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[Regina] Welcome to Spark Science, I’m Regina Barber DeGraaff, an astrophysicist teaching at Western Washington University. On top of teaching physics and astronomy, I also teach science communication. I’m actually teaching it this quarter online, during this new state of higher education. But, I digress.

This episode, I won’t be your host. This episode is the second this season featuring final projects from a past science communication course where each student decided to showcase a scientist they admire.

Our first student segment shares the story of a professor’s academic journey from Ethiopia. I’m so proud of these amazing students because all segments are heartfelt and compelling. I hope you enjoy listening to their work.

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[Chase] It’s Thursday, and that means it’s time for questioning STEM, the podcast where we invite a guest from science, technology, engineering, or math fields and interview them about their experiences in that field.

I’m your host, Chase Boggio. I’m a physics undergrad at Western Washington University and I do research in astronomy.

My guest today is Dr. Takele Seda, who’s a professor at Western Washington University and specifically, he was my professor for modern physics and is currently my professor for electrodynamics.

And we’re going to be talking about what it’s like to pursue science in another country.

The first step to pursuing science is having action to primary and secondary education. You grew up in Ethiopia, so what was that like for you?

[Dr. Seda] Yeah, it was not easy and getting to school was difficult as a young boy because it’s far away from where we are. So, no sleeping. There was not many schools around so I at least have to walk one way an hour to go to school. And I started, actually my elementary school a little bit later than I was supposed to because I had to be strong to go through those. The middle school was about 3 hours away.

And you had to stay for a week.

And high school, you have to walk 100km on foot and then take a bus to go to this [inaudible] another 35km. So you stayed there for a semester. But I went through and it went okay.

[Chase] Was there a point when you knew you wanted to pursue a science career?

[Dr. Seda] I can say no because we don’t have really much to choose from where we can see peers or other people going through different fields. So we didn’t have that many people to look up to where you want to end up in the future. The only thing we know is we have to go to school to get maybe a better life. And the only people that are hired in our area are policemen and teachers.

So, the best that we can reach to be was to be a teacher, I think, because we don’t know any other thing there, in [inaudible]

[Chase] When did you decide to be a physicist?

[Dr. Seda] As a student, when I start school, really I like maths. So and most of the time when I sit down to study, I have to have a pen and a paper to work on.

So, I was not really into social studies and other [inaudible.] I was not good at those. But, I like maths. I went through that. And I liked science. And physics is just like maths also.

But, what I wanted to be when I actually went time your undergraduate and declaring is a major was to go into chemistry. And the thing that why I want to go to chemistry is that is actually better for you to get to a job that you can stay in cities. Working industry.

If you major in math or physics, you know that you end up being a teacher [inaudible.]

So, I was running away from that. Literally not being the person that chemistry and physics and math. But the dean of the college at that time said that I cannot go into chemistry and he put me in physics because my grade was better in physics than chemistry. That is how I end up being in physics.

[Chase] We’re in 2019 and we have internet access at our fingertips. And I looked up that the first edition of Griffith’s Introduction to Electrodynamics, which is my favorite

textbook so far, it wasn’t published until 1989. So I guess I have two questions for you.

What years were you in those higher institutions and then also, what sort of resources did you have when studying physics?

[Dr. Seda] You’re asking me this because I’m using this textbook to teach you. And I like that. And that the best textbook I have ever really read through, as a student or a professor also.

So I was in undergraduate university, I started in 1984 and completed in 1988 I think. As to the resources, of course, internet we didn’t know about that at that time. But even access to textbook. We cannot afford to buy a book. So there is no textbook individually that a student can own.

So, the only thing we rely on was from the lecture in class and from the library. And in the library, there are no textbooks that students can have. So you have to sign up for about an hour or two, maybe to read that. So that is a time I take all my notes with me, pen, paper, I said, and use that time for whatever course you want.

And then after you go to the lecture, it is not a whiteboard that we used. It’s a blackboard with chalk on it.

So the instructors actually give a good note on the board so we have to really write that down and then revise ourselves. That’s the way —

[Chase] You’ve got to be a quick notetaker for that.

[Dr. Seda] That’s right! Yeah. That’s right, it is.

[Chase] It sounds like the teaching style is very lecture-heavy. But at Western, sometimes we’ll have classes where we have discussions on topics or the homework will be pretty collaborative oftentimes.

So I guess it’s kind of another 2-part question of what was the teaching style like back then, when you were in your undergrad and graduate programs. And then also, because we have such a tight knit cohort system here at Western, did you have a cohort with your fellow students?

[Dr. Seda] Yeah, so I will start with first one in terms of collaboration and the

student-centered teaching. That was not the case back home. When I’m in my office, at any time, my students can knock on the door and come and ask questions. There, it’s not like that there. You cannot really do to a professor like that, cannot go into office and ask questions like that.

So, we are really very restrictive in that regards. So we have to rely on ourselves. So that is the case.

The way I learned is mostly lecture. Probably, you can see my style also because I went through that. I’m still struggling to do that when I’m teaching but I try sometimes. Asking students to work together especially for the introductory physics.

So, it is mostly lecture. You listen to the professor. And then you take the note. And then you have to work on that by yourself. So it is not like this. It’s not a [inaudible.]

But, when — the way we were [inaudible] was that we had a group of students, really. I had about 3 or 4 friends that work together and the way we went through that, we were successful being doing that as — we tried to assign a subject to individual all four of us. And for me, it was physics and maths. And one of my colleagues would take the English language or the chemistry or some other thing.

And what we do is we prepare an exam for each other.

[Chase] Oh wow!

[Dr. Seda] So, with that actually we prepared an exam and then once we read it, we come together and say what is wrong and what is right. And whether even the question itself is right.

[Chase] Yeah.

[Dr. Seda] So it was a good group that we were. And we became very successful in that and we all went through college. So that’s the way we normally work out.

[Chase] My last question for you is: do you have any advice for undergrads studying physics.

[Dr. Seda] I don’t know if I’m a good advisor of that —

[Chase] [Laughing.]

[Dr. Seda] –because the culture, the way you approach things here is completely different. It was for us, there was no option. The option we had was one thing. That thing is digging into everything by yourself and to get through.

So work hard to get through. The same applies here. I think you work hard — and students here are also working hard, but you have also at the same times, you supposedly have the resources. Whether it is books or other things or the professors.

So I think if you can make use of that, you’ll be successful I think. Work hard and use the resources that are available for you.

[Chase] Some of the best resources are just the people around you.

[Dr. Seda] Yeah, exactly. That’s what it is.

And the students are also working together and helping each other. That’s very good. You can learn from each other more than you do from classes, sometimes.

[Chase] I think also it helps cultivate respect between students.

[Dr. Seda] Definitely.

[Chase] I’ve seen that there’s some things that I’m just not as inclined towards when it comes to certain physics subjects but there’s some stuff that I’m really good at that other students who I’ve seen excel in the department are not so good at who struggle with it, especially visualizing stuff. That’s usually something I can help with. When it comes to the math, other people help me.

[Dr. Seda] Exactly.

[Chase] And it’s definitely a symbiotic relationship.

[Dr. Seda] It has to be like that. And sometimes the difficulty of a student think that he the best of all and it’s difficult like that. But you have to think about really whatever it is, somebody will have something to contribute.

[Chase] Yes.

[Dr. Seda] That’s what it is.

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[Regina] You’re listening to Spark Science where we are featuring student podcasts. Our next student shares a conversation with a physician who opened a free clinic in Nepal, and who also happens to be her mother.

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[Maria] My name is Maria Waters and I’m sitting down with my incredible mother, Elisa Williams Warren, an ARNP and PhD candidate in public health sciences.

I decided to sit down with my mother to talk with her about her work while I was growing up in Nepal. Both the capital city of Katmandu and the village of Mugu. We are here to talk about how she communicated her science to communities where there first language was not English nor Nepali.

[Elisa] I’m Elisa Williams Warren and currently working with an aerospace company in occupational health and urgent care but spent 17 years working in South Asia doing a lot of different things from wilderness medicine to literacy specialty consulting to consulting and assessing health programs in Nepal.

[Maria] One of those health programs, I remember a designated medicine cabinet and assorted medical tools in our either room adjacent to the entryway or at the bottom of the stairwell where you saw patients in our house. So, tell me a little bit about that.

[Elisa] In most of our homes I had a little clinic, an open, free clinic. That was part of our outreach and our literacy program. So, patients would come, mostly women and children, because often they were the ones in the family who would not receive money to go to health clinics or they may even have to pay 10 rupees, 15 rupees. So I did see a lot of women and children. And also, they were not deemed as important to receive the services often in their culture.

So when they were really sick, they’d just come see me. I’d would treat the me in between teaching kids classes or doing some other odds and ends. But, yeah, it was adjacent in the foyer, in the mudroom, whether it be out in the village or in the capital.

[Maria] It was kind of a pro-bono clinic that you had in our house. Here in the US, I think when we think about medical care, we have this perception of it being really expensive and taking that and translating it overseas into an environment where the people you’re caring for have even fewer resources available to them.

What was your strategy with acquiring the required medical equipment and medicine that these people might need.

[Elisa] We did a lot of fundraising. A lot of folks from the US and across the globe would contribute a certain amount each month that would go towards buying medications locally.

The equipment that I used, most of it was donated or we would raise funds for me to purchase equipment.

[Maria] And with that medical care, I think, here in the States, when I go to a doctor, I get a printout sheet that’s a summary of what I talked about with my doctor, what medication I need to take when, when I need to reschedule an appointment. How would you communicate to the patients follow-up instructions or letting them know what medication they need to take when.

[Elisa] A lot of the cultures I work with, because Nepal has a diverse, ethnic, and linguistic population — so a lot of the communities that I served or that would come to me had an oral tradition. So, explaining things as simply as I could, using terminology that might be more familiar with them because a lot of them would have, at most, maybe a grade 3 education in the national language, if they were fortunate. Some of them would not even have that. So, using symbols like writing on a medication, I would — if something needed to be taken two times a day I might draw two circles with a line joining the two circles. And that would just signify, take 2 times a day.

And that’s something that they seem to be able to remember well. Of course, the ultimate goal was to try to develop materials in their own language or at least picture books, picture posters, health literacy materials of that sort that we could post around the community that might be helpful to them. But, on a day to day basis, for basic instructions, a lot of it was oral tradition. Or I would just have to simply write some symbols.

[Maria] For the individuals who can’t even speak Nepali, the national language, because they belong to different people group. They’d often come with their nephews or nieces or children, right, and have them be this translator.

[Elisa] Yes. So I see that even in the States where you may have a family member who helps translate and you know things are being lost in translation because you might say at least a few sentences to try to educate or teach. And then you may here that relative say just maybe 3 or 5 words. So you know quite a bit is being lost in translation.

But, hopefully that family member will also be there to help in the home. Also, part of my job while in the capital was trying to help these people navigate the national health system, just to become a little bit more comfortable. Not so much in the village because I was it in the village. I was the healthcare worker in the village.

So I would try to train some locals to do some basic first aid type things. But, in the capital part of my job too was to help these villagers not be so afraid about coming in, in a clinic environment. But also, I would go out with them when they would need further diagnostics done, say blood testing or ultrasounds. And just be there and help them navigate the system. Again, bringing in family members. So once the family members or those people have done it once or twice, then they’ll become the experts in their communities and their families. And they will have people asking them to help them navigate the system as well.

[Maria] Mmhmm. So sounds like a lot of this health literacy work wasn’t just about how to say, when to take a medication, how to take it, but it was also about if you needed more care, how to navigate an established system like a hospital. So going off of that, are there some things that you wish would be different as far as how hospitals communicated with the patients?

[Elisa] I think comparatively, in the US at least, there’s such a need for efficiency because our healthcare system is a business. It’s being run as a business. It’s less of a service. Yes, there’s a service industry aspect of it. But that is only the patient satisfaction aspect.

So, statistics come into play to find out statistically, if you have this type of surgery it takes you how much time to heal. So insurance companies are only willing to give or pay for so much hospital time. They’re only willing to pay so much for a 15-minute visit, a 30-minute visit, or willing to only pay so much for a biopsy that they think should take 15 minutes but sometimes it can take up to 45 minutes.

So, a lot of our healthcare in the US now is being shaped by an economy and not by a service.

[Maria] Were there insurance companies in Nepal for, say, an expensive surgery that would have to happen in Nepal? Or was that kind of a different world, so to speak?

[Elisa] It’s a different world. Unless you’re working with an international aid agency, it was pretty much unheard of. Families would have to foot the bill themselves.

[Maria] That takes a lot of toll on communities.

[Elisa] It does. So if you’re thinking in a culture traditionally where the family might have resources to only send one child to school and in a culture where the boy, the man, stays with the family and will eventually take care of his parents and his sisters or his siblings, then they’re going to just put the one son through school. It would be considered a waste to say, you know, put a daughter through school because she’s going to be married off and become part of another family.

So, it’s not just development or just healthcare, per se, taking care of someone’s immediate needs. It’s trying to transcend or reshape a lot of different cultural norms. Like education for girls. That was part of our development work.

[Maria] Did you ever find a pushback against you being a woman in this field?

[Elisa] No. As an outsider they kind of expected that we would have different cultural norms. And as a healthcare provider, I was already given that kind of instant respect.

[Maria] One thing that we learned in grade school is the concept of germs and having to wash our hands. How do you explain germs as something that you cannot see to people who don’t have that education.

[Elisa] Well fortunately, they do have the concept of “keda” or little bugs. Whether they think it’s — or “zuka” or worms. So they understand that somehow, intestinal worms will be really dinky and they tend to grow. So I would say there’s keda or I would describe it as such: worms or bugs in the water that they can’t see but if you let it grow there it will grow bigger.

I remember a clear cut example. I was doing some staff teaching to doctors and nurses in the capital and watching one of the staffs, who was educated and knows the concept of germ theory, drinking out of tap water. And I was asking what they’re doing and said, “Well this water is clean” because it looked clean. And then just bringing him back to the basics and taking some of that water and taking it to the lab

and showing them under the microscope that indeed it was not clean just because it looked clean.

And they remembered, “Yes, okay, filtration and what not.” But to a basic villager, they’re not going to understand that. They’re going to look at something. They’re going to think that it looks clean. We have that in our country here too.

[Maria] Mmhmm.

[Elisa] something looks clean, something may taste okay but actually it’s not. It’s tainted. So you just have to reinforce, you know, don’t drink water downstream. Sometimes it is trying to teach practices that will be less harmful because you’re not going to have the ideal situation.

So, you’re going to drink stream water? Well, where’s the best place to drink stream water? You don’t want to drink it downstream from the pen of sheep. Okay, let’s try drinking from upstream from the pen of sheep. At least it might be cleaner. [Laughing.]

[Maria] So it sounds like the takeaway message with how you communicated healthcare to these people was to relate it to their culture.

[Elisa] I tried to. Because if they don’t see themselves as part of the message, they’re not going to believe in it; they’re not going to adopt it. They’re going to think you’re just saying some weird thing that they sort of kind of heard maybe from somebody who was talking about those Nepalis in the capital city. That it’s not going to be applicable to themselves. So unless anybody, even in this country, unless they see themselves in the message, they’re not going to adopt it.

[Maria] We really have to be empathetic with our communication.

[Elisa] Empathetic with the communication, know your target population, look at our local TV ads. Nike, okay, who’s in the ad? What populations are they going after? You can tell what is their target audience. Same concept.

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[Regina] today’s episode was recorded in Bellingham, Washington by students taking science communication in the spring of 2019.

Spark Science is produced in collaboration with KMRE and Western Washington University. Our producers are Suzanne Blais, Robert Clark, and myself, Regina Barber DeGraaff.

Our audio engineers are Zerach Coakley, Julia Thorpe, and Hannah Clark.

This group’s support was done by Erin Howard and Ariel Shiley. If you missed any of our show, go to our website: sparksciencenow.com. You can also find past episodes from previous seasons at this website.

If there’s a science idea you’re curious about, send us a message on Twitter or Facebook at sparksciencenow. Thank you for listening to Spark Science.

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