- [Presenter] All right everyone, we're gonna go ahead
and get started.
Take your seats, pull out your popcorn,
get your Twitter ready.
Welcome to Biological Anthropology and the Public.
This thing's like weird, okay.
So first off, thank you all for coming.
I just have a few thank yous that I wanna shout out
before we get started.
Thank you first to Agustin Fuentes and Jim McKenna
who without whom we would not have had the funding
to do this project.
Thank you to my wonderful organizer, Natalia Regan
without whom I would not have been able to do this project.
There we go, yes.
Thank you to the Smithsonian Institute for allowing
us to invade the Hall of Human Origins Wednesday night
and film all of these videos.
And thank you, of course, to all of our speakers
whose work just I am in awe of.
They inspire me every day and I am really excited
about these videos and I hope you all are too.
With that, we will go ahead and get started.
So if you are tweeting this, the hashtag is bioanthpub.
We are going to be putting these videos on YouTube
there was slight technical glitch this morning,
so they are not currently up on YouTube,
but they will be hopefully by the end of the day.
And so you are going to be able to share these
with your colleagues, students, friends, family,
you know, whoever you feel would appreciate these videos
after the fact.
Okay, switch to video, so first up,
Oh so the way this session is gonna work,
we're gonna play each of these videos
in the order that's in the program and then our discussion
will be led by Agustin Fuentes and that is going
to be like a bigger Q&A with the speakers
who are all here as well.
So first up with have Sue Sheridan
from the University of Notre Dame.
And this is,
- Hi I'm Sue Sheridan.
I'm a bio-archeology professor
at the University of Notre Dame and I've been asked
to discuss how I engage with social media.
You're looking at it.
One of the real advantages of social media is that you
can do it from the privacy of your own home.
You can exfoliate, you can have weekend hair,
be in your bath robes, cuddle with kitties.
Are you an insomniac?
No problem.
Are you an introverted home body?
Now you can still network with abandon in your discipline
without every having to leave the comfort
of your own home.
You can check in during your workday,
between classes while you're doing research,
help break up the routine of your day.
Running between business meetings
at a professional conference?
No problem.
I feel like I'm forgetting something.
Ah, the anthropology scarf.
(audience laughing)
Whether you're using your phone, a computer, iPad,
tablet any of these will work as long as you can sign on
and add to the conversation.
Today we have 20,000 members across all the platforms
of BioAnth News with nearly 100 countries represented
and people from all seven continents including Antarctica.
Most of our members are professors and students
with a relatively large lay audience.
We even have a couple of journalists that are members.
For example Steve Inskeep, the host
for NPR's Morning Edition, once exclaimed on the site,
"I live for BioAnth News!"
So what is BioAnth News, you ask.
- [Woman] No one asked!
- I think they asked.
I heard you ask.
BioAnth News is a social media network that crosses
multiple platforms to bring together scientists
conducting research in discussion with the general
public and students as an educational tool.
BioAnth News communicates the excitement
and relevance of anthropology to a non-academic audience.
It utilizes an integrative anthropological approach
to foster discussion.
Although named for a specific subfield, to capitalize
on Facebook's search parameters, the selection
of articles cross all areas of anthropology.
The purpose of BioAnth News is to use social media
to educate people about anthropology with an emphasis
on connections to bioanthropology.
To explore current research and its treatment
by the popular press.
To foster collegial interaction, demonstrating first hand
that people can actually disagree strongly
yet remain professional.
Provide teaching tools for professors and graduate students.
Network students and faculty far and wide.
And foster input from top scholars in anthropology.
The inclusivity inherent in the open access nature
of social media and the ability to address social
justice issues related to health, race, poverty,
sex and gender and human rights are additional benefits.
Pat Shipman Professor emeritus at Penn State once observed,
"This is a huge and very important service to the field."
Bill Youngers, an emeritus Professor at Suny Stony Brook
added, "I've become addicted and depend upon BioAnth News
"daily for commentaries, educational resources
"and good natured collegiality."
And Bob Martin, an emeritus curator at the Field Museum
and adjunct professor at University of Chicago
once stated, "I unconditionally declare my love
"for BioAnth News."
Over the eight years the Facebook group has been active,
we have had several success stories to point to.
For example the Facebook group helped generate
participants for the ground-breaking safe study
exposing sexual harassment in bioanthropology.
It helped rally a public outcry about National Geographic's
proposed airing Nazi War Diggers that resulted
in cancellation of the series.
Earlier this year, a white supremacist generated
dialog box describing Jewish conspiracy to teach
racial equality appeared at the top of any search
for the Boasian approach on Google.
A write-in campaign by our group members helped get
the post removed very quickly.
One of our happiest uses was realized when Lee Berger
needed paleontologists with doctorates who were also
advanced cavers to access a newly discovered cave
filled with human fossil remains.
He posted notice on BioAnth News.
Several of the resulting underground astronauts
as well as a senior scholar with the Rising Star Excavation
directly credited our network with the speed
with which they were able to assemble their team.
On a smaller scale, a retiring professor who wanted
to gift his skeletal collection to an interested
anthropologist found a faculty member at a small college
via BioAnth News, providing teaching research opportunities
that otherwise would not have been possible.
Many people use BioAnth News in their teaching
and have their students join at the start of the semester
so they can incorporate the newest findings
into class discussions.
I take at least 10 minutes of every class
to let students describe articles they found of interest.
Touching on topics we might not otherwise get to in a class.
Deb Martin, the linsy professor at UNLV commented
that all of her students are linked to the site
through Facebook and its coverage creates a lot
of provocative things to talk about in the class and beyond.
About a dozen faculty have reported that large portions,
even whole classes have been designed around the network.
Gretchen Dabbs, associate professor from Southern Illinois
University at Carbondale, commented that she structured
her entire graduate seminar around it.
One innovative project uses John Oliver's Last Week Tonight
HBO program as a model where teams of two students
pick five stories from BioAnth News, summarize four of them
and then drill down on the fifth topic in depth.
These shows are filmed for later evaluation.
While humor's not a requirement, the inventiveness
of undergraduates often shines through.
Inter-institutional and multi-campus collaborations
have resulted from the use of the network in classroom
activities and the BioAnth News Network has been linked
to at least four high enrollment
and gateway courses or MOOC's.
There are numerous novel teaching and research aspects.
Our banner photos change monthly to highlight a member's
research, sampling across the many and varied sub areas
of biological anthropology.
Weekly features such as Monday Memes are often quotable
quotes from anthropologists or about the field
suitable for sharing widely.
Tuesday Tourist samples sites a bit off the beaten track,
of interest to anthropologists while traveling.
Thursday Theater suggests often notoriously bad movies
featuring bioanthropology themes.
Friday Fun Facts offer tidbits of esoterica suitable
for impressing friends and neighbors at parties, or not.
Our BioAnth Mug Shots album of over 260 BioAnth PhDs
offers a way to look up a person of interest when reading
about their research and a handy cheat sheet
at professional meetings.
Undergrads and graduate students can find permanent
files on the Facebook group compiled from members comments
about what can you do with an anthropology degree?
Are you considering a graduate school visit?
Or academic interview tips.
John Marks a professor at the University of North Carolina
Charlotte said, "It has managed to link up thousands
"of senior scholars, junior scholars and students
"into a broad intellectual network of opinions,
"discussions and debates about the latest
"relevant science headlines.
"This has been a great service to the discipline,
"unimaginable when I was a young scholar."
The BioAnth News Network recently hosted a conference
on the use of social media for research, teaching
and public outreach.
We had multiple people speak at the conference,
including Bob Martin, Barbra King, Agustin Fuentes,
John Hawks, from a cave in South Africa,
Marc Kissel, Anna Osterholtz, and Natalia Reagan.
These are going to make up the beginning
of our professional series on our YouTube channel
for use in classrooms and we'll have learning modules
associated with them for students
and the general public to use.
Just a simple Facebook Live videos from the conference
generated 1500 views per talk.
A crack team of undergraduates and graduate students
have helped us build the social media network
for bioanthropology News.
We have 17 administrators from all the sub-areas
of anthropology to make sure we maintain the integrative
anthropological approach to the site.
As we continue to grow, we have begun a signature
video lecture series by leading scholars who understand
the importance of new digital media, created a series
of interactive virtual reality and 3D activities
for the site, are developing a series of Buzz Feed quizzes
and lists for public outreach and will begin
an interview series to illustrate non-traditional careers
in anthropology beginning next fall.
We will continue to expand our educational goals
using digital immersive technologies to show students
and the public the excitement of anthropology
while enhancing critical thinking skills,
fostering international interaction and promoting
inclusivity, civil discourse and social responsibility
through the creation of new offerings and the maintenance
of the exciting nature of bioanthropology news.
So come join the conversation.
Sign up for Facebook which acts as the mother ship
for the BioAnth News Network.
Tweet us, sign up for Instagram or follow us on YouTube
where we have a bi-weekly BioAnth News and review segment.
We oftentimes post videos from different conferences.
We have clips, comical and serious for use in the classroom
and just general edification.
Thank you.
- [Presenter] Next up we have a video by Kathryn
or Kate Clancy,
I don't actually know which one you prefer,
I've just realized, from University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign.
- I have been involved in science communication
for about seven years now.
And I started out as an independent blogger.
I was just on you know, a Blogspot Blog.
And you know, a few years in, I got invited to be
in the Scientific American Blog Network.
This was a really big deal.
I was so excited, this was the hay day of science blogging
in a lot of ways.
There was archipelago of blog networks that were
all starting at this time.
There was a, there was a conference called Science Online
that had been running for a few years at this point.
And you know, you had to be kind of in the in crowd
in order to get in, to get lottery to get in.
And you felt really cool to be part of the in jokes,
to be part of this really fun crowd of people
who really cared about science.
Unfortunately, not too long into my time
at Scientific American my boss, who was also called
the Blog Father, sort of the person who was looked at
with a ton of admiration in our community,
turned out to be a serial sexual harasser.
And I had never experienced any of this myself.
I had been affirmed and supported
and lifted up by this person.
And so what was really hard about it is
that on the one hand it was devastating to learn
about all of these victims who had been deeply hurt
and who for a long time had felt like they couldn't
share their stories.
And then what was worst was that moment inside of me,
at first when I was like well this hasn't happened to me,
and this is a person I really care about.
And I had to learn, this was a really major tough love
moment for me, where I had to learn what it looks like
to support victims whether or not the perpetrator
is your friend.
And you know, it led to a lot of sort of soul searching
and I began to really doubt whether or not I belonged
as a science blogger.
Because I and several other female science bloggers
who had never been harassed at all by this guy
were all, came to realize that we were his,
we were his feminist front in a lot of ways.
We were the folks that made him look good,
made him look like he wasn't doing anything wrong.
And that really took the love of science blogging
out of me, to be totally honest.
I managed to be at SciAm for a little bit longer,
but at a certain point I just had to stop.
It just wasn't the right place for me.
At the same time that this was happening,
it led to me thinking a lot about our climate
and our community, and this in crowd that at first
I thought I so desperately wanted to be a part of,
and I so desperately wanted to be in and cool
and in this clique.
I began to realize maybe the way we were organized
which was, are you cool?
Does the Blog Father like you?
Is maybe not the healthiest way to have any
kind of community.
And are we even reaching the people that we wanna reach?
Are we stepping outside the ivory tower?
Or are we just writing posts that our friends really like?
And that's what really changed things for me
and made me decide I didn't really wanna do it anymore.
So to my mind some of the big problems
that I face with science blogging, and I don't think
this is true for everybody, but for me,
the big problems were a narrow audience.
I surveyed my readers fairly early on to find out
just who tends to read my blog and the majority
of my readers were white female anthropologists.
So, like me.
And while it's really important for blogs to,
you know, to produce scholarship and there are scholarly
blog posts and whole communities of scholars
who engage on blogs, my goal was not just to talk
to my people.
My goal was to talk to lots of people
and I clearly was not achieving that goal.
And so I began to think more about the medium
and more about one of the main problems,
for me at least for science blogging,
which was that it's really easy to adopt the deficit model
when your whole job is just talking at people
and giving them your HOT take on something.
And I wanted to move away from a model that said
I'm the expert and I'm going to just in a top down way
pass on information to other people.
And try to do what's called the dialogue model.
So one that understands that people are,
that you know, anybody in the public can contribute
to the scientific conversation, can aid in scientific
advances and discovery.
And not that there's just a certain ivory tower
full of scientists that are the keepers
of all the knowledge.
That instead this knowledge can be gained in many ways.
There's also science communication literature out there
that says there's a few other key components
to really get your message across.
And that's emotion, narrative and perspective taking.
So you know, I think that this past election
taught us a lot about the fact that facts don't
actually matter when it comes to passing on information
and changing people's minds.
The appeal to emotion and understanding people's lived
experiences and where they are coming from,
is how you'll actually reach them.
So you now, the deficit model is never gonna get us
to a day where climate change is real is like
somehow part of our Pledge of Allegiance
or the NIH or NSF suddenly have unlimited funding
and we all are doing all the science of our dreams.
If we wanna lead to, if we wanna get to a more
scientifically more literate public, we have to be
engaging in dialogue.
For me podcasting was how I could make that happen.
Podcasting is a space where because you're using audio
and because many of the models of podcasting
is bringing other people into your space,
you get to have conversations,
so you're having dialogue, right?
But the other thing that's really great about podcasting
is that I'm no longer the expert with all the knowledge.
Instead, yes I have some expertise, right?
There's some thought that goes into it.
My voice is a major part of what makes Period Podcast work.
But at the same time, what I'm getting to do
is instead of blogging where it was people on Twitter
were constantly asking me, I want the Kate Clancy
take on this event or this paper, which got really tiring.
Instead what happened was I got to say,
well who are the takes that I wanna hear?
Who are the people whose voices I wanna promote?
And can I be really thoughtful
and intentional about that?
So that's how it went from you know this being a podcast
that's just interviewing say, scientific experts
to certainly interviewing scientific experts,
but also interviewing activists, educators,
kids, entrepreneurs, activists.
You know, a whole range of people for whom there was
a connection between the topic of my podcast, periods
and women and fem reproductive physiology
or really any menstruating physiology
to other issues in the wide world, so politics,
education, hygiene, health, things like that.
So, one of the great benefits of podcasting
is that unlike science blogging which has been shown
to be a bit narrow in its focus where people who
already like science read science blogs
and people who are scientists themselves read
science blogs, podcasts are listened to by everybody.
There's a podcast for everything you can possibly dream of,
but what's more, once you kinda get into listening
to podcasts, it's, you kinda get addicted.
And you listen to more and more and more.
And so people find themselves following lots
of different types of podcasts that they might
not have before, and then suddenly they find themselves,
ya know, hearing from scientists.
So one of the first things that I did was try to work with
and reach out to some other podcasts that aren't just
science audiences, so a feminist podcast,
general health podcast, and actually another period podcast
were some of the places where I was a guest.
And it was a really wonderful experience to share my
perspective, but then also to learn from them,
to learn from their audience and ya know, to gain
some of their audience by moving into these other spaces.
One of the other great benefits for me,
for podcasting is it's seasonal rather than
sort of weekly content.
Blogging can get really tiring and if you already
have a full time job like I do,
it's really hard to come up with new content every week
without going crazy or without it frankly being
to the detriment of your other job.
So I enjoyed that I have one season already done
and I'm part way through season two right now.
And that has really made it much more manageable
for me to find guests, record them and then with my sister,
do the editing later.
One of the things I really like about my podcast
is like I said, I'm not just interviewing experts.
I'm interviewing lots of different types of people
who might be, have a vested interested in periods
in some way or sometimes have no interest at all.
And so I'm gonna share with you three clips
that are, that illustrate some of the important elements
of science communication to me, around emotion
and narrative and perspective taking.
So the first episode clip is from episode four
in season one and this is one where I interviewed
a whole bunch of kids.
I actually talked to my daughter
and a whole bunch of her friends
and then all of their moms, and asked them about periods,
if they knew what they were, what they were made of,
what they were like and then asked the moms,
who were then listening to the kids
and reacting to the kids and half the time horrified
at what their kids were saying because they thought
they had done a good job educating their children
and their children knew nothing about periods.
So it was just a really, it was a really fun experience.
So I'm gonna share with you a brief clip of my daughter.
Do I get my period?
- [Daughter] Yeah.
- [Kate] Yeah? Have you ever seen it?
- Mm hmm. - What's it look like?
- [Daughter] It's red.
- [Kate] Do you remember anything else about period
besides its color?
- [Daughter] I know the other things I just told you.
And comes out of your body.
- [Kate] Where, what part of my body?
- [Daughter] (whispering) What is this called again?
- [Kate] What do you remember? That's okay.
- [Daughter] Can you just please tell me please?
- [Kate] So do you remember there's urethra?
And vulva and anus down there in that area?
- [Daughter] Yeah, but this.
- [Kate] Yeah, so that ones the vulva.
- [Daughter] Vulva, um vulva.
(Kate chuckling)
Vulva, vulva, the vulva.
- The next clip I wanna share is one that's actually me.
And so for the first episode of season two,
so episode 13, my sister who's my editor said,
why don't we interview you, so that your narrative
can actually be shared.
You've asked the narratives of a lot of other people
and heard why they got into what they did,
but nobody knows why you have this podcast
and why you study periods to begin with.
So we decided to kind of turn the tables.
She got out from behind the mic and interviewed me.
And one of her questions was when I first
learned about periods and where babies came from
and so this is a clip from that.
I was at my friend's house, my best friend when I was little
and we were playing and then this must have been
by mutual agreement between the two moms,
but my best friend's mom walked in and said,
I got a video for you kids to watch
on where do babies come from?
And then she just popped it in the VCR
and walked out.
And then we sat there, we watched a video that included
graphic cartoon sex and we were like seven years old.
And it was super weird.
The third episode I wanna share is episode six
in season one and this is with Laura Shanley
also known as Sue Magina.
Sue Magina is an activist and she started the group
Periods for Pence which you might remember
from a little over a year ago when then Governor Pence
had created this omnibus abortion bill that created,
that had a pretty obvious misunderstanding of just how
reproductive biology worked because part of it included
any time a woman has a miscarriage or an abortion
she must inter the remains.
You know like basically have like a funeral.
Except that lots of miscarriages are just menstruation.
So she started calling Pence's office every time
she had her period and encouraged other women
to do the same to say oh, I just got my period
and I may or may not have been pregnant,
so I may or may not have miscarried.
I guess I'd better inter my menstrual blood.
Where would you like me to send the pads?
And this sparked a giant movement.
Thousands of women were calling his office
until it got shut down.
So this is just a brief clip of her talking
about sort of that moment that she got angry
and was spurred to action.
- [Laura] One night I remember looking over at my husband,
and I said this is ridiculous.
If he wants to know this much about my body
and why I'm making choices for it,
he might as well know every little detail of my period.
Maybe I should just call him and tell him.
My husband looked at me and was like,
you might be on to something.
- The last point that I wanna make is that
I think a lot of different media in science communication
can be enjoyed differently and can be enjoyed alone
or in a group.
And what's great about the written word
is that you can share it online really easily
so people can share things on Facebook or Twitter
and there could be huge comment streams
of people reacting and engaging with material
in that way.
One of the things I love about podcasting
is that I don't always get to see that engagement,
but I hear afterwards about it happening face to face.
So, ya know, some of the more typical engagements
that I've heard from a lot of my listeners
are moms listening with their daughters.
And so they listen to the episodes and then they have
a conversation afterwards, like what did you
have questions about?
What did you think about this?
Did you know that this is something periods did?
And they've had a lot of fun using this as a starting
point for talking about just female reproductive biology
with their daughters.
Another fairly obvious one is ya know,
I've heard that college professors are sometimes using
my podcasts in their syllabi or are playing clips
of it in their classes.
But some of the other really fun ones I've heard
is one listener is a prison guard.
And she actually plays it in the prison where she works
for the people who work there as well as for the prisoners.
And she doesn't necessarily report that they always love it
but it's kinda fun to imagine that that's another place
that Period Podcast is making it's mark.
I also heard from a garbage truck driver that he often
blares it when he's working so that he and his co-workers
can be listening to it together.
So, we don't always know how these things are getting
enjoyed and listened to together, but what's great
about audio is it's so portable that sometimes
it can be shared among people in a way that we don't
always see but maybe has an even greater impact.
At the end of the day there are a number of ways
to break down the ivory tower.
And a number of ways for science communication
to make its mark and engage differently with the public.
As long as your goal to make science bigger,
to make more room, to make it just and more equitable
and a place where different types of questions can be asked,
data can be collected differently
and interpreted differently, then you're doing it right.
- Okay.
Next up is Julie Lesnik from Wayne State University.
- Hello and welcome to this, where I'm gonna talk to you
about how I engage the public using edible insects
to talk about important topics like human evolution
and the problems of ethnocentrism and the importance
of sustainable agriculture.
My name is Julie Lesnik.
I'm a biological anthropologist who studies the evolution
of the human diet.
And I primarily focus on the role of termites.
I started this work in about 2006.
But in 2013 the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization put out a monograph over 200 pages
arguing why we should use edible insects
as an alternative for our traditionally raised livestock.
And so it was at this point that I realized that I'd heard
this before, I'd of course, come across people saying
this on the internet and I had thought they were crazy
when I was working on my dissertation.
But by the time 2013 rolled around, I'd been working on this
for six years and I realized that the nutritional value
of edible insects could not be avoided.
You can't argue that insects are not
a nutritional food source.
And so I realized that I had a lot that I could
offer this conversation.
I looked at the statement and the authors of it
were entomologists and agriculturalists
or agriculturologists or people that study agriculture.
And there were no social scientists.
And so I realized that there's a lot of important things
that I could bring to this about culture world views.
That the disgust here in the United States
is not the same around the world.
People eat bugs everywhere.
And that we have these views because of our own history.
And so I knew that I could contribute to this conversation.
So my foray into outreach really started with talking
to other scientists.
I talked to these entomologists
and these agricultural scientists.
And tried to impart in them that the value of sort of
the humanities and the social science perspective.
And so that's one of my points that I wanna start with
is that other scientists are still public engagement,
talking outside of our specialty.
Whether we like it or not, academics, we're a part
of a society and so we can talk to other academics
outside of our field and that's still engaging people
with our work.
And then from there I then started talking
to environmental activists.
People who are really smart and care about the planet.
And so I realized talking to them wasn't actually
much different than talking to other scientists.
And then from there, now people just are excited
about edible insects.
People just wanna know more about it.
And so I talked to a wide range of people.
And it's all the same.
You just kinda use common language.
Talk to people like their people and it goes a long way.
And so what I'm gonna talk about here is
how I, how I engage people.
Some of my tips and tricks.
I have a web site, I have a blog, I have social media.
But there are people that do that a lot better
than I do.
I use that though, to make sure I have a web presence
so people can find me.
And then they invite me to go give talks.
And so all of my tips and tricks are really about
giving talks, how can we communicate to the public
in different sorts of public speaking engagements.
So Julie's tips for public engagement.
Tips and trick number one, use bad graphics.
Case in point.
So I argue for using bad graphics for a couple of reasons.
If you can create beautiful graphics, do it.
But there's some really good reasons why you
should use bad graphics.
One, they shouldn't take much time to put together.
You're not looking for perfection
and so you can cut time by throwing it together
and not worrying that all your shadows
are facing the right way.
As academics who want to engage with the public,
it adds more time into our work day.
If you're on the tenure track, of course public service
is a slice of that pie chart,
but we really know what the universities are looking for.
They're looking for research, research, grants,
grants, grants, research when you're up
for your tenure case.
So as much as they might say public engagement
is valued we kind of get a different response from them
when we put a lot of time into public engagement.
So to do it you need to value it yourself.
And do it 'cause you want to.
But in order to kinda maintain your academic career,
it's good to find ways to do it efficiently.
And so bad graphics is one.
I'm not trying to create a coffee table book
with any of my visual aids.
I'm just trying to get my point across.
The other reason why I really like using bad graphics
and probably the most important way,
is that they work as bad visual jokes.
All right, they stand out as something kinda odd
and it brings the attention back to the talk.
As lecturers we all know that point where eyes
are gonna glaze over.
And when I'm teaching my students, I don't really care
'cause I have a lot to get through, they have a bunch
of resources in which they can look things up,
and they're still responsible to do well on the test.
But when I'm talking to a public audience it is my job
to keep them engaged.
When we're publicly engaging people with our work
we need to be entertainers as well.
And so those graphics just show them
that I'm not taking myself too seriously
and it might, might get a laugh, that's my goal.
Maybe I'll get a laugh.
The last reason why I really like using bad graphics
is that it keeps my talks fresh.
I give the same talk over and over and over again.
And so that's one way it's efficient.
If I can keep using the same talk,
I'm not putting a lot of work into it.
But the problem after years of giving the same talk,
I just wanna shake people.
I'm like why do you not know this already?
I've said it a million times.
So by creating a little bad graphic each time
I give a talk, it keeps me fresh, it keeps me engaged.
It keeps me excited to see if I'm gonna get
the laugh I'm looking for and it makes me
a better presenter when I give that talk.
Tip and trick number two, target the kiddos.
Wait, we're really, we're gonna use that graphic again?
No, I put 10 minutes into so, all right, let's go with it.
All right, so tip trick number two,
we're gonna target the kiddos.
Now this is funny because I don't like kids.
I just don't.
I don't get them, I don't know how to talk to them.
They don't like me, but I see the value in interacting
with them and so I'm very engaged in all of our university's
STEM Days or Alumni Days where people bring their kids.
I participate in other summer camps run outside
of the school and the reason I do it is because
although I am rapidly aging, I still remember
what it was like to be a kid.
And I remember the things that stuck with me
when I was a kid.
For instance when I was five years old,
I learned from the late, great Whitney Houston
that the children are our future.
Teach them well, let them lead the way.
And no joke, when I was five I'm like preach it!
I did not think she was talking about me.
I'm like we gotta teach the kids.
Like that's how I felt, and I still feel that way.
It is important, the children are our future.
So the reason I engage with kids is because the scale
of impact is greater.
The things I learned as kid still, when I was a kid
still affects me today.
And so things I really remember from being a kid
is when somebody would come from the outside
and come to the classroom.
Right, because you get sick of listening to your teachers
or your parents and we still do it as an adult.
Like my husband can tell me the same thing all the time,
and then somebody else comes in I'm like
that's a great idea.
All right, we do it all the time.
It's the same with kids.
Be that person that comes in from the outside,
be that expert testimonial.
To this day I remember somebody coming in
and telling us about conserving resources.
And ever since then, I have never let the water run
while I brush my teeth.
Right, that still affects me today.
But it also made me realize that I can affect the planet.
I can do things.
And so I remember that and that's what I try to get to
with teaching kids and reaching out to them.
The other great thing about kids is that
they don't have the same biases and disgust
that their parents have.
So when it comes to edible insects,
it took me years to overcome the bias.
Like it still can be hard for me to eat a bug.
And I studied it for years.
So if somebody doesn't wanna eat a bug,
I'm like it's fine, you don't have to.
Because I understand the cultural stigma
that you're trying to overcome in that moment.
I don't expect after a half hour of me talking
you're all the sudden gonna change.
But your kids don't have that yet.
And actually the things that gross us out intrigue them.
Right?
So they're actually more curious by the things
that are disgusting.
The other thing I wanna mention about engaging with kids
and it also comes from another memory
from when I was in elementary school, is that I remember
dissecting owl pellets.
I was so proud that my owl pellet had a whole
mouse skull in it.
And undoubtedly that has affected my path
to where I am today.
And so, we can bring that to kids.
We don't have to be only talking about the things
that we are experts on.
We're biological anthropologist, we know about digging
bones out of stuff, right?
So we can teach an owl pellet class.
We don't need to be the expert in owls or the rodents
they eat, but just showing up, being that expert
from the outside.
If you have grad students make them do it.
Right, there are teachers that would love an afternoon
off and have you come in and show their kids
how to do things.
And so that's the other thing is that yes,
I do a lot of engagement on edible insects,
but I do a lot of things that I'm not necessarily
an expert on because I know a lot more than those kids,
and that's often all you need to do to engage with them.
Tip and trick number three.
Talk to your allies.
There are a lot of life long learners out there.
As academics we've made a career on it,
but there are a lot of people who just want to learn.
And maybe they get that from YouTube.
And that doesn't make them any less eager
or any less smart than us.
And so reaching out to them is just as effective.
And actually it can go a lot further.
Most often these are people that believe in evolution,
but they might not be as up to date on the mechanisms
and processes or know how to discuss it
with their friends and families.
And so this is a great target for us.
If we can talk to these people who are just life long
learners and wanna be our advocates,
we should definitely do that.
Some of the most rewarding outreach I have done
is speaking at sci-fi and fantasy conventions.
These are my people.
I know how to speak their language.
I'm a geek just like them.
And so I can use metaphors and references to my little
slice of pop culture and they'll get it.
And they'll laugh and they'll engage with it.
I can quote Tyrion Lannister to my students
and they might get it, but they kinda have this
sort of uncomfortable thing like oh she likes
Game of Thrones too?
I don't know how I feel about my crazy professor
who eats bugs also liking the same show I like.
So using pop culture references never really works
for me in the classroom and it makes me sad
'cause I love doing it.
So getting to the sci-fi fantasy conventions
has been great, I get to use all of this.
And the wonderful thing is there's often these
tracks for authors.
So think of a sci-fi author, sci-fi is to take scientific
principles and just kind of bend them
or think about them, what it's gonna look like
in the future.
And we have these panels where we kinda offer the
science to the authors and then they use it
as inspiration in their writing.
And so I've spoken on topics of what will the food
look like 3000 years from now.
What could we eat on Mars besides the potatoes
we see in the Martian.
I've also talked about for kinda the fantasy side,
what would, how would mystical beasts reproduce?
Right, so these are things that I get to engage with,
'cause they want to use real science in their writing.
They want it to be believable,
and I get to contribute to that.
But the best part is that I get to have a panel
on edible insects and then afterwards I get to talk
to people about insects are used in elixirs
in Breath of the Wild, or why don't they eat more bugs
in the Walking Dead?
Oh come on Daryl ate like one bug.
He ate an earth worm.
And it was like presented in the like Daryl's crazy
and he eats a possum and such.
It was not, no, right, Georgia is the south,
it's like the tropics of the United States.
There's tons of bugs.
I don't know, I don't know why they don't eat more bugs.
But those are the conversations I get to have, right?
Because now all of the sudden I get to point out
these things, these inconsistencies or how we just
inadvertently speak bad about eating bugs
without even realizing.
And I get to engage a whole audience with the kind
of the pop culture surrounding edible insects.
Tip and trick number four.
When in doubt, show a chimpanzee clip.
As biological anthropologists, we're advocates
for the rights of non-human primates
and it is important for us to do that
and to say that primates are terrible pets.
And that they should not be used in movies or TV
or commercials, right, and it's important for us
to say that.
However, we can use the same tricks as Hollywood
because gosh darn it, watching primates is really fun.
And so we can use videos of them in their natural habitat
and then use that as our opportunity and our platform
like these are great, shouldn't we save them?
Shouldn't we conserve their environment?
And they're terrible pets and that's one way
you can ruin their habitat and how they live their lives.
So don't make 'em pets.
But we can learn so much from watching them.
So chimp videos are my go to.
If I'm a little worried that my audience might not be there,
I slip in a chimp video.
And for me it's great because chimpanzee tool use
especially is amazing.
It is hard to watch them and not realize how closely
related we are to them.
They solve problems and they've built an entire culture
around eating bugs none-the-less.
And so for me it's an excellent tool
to engage the public with our work.
But you can use any primate video in any topic
and they're popular on Buzz Feed for a reason.
Because people enjoy them.
So let's use them and teach with them as well.
So those are my tips and tricks.
They're mostly for going out and speaking.
But there are lots of ways to engage with the public.
But hopefully these might help you think about
how you might do your next talk.
Or maybe give you a little more confidence to go out
and show people what we do.
'Cause the more people know what we do,
the more scientific literacy there's gonna be.
And the better future everyone's gonna have.
Thank you.
(audience applauding)
- All right next is Becca Peixotto
from the American University.
- Hi, my name is Becca Peixotto, I'm an archeologist
in residence at American University here in Washington D.C..
And when I'm not in D.C. I have one of the best commutes
to work ever.
I get to crawl and climb and scramble through
the Rising Star Cave to excavate fossils
of a not so ancient human relative that
was discovered in 2013.
And since this video series is about bioanthropology
and the public, there's something you should know about me.
I'm not a bioanthropologist.
I'm an anthropologist, yes, but my academic training
is in archeology and not in the field of bioanthropology.
I'm part of a team of more than 100 scientists
with all different specialties.
Everything from bioanthropology and archeology
to geology and different parts of technology,
that are all working together to try to understand
fossils of Homo Naledi and the cave in which
they were found.
Back in 2013, two South African cavers, Rick Hunter
and Steven Tucker discovered fossils 30 meters underground
in the Rising Star cave system in a really remote chamber.
Rising Star cave is in the Cradle of Human Kind
World Heritage site just outside Johannesburg South Africa.
And with more than 2000 fossil specimens recovered
from two separate chambers in the cave, representing
more than 17 individuals and dating to only 236 to 335,000
years ago, Rising Star has become one of the richest
fossil hominid sites and in my mind, one of the most
exciting fossil hominid sites in Africa.
But before we knew all that.
Before any of us had any idea what we were getting
ourselves into with this project,
Rising Star made its debut on social media with this ad
posted by Lee Berger.
The ad was asking for people who were willing and able
to excavate fossils on the wrong side of some really
tight squeezes in this cave.
The post was shared through bioanthropology News Facebook
group and through other social networks where a friend
of mine saw it and sent it on to me.
Now back then I had just finished my MA
and I was focusing on historical archeology.
I was pretty far outside what you might call
the main stream of bio or paleo anthropology.
But I had this unusual combination of excavation skills
and technical skills and yes, physical characteristics,
I can squeeze through an 18 cm gap,
that Rising Star needed.
So here already, before we've even found any fossils,
before any excavation's happened,
before really any science is being done,
already social media is helping us build connections
and build a stronger network.
Throughout the month long 2013 Rising Star expedition,
while some of us were busy underground excavating,
our colleagues on the surface, people like Lee Berger
from the University of Witwatersrand,
John Hawks from University of Wisconsin in Madison,
and Andrew Howley from National Geographic,
they were busy on the surface tweeting
and making Facebook posts and producing blogs
and producing videos, all telling the story
of what we were doing underground.
This is part of a almost paradigm shift for field science
where researchers are willing and are taking the risk
to share our process, what we're doing in real time
before we even have any idea what we're gonna find,
before we know what our results are gonna be.
When we went back to Rising Star in September
of this year, both chambers of the cave, the Dinaledi
chamber where the original Homo Naledi fossils were found,
and the Lesedi chamber where more remains
of Naledi were found, both chambers were equipped with wifi.
That let us as excavators make our own posts.
To tweet, to post on Facebook, to engage with students
in classrooms all over the world thanks to Joe Grabowski's
National Geographic Classroom Skype and Google Hangout.
We were able to talk to people from the cave.
Which you know, that's pretty cool,
even if the science you're doing is totally awesome too.
And those archived National Geographic Explorer Classroom
videos are available on YouTube
and they've been viewed 3500 times in the last
two and a half months.
That's a lot of connections and a lot of people
seeing what we're doing who might not otherwise
have access to science in real time.
Some of the kids and teachers who tuned in to watch
us live from the cave got to see fossils
that were discovered while we were online with them.
These kids were seeing fossils onscreen at the same time
as Lee Berger and John Hawks were seeing them
for the first time on screen.
Talk about social media bringing you to the front row
of human origins, the study of human origins.
John Hawks points out that using this use of social media,
sharing our excavation in real time shifts the power
dynamic giving voice to the scientists and a direct line
to the public.
For example, the narrative arch of the 2015 Nova
National Geographic documentary Dawn of Humanity,
that narrative was practically written by the tweets
and Facebook posts produced by the science team
during the excavation itself.
And the story was already written
and the producers of that film really did need
to follow our story as opposed to one that
they thought they understood.
I see social media in Rising Star and Homo Naledi
shifting the power dynamic in a second exciting way.
Many of these tweets and posts and videos
go on to have a life of their own outside of the cave.
During the 2013 expedition the inimitable John Meed
at evo_explorer, that's this guy, created a series
of video twitter play by plays for his
middle school science classroom.
Those videos have since been viewed more than 84,000 times
in 20 countries.
And in 2015 John came back and interviewed
many of our excavators and explorers from the team,
and his video interviews with us on his blog
have been viewed 125,000 times in countries from Hong Kong
to Hungary, from South Africa to Sweden.
And this is really great outreach for our project
and for John as an educator.
It's not just our original posts on social media
that build connections between us, our research
and the public.
It's also the cascade of networks that are built through
those connections as they multiply.
And it's not just in the educational realm.
Homo Naledi has had this whole other life outside
of the classroom and outside of the cave.
Rising Star and Homo Naledi have appeared in memes
like the Tupperware party meme and it's been in political
cartoons and comics as a long lost relative,
and editorial cartoons as a sports fan,
and even as a political candidate for two different
countries, and often those reference that it has
the brain the size of an orange.
My underground astronaut colleagues and I have lost track
of the number of out of the blue twitter and Facebook
connections that we've made with teachers and with students
and with community groups.
We've beamed ourselves into classrooms all over the world,
been able to talk to people, answer student questions,
and really engage with people using social media.
Whether it's on a tweet and responding to posts
or whether it's face to face so to speak
through a video screen.
One group of students contacted Hanna Morris
and asked if we would lip sync on the video
for their class project.
They'd written Homo Naledi themed lyrics
to the song Shut Up and Let Me Dance.
With lyrics like are you an Australopith
or in the genus homo?
How could we say no?
Of course we did.
That was really fun.
And Lindsay Hunter was contacted, or found out through
social media that a little girl she'd never met
had dressed up for her as Halloween.
I'm not saying all this to show how cool,
to say how cool we are, rather I'm trying to give
some examples of how for us, for Rising Star
and for Homo Naledi social media gives people
an opportunity to be excited about these fossils,
about science and about human origins right along side us.
When we share our stories of science, discovery
and exploration, we're creating space for kids
and adults too, to weave these things
into their story as well.
Now, sometimes social media has let Homo Naledi
go off on adventures all its own.
Sometimes Homo Naledi's social media trajectory
has gone way outside of our core networks,
had a grand old time by itself and then filtered
back to us through other connections.
Take for example the video from a South African
music festival called Oppikoppi where this band
right here, with a death metal name, Satanic Dagga Orgy,
sings a cheerful, happy, pop-punk fusion song
about Homo Naledi.
It's not science, it's not bioanthropology strictly speaking
but I seriously doubt that many fossil hominids
would show up at music festivals if it weren't
for social media.
We take a big risk when we decide to put our work
out on social media.
When we put hashtag Homo Naledi, when we say
hashtag Rising Star Expedition, which is too long
for a practical hashtag.
When we say hashtag Dinaledi chamber
or hashtag Lesedi chamber, when we add all that stuff
to our tweets and our Facebook posts and blogs
and our videos, we take a risk.
Yes, we're connecting with other scientists,
we're connecting with experts in our field,
we're building connections that we can ask people
who might have answers to what we're finding
or to troubles we run into during the excavations.
We're also connecting with students and with the public
and with people who might not even think that they
have an interest in a South African cave
or hominid fossils or any of these things.
We take a risk when we do this, but the connections
that we build with students, the opportunity that we
give people to ask us questions as things are happening
and ask us questions in person without having to wait
for it to show up in a journal article
or in a textbook somewhere.
Those connections are really important.
I hope that our experiences with Homo Naledi
and with Rising Star and all the social media outreach
that we've done and that we're continuing to do
gives you a hand and is an invitation to you
to try these things with your projects
and with your research.
- Now we have Natalia Reagan from the Boas Network,
also organizer of the session.
- It is said that in the darkness of the Smithsonian
National Museum of Natural History lurks a fearsome
yet strange beast.
She, yes she, engages in what is best described
as a lyrical interpretive dance as if a rabid yak
had made furious love with a ferret.
She wears her best kimono and sequined beret,
flits about the hall of human origins in an ecstatic tizzy
until she collapses from sheer exhaustion.
And then, and only then, does she produce the skull
of her favorite hominin Paranthropus boisei
and recites this soliloquy.
Let us listen as she says it in her native tongue.
(grunting and mumbling)
Ah, let me see, alas poor Zinj, I knew him Horatio,
a robust hominin of infinite jest, of most excellent
flaring zygomatics he had born bipedal ancestors
on his back commencing roughly 1.8 million years ago.
And now how abhorred in my imagination it is,
my Olduvai Gorge rises at it.
Here hung those lips that I have kissed,
I know not how oft, where be your jibes now?
Your Leakey's? Your songs?
Your flashes of merriment that were want
to set the Savanna on war?
(grunting and panting)
What?
You act like you've never seen a Sasquatch
in the Smithsonian before.
Well here I am.
And yeah, this might look kind of absurd,
but I got your attention, didn't I?
Right?
Well, that's why I'm here.
I'm here to talk about, I'm gonna take these off,
why bioanthropology matters.
And why it matters now more than ever to engage
with the public as bioanthropologists.
Now, you might think it's kinda silly,
here I am dressed as Bigfoot, however, when I do shows,
like $10 million Bigfoot Bounty, I get to talk
about what I love, biological anthropology.
Now, follow me here.
So when we did the show we were dealing
with Bigfoot hunters.
Bigfoot hunters, affectionately known as Squatchers
have really interesting ideas of who, what, where
and well when Bigfoot exists,
'cause sometime they think he bounces between dimensions,
really weird stuff.
But a lot of times these guys and girls
know diddly squatch, yeah I went there, about primatology.
Now if you're looking for a new species of primate
you would think you would know everything there is to know
about primates, right?
Like if wanted to go back to the future,
I would have to know everything there is
to know about physics.
I'd need Doc Brown, a DeLorean, plutonium from those
pesky Libyans, I'd need a red puffy vest,
ya get to the Back to the Future reference.
Basically I would need to know about physics
to go back to the future.
If you wanna find a new species of primate,
you need to do the same thing.
So, on $10 million Bigfoot Bounty I got to talk
about all things primate.
Life histories, behavior, diet, dentition, locomotion.
Some squatchers think that Bigfoot walks on four legs
and then gets up and runs on two.
And I got to explain to them why that's
pretty much impossible.
Some think that they are big meat eaters,
that they fell wild game and I also ask them,
where are the tools, guys?
Where are the tools?
And a lot of times they don't have an answer.
And a lot of times they also amend their theories
with this new information.
So we're actually seeing learning in action.
And the cool thing about this is I could talk about
this in a classroom, I could teach a primatology class
and reach 30 students, but in theory if I'm doing
a television show and it's well watched,
I could reach tens of thousands if not hundreds
of thousands of viewers that might never have
the interest or inclination or opportunity to learn
a darn thing about primatology or biological anthropology.
So it's kind of a win-win.
I get to tell the story of one of my favorite things,
which is primates and hopefully I get to entertain people.
Hopefully you're slightly entertained,
because I am hot.
Which reminds me, I'm gonna change for the next portion.
Stay tuned.
Woo! I feel a lot better.
Now we're gonna switch gears.
I have also talked about the story of boobs.
Yep, I've talked about ta-tas.
I've made videos about them, I was even on the Today Show
talking about flat doodles, chesticles and whatnot.
And the thing is people might roll their eyes
and be like oh come on, really Natalia?
Boobs?
But people come for the boobs and they stay for the science.
Isn't that what we want, right?
And when I talk about boobs, I get to talk about things
like concealed ovulation and sexual selection.
Miocene apes evolving from being quadrupedal
to bipeds, all these things that when you go
to a cocktail party you don't expect to find yourself
talking about that, but then you do and all the sudden
you are the coolest person in the room.
So that's a way that you can kind of engage
with the public again, that might not think they wanna
know about why exactly human women have boobs.
They might be actually very intrigued once you're
done telling them all about the story of boobs.
The breast tale ever told.
Boob puns, I love 'em.
Same with butts.
When you talk about butts you get to talk about new forms
of locomotion and I mean who doesn't like
a good keister joke, really?
Anybody? No, nobody?
Okay.
Yeah, right there, right there.
You're my bud.
Moving on, I now work on a show with a guy you may
have heard named Neil deGrasse Tyson who is the best
boss in the universe.
Or multiverse if that really exists.
But it's a great platform to be on.
There's actually two platforms, there's the podcast,
and the TV show which is on NatGeo and you should watch it,
'cause it's awesome.
And on the podcast they have a star talk all star podcast
which allows me to talk about anthropology to an audience
that might be looking for more space related stories.
And so on that particular podcast,
I've been able to talk about Neanderthals
and anatomically modern humans and mixing.
Climate change and how it's affected primates past,
present and future.
I've been able to talk about what makes us human.
I've been able to discuss teeth and how they're basically
fossils in our mouths.
And the cool thing is I get to bring on experts in the field
so it's not just me talking about anthropology
I get to feature some great colleagues that are doing
excellent work in their fields.
So it's a way that I get to get anthropology out again
to a broad audience, and who does not love that?
On the TV show, I get to combine my two loves.
I'm a comedy writer on the TV show
so I get to combine science and comedy.
And I even got Neil deGrasse Tyson to dress up
like Katy Perry, I'm sorry, that right there
is like the win of the universe.
And I'm a correspondent.
And on the show that's generally very much focused
on space, I get to bring in anthropology.
I did a segment at a chimpanzee sanctuary
for rehabilitated chimps who had been living
at a medical facility.
And I got to talk about why primates make horrible pets
and should never be used in medical research.
I also got to do a participant observational study,
ethnographic study of CosPlayers at ComiCon.
I got to dress up like Lady Star Talk who was like
a David Bowie meets a space warrior hybrid.
And I got to talk about basically why these quote unquote
nerds dress up and well, like to look like ya know Superman
or Captain America and show that they're humans
just like the rest of us and they just want to play,
engage in play.
Again, bringing it back to primates, primates love to play.
So I've also tackled social issues.
I've realized that biological anthropology doesn't just have
to talk about boobs and Bigfoot and whatnot.
We can talk about things that really matter in the world
like race, gender pluralities and sexuality.
In 2015 I did a video talking about something that
biological anthropologists already know,
that there's no biological basis to racial classification,
that race is a cultural construct.
It is very much real, but there's no clear line
that you can cut between groups commonly
referred to as races.
And it's something that anthropologists seem to understand
and we know, but America seems to have not caught on yet.
And fortunately anthropologists liked the video,
shared it, whatnot, neo-Nazis and white supremacists
hated the video, shared it on their own web sites,
came back with their own response videos
using pseudoscience and misinterpreted science
to back up their racist ideology.
And that's when I realized that wow, we really need
to tackle these myths and debunk them head on
because it's just going to get worse.
And so I feel like biological anthropology
is coming into a time where we are in a unique
position to change the way the world thinks and feels.
We can tell our stories.
The human story in a way that helps people understand
that we are all far more similar than different.
Hopefully uniting a United States that is very much
divided right now.
In 2016 and 2017 we are seeing a rise in hate crimes.
A rise!
And I don't need to tell you why that is,
I think we all know.
But this is a time that biological anthropologists
can get out there and change that.
We have a voice.
I know, I know it's scary sometimes,
you don't wanna get in front of a camera,
you don't wanna put yourself out there.
'Cause let's face it, scientists can be mean to each other.
However, there's other ways you can do that.
You can take to Twitter, you can take to Facebook
if you want, although that can get messy,
let's all be fair.
But know your strengths.
If you're an excellent writer, write a blog.
Write an op-ed.
If you've got a great sense of humor,
again Twitter's a great way to tackle those sorts of things.
Or write a funny blog.
If you do feel comfortable in front of the camera
say yes to being a talking head.
We need talking heads out there talking about what they
know as experts because if you don't do it,
somebody else is gonna do it,
and they're gonna mess it up and you're gonna be mad.
We're all gonna be mad.
And if you're really brave, run for office.
How awesome would it be to have biological anthropologists
informing policy, actually making change?
So, biological anthropology matters.
You matter, your stories matter.
So get out there and keep telling the human story
because you can make a difference.
Thank you.
(audience applauding)
- All right, our last video is Briana Pobiner
from the Smithsonian Institute.
- Hi, my name is Briana Pobiner
and I'm a paleoanthropologist and I am extremely
privileged to work in this building.
This is the Smithsonian's National Museum
of Natural History and I am standing
in the Hall of Human Origins.
And my office is two floors up.
And I started working here in 2005 as a research fellow
as I was finishing my PhD and then in 2007,
right as I was finished, I actually spent about three years
helping to put this exhibit together.
My research is evolution of human diet.
That's not what I'm gonna be talking to you about today,
although I could talk to you about it for hours.
It's something I'm really excited about.
I'm particularly interested in the origin of meat eating.
So I spend some of my time here at the Natural History
Museum actually doing research, and I often go overseas
to places like Kenya to do excavations
or to study fossils.
But a lot of what I do here in the Natural History Museum
deals with education and outreach and really engaging
the public about the science of human origins.
And so I'll talk to you about the different ways
that I do that and how I find that really fulfilling.
So one thing that I do is that I help to manage
a group of volunteers that really help bring
this exhibit alive.
They work in the Hall of Human Origins
doing a few different things.
One is that they give tours to people who wanna kinda
see the highlights of the exhibit.
Another is that they do cart based, or object based
activities on carts where visitors can come in,
they can touch real objects,
they can learn what scientists learn.
They can do the work of scientists.
They can talk to the volunteers about what they know,
and ask them questions.
And then another one is just much more casual
conversations with visitors.
And so I have a wonderful group of 46 dedicated volunteers
who last year donated more than 3700 hours of their time
and engaged in over 50,700 interactions with visitors.
So I can't be out on the floor here every day all the time.
But this is a way for me to help extend that kind
of interaction with visitors.
And in order to help them do that, we have monthly meetings.
I facilitate a Facebook group where they can talk
to each other and ask questions and talk about events going,
local events going on, and new studies going on
and they actually keep me on my toes about everything
that gets published in the scientific literature.
And then whether things are kinda valid or not.
And whether they're things that we wanna talk
to our public about or not.
I wanna give a shout-out here, particularly to the Office
of Education staff here at the Natural History Museum.
So Lisa Porter who's the volunteer manager actually gave
me all of those numbers that I just told you about.
And really it takes a team of people to build
and facilitate and measure all of the wonderful
engagement that happens here at the museum.
So that's one of the things that I do,
kind of indirectly working with visitors
here at the Natural History Museum.
Another one is that I get to facilitate
public programs here.
So one program that we have that happens twice
a month is called our Scientist Is In program.
And that's usually for two hours at a time.
And that is based on very informal
interactions with visitors.
Usually I bring in experts, scientists,
they can be everything from faculty members
and researchers to graduate students, even undergraduates.
And they have objects on carts the visitors can touch
and it's really informal and it's meant to be very
visitor driven and I'll touch back on that in a moment.
Another program that I facilitate is called
the HOT Topic Discussion.
And H O T, HOT stands for Human Origins Today.
And that's where we have a discussion also that happens
right here in the Hall of Human Origins.
Happens for an hour.
There's a sort introduction by an expert
on a certain topic and then it's again a visitor
driven informal question and answer conversation.
And there we get to touch on topics where
the science of human origins really intersects
with societal interest sometimes.
So sometimes it's hot unpublished research.
Sometimes it's about things like biological variation.
It's about race and what does that mean?
It's about conservation.
It's about really anywhere that where as I said,
the science of human origins kind of intersects
with societal interests.
And those are really wonderful conversations to facilitate.
So, one of the things that I offer
as I put on my educator hat for anybody who's doing
one of these expert led programs in the Hall
of Human Origins is a little bit of coaching and training
about science communication techniques.
'Cause that's something that we can all use.
So I, when I'm talking particularly to graduate students
or maybe to people who aren't as comfortable with,
or familiar with or haven't had a lot of practice
with engaging with the public, because as we go on
our scientific careers and get more and more kind of deep
into our research, sometimes we forget how to talk
to the general public about what we do.
And actually one of the fun things about getting to do
these programs is that it reminds me
and it reminds a lot of my colleagues about why
what we do is really fun.
So some of the principles that I talk to them about
are things that are really simple, but sometimes we forget,
like introduce yourself, say your name, tell people
where you're from, tell them where you work.
Try to connect on a personal level.
Talk about things like, oh I have a kid that's the age,
the same age as your kid and they're interested
in these things and here's the part of the world,
or the part of the country that I come from.
I talk about trying to avoid very specific
scientific jargon or technical terminology.
Because frankly it can make people feel a little bit dumb
and it can be off putting.
So I say if you're gonna introduce scientific terminology,
then at least define it or use another word.
Something that's maybe kind of, something that means
the same thing but is maybe more familiar.
I also talk to them about using analogies.
And this is a really important principle
in science communication.
So if I were to tell you that the brain size
of a particular early human species is 400 cubic centimeters
you might not really know what that means
off the top of your head, or inside your head,
or something like that.
But if I tell you it's about the size of a baseball,
then we're all set.
So, trying to make the unfamiliar familiar
by using an analogy can be really helpful.
I also talk about, particularly when engaging with kids,
just bend down and get on their level.
Look them in the eyes.
Validate their questions.
Tell them that they could be scientists when they grow up.
And one of the things that I like to do
when I'm participating in these public programs
is I always tell kids that I'm gonna let them in
on a secret, I'm a scientist because it's really fun.
I get to solve mysteries and I get to go on adventures.
And I'll talk a little bit more about my own experiences
doing this in a moment.
I had a really great conversation recently with a graduate
student from George Washington University who's
done her fourth Scientist Is In program now.
We were talking about how it's a different experience
when you're surrounded by a lot of people
which happens here in the spring and summer particularly
at the Natural History Museum, than in the fall and winter
when it's a little bit quieter.
She was also talking about how in her earlier
Scientist Is In program she had developed an activity
that she was kind of leading visitors through
and how that was a particular kind of interaction
that was more scientist driven because she really
wanted them to go through particular steps
and come up with particular conclusions.
And while it's important, one of the things I will
coach the participants to do is think about what
are your main messages and think about maybe some hook lines
and questions that can draw people in.
But she realized that when she had more casual conversations
that they tended to be more visitor driven
and they tended to be longer and deeper interactions.
And so I think having more practice in
that can be really helpful.
And the last thing that I tell people is to really try,
and it's hard for scientists because we're so excited
about what we do, we wanna tell everybody
about it all the time, maybe that's just me,
'cause I'm excited about what I do.
But to listen more and talk less.
And then you can really develop connections
even in a 30 second interaction, you can have a deep
and meaningful connection and engagement with a visitor,
particularly young visitors.
It can be really inspiring.
So some of the things that I like to do
when I'm doing these Scientist Is In programs particularly,
I like to talk about the adventures that I have.
I like to talk about the trials and tribulations
of doing research and the failures and the questions.
And the thrill of discovery when I'm out on excavations
and I'm actually digging up fossils of one and half
million year old animals that my ancestors butchered and ate
and nobody has had a chance to touch or see this
until now when I found it.
And that just sends chills up my spine.
And being able to communicate that excitement
and that discovery is something that's really important.
I can talk about how science is actually
a really social endeavor.
I met my best friend on an excavation in Tanzania
when we were in graduate school.
10 years later she invited me to participate
back on her research project that she was
leading in Tanzania.
So I talk about how it really, it takes a village
to kind of do really good science a lot of the time.
And I also really talk about why do I study
what I study?
It's because biological anthropology is about all of us.
It's about everyone on the planet.
It's about understanding the past to figure out why we are
how we are, you know who we are today
and potentially where we're going in the future.
And so I think it's almost the most fundamental
science that we can think of, and as I mentioned before,
it's a lot of fun.
So I encourage biological anthropologists to definitely
get more involved in doing outreach whether it's online,
whether it's on site, but it's a lot of fun
and it can remind you really, of why what you're doing
is so satisfying, interesting and a lot of fun.
Thank you.
(audience applauding)
- All right, at this time I would like to invite
our speakers to join me up here on the table
and Agustin Fuentes is going to be leading or,
sorry, Agustin Fuentes from the University of Notre Dame
is going to be doing the discussion.
I'm doing way too many things at once here.
Don't mind me at all.
And I'm just gonna put this one slide up.
- I've been staring at this water the whole time.
- You don't have slides, right? (laughs)
- Cool.
- [Presenter] Okay, that may or may not show up so,
just a reminder these are going to be online later.
- Okay so thank you all for attending,
for participating in this.
I wanna thank the organizers for putting it together
and I'm just gonna give you some very very brief
comments and then point out why we're here
and then provide the opportunity for you to talk
with our presenters.
So, if you try to find science on many of the websites
supported and put up by our government you will
find it rapidly disappearing.
Our current Vice President is explicitly anti-evolutionary.
Does not believe it exists and also, as we heard,
has no idea how women's bodies work.
But that is not a surprise.
Science is not just fun.
It's not just informational, it's not just important
to engaging with the world, today science in the public,
getting knowledge translated from the academy to the public
is absolutely critical.
It is a moral and ethical demand that must be met
and followed by academics.
We can no longer do what we do behind the closed doors
or only in the ivory tower.
If we don't do it now, it will not get done
and it'll just get worse.
What we saw here today are multiple ways in which
innovative scientists are engaging with the public
by using social media, by doing podcasts,
giving lectures, museum exhibits and engagements,
educational context, being active in television and radio.
By attending and giving lectures.
All of these take extra work, much of which is not
recognized on the contemporary academic landscape
for promotion tenure and retention.
These are problems but they cannot inhibit the desire
or the capacity or the action of these scientists
going into the public.
So we as fellow scientists, as anthropologists must make
science matter as they've pointed out.
And matter by supporting them, by allying with those
individuals who are in the public and by engaging with them
and by seriously considering doing some of this yourself.
These videos will be up on YouTube, they will be accessible.
We ask that you use them, show them, engage with them,
and convince your students, your colleagues, your relatives
to watch them.
Science in the public is really important,
but it is very difficult.
I think every one of our speakers here pointed out
that you don't just get up and do something.
You actually have to prepare, you have to think about,
not yourself, but your audience.
Science is fascinating.
We're all geeks and we love it.
We can, many people in this audience can get really
overjoyed about a metatarsal, that is not the pattern
of most people out there.
Yet there are funny and interesting
things about metatarsals!
And it's that capacity to think about what your
target is, what your outcome is,
how you get there, and to use entertainment, comedy,
visuals, whatever it is, personal narratives,
to get that information across.
We must get better at doing this.
And here I think we have six amazing examples
that show us a diverse way, diverse ways and context
in which we can do this.
So, rather than going through and talking about each one,
I think there's much more benefit by opening this up
to the audience and public for you to ask questions
of our panelists here.
So we have a good bit of time.
So I would ask anyone who has questions
please stand up, come to one of the mics
and ask the question.
Yes.
(speaking faintly)
- [Audience Member] Okay, so given what you just said
Agustin about tenure and promotion,
why are these all women?
Where are the men?
Are they the ones getting NSF degrees and getting promoted
and higher salaries?
- Well actually there's two things going on there.
And I had my notes here on that.
One thing is many of the non-scientists getting press
for conveying science information are men.
Many scientists getting press are men.
This is an opportunity to highlight scientists doing
excellent public outreach and work.
In this case it happens to be six women.
There are also men there and we can get into a longer
conversation about who's doing this and who's getting
credit for it, but I think from our perspective,
and I'll just speak, I won't speak on behalf
of the organizers, but I'm going to interpret
from the organizers said, there are not enough female faces
publicly put forward by associations and by formal
organizations to be doing this kind of work,
and we thought this would be an opportunity for more
female voices to engage and to be represented.
There are many men doing this as well
and we hope that this is not the only panel ever like this
and that there will be more voices heard
in these panels.
Diversity and inclusivity is a massive issue
and a huge problem, not just in the public voice,
but in promotion, tenure and retention
and in science in general.
And we are many many of us actively working on that.
Does anyone wanna?
- That little motion of mine was 'cause I agree with you
in a lot of ways.
I do think, you know, I think Agustin makes an important
point that Natalia and Caroline again,
you guys should speak for yourselves, but they were very
intentional in trying to choose some under represented,
ya know the category of cis female is still somewhat
under represented in science so it's kind of a nice thing
to laud our voices, but I also do think
that we are the ones who still carry the service burden
and public engagement is still considered a type of service.
So, on the one hand, I am always gonna be doing
this kinda stuff whether or not it helps my tenure case
or in the cases where it hurts my tenure and promotion case.
And I know that it's gotten me in trouble,
and I've been told that it's gotten me in trouble.
But, and I think that that's why, you know the AAA,
I actually served on a committee on the AAA last year
to look at tenure and promotion guidelines around
issues of public engagement because there's all this
hidden stuff that happens where people tell you,
in your meetings with your department head,
oh hey uh, just so you know, you maybe shouldn't be doing
so much of this blogging.
That's like for instance, stuff I was told,
is I was told to quote re-budget my time,
but there was nothing in our tenured promotion guidelines
that explicitly said how much I should be doing of anything.
And so we did an actual, we did both a qualitative
and quantitative assessment of what's out there
and it's pretty grim.
But there are some universities that do prioritize it now.
And so I think the report should be out, if it's,
- [Agustin] It is, it's out and, well the recommendations
are out and available on the website.
- Yeah, and so, I would encourage people to go there
and take a look at that.
And then maybe go back to their departments
and consider what they can do to change their
departmental guidelines so that it isn't just women
with the broom every single time.
And that they're, and that when there's more appreciation
for this work that maybe more types of people
will continue to do it.
- [Agustin] Lemme just point out that I don't have
the web address but it is available on the AAA website
and I encourage everyone who has access
to administrators in their institution to share
this document with them.
- Agustin, I'm gonna follow up on that with just
two simple questions.
How many people on this panel are tenured professors?
How many people on this panel are full professors?
Yes, the burden for service work is not fully appreciated
in an academic setting and it does tend to fall to women
to be carrying this burden and so I think that all of us
need to be making much more of a pitch
to get this kind of stuff counted because it is important
for outreach, but it's also attracting attention
for the next generation of people that are coming in
to do this kind of work and it, I don't think we can
lose sight of that when we're using federal money
to support our research.
We're justifying ourselves by doing this
and we can't overlook that.
But we can't overlook also the fact that it has a cost
that's very real.
And so I appreciate your question.
It's an important one.
- And just as an organizer, when Caroline and I were
making the list, I don't think, there was no intention
to making it an all female panel actually.
We did have on the list, there were men.
- Some of whom are in this room.
- Exactly.
Sorry guys.
(several laughing)
- Didn't make the cut.
- Well, I mean but, we do appreciate,
and being a woman that works on for instance Star Talk
we get a lot, there's always a lot of flack
that we hear on Twitter, online about why are there
never enough female science communicators
and there are, the thing is, we do exists,
there's tons of female science communicators.
We just don't always get the biggest platform
or the shout-out.
And I don't wanna speak for all women,
but ya know sometimes we don't necessarily jump
in front of the spotlight all the time.
And so I wanted to showcase some women that I find
their work, I mean it's such a broad panel here too.
There's nobody else at BioAnth News
and BioAnth news is a huge part, so of course
we're gonna pick Sue.
So again, well you know like there's no male counterpart
to Sue that I know about.
- Well we have male administrators.
- But you are BioAnth News so,
Anyways, that's my point is it wasn't necessarily
intentional, but I'm more than thrilled
that this is the way it came out.
- Yeah.
- [Audience Member] Thank you all very much
for putting this on.
This was pretty wonderful.
One of the issues that I've struggled with at times
in thinking about this kind of dynamic public engagement
is I feel like much of our knowledge in anthropology
is still at a very preliminary or provisional stage.
Where new fossils or new genetics or new papers
can really turn over what we think we know is established.
And in that sense, these kinds of alternative forms
of engagement are wonderful and they allow us to respond
very rapidly, but one of the things I've struggled
with is how do we curate this in a way that makes
it accessible to public, because it's not always clear
what's the most recent, or what's the most sort of
up to date way of getting access to this.
So we have maybe multiple digital archives
that exist that are saying different things.
And I wondered if you had suggestions as ways
of dealing with that aspect of these kinds of engagements.
- So I'm happy to respond to that.
So I actually think that talking to the public
about that process is a really important part
of science communication.
And so I will often say to visitors
in the Hall of Human Origins like this is what
we know so far.
But I think there's, there's a nuance between saying
like we have this really robust body of knowledge
and maybe we're gonna tweak a date here or there,
but kind of the over all really big patterns
are things that have stood the test of time.
So I think talking about the process of science
and the nature of science during our science communication
is actually really important.
- I think also being entertaining
as all of you are and sort of emphasize preparing
and knowing how to say these things,
and to be able to get out there and say whoop!
Oh, so we were actually wrong last week,
there's this other thing that just showed up.
You know, for example anyone who does human, you know
paleoanthropology now just basically forget it.
Don't write anything down.
(panel members laughing)
'Cause it's gonna change.
But I think that those are, that's a very important thing
and every, in each of these cases we saw modes
by which novel information can get out there
and a kind of humor or engagement with what science is
which almost never happens in much
of the standard science communication.
- And I have one more thing also on that.
Is that one of the things that I forgot to say
when I was in front of the camera was that I actually
really like being asked questions that I don't know
the answer to, and I think that scares a lot of people.
Especially when they're talking to the public.
Oh we're supposed to know the answers to everything.
Well, science in general doesn't have the answers
to everything, but I find it a real opportunity to say,
okay, well what kind of evidence would we need
to answer that question?
And then you bring that person who you're talking to,
who may not have a strong background in science
or think scientifically, into the process of thinking
like a scientist and so I think that
is a really huge opportunity.
- [Agustin] Next question.
In the back.
- [Audience Member] I'm sorry, this is really short
for me, hold on.
(people chuckling)
Okay, all right, hi everybody.
My question actually goes off of Dr. Clancy's presentation.
So when you were talking about the demographics
of the people who are reading your blog, your readership,
you mentioned that there were a lot of white women.
And that was the first thing I noticed as well,
like the overwhelming like whiteness (laughs) of it all.
And I was thinking about when it comes to people of color,
especially people of color with different intersections
of identity, all of these identities are necessarily
public and necessarily politicized.
And when I think of science engagement
from these people of color to tend to be other
people of color it tends to be embedded
in these political things.
And we've been talking about politics a little bit,
you know, brushing on Trump and his lack of knowledge
and those things.
So I guess my question is not only how do we get
people to science, or how you guys think about getting
people to science, but how does people,
how do science come to people where they are already?
You know, there are a lot of political things
that are happening right now that I think bioanthropology
has some very important, I guess, interventions in.
You know, when I was thinking about Flint,
there's a lot of black physical scientists I've been
following who've been talking a lot about Flint
and doing a lot of studies about Flint
and about how it's affecting women's bodies
and children for instance and so on and so forth.
So I would like to hear about how I guess you guys
suggest BioAnth comes to the people
as well as bringing people to BioAnth.
- And I can speak a little about, 'cause I'm in Detroit.
And so, and I can speak a little bit about that just,
and that's what I do with like the kids things,
you know, summer camps and we do a lot of outreach,
you know STEM and we have a very diverse student body
and so our alumni are diverse.
And so, I try to speak to Detroit public schools
and target getting them admission, like free admission
to museum things that I've done.
Like if you are a member of Detroit public schools
you get free admission to the Michigan Science Center
where I did a talk.
And so I just, but I make sure that those things
are available for, you know the population of my city
is very different than the population of where
any of us went to grad school, right?
And so I really have tried to just change
and think about ways that I can make this more accessible.
I haven't been the best at it.
I'm still trying to figure it out.
We just hired a museum curator who has an outreach job
and so we're really working together to really try
to engage the Detroit public schools 'cause these are kids
who maybe don't even go to school every day of the week.
Right?
I mean their parents aren't necessarily even
taking them there.
And so if we can get those kids excited,
then maybe they show up, they want to go to school.
Maybe they ask their parents, can they ride the bus?
Can they go in?
And so we're, like we're trying.
And that's the only thing I can really speak on.
The other thing I do wanna mention there though
is from BioAnth News and the Mug Shots, right?
So like trying to talk about science and put up the faces
of the people and then you start seeing diversity
of who is doing this.
And especially representing the diversity.
I don't think I put a face of every researcher
that I talk about, but especially if it's gonna represent
diversity, I make sure to make an extra effort.
- There's a major issue in biological anthropology
and we don't wanna take up too much time here,
but there is the unbearable whiteness of
biological anthropology currently and we are tackling that
as an association, American Association of Physical
Anthropologists through the Ideas program Susan, Anton,
Rip and Molly and I have put this together
and are working hard to change the demographic makeup
which is at the upper levels, not at the undergraduate level
but in fact we get reductions at the,
at masters for the reductions of the PhD.
Massive reductions in the professoriate.
It is a real problem.
It's a problem for anthropology writ large.
But one of the things I think that is underplayed currently
is also the pressure on anthropologists of color
not to deal with issues related to some of these
STEM areas or some of the sciences.
And there's an incredible system or bias inherent
just even in the science communication community.
And those are realities and I think realities
that it's worth acknowledging and speaking out about.
- Yeah, just to also add on to what other folks
have said here, you know there's a little bit
of a mistake, and I should have caught it when I saw
the rough cut in my video where they show my podcast guests
at the moment when I talk about white female anthropologists
that shows, those should not have gone together.
That was actually a really diverse group of primarily
cis women, but they were of many different racial categories
and sexualities and that was something that's been
very intentional for me for Period Podcast.
Has been actually trying to represent a lot of different
you know more intersectional, identities than just again
white female anthropologists, which I know a lot of those.
So it's really easy, I could just flood my,
I could just flood the podcast with those voices,
and I've tried to choose not to.
I'm not saying that's sufficient, it actually really isn't.
That's the first step I've taken.
I think another step is, again what Agustin has pointed out
and what Julie has pointed out in terms of actually
putting yourself physically in these other spaces
in order to make a difference.
So I think there's sort of a multi level approach here
in terms of lifting up the voices of under represented
folks within STEM and making sure those voices are heard.
And then making sure we're going to those spaces
in different ways.
I've created an initiative on my campus called
the 21st Century Scientist Initiative that aims to do this,
we're about diversity and inclusion
and not about disciplining diversity, which I feel like
a lot of this is about, it's about create,
like a lot of diversity initiatives are about creating
cultural competence for folks who identify as diverse
in some ways or non-majority in some ways.
And we're not, that's necessarily the goal is to getting
them to code switch and behave in an appropriate way
in the sciences, it's actually to try to figure out
how can we change science to make more room for different
types of people?
(Agustin mumbles)
- [Audience Member] I just have a quick comment.
Terrific job, Caroline, thank you.
All of you, it's wonderful.
And I understand that a panel of all women
multiplies your voice.
I think it's great that you did it because people
will listen and I think it's terrifically great
that you put it on YouTube because it gives people
a chance to listen.
I'm not sure you've gotta advertise it.
I think it'll spread quickly. - Here's hoping.
- You're actually on
Facebook Live right now. - You've just the last--
You've just done the last lecture of my course.
(panel members laughing)
modern human origins, they know what I'm gonna say.
I think this is a good thing to present over and over
again to undergraduates.
It'll help solve our problem, maybe building the number
of students that take our courses a little better.
Thank you. - Thanks Alfred.
Daniel?
- [Audience Member] Wonderful panel.
Really enjoyed it.
My question is a lot of what you're talking about
is how anthropology matters, how it can reach out
and I think biological anthropology's really been
at the forefront of this so how can what
biological anthropologists have learned be,
go further to the four fields,
go to cultural anthropologists?
I'd just like to hear you reflect on what cultural
anthropologists could do to engage more with the public.
- Your Facebook group, your blog is part of that.
Very clearly.
The neuro anthropology interest group
that you and Greg do very definitely helps cross
those borders and I'm pretty cautious at BioAnth News
not to overly repeat stories that you guys have
on your different venues because I wanna see as many
people in our group join your group and vice versa.
To try and keep that dialogue going we try to,
on BioAnth News at least, we have gotten in trouble
in the past especially with European scholars
that say such and such post is not biological anthropology.
And they're defining it very narrowly in what I would argue
is the old physical anthropology terms.
We try to get linguistic anthropology,
we try to get cultural anthropology quite regularly
on the group and when you look at who the administrators are
they're all people that are engaged in integrative
anthropology, several of them are cultural anthropologists
archeologists, linguistic anthropologists in order
to make sure that we keep that approach so.
I think it takes directed work to make sure we're bringing
in the other sub areas of anthropology.
- [Agustin] I think that the skills, oh I'm sorry.
Go ahead. - I'm sorry.
- [Agustin] I thought you stopped.
- I have no idea what you just said.
- [Agustin] Oh no, sorry.
I thought you had stopped talking so I interrupted you.
Go ahead.
- I'm done.
- Sorry.
I was gonna say the skill set that was presented
in each one of the videos.
Each of the videos outlines a set of skills
and the sets of ways in which of transferring information
that are completely usable by a diverse anthropological
audience and diverse anthropological knowledges
and so I think it's, there's tricks when you get to have
bones or blood, but there are other tricks
when you get to have politics, religion, ritual experience,
etc., etc., etc. and so I think, I think the benefit
of some of these videos is that there are tool kits
present in them.
Go ahead.
- Yeah, I got off a, when I was in the cave just
in September I Skyped into a graduate school classroom
as a archeologist on this project and the student reaction
was so terrific that I got off the Skype
and I emailed the professor and said, why aren't we doing
this with all of PhD students and recent graduates
from this program?
You know, sometimes it's yes, we as the scientists
need to be starting to put ourselves out there,
but sometimes we need an invitation as well.
So I was trying to encourage that particular professor
to reach out to some cultural anthropologists
and linguistic anthropologists who are in the field
right now and ask them will you come and do this?
Because we all have these ideas, but sometimes you do
need that invitation to come in.
- [Agustin] John.
- [Audience Member] Yeah, I wanna raise a bit
of a darker question.
Two of the major themes in biological anthropology
are of course race and evolution.
And we teach, but there is a large confrontational
element in the United States about both of those issues.
And there are a lot of wackos out there.
My question is have any of you actually received
a death threat and if so, how do you deal with it?
- I have and I told the police about it.
And then they said, well that's not really a death threat.
They just said that they hope someone shoots you
in the head, not that they're gonna shoot you in the head,
so it's all okay.
So that's basically been my experience.
Unfortunately right now, academic freedom is supposed
to protect us in all sorts of ways
to say what we want and that sounds like a really awesome
thing, but unfortunately the physical protection
is really currently not there.
I mean I know people who are on watch lists.
I know people who have felt at risk.
You know, my experiences have been largely social media
ones that you know, I've had threats happen via email,
Facebook message and rape threats on Twitter
and then some, I've gotten some letters, like hand written
letters as well.
I don't enjoy any of that.
It messes with my mental health and I don't like that,
again as a woman putting myself out there, performing
additional service in public engagement for my discipline,
I don't feel protected.
At the same time, for me at least, nothing has
come of it yet.
And there's an open case for one person in particular
who has been contacting all my journals that I publish in,
contacting I think has contacted the AAA before as well.
Contacted my IRB office, trying to get some
of my work taken down.
This is more my sexual harassment research
than my public engagement, that guy.
But I do think it's worth, it's important for people
to know that kind of stuff and that know that if you have
any identity that takes you a step away from cis white
straight male and I'm only one step away from that,
'cause I'm cis straight white female, that already
puts you at additional risk for those kinds of attacks.
- I hadn't realized what a difference there was,
I mean obviously I knew women had more issues to deal
with when they were, had a public face.
But I can remember one time saying,
and this is the behind the scenes stuff nobody sees,
but I find that we get a lot of Facebook messages,
emails, always from males who get mad at something
that's said on the site and I remember,
I think I whined one day about it on BioAnth News,
and Greg Downey wrote to me.
And again with Dan, he runs the Neuro anthropology
interest group, and Greg said that no matter what
kinds of interactions they have on their group,
it ends at the group page.
And that he's never gotten a Facebook message
after the fact, he's never gotten an email after the fact.
My Facebook box is loaded with things where people get mad
because we dare to say the word mansplain or because
we put up some kind of post about a biological
anthropologist who was committing sexual
harassment activities and how dare we do that
on a biological anthropology page?
There was one guy, I don't know where people find the time,
but there was one man who, and I thought one of my
the other administrators was crazy when she told me
this was happening, but there was a guy that would come on
and start sending very sexual comments
to different female administrators.
And largely Lesley Gregoricka got the brunt of this,
but so we'd get rid of him.
And then a little while later someone would come back
and they'd be saying similar things and we'd get rid of him.
And Jamie Olinger realized that they were all the same guy.
And so she went through, we now have, we're pushing 18,000
just on the Facebook group.
She went through almost everybody and she saw a pattern.
And he was always at one of the universities in Texas,
I don't remember which one.
And so that was always his email address.
And he always had a picture of a flower up.
And when we went through it, he had, there were something
like 18 personas that he had on BioAnth News
that he would switch to once we would get rid of one.
So we got a huge number of people to all report
all 18 of his sites.
And he hasn't come back yet.
But it does take a concerted, and I had to write to people
like Lee Berger and others who accept everybody
as their friends because the problem is they show up
in our feeds saying such and such and such and such
are friends of this individual and so you think
that they're okay.
When in fact people are just accepting anybody
that writes to 'em.
And Lee told me that in fact they had a legal case
pending against this guy.
And the amount of free time that this kind of stuff
represents is astonishing to me,
but also just scary when you start to think about it.
- I was gonna say as a woman that has put myself out there
for a while, I'm sorry, I'm doing Facebook Live
so say hi everyone.
Has been doing this for a while and have covered sexy topics
but have done very serious topics including race,
gender pluralities, I did one on sexuality.
I did a Facebook Live for Transgender Day of Visibility,
but yes, I get horrible, the ones that I've gotten
like the closest to death threats where they wished me dead,
were for race.
It was all things that had to do with race.
I'm trying to think of what else.
Oh vaccines.
Anti-vaccers came at me pretty hard 'cause I did
a heart immunity vaccine.
And anti-intellectualism video that talked about evolution.
So yeah, so it was really heavy controversial topics
I think bring with it a lot of baggage.
And unfortunately, I used to work for Discovery Digital
Networks which is an online site, and a lot of times,
yeah, the male hosts never got comments about their
appearance or their, there's children in the room but,
their blank-ability.
But I would get a ton of these ridiculous, disgusting
comments and I would say things.
And sometimes I'd combat them, because I'm snarky
and I can be, ya know, come at them and bite back.
But what as disappointing was the,
it's hard to curate these things,
but just it was so disappointing realizing that if I
immediately just could snap my fingers and be a man,
I would never have anybody commenting on wanting
to hurt me or kill me or blank me.
And when I did that race video, I came home,
I was on a trip and I remember being afraid to come home
because they were like watch your back, blah blah blah blah
and I live alone, ya know?
And it was terrifying.
So I think going forward, you know, being,
having to let people know that this is happening,
being honest about it, because sometimes it is embarrassing.
You don't wanna talk about it.
But it is important to get it out there,
because otherwise you could be in harm's way.
- [Agustin] We have time for one quick question.
Persephone and a quick answer or three.
- [Audience Member] Yeah, this is coming off thinking
about going to grad students in school
and that made me wonder what you see as the role
of grad students for this kind of outreach
and science communication?
I know quite a few grad students who are social media
mavericks, but also then considering that grad students
don't always have the same level of expertise.
So I just wondered what your thoughts were.
- I had made a comment about it that sending my grad
students to go to the schools 'cause I can't always do it.
I mean there is a limit to my schedule.
Like I give so many talks, and I'm honored to be invited
to talk so much, but I can't do it all.
And that's sort of also the like you just have to be
smarter than the kids you're teaching.
'Cause like students of mine who don't study
edible insects in the same way I do have gone
and given edible insects talks in classrooms.
And so I really encourage it as part of it.
I also am trying to make sure that my grad students'
research projects have kinda easy way to like
an outreach part to it.
You know, that there's more to their research than
just the ivory tower, I wanna know the answer
to this question.
I wanna make sure my students have broader impacts
to their research and so I automatically start sending
them out to start explaining those broader impacts so,
when I get contacted by school teachers,
a lot of times I have my grad students go in my place.
- BioAnth News wouldn't exist without
grad students and undergrads.
I've been able to generate grant money to pay them
to work on the site, but
and I think we need to include undergraduates
in the question that you're asking, because they
have a tremendous amount of expertise in this too,
but they are a phenomenal help.
Oftentimes they're taking the lead in showing me things
that we should consider doing that will reach
a broader audience, particularly of younger ages.
And from just a purely pedagogical standpoint,
it sets up a multi-tiered teaching system for engaging
with the public in science.
But I can't emphasize enough the fact that I
wouldn't be able to do it if it weren't for the
grad and undergraduates that were involved.
- As someone who's recently not a grad student,
I think that some of this outreach and this going
to classrooms as a grad student to give,
to give these talks and to participate in social media
projects, I think that should be part of grad students'
training you know?
Just as we want it to be part of our package for tenure
and professional development I think that teaching
grad students to engage with the public
and giving them opportunities to practice that,
I think that that's really important
and as professors and teachers if we can build that
into our classrooms and our training programs
that that would be helpful.
- [Agustin] So I'm gonna,
Oh do you wanna?
- Well there are, including one recent grad student
who's on the panel and a grad student and former postdoc
who's in the audience I really reach out
to graduate students, postdocs, younger faculty
to do programs at the Smithsonian and so thank you guys
for having done that and I hope it's been useful.
- So I wanna thank the organizers and all the panelists
for their incredible contributions here.
Wanna thank the audience for attending
and please everyone, once they're up on the YouTube site,
go check them out, share them, be loud, be proud.
Be anthropologists.
Thank you. - Thank you.
(audience applauding)
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