Personal Tales of Science on The Story Collider

How do people choose science careers? Sometimes their vocations sneak up on them despite plans to become poets or civil rights lawyers. Sometimes they find themselves working with science as painters, journalists, and teachers. Sometimes science is the only path they could have imagined. Once the science bug bites, it’s all over.

That’s where The Story Collider comes in. It’s a storytelling project inviting people to tell their own science stories on stage and online. Each story is uniquely personal and often funny. These cabaret-style presentations range across all sorts of compelling topics. Thank goodness they’re available on podcast. Look at what you’ve been missing:

• Allison Downey’s debate with her husband over whether they should raise their newborn child according to the newest research in her presentation, “Maternal Instinct vs. Cruel Heartless Science.”
• Meghan Groome’s realization that kids aren’t told what they need to know in her talk, “Being Brave About Sex-Ed.” 
• Lou Serico’s experience working with the herpes lab in his (explicit) presentation, “Researching the Funniest Virus.”
• Dawn Fraser’s tale of being raised as an equal to her Down syndrome twin in “One in a Million.”

Many are also available on video. You can check them out on Facebook, follow them @story_collider on Twitter, and offer to tell your own story by submitting a description to stories@storycollider.org. Coming up on a second anniversary, The Story Collider celebrates with this compilation video describing various ways people arrive at lives enmeshed in science.

As one participant explains, “Science can be just as dynamic, exciting, in-your-face, and sometimes messy as a punk rock show.