Music is a science! Many of us see this connection. SAMMUS does. She is a rap artist, producer and at the time of this recording finishing her PhD in Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University.
Together we dissect academia (those ivory towers), her path and the music industry. She is now Dr. Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo. We are big fans of everything she has accomplished and excited about everything she will accomplish in the future.
To find out more about SAMMUS visit https://sammusmusic.com/
Image credit: Zoolo Brown
>> Here we go.
[♪ Blackalicious rapping Chemical Calisthenics ♪]
♪ Neutron, proton, mass defect, lyrical oxidation, yo irrelevant
♪ Mass spectrograph, pure electron volt, atomic energy erupting
♪ As I get all open on betatron, gamma rays thermo cracking
♪ Cyclotron and any and every mic
♪ You’re on trans iridium, if you’re always uranium
♪ Molecules, spontaneous combustion, pow
♪ Law of de-fi-nite pro-por-tion, gain-ing weight
♪ I’m every element around
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: I’m here at Geek Girl Con and we are in the green room. And I happened to meet another interviewer, but I realized that she’s just as awesome to interview. So I’m going to let you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do. And then also how it relates to science.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Cool. My name is Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo, but I’m also a producer and rapper who goes by the name SAMMUS. So, for those who are familiar with the game Metroid, it’s a video game from the ’80s that has had a long life and continues to this day. And I picked the name SAMMUS because that’s the name of the main character in the video game. And, in the video game, she runs around in this armor suit and you can’t really tell what SAMMUS looks like. But, when you beat the game, the armor suit comes off and you discover that it’s a woman. And, as a kid, that like totally blew my mind. I was like, “What?” I had assumed that it was a dude the whole time.
So I picked that name because, when I grew up and I started producing beats, a lot of guys started asking me, “Who helped you make your beats?” or like, you know —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: I’m shaking my head, listeners.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Yes. There’s a lot of disproval around this table. So I picked that name because it was always this moment of surprise when usually guys would say, “Oh, wait. You are the person who did this?” in the same way that when SAMMUS, when you beat the game and you realize that SAMMUS is a woman. There’s this moment of shock and, at least for me, excitement. So, yeah.
And I’m also a PhD student at Cornell University in the Department of Science and Technology Studies. So that’s kind of my relationship to science.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Wow. I never beat the game so I never —
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: No. It’s a hard game. It’s like a very challenging game.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: I think I got to like the second level. I’m a lot older than you too so, yeah. I gave up pretty easily. And I was a lot — I mean, I should have been able to —
Tell me about your music and how you kind of — you were saying you relate like geeky stuff and pop culture to like your music and stuff. So tell me about that more.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Yeah. So talk about a lot of different things in my music. Feminism. Issues having to deal with race. Issues having to deal with academia and the academy. But, growing up, I play — [laughing]. Nodding.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Listeners, I’m nodding with my eyes wide open.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Yeah. So I grew up playing a lot of video games and watching cartoons. So those are the things that I reference in my verses. And it seems to have really resented with a lot of people in the sense that they are like, “Oh, there’s this, you know, black woman geek who’s talking about her experience of just kind of waking up and trying to make it through the day dealing with crazy — oh, I’m sorry — dealing with crazy academic stuff, and anxious about the kind of state of things right now.”
I do have some stuff that’s specifically devoted to talking about video games, but it mostly comes out in terms of the way that I address other topics. Like I’ll — I have a song called “Games and Cartoons” that talks about not really wanting to interact with people [laughing] and preferring to play games and watch cartoons instead.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Is that why — that was me? I realize that now. This is like a therapy session. That is what happened. I get it now.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Yeah. Yeah. It’s like a song for us kind of introverts who would rather kind of be in our own heads than out in the universe. But, yeah, that’s — my music touches on, I think, a wide variety of things, but through the lens of a geek.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: I don’t know if I — I definitely am not an introvert, but I grew up in a town that was very, very conservative and monoracial.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Yeah.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: That was not me. And I remember just kind of going into Batman the animated series just watching that all the time. And playing Mario Cart and just kind of really escaping into pop culture. But in nerdy pop culture.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Yeah. Yeah.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: I do want to kind of get like a little more information about — like you were saying academia. Like I’m also in academia. I teach physics and astronomy. I’ve noticed, I’ve seen — this is my own personal experience — that pop culture isn’t really super respected.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Yes.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: And I think a lot of us feel like a kinship and a really connection with like superheroes and, if you — Gene Luen Yang, who writes Superman, talks about this dual identity where you have this identity in the world and then you have a different identity at home.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Yes.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: And that kind of resonates with me, you know, being a mixed kid, you know, Mexican and Chinese. But like did you also find that link and do you also find that barrier in academia?
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Yeah. I mean, it’s so interesting because I very much of felt almost like a superhero duality there where, you know, at night, I’m doing rap shows as SAMMUS and then, during the day, I’m walking the hallways as Enongo, the PhD student.
And I very much sort of feel what you’re saying in terms of the way that pop culture and things that aren’t talked about in a certain way in academia are looked down upon. So, for a long time, I didn’t talk about my rap career at all with any of my colleagues. I didn’t know how it was going to be received. And, you know, now that it’s starting to kind of pick up a little bit of steam, we have conversations, but it still feels very much like this is not the space for me to talk about that aspect of my identity. Which is unfortunate. You know, especially I think because, as academics or, you know, a future person in the academy, ideally you would be able to share these things with your colleagues and have sort of a full relationship with the people that you’re working with.
But I think it’s — it can be very complicated. And especially for women. There’s parts of our identity that we have to kind of navigate around in that space just to feel comfortable and to feel like — to be taken seriously.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: So [laughing].
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. I’ve noticed — and now this is just turning into an interview about academia [laughing], but I’ve noticed that like for women, and especially women of color, who are very much open to our — like how we’re feeling at the time, what our lives are like, we’re really much like kind of heart on our sleeve kind of people. At least — that’s a very general statement, but like a lot of my friends and myself kind of fall into that category.
And I’ve noticed in academia that that — that is not super welcome. You know? It’s like there’s a formal face and there’s an informal face.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Yeah.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: And that’s why I like what you said. It’s a very — it’s the dual identity that we kind of have to — I am not a rapper. But I do this talk show.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Yeah [laughing].
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: And so — and this is kind of almost a little bit connected to my work, but not totally. You know?
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Mm-hmm.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: So — but tell me about your PhD a little bit maybe. Tell me about what you’re working on.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Totally. So I — as I mentioned, I’m in the Science and Technology Studies department and, listeners, you shouldn’t feel bad if you don’t know what that is because I didn’t know what that was until I started undergrad.
So I came into undergrad thinking that I maybe wanted to do sociology. I didn’t have — I wasn’t one of those kids who like knew definitively what I should be doing. So I tried out a lot of different fields. And I ended up taking a sociology class that was cross listed with a science and technology studies course. And it was about sort of the — thinking about science as part of like a social process of knowledge making, which was really interesting. I’d never thought about it in those terms.
And one of the things that we talked about was like the history of the Moog Synthesizer and like keyboards. And as a —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yes.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Yeah. So as a, you know, an aspiring musician, that totally gripped me. And especially as someone who had never been formally trained in making music, I thought, “Wow. It’s cool that I can study music, but not have to be part of like a music department. I can think about it in a different way.”
So I ended up writing a senior thesis about sort of the kind of informal networks that develop around people who are trying to produce beats and gender dynamics there, how it’s difficult for women to enter and access these spaces because the knowledge is informal and, you know, you have to — there are a lot of barriers to entry is what I kind of discovered.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: And so then, when I decided to go back to grad school, I thought, “OK. Well, let me pursue science and technology studies further.” And so I — my advisor, the same one from my thesis, I’m working with him and I’m focused on kind of the politics of like studio spaces.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Oh, wow.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: In like low income areas and essentially what happens in spaces when there are ideas about what counts as kind of “good quality music” or “good quality sound” and how that plays out I think in some of these areas. So that’s what my research is on.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: That is really, really interesting. And when you were talking about the synthesizer, I was thinking about the theremin.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Yeah.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Do you — did you study at all like the history of the theremin and like how that worked or anything?
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: It’s definitely come up in some of my classes. My advisor, he has kind of a lengthier relationship with just the history of musical instruments and specifically kind of electric, electronic instruments. So he is very much in love with the theremin [laughing].
But I’ve only, you know, kind of studied through his classes and seen it as like a think, a fascinating object. And learning that it was a part of like some popular music is weird to me. Like I think there’s like a Beach Boys song where there’s like a theremin in the background. I was like, “I can’t imagine like — this needs more theremin.” [laughing].
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. This needs more cow bell.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Right.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: I wanted to ask you if you had like a super power, what would that be and what would be your origin story? Because this is all about origin stories here at Geek Girl Con, you know, and superheroes.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Wow. So I was asked this question once.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Wow. I thought I was original.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: No. No. It’s a fascinating and amazing question. And I think what it would be would be to go back in time and stop slavery from happening.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: You’d have to go all over.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: All over [laughing].
I would use my powers. I would exhaust myself going back in time to try to figure out how to end that. And in terms of the origin story, I’ll have to think on that.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Because I want to make it good. I don’t want it to sort of throw something out there.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: You would have to be some sort of future person. Right?
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Yeah. Coming from the future. Going back to the past.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Or — like we would have, you know, reached some sort of critical point and made a decision as a society that we — we need to send someone back there to put a stop to this.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. That’s deep.
I was like, “I can fly.”
[Laughter]
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: I’ve thought very long and hard about this [laughing].
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: I was like, I can fly and so I just woke up and that happened. The end.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: I like your story [laughing].
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah.
Wow. I got to work harder.
[♪ SAMMUS singing “Definitely” ♪]
♪ Definitely if you disrespecting the Be ♪
♪ Best believe she will not be — [laughter] ♪
♪ I am definitely too cool ♪
♪ Definitely ♪
♪ I am the coolest in the school ♪
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: If you’re just joining us, this is Spark Science. I’m Regina Barber DeGraaff. And today we’re at Geek Girl Con interviewing nerdcore rapper SAMMUS.
How is your science that you do and how is your field — and so you have two kind of fields. You have rap and you have the science technology and history. How are your fields represented in pop culture and like can you give me examples of when it was good or when it was bad, or maybe it’s not represented at all? I think rap maybe is [laughing], but —
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: A little bit [laughing].
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: But maybe your PhD not so much. I don’t know. Tell me, if you can think of anything.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: So in terms of how hip-hop is represented, I do think that — so the genre that I’m in is a genre that’s called nerdcore, or a lot of people put me in that kind of category. And usually it’s typically like white guys rapping about their lives. And so I think in that regard I represent something kind of different in like the conversation that I’m trying to create. So that pop culture is — pop culturally is how I would say nerdcore is represented.
And then in terms of science and technology studies, I don’t even — I’m trying to think how grad students are represented as being kind of sad.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right. That’s true.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: But that is a true thing [laughing].
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: The nerdcore that you speak of, I saw MC Pee Pants.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Yeah.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Sorry. And MC Chris, sorry, is his name.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Also known as MC Pee Pants. Yeah. I opened for him one time [laughing].
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Where did you — this is Spokane.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: This was in Brooklyn. Brooklyn. He was — he’s on a tour right now with another one of my friends named Mega Ran. So that’s great.
And actually I just got a light —
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: He’s the best.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Yeah. No. MC Pee Pants is — MC Chris [laughing]. Is awesome.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: So you were saying — sorry. You just got a little Meatwad.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Oh, yeah. I just — I was at Comic Con — New York Comic Con right before coming to this just for a day. And I was doing my thing with like Adult Swim Games and they gave me a little Meatwad guy. So I’m just so happy. I feel so blessed.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: So, I mean — so nerdcore is, I think, getting a little more respect nowadays.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Yeah. It’s definitely changing. I mean, at South by Southwest, there’s an official nerdcore stage and I think there’s now a recognition that this is like a form of rap that people can’t really just put in a box or kind of call niche or that there are people who are really taking this seriously and who have built whole careers and lives around it. So I hope that it’s getting more credibility at this point [laughing]. Fingers crossed [laughing].
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Thank you so much for talking to me. Sorry, I kind of cut that off real quick. Do you have anything else that you would like to add?
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: So I have an album that’s going to be dropping. I’m not sure when this is airing, but the album will be dropping on October 28th. But, yeah. So please pick it up please. It’s called “Pieces in Space” and I would love you forever if you could do that.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: We already love you. You’re awesome. Thank you so much for talking with me.
>> Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo: Thank you so much for having me.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: You just heard our interview with SAMMUS who is an amazing rapper and PhD candidate in science and technology studies. Her new LP “Pieces in Space” is currently out right now. Please check it out at SAMMUSMusic.com, that’s SAMMUS with two M’s.
If you’d like to hear more from SAMMUS, check out the season three, episode six of PhDivas. It was amazing.
And now for our interview with famed science communicator, Summer Ash.
[♪ Janelle Monae singing Wondaland ♪]
♪ Early late at night
♪ I wander off into a land
♪ You can go, but you mustn’t tell a soul
♪ There’s a world inside
♪ Where dreamers meet each other
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: This is Spark Science sharing stories of human curiosity. That’s our tagline. And this is Regina Barber DeGraaff. And I’m here at Geek Girl Con , second day in a row here. And I am here with the great science communicator Summer Ash, who I’m geeking out over. How are you doing?
>> Summer Ash: I’m doing excellent. I’m so excited to meet you because I love your costume and it was so much fun to meet you yesterday. So I’m excited to be here now and talk about sparking curiosity.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. I’m going to start with what are you here for? Because I know you did a panel on Star Wars, Worlds of Star Wars. And I’ve talked to a couple other people, but I kind of want to talk to you about science outreach and then we’ll kind of go in the way back machine and talk about how you got into it.
>> Summer Ash: So I came to Geek Girl Con actually primarily to participate in the DIY Science Zone. Because I’m friends with a lot of the other scientists that do it. Some I know in real life and some I’ve never met, but we’re friends on Twitter. And I see them tweet about it every year. And I know Rachelle [sp?] is the one who founded it and she does amazing science communication and she’s so great communicating science and reaching out to underserved communities and everything like that.
And so the DIY Science Zone, my impression is it’s amazing. I’ve heard that this year it’s even better than it’s been before. So like I came at a great time.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Because they put plastic on the ground.
>> Summer Ash: Yeah. Because there’s commits and there’s other chemical substances that get spilled around. So it’s very well protected, but it’s in a great location. It’s very central and there were at least 15 different tables going with 15 different experiments. And it ran — it runs all day both days. And we just had the best traffic and the best time with kids and families and everybody excited about science.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. So we were here last year and we recorded and we spent our whole time recording in the DIY Zone and my daughter who is seven, she was six at the time, went to every single table and it’s just amazing. What they did this year and what you’re talking about, they put it right next to registration. So people are coming to this Con and the first thing they’re just hit with is hands on science, which is just amazing. So I love it too.
Can I ask you, though, how did you get into science communication? We’ll come back to exoplanets.
>> Summer Ash: Yeah. Sure. It’s kind of a long story. Or it’s a long, wavering — you know, like a long, winding road story.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah.
>> Summer Ash: I — first of all, I’ve always been interested in space. That was something that I think was — I was born with. Because I don’t have an origin story for that. I was just always looking up at the moon and then looking up at the stars and then dragging people outside to do the same thing.
So I knew I was going to do space things. I ended up doing — going into aerospace engineering first. So — but I’ll jump ahead. So I was studying in grad school — studying astrophysics in England and I loved listening to podcasts as I walked into the department because I lived a little bit ways and I would have a nice walk. And I was listening to a podcast, there was a short-lived podcast called the Bryant Park Project on NPR that was NPR trying to get a younger audience interested and having a morning show where people — the radio people talked to each other and not just at the audience about current events.
So it was a little bit hip. It had news segments, but it had pop culture segments, all these things. And then they would have an NPR news person come on to do a couple stories occasionally.
And one time the person came on to tell a story about Voyager leaving the solar system. And with the Voyager probes, there were two, and they went out in two different directions. And so we had two different estimates for a particular change in the solar system in the space that they were going through. And they turned out to be at different distances.
So the tagline for the story was that the solar system was dented, which is a whole other problem in itself. But — so they got the whole story right, but at the end, when she came to like summarize, she said the universe was dented. And I was like, “That is a whole different ball game.” So I wrote in because I was like, “I love you guys. And I just want to tell you that I do this stuff and the universe is a different can of worms. Let’s not even go with the shape of what it is.”
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right.
>> Summer Ash: And so they contacted me to give me a — do a correction on air. And then I wrote back and I was like, “You guys should do more science.” And they said, “Do you want to help us do that?” And I said, “Yes.”
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Wow. So you’ve been doing this for a while.
>> Summer Ash: So I started — yeah. That was 2007 maybe. Because the show actually got canceled nine months later. But I got a relationship — not because of me. I did not cancel the show.
So I had a relationship with the producers there because I loved the show. I got to go visit them once and meet them in person before they got canceled. And that got me interested in writing. I was always possibly interested in it, but I didn’t necessarily see it as something that I would do a lot of. But I really enjoyed it, trying to translate fun stories that I thought that were geeky and about some new science discovery. And write about it and say, “Hey, here’s why this is so cool, why I find this so cool.”
So I was writing for them and then they — the show got canceled. And all of those producers actually scattered and ended up at other cool places. And they still — I still work with them in random times to this day. So they sort of really got me going.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Well, I mean, I think that’s a really important, you know, lesson for our listeners that like you need to be like courageous a little bit. You need to like take these risks and be like you wrote that thing — you know, that letter. You wanted to make connections. And I think a lot of us are just too scared to do those steps. And they’re really not that big, right? Like writing that letter probably didn’t take you that much time.
>> Summer Ash: Yeah. So it was just like an e-mail of two sentences.
But you know what is really funny is that I grew up super shy. And so younger me would never have foreseen older me doing these types of things. And so actually when I think about it too, I’m like, I don’t know where that came from or when it started happening, but it just became this thing more, not trying to get in places, but just trying to connect and saying, “I like what you’re doing. I think it’s cool. And I’m going to tell you that.” And then I’m going to tell you maybe, “This part’s really cool. It would be really cool if you did this and I know about that stuff.”
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah.
>> Summer Ash: And so if you want to know more, like let’s talk.
I always think networking has got a reputation as like this dirty word, but it’s really just being interested in what people do.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right.
>> Summer Ash: And starting conversations with them about it to learn more.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right. I think it’s just sharing your passions. Right? Like —
>> Summer Ash: Totally.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: So I feel like — how do you find connections? I think it’s — if you’re truly passionate about something, somebody who is also truly passionate about something will connect and they’ll be like, “Oh, my God.”
I remember when the Harry Potter theme park had just opened and I don’t know if, listeners, I’ve already told this story. I’m sorry if I have. But it had just opened and I went on this camping trip with these people that, some of them had never read the books, like didn’t really know too much about it. And I was just geeking out. I was like, “I want to go! Like this is what I planning on doing and this is what the castle looks like. And I’ve been watching videos.” And this one guy comes up to me and he’s like, “I don’t even like Harry Potter, but I really want to go to Harry Potter theme park now just hearing you talk about it.” And I was like, “Awesome.”
[♪ SAMMUS singing “Definitely” ♪]
♪ Definitely I’m not a fucking phoney ♪
♪ Cuz some of ya’ll niggas definitely need a Tony ♪
♪ Definitely ♪
♪ I don’t gotta talk about swag ♪
♪ Definitely cuz you don’t ever really have to ask ♪
♪ Definitely ♪
♪ We just made a song on the word “definitely” ♪
♪ And now we got you doing the jerk ♪
♪ Definitely — these are just a couple of perks ♪
♪ When you’re definitely ill with your verse ♪
♪ I’m winning ♪
♪ See the definition of first ♪
♪ Definitely I just put this track in a hearse ♪
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: If you’re just joining us, this is Spark Science. We’re talking about the intersection between geek culture and science as Geek Girl Con.
I wanted to ask you, because you say you did grad school in Cambridge, and, when I was growing up, that was always like my dream until I gave up on my dreams. Like in the beginning of Zootopia, they talk about that, giving up on your dreams and settling.
But how did that come about? Like what’s that story?
>> Summer Ash: So the long winding road. So what I was mentioning before is that I ended up going into aerospace engineering. So I used to want to be an astronaut growing up.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Me too.
>> Summer Ash: Turns out I was willingfully lying to myself about my eyesight. Just ignoring the fact that I knew it wasn’t good enough. But either way, I was always drawn to engineering because it was tangible and I felt like forces on things and building things, that — I could relate to that. And it seemed intuitive. Not that I was an A student, but it just — the subject really drew me.
And so I studied mechanical engineering as an undergrad. And it overlaps enough with aerospace that my guidance counselor was like, “You can work in aerospace. Like just take mechanical.” Because there was no aerospace major at the time.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right.
>> Summer Ash: So I ended up working in aerospace. I ended up working at Orbital Sciences, which is now Orbital ATK. And they are located outside of DC. That’s where I grew up.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: OK.
>> Summer Ash: And so I did an internship there and had such a great time that I came back to work after finishing college. And I worked on an X-34 project. It was a NASA contract for like in X vehicle, like the X1 that broke the sound barrier and the X15, which is a blackbird. So the X34, the 34th X vehicle — like each X vehicle has its own technology to prove are barrier to break kind of thing. So ours was just trying to make a more reusable launch vehicle.
So like the space shuttle, I think there was something about — I don’t remember the number of people — but it takes an obscene number amount of people and six months to turn it around after one launch.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah.
>> Summer Ash: So the goal of this was to try and do a launch within two weeks and like 100 people, and also then an emergency 24 hour turnaround.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: What?
>> Summer Ash: And then also just test a lot of new technology. So it was an unmanned vehicle. It was much smaller than the space shuttle, but it was like a winged aircraft.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Like most of the X vehicles?
>> Summer Ash: Exactly. Yeah. So it had a new type of engine. It had new types of thermal blankets. It had new autonomous flight software. Things like that.
Unfortunately, like a lot of things, congress controls what NASA can do because it controls the budget. And so we actually got canceled in the wake of some faster, better, cheaper — that old NASA motto — some incidences that congress said, “Oh, this is bad. You’re not doing it right. And you’re taking too many risks.” So the funding got canceled. And I decided to go back to school.
And I went to a place called the International Space University, which sounds fake, but it’s totally not.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: It’s in space.
>> Summer Ash: It’s in space. All my friends were like, “Sammus’s going to astronaut school.” I’m like, “No. Actually it’s really different from that.” But it was amazing. It was an international program, but it taught you all about the space industries, which I already was sort of coming from one corner of. And it was interesting to get these looks into program management and business and marketing and launch vehicle design and spacecraft design and space law. So it was kind of an amazing — it was basically a year that probably changed my life because, first of all, it was my first time going abroad for a long period of time and studying abroad. And it was 46 students from 23 different countries in my class, which was amazing because I — you know, just having exposure to people that have different backgrounds, have different experiences, have access to different resources or less resources than you grew up with just have such a different perspective.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right.
>> Summer Ash: And it adds — somebody from the US , you know, this super power of the world, it was really eye opening to hear from other students what — how our country is viewed.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. It’s always nice.
>> Summer Ash: Always nice. But, no, really educational. So I was super grateful for that because, you know, you don’t get that perspective when you’re here in the states.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: No.
>> Summer Ash: And you don’t really see how the world fits together more. So it was transformative year and there was a chance, during the year, to do an internship.
They called it a professional placement, but it was basically three months, anywhere in the world based on your interests and the school’s ability to secure something for you.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right.
>> Summer Ash: So there weren’t like set places that you could go. There were places that students had gone before so there was a chance you could go. But I said, “I want to go where there’s telescopes because this is a very unique opportunity.” And so I want to go to one of those big observatory kind of places.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right.
>> Summer Ash: So the school worked its magic and I did an internship at the astronomy department in the university of Hawaii. So I lived in Manoa for three months and I got to go over to the big island, to Mauna Kea three times. I helped a pole stock do some observing up there because UH has their own telescope up there.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah.
>> Summer Ash: But it was just amazing to go to the summit there and see astronomy from the perspective of what it’s like as a profession. Because it had always been not really a hobby, but just a huge interest of mine. But I had never been immersed in it academically.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right.
>> Summer Ash: And that made me decide, “Yeah. I really want to study this now.”
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: OK.
>> Summer Ash: So I knew, as an engineer, you don’t take as much physics and math as astrophysicists do. You know, you take the middle track so to speak. At my undergrad, there was like the lower track for just checking a box and there was the middle track for engineering and then like a top track if you’re going to go into physics and science and math.
So I took a year off to do applications, but also to actually take some classes at the likely community college. And I loved it. And I have no idea how it happens, but I got into Cambridge. I only applied to like five schools, but I wanted to stay abroad because I loved that experience so much. But I didn’t speak a language well enough to study in it, so I was like, “It has to be a school — an English school.”
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: You’re like — anyway —
>> Summer Ash: Yeah. England is the country of choice. But, you know what, strangely enough, when you go there, it’s like being a divided by a common language. I underestimated the culture shock level because I knew that we use all the same words. But, you know, just the day-to-day life and relationships and everything was so different. So that was a whole nother — we can do another podcast on that.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. No. Just to add to that. When I was 18, my husband and I — he was not my husband at the time — but we saved up money and we went to Manchester. That was the first place we went out of the country was Manchester, England. And we got there and people were like, “Why are you here?” And I was like, “Morrissey?”
And we were talking like a kid so he was not Oasis. You know? Because this was 1999.
>> Summer Ash: Yeah.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: And I remember getting off the plane in Manchester, a solar eclipse was happening at that moment when we got out on the plane. 1999. You can look it up. In August of 1999, there was a total solar eclipse and that could be seen the UK. And we get off and we get to our hotel and it’s run by a Pakistani — British Pakistani family. And I could understand them perfectly. And then I leave the hotel, and I couldn’t understand anyone.
And I thought I was a pretty well-rounded person, had met many people at least in the US and I couldn’t — for two days, I couldn’t understand a Manchester dialect.
>> Summer Ash: I have a friend who’s from Manchester, but she probably was surrounded by a family and like a — you know a boarding school and stuff so she has this more polished accent. But, yeah, it’s surprising how different the accents can be around London and then the east and the north and the south. And, yeah. They’re so wild.
Yeah. But I mean I guess the same for us, but you’re used to knowing what the accents are and so you’re really — your ears are attuned to them. But like Appalachia has some really thick accents that are — and different words sometimes too. Yeah, and Louisiana and Creole and things like that. And sometimes, you know, super thick Boston accent. I mean, it’s interesting like how — I love language. It’s really cool.
[♪ SAMMUS singing “Definitely” ♪]
♪ Matter fact it probably chase me — effortlessly ♪
♪ I ain’t running just chilling who cooler than me? ♪
♪ Prolly just Sammus but ya’ll lame as can be ♪
♪ Definitelyn1
♪ We defi-definitely ♪
♪ We def-ahhh ♪
♪ We definitely put this track in a hearse ♪
♪ We definitely ♪
♪ We defi-definitely ♪
♪ We de-definitely ♪
♪ Definitely ♪
♪ Put this track in a hearse ♪
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: If you’re just joining us, this is Spark Science. I’m Regina Barber DeGraaff and today we’re at Geek Girl Con interviewing science communicator and astronomer, Summer Ash.
>> Summer Ash: So I went to England. And I studied at the Cavendish Laboratory, which — so England — the funny thing about astronomy related topics at Cambridge is that there’s three different departments that do them. So there’s a group — the astrophysics group and the physics lab, which is the Cavendish. And then there’s the IOA, the Institute of Astronomy, which is literally across the road. And it’s literally across the road because they used to be together and then two of the premiere people had a fight over the big bang. And one guy said the big bang happened. The other guy said, “Screw you. It didn’t happen. I’m going across the road to start my own group.”
True story.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: I’m just going to build my building.
>> Summer Ash: Yeah.
And then there’s cosmology that’s in the mathematical department and that’s where Newton was and that’s where Stephen Hawking is.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: That’s like Trinity, right?
>> Summer Ash: Oh, Trinity is the college.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Oh, OK. Got it.
>> Summer Ash: So — it’s funny because — so, yeah. There — it’s like — I can’t remember what it’s called. It’s like the collegiate system, something like that where there are colleges, which are almost like dorms. They’re like houses except that a lot of times you have — a lot of your learning is also based in the colleges. So you have tutors. It’s called supervisors, supervising. So it’s more like a one-on-two, one-on-three instructor to student ratio that supplement the classes that they’re in and that kind of stuff.
But, yeah. So the departments are separate. So you — everyone belongs to a college. You’re associated with a college. But, when you’re there for grad school, that’s less of an important thing. Or, when you’re there, at least for a — not a one year program — you don’t spend a lot of time. That’s usually just where you sleep or where you can get some free meals and do some other activities based around your college. Otherwise, like any other grad student, you live in the department.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right. So how long were you there?
>> Summer Ash: I was there for four years straight, but a whole nother conversation that we can also have this podcast or another — like many grad students, I had my first major depressive episode. And I was like, “What is happening? I don’t understand what’s happening.” And, you know, it was a combination of being in England thinking that it was going to be a more familiar — finding it a lot harder to make friendships and relationships and not having the sun, not only because it’s gray, but because it then goes down so early during the winter and rises really late.
And then it also turned out I had some illness as well. But it was like a perfect storm. So I was sort of in and out and I ended up leaving before I finished. And then I somehow ended up with getting like my dream job at Columbia. And so I tried to kind of go back several times and finish and then I had a whole nother story, which can be a third, fourth podcast. I had open heart surgery.
And so, in the recovery phase of that, I realized that I was — I was doing what I wanted to do and I felt like trying to go back and finish was like going — pulling me back in time and putting this current life on hold. And I was realizing that I got what I wanted out of it. I was really just wanted to study astronomy and learn more about it. And I got to do so much. I did four years of research and I knew — did enough to realize that I didn’t think research life was for me, but I could totally be someone’s research assistant because I enjoyed doing it. But I enjoyed seeing what everybody else was doing too much to really stick to one track and want to just study that for the rest of my life.
So it was a fantastic experience. And, while I was there, I also got more time — more chance to do some outreach and talk to students. And I was like, “I’m really liking this. I want to do it — I want to do more of this.”
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: As you’re telling me this story, I’m just like totally identifying with everything you’re saying [laughing].
I did finish. My advisor had left out of the country and I — I had to go to Canada once a month every couple months. But I also had several, several breakdowns. I did not have the illnesses you had or even the culture shock because I was still in Washington State, but it is hard. I finished my research and I’m thinking to myself, “Do I really need to do the research or am I doing the thing that I like now?” I’m — you know, at Western, I do outreach and I do STEM inclusion work and, you know, work with clubs and science communication.
But, yeah. No. I totally hear what you’re saying. And I feel like there’s — we need to tell grad students it’s OK to follow what you’re passionate about and, if you’re not passionate about research, you are not a failure. Like that’s what we really, really, really need because, when you’re at that lowest point in your life and you’re like, “This computer program’s making me sad,” like just looking at this, you know, research notebook makes me want to cry, then you’re like, “Oh. I either need a break or I need to readjust what is actually important to me.”
>> Summer Ash: I think part — so I’m hopeful and optimistic that it’s changing, especially with a lot of the young academics in early career positions that will eventually be rising up to be the main faculty across the country, and hopefully internationally as well. But I do feel there’s like this leftover thing for whoever started it who knows. But that you’re expected to do nothing but work. And you’re expected to — I think it’s leftover from this whole idea of apprenticeships. And so this whole idea that your advisor is the master and you’re the apprentice. And the idea is that the apprentice follows in the master’s footsteps.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Exactly.
>> Summer Ash: And so there’s this expectation that all of the students that are being supervised are going to do exactly what their professor does. And that doesn’t have to be the case. Because, also, the school — the skills that you learn, especially in science programs, are transferable. I mean, critical thinking skills are invaluable across the board.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: The problem solving skills.
>> Summer Ash: Problem solving skills. Exactly.
And then sometimes I think it’s — they’re just unaware. A lot of advisors are unaware of the fact that their students want to do something else because they keep it hidden. Or they’re unaware that they — of what the other options are. Like that’s all that they know so that’s what they know to train students for.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right. A lot of people think that, “If I don’t know this or I am not good at it,” then it doesn’t have value. So like science communication, for instance.
>> Summer Ash: Yeah. Well, that’s a whole other can of worms too. That sometimes doing the outreach is when you’re not doing research. And so it’s also sometimes counted against you, which is really not the way it should be.
So, yeah. I think that grad students need to prioritize self-care.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Oh, God, yeah.
>> Summer Ash: And the PIs need to allow that and accept it and support it. And also just the fact that, yeah, that the grad students don’t have to be mirror images of them. And that’s — that’s better for the world actually. If everybody’s slightly different and everybody has different skillset and everybody has different interests and a passion, but they can all collectively work together towards a common goal.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. I mean, that’s how problems are solved is when you have these different viewpoints. But I like how you’re talking about this idea of mirror imaging because, being in academia for as long as I’ve been, you kind of see this — they keep on talking about the pipeline. You do a lot of inclusion and outreach work. Like why aren’t these students — why are we not graduating students from diverse backgrounds? Where are we losing them in the pipeline, these leaky pipelines?
And the more articles I read about, it’s not a pipeline. And this book had talked about a network. We call it the STEM network instead of the STEM pipeline because even that word, even that phrase has this buried bias that, if you want to be a scientist, this is the path you do. You do undergrad in science. You do grad school in science. You do a postdoc. And then you get a tenure track job. Then you have to do research and publish. That is your path.
So people do not always use that pipeline or go along that route or that pipeline. But the people we see in academia have. And the system has been built so those people are favored.
>> Summer Ash: Yeah. That’s such a good point. Because, when I was working on the Columbia bridge to PhD program, Marcelo Queiroz, who was the program director and I was the assistant director, when we would have the orientation at the beginning for the new scholars, he would show that graph of this — or not the graph — the info graphic of the STEM pipeline and say, “You know, here’s why I don’t like this. Because we shouldn’t be viewing it as we’re losing these people, but it’s — every point is a decision point. And so they choose where they go. This isn’t like the one true path.”
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right. And we should value those other paths.
I think this is really important to kind of talk about and we can kind of get into what you do at Columbia University then because I’m very, very much interested in the bridge program. Because, one, I would have loved to have it if it would have existed. Summer is saying I would have loved it.
>> Summer Ash: It’s such an amazing resource because it’s all about trying to get students to realize how you have to start thinking differently from the way that you’re trained as an undergraduate to the way that grad school works, and what you want out of grad school and what grad school is sort of for in the bigger sense, not this limited sense that we were just talking about.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Letters at the back of your name.
>> Summer Ash: But it’s — yeah. But it’s a transition because, as an undergrad, a lot of the classes and the class work — I mean, a lot — sometimes you have group work, but more often than not, you sort of do it yourself. And science doesn’t work like that. Science is collaborative. Like not one person can know everything. So every — you have teams and you have working groups and then you also just have peers and you bounce ideas off each other and you get pieces of information and give pieces of information and you work together to solve problems and come up with new solutions.
And so it’s — you also have to get like this — you have to switch your gears and your brain just to realize that you’re not going to succeed using the same methods that you used as an undergrad.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right. And I think these bridge programs also help the students that kind of not only struggle with that switching, but also just struggle with school. Do you know what I mean? I wasn’t a straight A student and I got through — I kind of did a master’s program between my undergrad and my PhD. And people were like, “Don’t get a terminal master’s. Those are worthless.” But it was almost like a bridge program. I had made my own bridge program and I went to San Diego State for a little bit, three years.
And I want to — I want to tell my students like, “Just because you’re not a straight A student, because you get Bs and maybe the occasional C and the occasional A, you can still go to grad school. You can still follow your passion.” But I’m a non-tenure track professor. But all the tenure track professors, they didn’t have to do that. You know? So it’s hard. There’s not many of them that are telling these students that they can still make it.
>> Summer Ash: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s the other problem is that the sort of transition or this path like going from undergrad and doing science and then going straight into grad school, like that’s a thing that is easiest for the people that have known what they want to do for a long time. And sort of have had the foresight to see, “What do I need to do in order to accomplish this?” They also have the knowledge of what the resources are, who they need to reach out to and find out more about, “How do I do this? Which class should I take?” all this stuff. And not everybody has that.
[♪ SAMMUS singing “Mary Jane” ♪]
♪ Mary Jane ♪
♪ She was my friend but ♪
♪ She don’t like me ♪
♪ So it had to end ♪
>> Summer Ash: Reaching out is viewed as feeling like it’s admitting a weakness.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right.
>> Summer Ash: Which is not the case at all. I mean, there can be people that, you know, are like, “Do this for me.” But saying, “I need your help. I don’t know this. How do I get to that place? How do I get into this program?” That’s just using your resource as well.
And so there’s students that make decisions much later in college that like they discover science, “This is what I want to do,” and then they haven’t had that time to do this checklist that a lot of other students have. And so they need more time to figure out, “Where do I go from here? How do I get to that next level?” and also, “What do I need to get to that next level? What am I missing that I’m not going to be able to be successful?” And that’s what our program tried to provide.
So the bridge program — so I worked on it for four years. I’m no longer on it. I’ve been off for about a year and a half. But I worked for it four years and it’s — our program particularly is a non-degree program, just a certificate of completion. But it’s a two year program, however research, so research intense, but coursework is also available. So they have a — they’re grandfathered into a system where they can take up to two courses per semester.
But we actually — most of the time, we only let them take one because balancing a full-time research assistant job — so 40 hours a week in the lab with coursework, and managing to also be able to understand or self-evaluate your progress both in the lab and in the coursework is something that takes a lot of practice. We drill that into them. We actually kind of throw them in the deep end, but then we stand by the side of the pool with the life rafts sort of thing. So that, when they get to grad school and fall in the deep end, they can swim.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right.
>> Summer Ash: And I totally just came up with that analogy right now and I’m really excited [laughing].
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: It’s beautiful.
>> Summer Ash: Yeah. So the whole thing was — also it’s heavily mentoring.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right.
>> Summer Ash: So as the assistant director, I met with — it’s a very small scale program so there were only five students per year on average. But mostly it’s competitive because we don’t have the funding. So it was limited resource sort of situation. So we didn’t want it to be as competitive, but we also liked that it’s intimate because, if you scale up too much, then you lose that. And so the fact that both Marcel and I could know what’s up with each student at any given day — as long as they were communicating, which was another thing we tried to instill in them, that you got to let us know if you need help because, by the time you actually let us know you need help, it’s too late and we can’t help you. Both like if you’re going to fail your course or if you’re just way behind and you haven’t talked to your researcher, haven’t talked to your PI.
So I would meet with them once a month and they would write progress reports. And then we’d also have monthly meetings for either talking with the scientist who’s in the field that can speak to their experiences or workshops on writing personal statements or presenting your research.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: So many of my students really need that. And not only is it good to make those connections like you’re saying, but just to boost confidence like you were saying. Like giving — being there so they can still swim and having those life rafts — life preservers or whatever — your analogy that was beautiful [laughing].
I want to ease into science communication. So that’s what you used to do, but now you’re kind of doing this dream that I would love to do too and so many scientists would love to be able to communicate science in a way that people can really get into and with it. So you were just on the Star Wars, Worlds of Star Wars panel. You’ve done other things. You’ve been on Startalk, which is why I was like — I saw your name and I was like, “Oh, my God.” And you’ve been on Nerdist.
What do you talk about when you go on those — to those panels and to those talk shows? Like what is your main thing that you kind of get across if there is a main thing?
>> Summer Ash: Let’s see. If there is a main thing, it’s probably that space is awesome and that it’s like something that you should be curious about. And, if not space, then something else. But curiosity. Sparking your curiosity.
Because you — but like asking questions about the world around you.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah.
>> Summer Ash: And for me, space is the inroad. So the Startalk appearance was actually more specifically to talk about women in STEM as portrayed in Hollywood, kind of thing. Like the portrayal of science in Hollywood, but kind of with a focus on women.
So then the Nerdist came out of that. So they actually aired in opposite order. But they took place with the Startalk taping first and that’s where I met Chris Hardwick and then he had me on. And we just had a whole long conversation about lots of different things, but also focused a little bit on how to get girls into STEM, or at least get them to realize that STEM is not scary. Because also my goal is not to make everybody go into STEM and not to push people into STEM, but just to sort of make it accessible. My goal is, if it’s equally accessible to everyone, then my work is done because we don’t have to have the entire world — like we don’t have to have 50% men and women in every field. But accessibility for them to be in that field should be even.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right.
>> Summer Ash: And same with every minority group. Like it should be even. There should be no barriers to access.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right.
>> Summer Ash: And that’s a big problem that we have. So I try to focus on that and then I get to focus on that in specifically like physics and astronomy because that’s the field that I know best. But then I just try to use the amazingness of space.
So just the fact that everybody looks up. Right? That’s something that everybody can do. You don’t need money. You don’t need equipment. And it’s also just something that’s common to humans. Like we look around us and so everybody at some point looks up and says, “What’s up there? What’s going on? What’s out there?”
So there’s a common access point and I just use — try to use that to say like, “Space is really cool and here’s all the really cool things that we can learn about it with science and technology and engineering and mathematics.”
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah. No. I wanted to let you know that I was just listening to the Startalk where — no. Sorry. The Nerdist where he has Neil deGrasse Tyson on and they talked about you.
>> Summer Ash: I did listen to that because I was kind of curious. Because I was like, “If he just had Neil on and they’re going to talk about the Startalk taping, like will he mention me?”
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: They totally did.
>> Summer Ash: And I was like, “Yay!”
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: But I like what you were talking about when you were mentioning people are embarrassed to say basically that they need help. And I was going to say that, if you’re a woman in STEM or if you’re a person of color and you have those visual — like you’re definitely — people can notice that you — there’s not a lot of you, it’s even harder. Because you’re worried about that, that they might think you’re less and inferior in knowledge and then you’re going to ask for help.
So it’s just this other — this other layer that I wanted to add onto what you were talking about before.
>> Summer Ash: Yeah. Absolutely. Like if you can’t see it, how do you know that you can be it kind of thing.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right.
>> Summer Ash: And you just need to see like, “There’s people like me in those — doing those jobs in those positions doing awesome things so I want to be like that?”
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right.
>> Summer Ash: But, at the same — one of the things that I think that Neil actually said once — I brought the bridge students once to have lunch with him and he made a really good point that I think is also important takeaway is that you don’t want to have one person that you want to be. You want to — you want to strive to attain qualities that are like a bunch of people. Because people are fallible.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yeah.
>> Summer Ash: And people have flaws. And no one person is perfect. But you’re like, “I like the way he explain this.” or, “I like the fact that he works with this group and I like the fact that this person promotes this or this person has this skill and this person shows up in these kind of environments.” And then you choose to emulate those things. You strive for those kind of things. So you sort of find a cluster.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right.
>> Summer Ash: Of things to follow and to strive for.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: I do like that. And I hear what he’s saying.
[♪ SAMMUS singing “Mary Jane” ♪]
♪ She say my style she feelin’ it ♪
♪ Make me feel intelligent ♪
♪ She necessary to my living ♪
♪ Something like an element ♪
♪ I was too dependent soon ♪
♪ Needing her ♪
♪ All the time ♪
♪ Like Sisters With Voices said ♪
♪ Damn she always on my mind ♪
♪ Ya’ll just get that line? ♪
♪ Who Sisters With Voices are? ♪
♪ Some of my fans ♪
♪ A little bit young ♪
♪ Was that too hard? ♪
♪ Damn I’m sorry ♪
♪ That’s how I would be with Mary ♪
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: I wanted to ask just one last question.
>> Summer Ash: Yes.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: That I’ve been asking all of my interviewees and it’s, if you had a super power, what would that be and what would be your origin story? And the last thing was like portrayal of women in pop culture and if there’s just one good version and one bad version you would like to — women in science.
>> Summer Ash: OK. Yeah. So my super power is easy. I want to fly.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: That’s what I said [laughing].
>> Summer Ash: I want to fly. I mean, I love being — I love flying in planes.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: I do not.
>> Summer Ash: And get a window seat. And I just sit there and look out the window the entire time. Sometimes I’ll listen to music and a podcast, but I hate it if I have to like work or if it’s a night flight and I have to read. Although, sometimes when it’s a night flight, I’m like, “There’s Orion. There’s Jupiter. There’s Mars. This is exciting.”
So I literally sit and look out the window the whole time. And I love being up high. And then I also just love looking up. But I just love the idea of flying.
It’s hard to say what my origin story would be. I already — I had heart surgery so I like to say that I have a bionic heart now. So maybe the surgery gives me some extra things. Maybe I go the heart transplant of like a pterodactyl or something.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Right [laughing].
>> Summer Ash: I don’t know.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: So portrayal of women in STEM.
>> Summer Ash: Portrayal of women in STEM. Yeah. So one of the good ones that I like, the movie SpaceCamp came out in 1986. That’s how old I am. Because I loved that movie so much and Lea Thompson from Back to the Future of Lea — Back to the Future fame — so basically it’s not like the real SpaceCamp because this SpaceCamp let’s the kid actually sit on the shuttle while they’re doing a booster test.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: I wouldn’t do that.
>> Summer Ash: And then the robot, who’s friends with Lee Phoenix, who is now Joaquin, but was Lee at the time, says — Jinx puts Max in space and he caused a thermonuclear — not thermonuclear — but he caused a failure in the booster so that NASA had no choice but to launch the spacecraft. So the kids, with their counselor who knew some stuff — she was an astronaut candidate so it was OK — but Lea Thompson was sort of the brainy, but really wanted to fly the space shuttle and be an astronaut. And I saw that movie either two months before or two months after — Top Gun and SpaceCamp came out the same year within months of each other and I saw both. And I was like, “Yes.”
And I think I said that on both other things I was on because that really was — I wanted — I was like the jets, “yes,” and then the space, “yes.” So that put it all together. So Lea Thompson’s character was also similar to me. She just seemed like she was really smart and she was really like book smart, which I liked books so, I mean — I don’t mean that as a bad thing. And she was just hard core.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: She was Hermione in space.
>> Summer Ash: Yes. She was Hermione. She was totally Hermione. That’s what it was.
And so the other good example is Dana Scully.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Oh, of —
>> Summer Ash: Because she’s just so skeptical. And not in a — like across the board. But she’s critically thinking all the time. Why is that like that? What could be happening? And also how can I go in the lab and verify what I might be thinking about it?
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Also — but being open to information.
>> Summer Ash: Yeah.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Like she wasn’t so —
>> Summer Ash: Exactly. Right. That’s the whole point. Yeah. You weigh the evidence. She weighed the evidence. Made a decision. And I thought that was — and she was open to possibility too, which I think you always have to be. Oh, I have to go to my panel because it starts in one minute.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Oh, no [laughing].
>> Summer Ash: So let’s just say — I don’t want to bad mouth any samples actually because I feel like people at least put somebody out there in science as an example. And so at least we just got to put more people out there as examples of scientists in pop culture. Period. You’re awesome.
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Thank you so much.
>> Summer Ash: Stay curious!
>> Regina Barber DeGraaff: Yes [laughing]. I love it. Thank you so much.
Thank you for joining us. We just interviewed very awesome women at Seattle’s Geek Girl Con. If you missed any of the show, go to our website SparkScienceNow.com or KMRE.org and click on the podcast link.
We’ll be back again next week. Listen to us on 102.3FM in Bellingham or KMRE.org streaming on Sundays at 5PM, Thursdays at noon, and Saturdays at 3PM. If there’s a science idea that you’re curious about, send us an e-mail or post a message on our Facebook page, SparkScience. You can follow us on Twitter at @SparkScienceNow.
Today’s episode was recorded on location in Seattle, Washington. Our producer is Regina Barber DeGraaff. The engineer for today’s show is Natalie Moore. Our theme music is “Chemical Calisthenics” by Blackalicious and “Wondaland” by Janelle Monae. Our feature song today was SAMMUS’s “Definitely” and “Mary Jane.”
Spark Science is an all volunteer run show and, if you would like to donate, go to KMRE.org and click on the donate button.
[♪Blackalicious rapping Chemical Calisthenics ♪]
♪ Lead, gold, tin, iron, platinum, zinc, when I rap you think
♪ Iodine nitrate activate
♪ Red geranium, the only difference is I transmit sound
♪ Balance was unbalanced then you add a little talent in
♪ Careful, careful with those ingredients
♪ They could explode and blow up if you drop them
♪ And they hit the ground