Self-described science evangelist Dr. Ainissa Ramirez, addressed a capacity crowd in the Great Hall earlier this semester as the keynote speaker for this year's Black History Month.
After earning her Ph.D. from Stanford, working at Bell Laboratories, and serving on the faculty at Yale University, Ramirez launched a career as a science educator. Shes delivered TED talks; served as science advisor to the American Film Institute, WGBH/NOVA, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and several science museums; and written several books including Save Our Science, Newtons Football, and The Alchemy of Us.
Below are a few select excerpts from her reflections on the importance of mentors, a career in science, dealing with Imposter Syndrome, and developing a can-do spirit.
Those Who Can, Teach
Ainissa Ramirez wanted to be a scientist from the age of 4, but there werent many scientists in the working-class Jersey City neighborhood where she grew up.
I wanted to know why the sky was blue, why leaves changes color, why snowflakes have six sides. I was very, very curious and my path to becoming a scientist solidified in all places from a television show. Back in the day when I watched television, it was shows like Six Million Dollar Man, Bionic Woman, Star Trek with Spock, but the show that did it for me was a low-budget show on PBS called 3-2-1 Contact. The reason the show worked for me is because there was a little African American girl solving problems in this group called the Bloodhound Gang, and I saw my reflection.
I was in a black neighborhood, and going to school in the Italian neighborhood. When I went to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, I was one of two black students. Miss Donohue, my fifth grade teacher, was this stout Irish woman, but she was geeky about scienceand that was important to me because she gave me permission to love science too. Thats the power of having a role model. They reflect you. She didnt look like me, but she was geeky in the way that I was geeky.
Because if it werent for Miss Donohue, I wouldnt have gone to St. Dominics, and if it werent for St. Dominics I wouldnt have met my next teacher, Jean Marie Howard. She was a physics teacher, and she wanted to make physics fun. The other thing about Miss Howard was that she pushed me. She prodded me to be excellent. My guidance counselor was, like, No, no, no, but Miss Howard told me, I want you to go to a school as high as you can go.
My life is actually spotlights of different teachers. Whenever Ive just finished writing a book, I always cite these teachersall the way back to Miss Donohue.
Material Girl
With Miss Howards encouragement, Ramirez applied to a range of schoolsand got into Brown University, where she majored in materials science and engineering.
When I got to Brown, I felt prepared. I was one of the top students in my high school. I had also gone to Stevens Tech, which is an engineering school, on Saturdays. I was prepared for thisI took calculus, electrical engineering. However, when I got to Brown, I found that I was sorely mistaken in terms of my preparation. The classes seemed to be designed to weed out students. In fact, the professors would say, Turn to your left, turn to your right, one of you wont be here next semester. And that was true. So we went from 500 to 250 and then that semester, Turn to your left, turn to your right, one of you wont be here next semester. They just started to whittle down and down and down.
So I nerded out. I got a carrel in the library, I got a locker, I got tutors before tutors were even signed up for a class, and I took a class called Chemistry 21T, the tutorial version with Miss Eldegard Morris, who did the same materialat a slower pace. Again, another teacher who saved me.
I fell in love with the field called material science. The professor saidI think just parentheticallyThe reason why I dont fall through the floor, the reason why my jacket is blue, and the reason why the lights work, all have to do with the interaction of atoms and if you can figure out how they do that, you can get them to do new things. When he said that, I started looking aroundI looked at my penciland I thought, Yeah, thats it. This guy is making the whole world make sense to me. This is fantastic. I dont know what this material science thing is, but I have to pursue it.' I loved it so much that I decided I needed to learn about it. So I went to Stanford.
Imposter Syndrome
From grammar school to the Ph.D. program at Stanford University, Ramirez searched for scientists who looked like herrole models. Then, she landed at Bell Laboratories.
As a child, I had had role models who were African American, but they were all in books. I knew about George Washington Carver. People talk about his cultivating the peanut; what he was actually trying to do was to restore land that was very barren and also trying to feed people at the same time. I knew about Madame C.J. Walker. She was a chemist who made curly hair straight and straight hair curlythats chemistry. She was the first self-made woman millionaire, not just black women but all women. She was Oprah before Oprah. I also knew about Garrett Morgan. He also created this crazy thing called the stoplight. Every time I see a stoplight, I see a black scientist, a black inventor. You see 'oh man its red.' I see 'Genius'.
When I got to Stanford, I thought it was going to be more of the samebut it was just such an intense pace, I needed to discover a support system. I was succumbing to Imposter Syndrome, where you feel like youre a fraud. I was starting to feel that I didnt belong, to feel that I wasnt good enough, and so thats the reason why I needed a support system. Its a beautiful thing to have. Particularly if youre, as Shonda Rhymes said, first, only, or different. I was first-generation to go, I was definitely the only African American, and Im definitely different because I was better-looking than most of the other people around me. So what I had to do is, what I had to figure out is, how am I going to survive?
I loved Bell Laboratories. There was a Nobel Laureate who was in the hallway across from me. This was like being a kid in a candy store. Also for the first time since 3-2-1 Contact, I saw my reflection because Bell Labs had a long history of hiring black scientists: Shirley Jackson, who was a theoretical physicist and went on to be president of Rensselaer, and Jim West, who made the microphone in your cellphone. I was in an environment where I saw people who looked like me. I soared when I was there. I had a couple of patents, I was writing papers, I was on the fast track to distinguished of staff. I was definitely on my way there.
Job Satisfaction
With the telecom crash, Ramirez found herself hustling for her next job. She landed at Yale Universitys Mechanical and Materials Science Department, and although lured by her love of research, discovered a different passion.
Something exciting happened for me in academia. I was writing a grant, and one of the stipulations is to do outreach and science communicationteaching the public about your research. So I created Science Saturdays, a program where scientists talked 30 minutes or so about their research. It wouldnt be jargon-y. It would be down to earth. And when I was doing this program, I was on fire. Very young kids would show up and, after a couple of years, I saw them grow and love science. One student who had dropped out of college came to a Science Saturdays program, and he wrote me a letter that said, 'I dropped out, I went to your Science Saturdays talk on marine biology, and Im now taking a marine biology class.' It felt very, very satisfying, and I said, this is the thing that I really really lovejust encouraging people, inspiring people to get back in touch with their inner scientist.
So I started a new career as a science evangelist. I made some 3-minute videos explaining different scientific principles. I made a series called Material Marvels and put it on iTunes. I wasnt really certain about what I was doing, and one day, I got a message from TED that said, 'We really like your videos. Wed like you to come and give a talk.' Once I did that TED talk, someone said, 'Would you like to write a book about that?' So I wrote a book on how to make people get excited about science; its called Save Our Science.
I kept doing a couple more videos. This editor came and said, Hey, you did a video on football. Would you like to write a book about football? So I wrote Newtons Football. (My brothers are football fansI live with my youngest brotherand I would be on the phone talking to these greats. Hey, today I talked to this guy, Jerry Rice. Do you know who he is? Hes like, Why do you have this job?)
Can Do
My path wouldnt have happened if I had bought into cant. I had heard cant said directly to me, and it was also said behind me. You cant go to Brown. Nobody from our school goes to Brown. You cant get a Ph.D. at Stanford. There are no black girls that get Ph.D.s. in material science. You cant write a book. Nobody does that. You cant be a professor at Yale. Everybody here is male, pale, and went to Yale. You cant do that.
When I was very small, I asked my mom about the word cant, and she said, its not in the dictionary. I went to the dictionary, and I saw it there. I was very confused. But what she was trying to get across to me is that its not in your dictionary.