact.

Zakiya [00:24:06] We've heard from so many wonderful scientists today, you know, and they're doing amazing work. They're making the field better. Like, why would you want to exclude these folks?

Titi [00:24:15] I know. I mean, when you think about what is missed out on when people are trying to deny folks access to any type of community, by having more diverse populations within STEM and in every field, it creates better product, it creates more advancements, and it also creates an environment where more folks feel like they can be a part of it.

Zakiya [00:24:35] Yeah, this lab was all about amplifying queer voices. We heard about astronomy, neuroscience, biodiversity, and entomology. I mean, we heard about it, all right?

Titi [00:24:46] And that was just a small taste of where the queer community has impact. I feel like there are so many resources online for you to learn more about queer scientists and the work that they're doing. Like there's an organization called 500 Queer Scientists, and it provides lists of queer people who are involved in STEM. But then they also have a lot of studies that lets you know some of the work that's being done and where we still need to make improvements.

Zakiya [00:25:12] And I think the thing to remember is with organizations like 500 Queer Scientists or when you get on social media like Twitter and Instagram where you're looking at # LGBTQinSTEM or #LGBTinSTEM, all of these folks are doing the hard work of making STEM better. And for all these people that you see, there are people who aren't in these fields today because they were hostile or exclusionary or, you know, not nurturing folks that feel just a little different from them. So I think it's important to acknowledge that. And I think the people that are still there weren't necessarily nurtured either. So we have to really address, you know, the toll. You know, everybody's like, oh, be resilient and stay persistent, be persistent. Those things have a cost.

Titi [00:25:56] Right.

Zakiya [00:25:56] It's not just resilience. Oh, I'm going to show up here even when I'm tired. It's sometimes showing up in places where my whole identity and person are not welcome.

Titi [00:26:07] Exactly. The whole idea of being resilient and persisting is something that is exclusive to people in marginalized communities. People from the majority don't have to be resilient. They don't have to persist. They are allowed to be themselves in every single space, and that should be par for the course for everyone. We should be able to show up as we are, be who we are, and make the impacts that we know that we can make on every single space.

Zakiya [00:26:30] And as much as we celebrate, you know, how far we've come and how far things have changed, we also have to pay attention to the rollback of rights. Right? So the Don't Say Gay bill in Florida. Well, starting in Florida and now spreading to these other states and the potential of New Jersey proposing some bill that's even worse than the one in Florida. There's a lot to pay attention to. I just hope, you know, STEM doesn't become a field that's just paying lip service to the marginalized communities.

Titi [00:27:02] Honestly, because sometimes it just is, you know, in vogue for folks to say that they stand with the LGBTQIA+ community, to put up the flag, to say, oh, yes, we're inclusive, but then they aren't really actually doing the work. So you see the rainbows in June, you see different corporations highlighting their queer employees. But then after June, it kind of stops. And what we want to show is that you have to continue that work outside of Pride Month. You have to continue the amplification of queer people, of queer identities outside of June because they exist 365 days a year.

Zakiya [00:27:51] That's it for Laugh 66. I am so grateful for the people who called in and shared their stories, shared their work with us. Do you have something you want to share? Do you have an idea for a lab? Call us at 202-567-7028. We really want to hear from you so you can call or text at 202-567-7028.

Titi [00:28:11] And don't forget that there is so much more to dig into on our web site. There will be a cheat sheet for today's lab, additional links and resources in the show notes. Plus, you can sign up for our newsletter. Check it out at DopeLabsPodcast.com. Special thanks to everyone that called in. We are so excited about the work that you are doing and will be doing in the future. Thank you so much. You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at @DopeLabsPodcast.

Zakiya [00:28:38] Titi is on Twitter and Instagram at @dr_tsho.

Titi [00:28:42] And you can find Zakiya at @zsaidso. Dope Labs is a Spotify original production from MegaOhm Media Group.

Zakiya [00:28:49] Our producers are Jenny Radelet Mast and Lydia Smith of Wave Runner Studios. Our associate producer for MegaOhm Media is Brianna Garrett.

Titi [00:28:57] Editing and Sound Design by Rob Smierciak.

Zakiya [00:29:00] Mixing by Hannis Brown.

Titi [00:29:02] Original music composed and produced by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugiura. From Spotify, Executive Producer Corinne Gilliard and creative producer Miguel Contreras.

Zakiya [00:29:13] Special thanks to Shirley Ramos, Jess Borison, Yasmeen Afifi, Kimu Elolia, Teal Kratky, and Brian Marquis. Executive producers from MegaOhm Media Group are us:

Titi [00:29:24] Titi Shodiya.

Zakiya [00:29:25] And Zakiya Whatley.