I’m 10 it’s 2:00 a.m. on a winter’s
night and I’m wrapped in a blanket with
my mom and my dad as we watch
green-tinted burst of light stream
across the night sky my toes are
freezing but I don’t want to go back
inside around the same time I’m gifted a
microscope and immediately I walk down
to a pond and scoop up some water and
look at it as I watch small tiny hydras
oa and protozoa swimming around of
course I didn’t know that’s what they
were called at the time but I am
captivated nonetheless there were so
many things to observe and learn about
big and small science had a hold on me
ten years later I’m in Germany on a
fellowship when I hear something I’ve
never heard before
a podcast and I feel the hair on the
back of my neck stand up it’s the power
of the storytelling the way that I feel
so deeply connected to a human that I’ve
never seen and that I’ve never met
before so the night sky the pond water
the podcast all of them gave me very
similar feelings they were all filled
with awe all of them felt like
revelations and all of them made me feel
intensely human intensely alive in
middle school we learn about the so
called Renaissance man these
larger-than-life figures that did it all
like da Vinci and I like to think that
growing up my pursuit to try many
different things was my attempt to be a
renaissance woman so I tried a lot of
different things jewelry making
brewing movie directing actress radio DJ
my DJ name is silent T cuz my name is
Margo not Margot and to be honest I was
pretty mediocre had all of these things
that I did except for school that was
what I was good at and I wanted to stay
in school as long as possible and as I
went through school from high school to
college and then from college to
graduate school I was continuously asked
to specialise so from science to biology
from biology to neuroscience and from
neuroscience finally to the much more
specific field that I’m in now so cut to
graduate school I decided to go to the
University of California San Diego and
so I have to make it all the way from
the East Coast Philadelphia to my new
home in San Diego and so I convinced my
two best friends and my boyfriend to go
on an epic road trip across the country
one of these friends suggest that we
make a radio show a pre-recorded radio
show for each other that we can play
sometime along the many long drives that
we have ahead of us and I’m totally game
which makes the next week the week
before I’m leaving really really hectic
because I’m packing up eight years of my
life in Philadelphia while mixing
together a radio show that starts out
themed as a roadtrip radio show but
somehow we end up on a planet outside
the solar system and we have to deal
with the intelligent life that’s there
so a couple days into the trip we are
driving we finally make it to one of
those flat States and we start playing
our radio shows for each other and I am
grinning ear-to-ear each store each
radio show is so unique so funny such a
perfect encapsulation of the person that
made it something I’ll be able to
revisit forever
and for me it was the first time that I
had ever mixed together sound and music
and storytelling and that was so so much
fun but sadly this was the last creative
endeavor before I started graduate
school so as many can attest graduate
school is thrilling and it’s pretty
intense and I start spending late nights
and weekends in the lab just trying to
get that last bit of data before a
presentation or before a meeting I study
aggressive behaviors and fruit flies so
not only are they annoying to you guys
they’re also really annoying to each
other and I’m spending time in the lab
collecting flies watching their
behaviors computer coding and imaging
their brains and I start to listen to a
lot of podcasts during these times to
the point where you’ll almost never see
me without headphones wrapped around my
neck or in my ears I made an exception
for it today
and I’m listening to podcasts that are
inspiring and creative ones about
science like radio lab to put the on
science first-person storytelling
podcast like story Collider and while
they’re a joy to listen to they’re also
this reminder of how I’m starting to
feel this really big lack of creativity
in my own life
sure science is a very creative endeavor
but it doesn’t give you that day-to-day
feeling if I’m putting all of myself
into it and around the same time when
I’m listening to science media I’m
starting to realize that a lot of the
things that we hear about in science
media are the breakthroughs which is
great but that’s not the science stories
that I was seeing around me more often
than not I was seeing the missteps the
small steps the hypothesis revisions the
human stories the people that are doing
the science and how they got there and
so an idea starts bubbling like a flat
scoff green liquid in a stock photo
image what if I create a podcast what if
I create a podcast about the humans
behind the science and at first this is
a really scary thought because I never
made a podcast before and I didn’t know
if I could I didn’t know how to do it
and to overcome this nagging feeling of
self-doubt I knew that I only had one
choice and that was to make myself
accountable by telling people so first I
told my close friends then mere
acquaintances and finally I reached out
to the communications people at the Salk
Institute and they said we’ll let you
borrow some equipment and come back to
us with a product if we like it maybe
you will promote it so this was not a
definite yes because we both knew that
I’d never made a podcast before so they
were taking a chance and now I was on
the hook and I wanted to profile a
scientist and I chose someone that I
knew in fact someone that was right down
the hall for me an amazing postdoc named
Elena Blanco and she was a great guinea
pig she let me go into her apartment and
fumble with the equipment there was a
lot of things to consider which wire’s
go where how are my levels can I hear
that dog barking in the background and
at the end of the interview I had 90
minutes of an amazing conversation with
this woman who told me about her love
affair with California how she wants to
be in an all-girl punk band and also
about her research about glia or as she
called them the security guards of our
brain so now I have 90 minutes and I
want to convert I want to make it into
this short punchy fun sounding audio
feast for your ears that sounds like all
my favorite podcasts and I want to do it
on the first try
and so I spend a lot of time editing re
editing listening cringing and re
editing for sick
soeul months for a whopping five minutes
of audio that I am finally ready to let
someone listen to and so I give it to
the people at the Salk Institute and
they say what do you think and they said
we’ll promote it we’ll put it on a
website and that was it it was that easy
I had a podcast and its name was sock
talk pretty creative and and these this
podcast I made three episodes four
before I heard about a contest my golden
ticket it was a call for local audio or
video content from my local NPR
affiliate in San Diego KPBS and as many
people might know public radio is the
pantheon of audio storytelling so a
chance to have something that I made
distributed by Public Radio was really
exciting and kind of seemed like a far
leap at the time considering I had made
about twenty minutes of audio but I
applied nonetheless and as I made it
from the first round to the second round
I was pitching them I had to go in front
of them and say here is what I’m
pitching it’s a show called rad
scientist and I am going to profile the
scientists of San Diego I’m going to let
you know about their quirks what they’re
into their passion how they got where
they are and what they think about the
future so it’s a late night in lab and
I’m imaging fly brains as you do when I
feel my phone buzzed and I think it must
be my mom she’s the only one that calls
me at the hour but I see that the number
is unknown so I step outside and it’s
the station saying that I had won and
that I was going to be able to make a
podcast for them and so I do a little
dance and then I go back into the lab
and the excitement that I feel it really
quickly turns into fear
because I wasn’t really sure if I was
going to be able to have time to do this
and also have time for my specialization
for my science career did I have time to
fit in this piece of science
communication and at the time my
creative expression but I said yes
because I was it going to turn something
like that down and so those late nights
and those weekends would have to be
podcast time it was on and so I wanted
to go about and find awesome scientists
in San Diego and that was not hard
because like Seals San Diego is teaming
with them and I went up to Mount Laguna
where I met a guy named Robert Quimby he
is the director of the observatory up
there and he told me about the time
where he had to decide between staying
in the band the real big fish or going
on to pursue his astronomy career he
also told me about the time that he one
time you found the brightest supernova
known to man which is kind of crazy and
also I got him to give me a weather
all right so weather today is gonna be
hot it’s gonna be around 10,000 degrees
with strong winds between 10,000 and
30,000 climbers per second and it’s
gonna be a strong chance of neutrinos
coming down on us so you’re gonna
probably get a few hundred trillion
every microsecond or so so back to you
Margo thanks for that Robert I also got
to meet a woman named cami Collins he
works at General Atomics she was very
pregnant at the time and I’m happy to
say that she has a beautiful little boy
and she told me about how she knew she
wanted to be a nuclear physicist since
like 10 years old also about how she
built a hovercraft when she was a kid
this is her talking about her love of
physics I’m a physicist like around the
clock I couldn’t imagine doing anything
else
maybe if I opened up like a dog resort
with puppies and stuff that’s a hard
choice and also I got to meet a woman
right here at the Salk Institute who
studies plants and not only that she
talks to her plants asking them
questions and telling them about how
special she thinks they are I just think
you guys are the ultimate introverts you
keep all the secrets to yourselves and
only the most curious human beings can
probably uncover a small part of your
secret that one always gets me so
meeting these scientists was incredible
it was amazing and getting to tell their
stories and made me realize that I was
part of this larger group of a human
community of people that were all just
really curious about the world that all
just wanted to learn something new and
it actually kind of translated into more
excitement for my own project sometimes
you can get really stuck in the specific
in the specifics and it’s good to be
able to take a step back and to look at
things from the perspective of how cool
is it that we get to ask questions and
answer them with the scientific method
there was another thing that was really
cool for me about the podcast that was
really fun and that was the editing
every cut every music choice every pun
was a feeling of self-expression and joy
so great that I would have to describe
it with the following sound clip and
there was another thing that I learned
from the podcast maybe it’s okay to want
to be a Renaissance person maybe it’s
okay to try different things until you
find the right thing and perhaps being
mediocre at a lot of things can make you
good at something that you’ve never even
tried yet that you never expected and
for me that was the movie classes I took
in college that taught me how to edit
things together the acting that made
talking in front of audiences slightly
less frightening and most importantly
the science education that made me
realize that being curious about the
world and asking questions is just about
the coolest thing about being a human
and that’s what science is that’s what
storytelling is that’s what art is it’s
a way to be curious a way to create new
things a way to revel in our humaneness
thank you [Applause]
night and I’m wrapped in a blanket with
my mom and my dad as we watch
green-tinted burst of light stream
across the night sky my toes are
freezing but I don’t want to go back
inside around the same time I’m gifted a
microscope and immediately I walk down
to a pond and scoop up some water and
look at it as I watch small tiny hydras
oa and protozoa swimming around of
course I didn’t know that’s what they
were called at the time but I am
captivated nonetheless there were so
many things to observe and learn about
big and small science had a hold on me
ten years later I’m in Germany on a
fellowship when I hear something I’ve
never heard before
a podcast and I feel the hair on the
back of my neck stand up it’s the power
of the storytelling the way that I feel
so deeply connected to a human that I’ve
never seen and that I’ve never met
before so the night sky the pond water
the podcast all of them gave me very
similar feelings they were all filled
with awe all of them felt like
revelations and all of them made me feel
intensely human intensely alive in
middle school we learn about the so
called Renaissance man these
larger-than-life figures that did it all
like da Vinci and I like to think that
growing up my pursuit to try many
different things was my attempt to be a
renaissance woman so I tried a lot of
different things jewelry making
brewing movie directing actress radio DJ
my DJ name is silent T cuz my name is
Margo not Margot and to be honest I was
pretty mediocre had all of these things
that I did except for school that was
what I was good at and I wanted to stay
in school as long as possible and as I
went through school from high school to
college and then from college to
graduate school I was continuously asked
to specialise so from science to biology
from biology to neuroscience and from
neuroscience finally to the much more
specific field that I’m in now so cut to
graduate school I decided to go to the
University of California San Diego and
so I have to make it all the way from
the East Coast Philadelphia to my new
home in San Diego and so I convinced my
two best friends and my boyfriend to go
on an epic road trip across the country
one of these friends suggest that we
make a radio show a pre-recorded radio
show for each other that we can play
sometime along the many long drives that
we have ahead of us and I’m totally game
which makes the next week the week
before I’m leaving really really hectic
because I’m packing up eight years of my
life in Philadelphia while mixing
together a radio show that starts out
themed as a roadtrip radio show but
somehow we end up on a planet outside
the solar system and we have to deal
with the intelligent life that’s there
so a couple days into the trip we are
driving we finally make it to one of
those flat States and we start playing
our radio shows for each other and I am
grinning ear-to-ear each store each
radio show is so unique so funny such a
perfect encapsulation of the person that
made it something I’ll be able to
revisit forever
and for me it was the first time that I
had ever mixed together sound and music
and storytelling and that was so so much
fun but sadly this was the last creative
endeavor before I started graduate
school so as many can attest graduate
school is thrilling and it’s pretty
intense and I start spending late nights
and weekends in the lab just trying to
get that last bit of data before a
presentation or before a meeting I study
aggressive behaviors and fruit flies so
not only are they annoying to you guys
they’re also really annoying to each
other and I’m spending time in the lab
collecting flies watching their
behaviors computer coding and imaging
their brains and I start to listen to a
lot of podcasts during these times to
the point where you’ll almost never see
me without headphones wrapped around my
neck or in my ears I made an exception
for it today
and I’m listening to podcasts that are
inspiring and creative ones about
science like radio lab to put the on
science first-person storytelling
podcast like story Collider and while
they’re a joy to listen to they’re also
this reminder of how I’m starting to
feel this really big lack of creativity
in my own life
sure science is a very creative endeavor
but it doesn’t give you that day-to-day
feeling if I’m putting all of myself
into it and around the same time when
I’m listening to science media I’m
starting to realize that a lot of the
things that we hear about in science
media are the breakthroughs which is
great but that’s not the science stories
that I was seeing around me more often
than not I was seeing the missteps the
small steps the hypothesis revisions the
human stories the people that are doing
the science and how they got there and
so an idea starts bubbling like a flat
scoff green liquid in a stock photo
image what if I create a podcast what if
I create a podcast about the humans
behind the science and at first this is
a really scary thought because I never
made a podcast before and I didn’t know
if I could I didn’t know how to do it
and to overcome this nagging feeling of
self-doubt I knew that I only had one
choice and that was to make myself
accountable by telling people so first I
told my close friends then mere
acquaintances and finally I reached out
to the communications people at the Salk
Institute and they said we’ll let you
borrow some equipment and come back to
us with a product if we like it maybe
you will promote it so this was not a
definite yes because we both knew that
I’d never made a podcast before so they
were taking a chance and now I was on
the hook and I wanted to profile a
scientist and I chose someone that I
knew in fact someone that was right down
the hall for me an amazing postdoc named
Elena Blanco and she was a great guinea
pig she let me go into her apartment and
fumble with the equipment there was a
lot of things to consider which wire’s
go where how are my levels can I hear
that dog barking in the background and
at the end of the interview I had 90
minutes of an amazing conversation with
this woman who told me about her love
affair with California how she wants to
be in an all-girl punk band and also
about her research about glia or as she
called them the security guards of our
brain so now I have 90 minutes and I
want to convert I want to make it into
this short punchy fun sounding audio
feast for your ears that sounds like all
my favorite podcasts and I want to do it
on the first try
and so I spend a lot of time editing re
editing listening cringing and re
editing for sick
soeul months for a whopping five minutes
of audio that I am finally ready to let
someone listen to and so I give it to
the people at the Salk Institute and
they say what do you think and they said
we’ll promote it we’ll put it on a
website and that was it it was that easy
I had a podcast and its name was sock
talk pretty creative and and these this
podcast I made three episodes four
before I heard about a contest my golden
ticket it was a call for local audio or
video content from my local NPR
affiliate in San Diego KPBS and as many
people might know public radio is the
pantheon of audio storytelling so a
chance to have something that I made
distributed by Public Radio was really
exciting and kind of seemed like a far
leap at the time considering I had made
about twenty minutes of audio but I
applied nonetheless and as I made it
from the first round to the second round
I was pitching them I had to go in front
of them and say here is what I’m
pitching it’s a show called rad
scientist and I am going to profile the
scientists of San Diego I’m going to let
you know about their quirks what they’re
into their passion how they got where
they are and what they think about the
future so it’s a late night in lab and
I’m imaging fly brains as you do when I
feel my phone buzzed and I think it must
be my mom she’s the only one that calls
me at the hour but I see that the number
is unknown so I step outside and it’s
the station saying that I had won and
that I was going to be able to make a
podcast for them and so I do a little
dance and then I go back into the lab
and the excitement that I feel it really
quickly turns into fear
because I wasn’t really sure if I was
going to be able to have time to do this
and also have time for my specialization
for my science career did I have time to
fit in this piece of science
communication and at the time my
creative expression but I said yes
because I was it going to turn something
like that down and so those late nights
and those weekends would have to be
podcast time it was on and so I wanted
to go about and find awesome scientists
in San Diego and that was not hard
because like Seals San Diego is teaming
with them and I went up to Mount Laguna
where I met a guy named Robert Quimby he
is the director of the observatory up
there and he told me about the time
where he had to decide between staying
in the band the real big fish or going
on to pursue his astronomy career he
also told me about the time that he one
time you found the brightest supernova
known to man which is kind of crazy and
also I got him to give me a weather
all right so weather today is gonna be
hot it’s gonna be around 10,000 degrees
with strong winds between 10,000 and
30,000 climbers per second and it’s
gonna be a strong chance of neutrinos
coming down on us so you’re gonna
probably get a few hundred trillion
every microsecond or so so back to you
Margo thanks for that Robert I also got
to meet a woman named cami Collins he
works at General Atomics she was very
pregnant at the time and I’m happy to
say that she has a beautiful little boy
and she told me about how she knew she
wanted to be a nuclear physicist since
like 10 years old also about how she
built a hovercraft when she was a kid
this is her talking about her love of
physics I’m a physicist like around the
clock I couldn’t imagine doing anything
else
maybe if I opened up like a dog resort
with puppies and stuff that’s a hard
choice and also I got to meet a woman
right here at the Salk Institute who
studies plants and not only that she
talks to her plants asking them
questions and telling them about how
special she thinks they are I just think
you guys are the ultimate introverts you
keep all the secrets to yourselves and
only the most curious human beings can
probably uncover a small part of your
secret that one always gets me so
meeting these scientists was incredible
it was amazing and getting to tell their
stories and made me realize that I was
part of this larger group of a human
community of people that were all just
really curious about the world that all
just wanted to learn something new and
it actually kind of translated into more
excitement for my own project sometimes
you can get really stuck in the specific
in the specifics and it’s good to be
able to take a step back and to look at
things from the perspective of how cool
is it that we get to ask questions and
answer them with the scientific method
there was another thing that was really
cool for me about the podcast that was
really fun and that was the editing
every cut every music choice every pun
was a feeling of self-expression and joy
so great that I would have to describe
it with the following sound clip and
there was another thing that I learned
from the podcast maybe it’s okay to want
to be a Renaissance person maybe it’s
okay to try different things until you
find the right thing and perhaps being
mediocre at a lot of things can make you
good at something that you’ve never even
tried yet that you never expected and
for me that was the movie classes I took
in college that taught me how to edit
things together the acting that made
talking in front of audiences slightly
less frightening and most importantly
the science education that made me
realize that being curious about the
world and asking questions is just about
the coolest thing about being a human
and that’s what science is that’s what
storytelling is that’s what art is it’s
a way to be curious a way to create new
things a way to revel in our humaneness
thank you [Applause]
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