Science communicator
Reproductive biologist
My mission
Anybody can ‘communicate’ science, but it’s much harder to do it effectively and without perverting facts and reason. Think of the discommunication queen herself: Gweneth Paltrow. Her ‘health’ brand, Goop, is built on misinterpretations of cherry-picked scientific research over the mountain of contradictory peer-reviewed scientific and medical evidence. Goop relies on and reinforces patriarchal instilled insecurities to simultaneously make women feel guilty, dirty, and ashamed of their bodies, but also offers up ‘cures’ like steaming your vagina to ‘cleanse’ it and jade eggs to ‘stay in shape’ – what a coincidence! Unfortunately, most people are unable to discern trustworthy from untrustworthy sources and are often victims of Goop’s (and others’) frighteningly effective discommunication tactics.
I ‘m a reproductive biologist and science communicator, and I love to share my passion for science as far and as wide as I can. I’ve published peer-reviewed research, spoken at conferences, on television, radio & podcasts, and written several online opinion pieces to not only extend the reach of my own research but also to inspire and educate others.
My favourite part about being a science communicator is seeing the lightbulb moment, the ‘ahhhh’ moment, when someone understands something completely new or sees what they previously saw was reliable evidence as unreliable *cough* Goop *cough*. I want to continue helping people understand and become passionate about science just as I am, and the only way to do that is to practice what I preach – To communicate fun, accurate science.
The Simple Science is there for anyone to discover the broad reach of science and how it plays into our lives while turning that inaccessible, jargon-heavy research from complex to casual.