hallway of her high school talking to
her then-boyfriend about what they
wanted to do when they graduated and
became adults he suggested that we get
married and have kids as soon as we
graduate and I said no when I I I told
him of this elaborate 5-year plan that I
had to go to school and and get a good
job before I settled down and to that he
replied well heck in five years you can
have five kids and so it’s been five
years since then and as far as I know I
don’t have any kids but I was able to
follow it on a different path one where
I looked for opportunities that were
available to a 17 year old girl and I
jumped on them and I responded to them
and I follow through with them and by
doing that I’m able to tell you the
story that I can today the first
opportunity that came to me was in the
form of a flyer that was hanging in the
hallway
shortly after I’d had that conversation
with my boyfriend it was for a
scholarship program called feature
connect not only did feature connect
provide money for me to go to school but
they also told me about leadership and
organizational skills that I needed in
order to continue on with Beecher
connects affiliate program called carpe
mundi Part B Mundi is a scholarship
program that takes students on various
three-month study abroad trips and even
though my mentor for future connect
introduced me to the director of carpe
mundi she did not go easy on me during
the interview process she she wanted to
know every detail and ideal an emotional
state of my life at that point in time
and so by the end of my 3-hour interview
process I was crying and I was late to
class but it was worth it because she
likes me and I got accepted my group
went to Thailand Cambodia and Vietnam
I got to see elephants and heads and
trees and these girls from Cambodia who
kept asking me if I was friends with
Taylor Swift or not but the most
impactful part of this trip was when we
went to how long bay in Vietnam
I got to see these karst formations and
I laid out on one of the rocks and I and
I ended up falling asleep and I had this
dream while I was asleep that that these
rocks were like trying to talk to me but
I couldn’t I couldn’t understand what
they were saying it’s like they were
speaking a different language or
something and when I woke up I knew this
was like a very powerful thing because I
was over at the time but so it convinced
me to to pursue earliest entertain aside
this passion that I had had for rocks
and geology in my whole life and so when
I came back to the States at that time I
was a math major I met with my academic
advisor and I told him I wanted to catch
geology class and he said well no iris
your gyro you’re a math major you should
take a math class and I said you’re
probably right but I’m gonna take a
charity class and two weeks in I
immediately fell in love and and I
changed my major right then and there my
geology instructor told me about a
program for minorities in stem called
else amp which stands for the Louis
Stokes Alliance for minority
participation they provide ongoing
support for minorities in stem by
providing tutoring services a and like
building a group of people to keep
coming back to and as well as tell us
about other opportunities and maybe
available to us in the future and so
remember that I’m going to come back to
them my geology instructor also told the
class about a program called
stem C’s which stands for science
technology engineering and math student
experiences aboard ships and when I
first heard that I got way too excited
and I shouted across room I’m like King
brother of recommendation for me and he
goes we have to formalize this
conversation but yes I will
and so I applied and I got in and stem
C’s was one of the most amazing
experiences of my life they flew me out
to North Carolina where I got to meet
the other students and the professors
that were going to be sailing with us
for five days on the RV endeavor from
North Carolina to Mississippi and they
taught us how scientists collect their
data at sea which was the realm of
geology that I never thought was
interesting before that day and there’s
me holding a picture of concentrated
plankton soup that we just collected off
the side of the boat part of the program
had us conduct a smell like a mini
research project that we came up with
during our time on the boat my project
focused on identifying a change in
climate in a sediment core that was
collected around the same area by
identifying these four manifold species
in that core and I fell in love with
with with the ocean and with research
and with the community that these two
entities bring together and I like but
before then I thought that people who
got PhDs were just crazy but now I know
that they’re crazy and passionate so oh
I also learned that flying fish
stem sees not only set the path for this
world of research that I didn’t think
was possible for me at that time but
they also made me competitive for a
another summer research experience that
step that L Sam told me about at Oregon
State University that following summer
this the the the mentor and the project
that I was elected for took me out to
see again but this time on the RV
Oceanus in the Pacific Ocean we sailed
around the mouth of the Columbia River
for five days collecting sediment cores
and we took them back to shore and
evaluated them for fighting events that
occurred at the end of the last ice age
by identifying diatom species in these
cores so we looked at these cores for 10
weeks and and I got so impassioned by my
by my research that I was able to
present my research at the ocean
sciences meeting just this last week in
Portland and I was also able to present
about my time on the ship at the
Geological Society of America’s national
conference in Seattle this last October
and at these conferences I was able to
meet so many people that that shared the
same passions that I had who and I got
to see old friends and and meet new
friends and and learn about these topics
that I never really knew anything about
until that day so up until this point I
was a student at Portland Community
College
and so coming into or when it was time
for me to transfer to Portland State I
knew that I wanted to do research but
PSU doesn’t have a ocean sciences or
marine geology lab so I decided to
pursue a different passion that I had or
a different topic that I had a different
topic of geology that was interesting to
me which was paleo seismology and so at
the department-wide barbecue that the
geology department through
I was able to meet thee I had an
opportunity to meet the faculty member
that I wanted to work with but for some
reason I was shy that day so I just
liked whispered to my friend I’m like oh
my gosh that’s her and like fangirling
on the corner thought she was so cool
but my friend did something I didn’t
expect he grabbed me by the arm he
dragged me over to her and says hi this
is iris she’s interested in paleo
seismology and I’m like you mother the
whole time but it worked out she invited
me to join her labs reading group where
we would sit and read an academic paper
every weekend and if I enjoyed it I
could do a research project with her so
I took this story back to my mentors at
Elle Sam and they told me well hey iris
if you’re gonna be doing research you
should join you should apply to the B
and McNair scholar and I said okay and I
didn’t really I applied and I was
accepted without really knowing how big
a deal it is to be a McNair scholar the
McNair Scholars program has students
complete a undergraduate research
research work with the goal of having us
apply and be admitted to a ph.d program
and it is a nationally renowned program
so I tell you the story of the last five
years of my life not to brag but to
emphasize that I wasn’t able to do all
these things because I have a lot of
money or because I’m like really smart
or like have a great GPA because in
I was able to do this because as I look
back I was able to do this because I
picked up that first flyer for for
future connect and I responded to it and
I I jumped on it and I followed through
with it and anybody can do this it
doesn’t have to be you don’t have to be
seventeen and looking at flyer you could
just check your email is there is there
like a certain class that you’ve always
found interesting that you want to take
or is there volunteer work and your
neighborhood that you find particularly
important is there a meetup group that
you find interesting or a cultural night
and you’re in your neighborhood that
you’ve always found to be intriguing it
doesn’t have to be your one your life’s
one true passion for it to be useful to
you to set you on this path I only told
you about the events in my life that
went well for me but there was a ton of
opportunities that I let slip past me
and there was a ton that I let die if
iris if seventeen-year-old iris was
looking at that flyer in the hallway and
thinking and seven in five years she’s
gonna be giving this TED talk on this
stage talking about all this awesome
stuff she’s done she would think that
she was insane she would think that it
wasn’t possible and she’d be wondering
what she’s talking to herself in the
third person that iris was afraid of
titles like doctor and geologist and
program director but future connects
taught me the fine art of cold calling
that I use then and now and I will use
forever the contact information that you
see on these fancy business cards are
just for a person before I call or email
somebody I like to imagine them eating a
burrito at their desk and like a little
bit falls onto their keyboard because
everybody does that and and yes
everybody is busy but most people are
willing to help out a kind and
interested stranger all you have to do
is email them and say like hi I’m
so-and-so I do such-and-such let’s talk
about blah blah blah and when I meet
them they’re usually like who are you
and how did you find me in why are you
contacting me but not in like an
accusatory way they just they think I’m
okay so we find the opportunities that
we want to pursue we reach out for those
opportunities but now we actually have
to follow through with these
opportunities and this part of the talk
is just your classic grit tale so I’ll
try not to like beat that dead horse too
much on paper I’m not a good student in
my physics class I struggled because I’m
a girl and I’m brown and I’m short and I
want to do a man’s work but I got the
help that I needed to do well in school
and I stood up to my physics bully and I
can really rock some field pants but but
if I had gone along with my boyfriend
suggestion and I hadn’t reached out
those opportunities and I hadn’t jumped
on them and I hadn’t followed through
with them and instead I had five babies
in five years I mean let’s face it
I really wouldn’t be able to Rockfield
pants as good as I can today thank you [Applause]