00:00:00.000there is an influencer for everything i've said that before right the other day on instagram i
00:00:13.960found an influencer who is specifically a zookeeper and only for otters and i was like holy
00:00:21.560shit this is what has been missing in my life that person is the only person i want to follow
00:00:28.900for the rest of eternity. It's true. Yeah. There's an influencer for everything. There is.0.99
00:00:35.660There's an influencer to help you spiritually clean your sock drawer if that is your kink.0.65
00:00:41.220Yeah. And today's guest might be another one of the most unexpectedly delightful content creators1.00
00:00:47.120that I have ever come across. Denali is the internet's leading voice at the intersection
00:00:52.720of geology, volcanology, academia, and queer joy. Right? What a mix. I love it.
00:01:02.800Online, Denali is known as Daikonite. She is a PhD student, science communicator,
00:01:08.520and total rock nerd in the best way possible. She's built a wildly engaged audience by making
00:01:15.240educational content about earth science that is also hilarious, fierce, deeply nerdy,0.65
00:01:20.880and unapologetically queer. One minute you're learning about basalt formations and lava flow,1.00
00:01:26.660and the next you're watching a scientist hold up rocks like tinder bros pose with fish. And somehow
00:01:32.440both moments are equally joyful and informative. In this episode, we are chatting about what it
00:01:38.560means to bring your whole self into the lab and onto the internet, the politics of science
00:01:44.000communication, why academia still struggles to make space for public-facing scholars,
00:01:49.140and how a single geology joke about igneous intrusions launched an entire online movement.
00:01:57.080This is a conversation about representation, passion, and why being visible in a field
00:02:02.100that was never built for you might just be the most radical act of all. Let's get into it.
00:02:10.620Hi, how you doing today? I'm pretty good today. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. So I totally,
00:02:16.640I totally cold messaged you, like creepy, cold, creepy, cold message to you because I love your
00:02:22.840content on Instagram. It's unlike anything else that I've been coming across. It is fun and fierce
00:02:30.660and science-based, which is so awesome. Talk to me a little bit about how you decided to start
00:02:38.120putting geology and volcanology content on Instagram. Yeah, so my primary platform up
00:02:47.440until probably two years ago was TikTok. I'm a little bit allergic to change, so that was my
00:02:52.800only platform for a long time. And that platform actually started off purely as a personal account.
00:02:59.760I had just moved to a new city for my geology degree. It was right after quarantine, so I
00:03:05.200Didn't really know anybody. And I kind of just wanted an outlet to connect with people, but also a place where I felt free to be really silly. I'm a bit of a goofball. However, I am also very, very reserved, especially in professional settings and around new people. And I kind of only knew people like silly Denali either has to be earned or you have to be a stranger on the Internet. There's kind of no in between.0.83
00:03:27.920so I started just making jokes about my daily life and then before I knew it um I had kind of
00:03:35.700a smaller audience and I had one video that went really really viral and it was a geology joke um
00:03:42.940and I kind of just had this little epiphany moment where I was like wow I have um a really big
00:03:47.360audience here now to me it was a really big audience at the time I'd never had you know how
00:03:51.940many times do you get that many people in a room and that's kind of what it is when you have that
00:03:55.200many people have been doing a video. So I was like, I should do something with that. And I
00:04:00.880started doing kind of the educational content. And I do every now and then do the tried and true,
00:04:06.520like kind of luxury educational content. But I feel like I've tried to stay pretty true to the
00:04:11.840original intention of the account, which is to have fun with it. And I feel like that's the best
00:04:16.100way for people to learn science. So that's kind of how all of that started. What was the geology
00:04:24.060joke. I love a good geology joke. So, um, I also do a lot of work on my account, like with
00:04:31.480representation in science, um, because I'm a lesbian, uh, and what we call a igneous intrusion
00:04:38.280that cuts across another layer of rock is the same word as the, uh, slur for lesbian. Like it's the
00:04:47.340exact same word oh um and actually yeah and now in the u.s it's spelled differently uh it's spelled
00:04:54.120am i allowed to spell it you can okay you can do whatever you want on this podcast girl
00:04:58.960well great so um yeah so it's in the u.s it's spelled d-i-k-e and in the k it is actually
00:05:05.200spelled d-y-k-e but that's also not like a slur term for lesbians over there um but so that's
00:05:11.180i'm one of the only people that i know in my department who can make that pun without being
00:05:16.480politically incorrect. So I take full advantage of it. Yeah, as well you should. Okay. Because
00:05:21.820you know, when given that level of geology fodder, you should run with it as often as possible.
00:05:28.880Yes. Yeah. When I first heard that term, and it's a petrology term, that's my specialty. And when
00:05:34.180I first heard that and I was like, oh, that's a, oh, okay. That's a, okay. That's a geology word.
00:05:40.720All right. Yeah. It was very interesting. What does petrology mean?
00:05:44.520it's basically the study of like how rocks form specifically um and for me specifically that's
00:05:52.180like from magma because you can get rocks forming from magma that erupts as lava and it cools into
00:05:58.140a rock but you can also take an existing rock and metamorphose it which means you're subjecting it
00:06:03.660to really really high temperatures and pressures that can completely transform even the kind of
00:06:08.820minerals that are in the rock it changes the chemical composition of those minerals it changes
00:06:12.900it into a completely different rock then you can also get a kind of rock called sedimentary rocks
00:06:17.360which is where i any of those other kinds of rocks uh get weathered and eroded away into tiny little
00:06:23.760grains most of the time but sometimes they can be bigger and they end up getting what we called
00:06:28.080lithified um so basically stuck and hardens together into yet another new rock fascinating
00:06:36.240fascinating my my brother-in-law is also a geologist uh in fact he runs the geology
00:06:42.520department at Colorado State. And so we are a very nerdy rock family. We are constantly sending
00:06:51.700Uncle Rick pictures of rocks that we find on vacation and asking him to identify them. And
00:06:57.620I don't know if he likes that or not, but we're not going to stop. Yeah, definitely don't stop.
00:07:01.320My least favorite ones to identify are the rounded river rocks, because a lot of what tells you what
00:07:08.460a rock is, is actually like the texture and like the grain size. And all of that is kind of eroded
00:07:13.800away in the river rocks. But otherwise, I feel like getting asked what random rocks are is the
00:07:19.220only reason why I can still identify so many rocks, because a lot of people think all of
00:07:23.440geology is just identifying rocks. But actually, most people pick one general category of rocks
00:07:28.800to study and get really, really into that and kind of forget how to identify all the other ones.
00:08:01.460I mean I feel like people are hungry for content that isn't as polished that that feels real and
00:08:10.280also where we learn something because so much of Instagram is just mindless like absolutely
00:08:15.840superficial and mindless are you finding that people want to learn things from your account
00:08:20.920yeah I feel like it's a very different type of engagement than I feel like I get on other
00:08:26.940platforms. I think it's interesting how every platform kind of has their own niche aspects to
00:08:31.980them as an audience. But I feel like the reception on Instagram was what was really amazing. When I
00:08:37.420first started posting on Instagram, I had just kind of scheduled a bunch of my old posts to post
00:08:42.440on Instagram and just kind of like scheduled it and left it alone. But it's grown way faster than
00:08:48.640my TikTok account ever did. And my favorite part about it is it grows incrementally with every
00:08:54.080video. Whereas with TikTok, you kind of you get one viral video that people really like and you
00:08:58.420get a bunch of follows on it. And then people never really see the rest of your content.
00:09:02.360I feel like Instagram, I get pretty good like engagement and questions and interaction on
00:09:07.400almost every single video I post. And that's been really, really nice to have that kind of
00:09:11.920engagement from an audience. The reception has been really, really positive. What do people like
00:09:17.120to see the most? I like your slivers of rock posts. The thin sections? Thin sections. Thin
00:09:23.640sections yeah i'm so glad those are my favorite i feel like they're one of the more niche things
00:09:29.100i talk about so many people are like you can put a rock under a mic i'm like yes we have to grind
00:09:34.220it down to like 30 microns but once you it's so pretty it's so beautiful so pretty um yeah so i
00:09:41.380feel like there's a lot of variety for what people mainly follow for which is another thing i kind of
00:09:47.640really like about it. The first reason is, of course, people like science and they like to
00:09:53.660learn about science. And I talk about it on there, but not just like the science facts. I feel like
00:09:59.020I get a lot of people who follow because it's so casual. Like I do have, you know, the educational
00:10:05.060stuff or talk about misinformation and things like that that are maybe a bit more polished and
00:10:10.320formal. But a vast majority of my content, especially now that I'm in a PhD program with
00:10:14.840very limited time is the really you know short quick fast stuff and it's usually I think pretty
00:10:21.700funny I think I'm pretty funny so I get a lot of people that are following for things like
00:10:26.260holding rocks up like men hold fish in tinder photos or how many rocks can I fit in my pocket
00:10:33.100and I still count those as educational because I say what kind of rock it is and I think that
00:10:38.020accounts. But so I definitely get a lot of people who follow for that. And then I get a large group
00:10:44.960of followers who I kind of consider to be my core demographic, and that is other lesbians and queer
00:10:51.160people. When I first started the account, the vast majority of my content on TikTok, at least,
00:10:56.840was in some way related to being queer. Even before I talked about geology or made educational
00:11:02.080content uh whatsoever I just made content uh kind of about my life and about being a lesbian in
00:11:09.120science um and so a majority of the probably the first 50k followers I got on uh TikTok were a part
00:11:18.040of the LGBTQ community as well in fact when I first started doing educational content every
00:11:23.160single lesson was titled gay geology because that's that's that's what the function of the
00:11:28.640account was it was me communicating my passion specifically to my community um and so now the
00:11:34.540audience is much broader and i really love that about it um gay geology is now only a special
00:11:40.280pride month series that i do every year yeah sometimes i do uh you know multiple different
00:11:45.840versions of it in one year but um that was what initially jump-started my content that was the
00:11:52.000community i was trying to connect with when i first made the account so the driving motivation
00:11:56.500behind making any of my content wasn't just to teach it. It was to teach and connect with
00:12:02.220my community and show them that they belonged in the science. Kind of the, I guess, kind of
00:12:08.160stereotypical, like you want to be what you didn't see in the world kind of thing for why I did the
00:12:13.920account is where I grew up. I was very much taught that being a respectable contributing member to
00:12:19.380society and being a lesbian were kind of mutually exclusive options. So, you know, you couldn't be
00:12:24.720both. And I believed that for most of my life, I was closeted until I was 22. So when I was
00:12:31.340presented with the opportunity to not only have a big audience, but have a big, mostly queer audience0.94
00:12:37.000and kind of show them what I didn't have, which is that if I had seen one person growing up like
00:12:44.500me and living the kind of life that I actually would have wanted, it would have made a really
00:12:49.040big difference and so I wanted to try and do that for the community that I had on my account
00:12:54.900and even though the audience is a lot broader now I think that that's still a big part of my
00:13:01.420motivation for a lot of the content that I post even if the content has nothing to do with you
00:13:07.000know being lesbian or being queer I'm also not hiding it in any way shape or form I think most
00:13:12.640people figure out very quickly before you know after getting to the account so um i think that
00:13:18.200also has is a fairly dedicated part of my following uh and then probably the last major
00:13:25.580category of people where they what they're interested in when they follow is i do a lot of
00:13:31.240a fair especially this last year a fair amount of political activism uh and so science impacts
00:13:38.140society, and society impacts how science is done, and I think that that's how it's always been.
00:13:45.240People kind of love to pretend that's not the case and that science is inherently impartial.
00:13:50.740We've got air quotes on that there. But it's not impartial. It's never been impartial. It's just
00:13:56.320that for a long time, historically, a very limited number of perspectives were considered in science.
00:14:01.280so just declaring that it's impartial doesn't make it so and it doesn't mean that we don't
00:14:08.420want science to be impartial I think it's very important that we work as hard as we can to make
00:14:12.600science as impartial as possible but the way that you do that isn't by just declaring oh this is
00:14:19.020inherently impartial the way that you do that is actually by really in detail analyzing the ways
00:14:24.880in which it isn't what perspectives are missing what can we do to add those perspectives into
00:14:30.740science and make the science and society at large better and try to kind of accommodate for those
00:14:36.020blind spots that are inherently built into the system of how science works. And so I think
00:14:44.360because I have been given this large platform, I feel very much a moral responsibility to talk
00:14:52.420about that on my platform. I'm a scientist, I'm a science creator, and all of those things very
00:14:57.040strongly impact science. So I think that that's a very important thing to talk about, given that
00:15:06.240that's my platform. And I also think that people crave that in a creator. I think that especially
00:15:12.600when you get into a situation where social media is your primary form of income, I primarily work
00:15:19.640as a research scientist, but I know a lot of people that primarily do social media as their
00:15:23.020form of income, it can be really, really scary to kind of address those kind of things on your
00:15:28.500platform, which I fully understand. There were times before I started my PhD where social media
00:15:35.180was a bulk of my income when I was between jobs. But I also think that it has such a huge impact
00:15:42.500on science and the future of science that to have a platform and to not address those things and how
00:15:49.760they impact your science and the society around you um is irresponsible so i think that being the
00:15:58.500kind of person who talks about that but also tries very hard to be someone who talks about it in a way
00:16:05.180that is uh accessible to people who don't have that background knowledge i think a lot of people
00:16:11.280follow even specifically for that i think the first video that i post well the first video about
00:16:18.540like recent uh budget cuts for science that i posted i had to wait a while to post it um
00:16:25.280because there was a lot going on and i wanted it was very important to me to not talk about it from
00:16:29.980a place of frustration because then you lose people uh and when i did finally make a video
00:16:35.260about it uh i lost about a thousand followers within like 48 hours but i gained 5 000 in that
00:16:41.580same 48 hours if oh you know you can yeah you can look at your metrics and kind of see total
00:16:46.600lost in total gains in that time period. And so I think from that same reel, I still get
00:16:53.900followers from that regularly because it'll be like so-and-so followed you from this reel.
00:16:59.420So I think that people crave someone who is open about that and how it impacts their work.
00:17:07.420And, you know, people's daily lives are impacted by those kind of things. So they want to see
00:17:11.280their creators talking about it as well. Yeah, I think so, too. I mean, I post a lot of political
00:17:16.040content. I do get some responses of people being like, stick to writing books. And my response is
00:17:23.100writing books is political. So being an artist in the world is political. We don't really have
00:17:28.240a choice here. I want to dig into a little bit about the responses to your content when we get
00:17:34.760back from a quick break. Okay, we are back. I love what you're doing in terms of visibility
00:17:47.920and being a queer woman in the sciences and just showing people what is possible, you know,
00:17:55.000showing people your life, showing people, you know, that you can be a role model in this field,
00:18:00.600Which for so long, you know, when you thought about a scientist, you just thought about an old white man. Right. And I love this. What is the response been from your audience and then also from any of the possible haters out there? And how do you deal with it?0.58
00:18:17.400I feel like overwhelmingly the response has been positive, which I was definitely worried about when I first started the account.
00:18:26.380Because especially since I can't I can say that this is a personal account.
00:18:30.620But the fact is, I talk about like what my job is. I teach about what my job is.
00:18:35.200So inherently, a huge portion of my audience is going to be my colleagues.
00:18:38.440And that kind of complicates things when I'm also as out as I am and involved politically as I am on my account.
00:18:47.920So I was really nervous about it, but overwhelmingly it's been positive.
00:18:53.520I think that people are craving someone who's open about that.
00:18:57.540I think that that's generally the direction overall that science has been moving in a long time, for a long time.
00:19:04.960So most of the time I get really, really positive feedback, both both from peers and, you know, young people trying to get into science.
00:19:14.680The minority of people that disagree, I have noticed professionally people who disagree do not tend to say anything because they're in the minority.
00:19:24.700and people on the internet who disagree if they're disagreeing with something and it's in bad faith
00:19:32.160or in good faith i should say if they're interacting in good faith as in it's like they
00:19:37.780don't understand something i'm saying like education wise or on a particular science
00:19:42.780factor whatever if it seems like they're interacting in good faith i will have a back and forth with
00:19:47.300them um if they're interacting in bad faith or if their only problem with the content i'm making
00:19:53.940is the fact that I'm a lesbian, you know, or something like that, or the fact that I'm a
00:20:00.360woman in geology doing field work, which, you know, a number of men on the internet just think
00:20:05.380shouldn't happen. Either I just ignore them. If there's a lot of them or if it's a particularly
00:20:12.860bad comment, I do delete it. They're not entitled to, you know, a space on my platform. And I think
00:20:20.500some people take the opinion of like oh well if you delete it you're like letting them get to you
00:20:24.160and it's like no this is a space for young women in science that's what my account is they don't
00:20:29.160need to be seeing that on here it's not even about how it impacts me they don't need to be seeing
00:20:33.440that people are making those kind of comments um on here uh if it's not bad enough for me to delete
00:20:38.880it then i will sometimes use uh an insult that i stole from a comedian named brian brainard which
00:20:44.660is i just say you look like a traffic cone and then they get confused and they say how do i look
00:20:49.000like a traffic cone. And then I say, well, you're impeding progress. And that just always makes me
00:20:53.220laugh. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. And they're usually so stunned they don't say anything back.
00:20:59.500So I know. I mean, I'll bet I'll bet they don't. I'll bet they don't. I mean, that I'm going to
00:21:04.180use that. I'm stealing that from you and Brian now. Yes. This brings me to my my next question,
00:21:10.240which is how has your social media presence been received in academia, which can, you know,
00:21:16.500often color inside the lines and have like very strict rules like what do they think about that
00:21:21.540again i would say a vast majority is positive um there are two categories of people that i would
00:21:28.600say aren't necessarily positive one i would say is like negative one i would say is neutral
00:21:32.560there is a category of people usually the much much older generation um who who view anyone
00:21:40.400caring about communicating their science to anyone but other scientists as meaning that you
00:21:46.060are not invested enough in your own research. They don't view non-scientists as worth communicating
00:21:52.240to. That is not anymore the average opinion in science, which is why I think generally
00:21:59.780the opinion has been very positive. But that has been a historical view. One of my undergrad
00:22:08.320advisors. They're some of the people who got me into doing science communication, not on social
00:22:13.680media, but they were both kind of, I feel like, trendsetters in their field for wanting to do
00:22:18.960like what we call a common language summary, which is where you publish, you know, a summary of your
00:22:23.560article in like more accessible language along with your actual article. So like those kind of
00:22:28.900things, they've always been very pro-communicating your science. And I remember I was at sea with
00:22:34.700one of them last year. And he had kind of, he knew about my social media, but he didn't know
00:22:38.900how big it was. And so he had kind of found out because other people on the ship already knew
00:22:43.640about me when I got there, he had figured out how large it was. And I remember him just being
00:22:49.360in such awe. He was like, it's so incredible that you're getting this positive response from it.
00:22:54.440Because what I was told when I was in a PhD program was that if I bothered to explain my
00:23:01.260science to people who weren't scientists it meant I wasn't good enough to communicate it to other
00:23:05.840scientists um and so you know that's him being like oh my gosh I can't believe how much things
00:23:10.580have changed so generally people have been pretty positive about it there are a small number of
00:23:15.600people in academia specifically where their view of it is not negative it's generally positive it's
00:23:21.740just they don't know what to do with me because there's still this idea that you kind of uh have
00:23:28.800to pick one I get people with that attitude a lot where they're kind of like you have enough
00:23:33.460followers that you could just do this as your thing or you know you have this research why
00:23:38.520aren't you why are you still posting this much um I feel like my research informs my social media
00:23:45.740my social media wouldn't exist without that my passion isn't for social media my passion is for
00:23:51.760being a research scientist uh and I think a lot of people who stop doing the job that people
00:23:56.620virtually follow them for also end up losing a lot of their platform all the time. So I don't
00:24:00.440think that would work for me anyway. But I also don't think I could really get through my PhD
00:24:04.380without making content. This is a hobby for me. I started it. It's fun and creative. Like other
00:24:10.920people go home and play video games to let off steam from their day at work. I go home and do
00:24:15.760this because it's fun and relaxing and enjoyable for me. And also like sometimes when you're stuck
00:24:21.660in a lab for 10 hours yeah I want to go home and make an edit of me looking awesome in front of a
00:24:27.220volcano to remember like oh yeah this is what it was like while I was there this is why I do this
00:24:33.420you know not that I hate lab work because I don't but the entire job isn't hanging out in front of
00:24:38.700cool volcanoes there's a lot of stuff you have to do a lot of work to get there I could just be a
00:24:42.960volcano height guide if that's all I wanted to do but for me the the two can't exist without each
00:24:49.460other. And I do get a lot of people, not a lot, but a small percentage of people in academia who
00:24:54.320just seem to, they don't know how to advise me. They don't know how to tell me what to do or how
00:25:01.840to progress because it seems to a lot of people that I am working two completely different career
00:25:08.240trajectories. Yeah. I mean, that's something I wanted to dig into too. I talk a lot about how
00:25:15.400I think, you know, moving forward, we're all going to have to be a public facing brand of
00:25:21.980some sort. My dentist is on Instagram. And, you know, as my full time job is writing books and
00:25:28.800making podcasts. But in order for anyone to see those things, I have to be on social media. So
00:25:35.060I'm wondering if academia is going to embrace these platforms more going forward, you know,
00:25:42.740to continue to spread the word about science, because when people when people don't understand
00:25:48.040research, I think that's when we also get into these politically sticky situations where funding
00:25:53.740gets cut and people don't care because they don't know about the science that's happening.
00:25:58.960Yeah. No, I I hope that I hope that they will invest in it more. I do think it's been like
00:26:05.620everything else. It's been going slowly, but it has been moving slowly in that direction.
00:26:09.900I worry a bit about its continued success because, frankly, the first thing when funding gets cut is going to be, you know, what a lot of scientists see as like, you know, bonus stuff, which is the science communication aspect.
00:26:22.720Even a lot of people who did originally have large science communication parts of like, you can write science communication into your grant proposals and things.
00:26:31.800Those are going to be the first thing to get cut because you can't communicate the research if you can't conduct the research to begin with.
00:26:36.480So I'm one of a number of people who's worried about whether or not that progress will be slowed.
00:26:41.520But that is something that's been getting better the last few years.
00:26:44.420I've primarily, not that they pay nearly as much as the other kind of partnerships you could get as an influencer, but I mostly partner with research organizations when I do partnerships.
00:26:56.360And I don't think that that necessarily existed in the same capacity a few years ago.
00:27:02.640But like this last year, I saw a posting at the Alaska Earthquake Center for like a full time science communication position. I don't think I've ever seen one of those like, you know, in that capacity before. And there's been a lot more things like that popping up where I think scientists are realizing that it's not just that people don't want to seek out the information.
00:27:27.320it's that the information isn't out there in a way that they can understand not going to say no
00:27:33.240one's ever lazy and doesn't read the whole article and only you know reads the title because people
00:27:37.380definitely do that but there's also a lot of situations where people genuinely really want
00:27:42.560the right information on a scientific topic and the only information that's out there that's
00:27:48.220written in a way or delivered in a way they can understand is misinformation it's a silly youtube
00:27:53.620video. It's a, you know, it's a journal or it's a magazine article that isn't scientifically
00:28:01.240accurate. So I do think that we're slowly getting to that point, but it's a bit of a
00:28:08.380tricky problem. And I think that's for a couple of reasons. Even really well-meaning journalists
00:28:14.340and science communicators can accidentally give misinformation because it's not their topic,
00:28:19.460which is why I'm a huge proponent of scientists participating in the communication of their
00:28:23.380topic. However, I work way more hours than a typical PhD student because I'm doing this on
00:28:29.420the side. If I had a family or something, I could not do that. And even people who are in a PhD
00:28:35.960program who don't have family obligations or something, they have a hard time keeping up with
00:28:40.520it because, like I said, this is my hobby. If you're doing it, if I was doing this purely because
00:28:44.780I thought it was a good thing to do, I don't think it would be sustainable for me. I do think it's a
00:28:48.800good thing to do, but I think I would be burning out from it instead of being like, oh, this is so
00:28:53.020fun. I get to talk about my favorite rocks on the internet. So a lot of science communication work
00:28:58.360where the science communication is linked to the actual researchers and they have input.
00:29:03.840All of those researchers are expected to do it for free on top of their already very strenuous
00:29:09.360research obligations. We work way more hours for less pay than a lot of other careers. So
00:29:16.740I don't think it's really appropriate to expect scientists to take on a lot of that work for
00:29:23.000free, but then also funding is not necessarily available to pay them for it. So that's something
00:29:31.140that everyone is trying to figure out, especially now that there is even less funding. And then the
00:29:36.540other inherent problem is that scientists speak a different language than regular people. And I
00:29:44.300think most scientists are aware of this, but I don't think most scientists are aware of exactly
00:29:48.440how bad it is because the only people we talk to 98% of the time are other scientists half the time
00:29:57.480in our own specialized field. And even if we're not only talking to our colleagues, we're usually
00:30:02.980talking to people who have a college degree. And that's not the general public. I think there's,
00:30:10.360if you're around people who they all have college degrees or they've all had access to that,
00:30:15.100We assume that that's what everyone has, but that's not necessarily the norm. I think it was like 54 percent of the U.S. population last year has a reading level of sixth grade or below.
00:30:31.340Yeah. Yeah. And so that's the public. And I've done I've done a few science communication internships when I was an undergrad. And what they told me the standard for science communication stuff written for the public from federal and general research agencies, at least, was you need to write it to be understandable by at least a 10th grade level, which isn't sixth grade.
00:30:55.960So that does eliminate already a lot of people, but it can be very difficult to write a complex subject to 10th grade.
00:31:02.920But if you look at a lot of publications from research organizations, there's this app that I like to show people called Hemingway.
00:31:11.800It's like a website and you can copy and paste a bit of text into it.
00:31:16.120It'll tell you the reading level of the text.
00:32:21.480So that's another big issue is even the people who are really, really motivated to communicate their science, they don't necessarily have the tools to do it effectively.
00:32:31.960And even if they're doing it effectively, they might not have the social media knowledge to do it effectively because we all know social media, it's hard to get an audience.
00:38:38.740But then also I do think there's some value
00:38:40.500in like you know trying out a bunch of different things my um my brother-in-law who became the
00:38:45.720geologist was the one of my husband's brothers who didn't go straight to college some time off
00:38:51.180and he traveled around he worked in some factories and then he had that aha moment he's like i'm a
00:38:56.120geologist yeah and he went to school for it right and so yeah i think there is value in like also
00:39:02.500appreciating the field that you're about to go in because then you just work work that much harder
00:39:08.200Yeah, I do think that that I used to really regret that I kind of found my passion.
00:39:15.220I was going to say later in life when I was 25, but, you know, the impression people are given, I think, is that people just like know and they go and they do this job and they're happy with it.
00:39:25.500I think more often than not, people end up going into a job they're not happy with and they just stick with it.
00:39:29.740That's my opinion nowadays. But I used to spend a lot of time feeling like, well, you know, I didn't finish my undergraduate degree until I was 26.
00:39:37.200and there people get really wrapped up in like doing things on the right timeline and so I felt
00:39:41.560really bad about that but once I I only graduated with my you know undergrad in 2021 and I didn't
00:39:49.680officially switch to geology until 2020 I feel like my life is so different in a mere five years
00:39:56.360I feel like I kind of fast-tracked a lot of stuff and I've gotten kind of feedback to that respect
00:40:01.880from like supervisors and advisors I've had and stuff.
00:40:05.620In my undergrad, that's something my undergrad advisor had told me is he was like, oh, once
00:40:10.500I found out how old you are, it made sense why you're so dedicated.
00:40:14.460Because when I went back, I knew I was like, no, this is this is everything I've ever wanted.
00:40:20.640I've had I've tried so many other things.
00:40:23.160And even now in my Ph.D., I feel like it's really common and it's really normal if anyone
00:40:28.380within a PhD is listening, it's very normal to doubt whether or not you actually want the PhD.
00:40:33.120I've never done that. And I think that I'm in the minority and I'm really lucky that that's
00:40:38.260the case. But I also think a big part of that outlook for me is that I've had other careers,
00:40:44.520basically. I was moving up in my bank job, moving up the ranks in my bank job. I could have done
00:40:49.980that as a career. I was getting close to being a nurse. And so I know what a job that has a good
00:40:57.620life balance and a good pay looks like. And I know that it doesn't make me nearly as happy as
00:41:04.580working way too many hours for not enough money, but looking at rocks all day. And I don't think
00:41:11.060that I would have that same outlook if I had found geology the first time, because I wouldn't
00:41:16.620have that perspective on it, you know? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I do think that even if
00:41:23.820things take kind of a winding, circuitous path that, you know, it comes around at the right time.
00:41:30.240Yeah. Well, actually, here's a question. What is it like to be on a volcano while it's erupting?
00:41:36.020Well, I do think an important note is that I'm from a safe distance away. It looks like I'm
00:41:42.400really obnoxiously close because it's huge. But the main ones that you'll see me, you know,
00:41:48.100posting in my account as I was able to go to the 2021 eruption in Iceland.
00:41:52.440Yeah, could you pronounce that volcano for me?0.94