As The Toast searches for its one true Gal Scientist, we will be running a ton of wonderful one-off pieces by female scientists of all shapes and sizes and fields and education levels, which we are sure you will enjoy. They’ll live here, so you can always find them. 

First, my disclaimer: I am not a doctor. Yes, I study bones and exercise, and I do act like a know-it-all, but whatever I tell you can not be taken as a replacement for medical advice. This shouldn’t be shocking to most people, as it says “archaeologist” pretty clearly on my business card. What I practice – and am working towards my doctorate in – is bioarchaeology, the examination of human remains in archaeological contexts. My research gets even more specific, combining bioarchaeology with biomechanics and exercise science, studying how movement affects bone density, shape, and structure. I apparently make a pretty shoddy running partner as I’m always commenting on how people run, and a weird party guest because I encourage everyone to show me the crazy things they can do with their joints and muscles, but also a good half-doctor when friends are too busy or lazy to make a physio appointment when they break themselves. (The answer is always RICE, and once in a blue moon, get an x-ray so I can add your injury to my teaching collection.)

Wait, what ants???

Yes! I am currently employed as a research assistant in a lab with three captive colonies of leaf-cutter ants (Atta cephalotes.) These ants come from South and Central American countries and have complex social structures, which I’ll discuss later.

My father was a fighter pilot. Because of this, I grew up never being able to enjoy any media that had anything at all ever to do with the military, planes, aviation, or space. There was always something done incorrectly for the sake of horrible, horrible Hollywood Magic. In true dad fashion, he couldn’t let Hollywood’s technical fibs slide.

“Goose never could have smashed into the canopy as he ejected! That’s not how the ejection sequence works!”

Now that I’m a grown-up, shit-kicking, occasionally painfully literal lady scientist, I do this very same thing any time wet laboratories appear onscreen.

“For the love of god, put a tip on that pipet! Don’t dip it into that without a tip! DEAR GOD NO.”

“You were just handling somebody’s organs. Why are you wearing that same lab coat in somebody’s office? You have organ juice on you!”

I considered titling this piece “Ruining all representations of lab work in media for everyone.” It’d be like I’m giving you the Ring Virus*, but instead of watching a video, you’re reading an article. And instead of dying in a week, you’re just going to be slightly more critical of the cast of Bones when they use an Erlenmeyer flask instead of a volumetric one. Instead, I’m going to pretend that I have altruistic intentions, and explain that science is awesome, accessible, and a hell of a lot of fun, and there should be more descriptions of what scientists do in their everyday life. So, today, I want to give a basic overview of some of the various tools you may have seen people use when wet labs appear onscreen.

Before I start my science-story, let me tell you a little about myself. I’m working on my doctorate in evolutionary neuroscience at Emory University. My research focuses on the anatomical specializations in the human brain that support language and conceptual thought.

“But where’s her degree?!” I hear you folks asking. Don’t worry, guys – even if I am still in grad school, I am a legit serious scientist-lady. Like we’re talking going into year 6 of my PhD, and that’s after almost 3 years doing my master’s. I am scientifically decadent, if that’s possible. It’s like if Guy Fieri opened a neuroscience lab and had all his graduate students using Bunsen burners to crisp bacon while he used the cryostat to cut ultrathin slices of Gran Padano. So, context: lady scientist, not really a student, not yet a PhD…

I’m at the point in my career where I will jump for the chance to get more exposure for my ideas. Still thin on publications, but with lots of ideas banging around in my head, I’m not yet enough of an entity in my own field to be considered an “expert.” People don’t email me out of the blue to ask for my opinion. However, I’ve found social media to be a great outlet for communicating science to a broad cross-section of folks. And after spending all day in a windowless lab staring at images of chimpanzee brains on a computer screen, it’s really refreshing to actually talk to other humans about my research (albeit, also while staring at a computer screen.) So I was pretty excited to get a message from a journalist on Twitter who wanted to interview me about a few neurobiology topics, most notably, mirror neurons.