NOAA, Public Speaking, and the Joy of Science with Dr. Tracy Fanara

Welcome back to Environmental Professionals Radio, Connecting the Environmental Professionals Community Through Conversation, with your hosts Laura Thorne and Nic Frederick!

 On today’s episode, we talk with Dr. Tracy Fanara, Environmental Engineer, Scientist, Investigator, Public Speaker & Marvel Comic Agent of G.I.R.L., about NOAA, Public Speaking, and the Joy of Science. Read her full bio below.

 Help us continue to create great content! If you’d like to sponsor a future episode hit the support podcast button or visit www.environmentalprofessionalsradio.com/sponsor-form

Showtimes:

0:00  Intro

1:24  Shout outs

2:21  Nic and Laura discuss the Imposter Syndrome

9:28  Interview with Dr. Tracy Fanara starts

22:23  Tracy talks about her work with NOAA

28:10  Tracy shares details about being considered for the SpaceX Challenge project

34:22  Tracy discusses more cool projects she's working on

36:53  Tracy talks about public speaking

38:19  Tracy, Nic, and Laura discuss about the joys of science

43:24  Tracy's shout outs

46:11  Outro

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This podcast is produced by the National Association of Environmental Professions (NAEP). Check out all the NAEP has to offer at NAEP.org.

Connect with Dr. Tracy Fanara at https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracy-fanara-phd-95646b12/

Guest Full Bio
Dr. Tracy Fanara is an environmental engineer, scientist, public speaker and television host with a BS, ME, and PhD from the University of Florida’s College of Environmental Engineering. In research, Tracy has developed water treatment technology, strategies for sustainable design, aquaponics for space travel, and citizen science programs with over 1.6million users to obtain publicly available environmental data. Tracy has international media recognition due to her expertise and science communication efforts during the Florida Water crises. Tracy is now the Coastal Modeling Manager for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) where she manages US coastal ocean modeling efforts to gain a better understanding of our earth systems and threats to human lives and livelihoods in a changing world. You may have seen Tracy on Science Channel, Weather Channel, Fox or CBS; in Marvels Unstoppable Wasp, or on the recent cover of Xylem YSI’s Mission Water. 

Music Credits

Intro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace Mesa

Outro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Matt

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Transcript

Transcript is auto transcribed

[Intro]

Laura 
Hello and welcome to EPR with your favorite environmental nerds, Nick and Laura. On today's episode, we give our shout outs, Nick and I discuss imposter syndrome. We have a wonderful conversation with Dr. Tracy Fanara about her work at NOAA, public speaking, and the awesomeness of science. I think we all agree. We covered everything in one episode description does not do it justice. She's amazing and does so many things, so many cool interesting projects, you have to check out the rest of this interview. And finally, before it was known to cause cancer radium was considered to have mystical healing properties and was used in a wide range of products, including chocolate, water, suppositories and amazingly as a cure for impotence. You could see me scratching my head right now I don't know what to say about that one.

Nic 
Yeah, I don't want to think about that, but that's pretty much the worst thing you could do I think is use radiation

Laura  
I know we live in the modern age of medicine, but who knows what they'll be saying 50 years from now but what were we thinking.

Nic  
That's what I was thinking. Like what are we doing now that they're gonna look back 50 years and be like, can you believe these idiots thought this was a good idea.

Laura 
Microblading comes to mind. Anyway, please be sure to subscribe, rate and review, hit that music.

[Shout outs]

Nic 
Our shout out today goes to a longtime listener and one of our very first supporters Susan Gerlach. Susan's supported the show behind the scenes it's been just awesome so we want to take the time to say thank you so much for listening.

Laura
Thanks Susan.

Nic
It's really, really great to hear good feedback, or just regular feedback, you know, but yeah, thank you so much, and really, really happy to have you listening, so. Also, everyone. Don't forget to check out NAEP's environmental professionals connection, which is an environmental hub for articles research studies and leadership blogs from hundreds of leading sources, check it out at environmentalprofessionalsconnection.com

Laura 
Nic and I love doing this show. If you love it too and would like to see us keep doing it. We need your help. We can't do it without our awesome sponsors. So if you're interested in sponsoring please head over to www.environmentalprofessionalsradio.com, and check out the sponsor forum for more details. Let's get to our segment.

Nic
Cool.

[Nic and Laura's segment]

Nic  
So, you know, you're our environmental career coach, and I have a question for you, which is, you know how the opposite of how we do this, but I was thinking about this the other day you know like like gaining responsibility. You know when you're gaining responsibility, early in your career. I think a lot of people, at least in my experience, my thoughts, what do they call it imposter syndrome where you don't think you are capable of doing this because you haven't done that job, but you have all the skills and the requirements and the energy to do so. So how do we get over that hump, how do we get over that nausea that fear that self doubt, or given a new chance to do something we haven't done before that, you know promotion basically.

Laura  
Yeah. Well, first and foremost you say yes. So, always like we've talked about on here before, there are opportunities to volunteer to do something new to try something, You say yes. And then if you don't know how to do it. What is not sure you understand it then you start asking questions. You know, and then you will get answers to those questions so you can either go on Google magic machine that will tell you anything and everything you want to know right. So how do I give your presentation, how do I like, I need to make a media kit, all of a sudden, so like, I'm not just pulling that out of my butt. I'm like okay, I'm going to go online and Google how do I do this and there's hundreds of people who will tell me if you've got to go out water sampling or something or use equipment you haven't used before you go watch tutorials and you can, you know, ask somebody who is you know find a professional. This goes back to having a network of people, you know, if you have a mentor, then you could ask your mentor, right, you know. If Nic is your mentor, you know call Nic. Or you can  call up me to ask us questions. Wait don't call me, email me.

Nic 
Then you'll get an email back saying I'm busy. Yeah, so, you know, standard stuff that's good. I think that's, that's good advice and it's just, like, have you seen it or something else.

Laura 
Oh, something else.  What else do you know

Nic  
No, no I want to kind of expand on I have you seen that self doubt, a lot, because it's like yeah right yeah,

Laura 
I see it when people are writing their resumes and their cover letters I mean they're like, can I, this is okay if I say this, like, yeah, yeah, you know, you've got to put yourself out there, it's all about putting yourself out there, you know, You have to be. Believe in yourself first, like I can do this. Think of all the things that you've already done, you know, if you have graduated with some sort of environmental degree that's a huge accomplishment. Yeah, no, or any degree, for that matter, but there's a lot of stuff that you've already done in your life that you can give yourself credit for right and there will be lots more things that you're going to do and it never stops. You know, it's not like you never get to a point where you're like, Okay, I know everything I need to know about this. Yeah, and if do you know, I don't want you on my team.

Nic 
Right now I know I think it's absolutely a great statement like everyone thinks you just stop learning. When you're young, you're like yes no so much like they don't know everything, and they know so much because they've been doing this a long time. Yeah, really good point. I like that. Yeah.

Laura  
Yeah, so I mean I just, you just have to put yourself out there, and then like you said, have mentors check in with people get feedback afterwards I mean the worst thing you can do is the only failure is not doing your best, so if you have researched you have tried, you practiced, and something goes wrong. You did your best. That's not failure, but get feedback after you do something, ask somebody so the next time let me be better and that's that's a win, too, you know. Yeah, but ask people that matter. Don't right. Don't ask the wrong people.

Nic 
Right, right. Yeah, they don't ask your best friend, you got to ask the professionals, you know, cuz I think there's that self sabotage as well comes into play sometimes.  You know are people like well I don't know what I'm doing so I won't give my all. And then if it goes poorly, then I can blame the fact that I didn't give it my all. And if it goes well, then I'm screwed because I don't like to think that I'm doing, because it didn't give it my all and I'm good at it. And I think that's part of the kind of thing that can get missed, but it's the reason you should if you're not interested and invested in something like don't go after it, there are things you can say no to as well, but new career challenges I think they're fantastic. I love that. Being able to do something new for me it's very very exciting, and I don't know if you feel the same way but I love being challenged. You know when you get kind of complacent that's that's the hard part. You know, for me, so it's like a, you know, I have to balance that was like, Okay, you can't get challenged every day Nic, sometimes you just have to do a good job.

Laura  
Yeah, well I think Do you think that that is a myth, or is misadvertised by some coaches and things is like, you don't get rid of imposter syndrome, you can't make it go away 100% It is a fact it's a phenomenon, it's one of the reasons why we advance as humans. It keeps us wanting to do better, to perform better, so you don't like, just like, you know, you never stopped learning, you're never gonna stop feeling a little bit of like, Am I in the right place, should I be, to be here, especially if you're around other high performing people, you're going to be like, Am I qualified to be in the room with these people.

Nic
Yeah, yeah, You know, oh my gosh.

Laura
and that's not a bad thing. So I think I honestly think people need to stop thinking of imposter syndrome as this like horrible debilitating thing, right. It is a motivating factor, and you know your job should be to put imposter syndrome in its place, and like just,

Nic
Own it!

Laura
Okay, why am I feeling this way I'm feeling this way because I'm surrounded by awesome people, and I'm awesome too, you know,

Nic 
right, right. Yeah,

Laura
or I'm gonna learn from these awesome people and one day I will be.

Nic
I mean like, gosh, there was a there was a moment. A few months ago, where someone was asking me, an NEPA related question, and I didn't think about it, I was just like, oh yeah, that's this that the other thing and it's NEPA, NEPA, NEPA. It just came out of my mouth and I'm like, I know stuff like I've been doing this for like 12 years. Of course I know stuff. Of course I do, but like it just hit me like, Oh, I'm the expert now, you know, and it's not like I know everything. Again you know I had a long way to go but I was like, Oh yeah, I know what the hell I'm talking about, probably more than most people think, yeah, yeah, but you say that imposter syndrome which I guess we should say is, where you, you have the abilities but you don't actually believe in yourself, you think that you don't like you've just said like you just outlined, but like little imposter was there and I saw like No, actually, do you know what I'm talking about that was right.

Laura
Yeah, put it in it's place.

Nic
Get out of here kid . So yeah, cool. That's really good. Thank you for the perspective on that. I meaning to ask you for a couple weeks. I'm glad we got in.

Laura 
Yeah, great. Let's get to our interview.

[Interview with Dr. Tracy Fanara starts]

Laura
Welcome back to EPR today we have Dr. Tracy Fanara. She's an environmental engineer, a scientist, investigator, public speaker, and a Marvel comic agent of G.I.R.L and it is so exciting to have you here on the show, and that's right I did say Marvel Comics. Science is cool now in case you missed that memo. So, welcome, Tracy.

Dr. Tracy Fanara
Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored to be here.

Laura
Awesome, we have so many questions asked you, you have so many cool things going on I'm not really even sure where to start so maybe you could just first tell us where you're from and how you got started in environmental science and engineering.

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
Sure, I'm from Buffalo, New York, and if you know anything about Buffalo, New York, you know that it's one of the most polluted cities in America. And so in fourth grade, my teacher told me about a hazardous waste dump site that was right down the street from me that industries have been dumping toxins into canal ways they're leaching into soils, and groundwater and people started building houses causing their birth defects in cancer clusters. And for me, I realized that everything in this world is connected what we put into the environment eventually comes back to it impact us, and that was happened before I was born. The incident was called Love Canal, and it started the EPA Superfund program. And so that's kind of the, yeah, that's kind of the first, the first thing that I learned that started me on my journey.

Laura  
And so since then, you've gotten your PhD, how did you decide what you were going to work on and where you're going to school and stuff.

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
Yeah, so what happened in between those two. I actually went to Hobart, because I all I wanted to do was play lacrosse. I just wanted to play sports, and it was the most beautiful campus I had ever seen. Right. It was 1200 students it was like a little bigger than my high school. So I was going to the field house every day through the snow uphill both ways. My parents had moved to Florida and every single day they were leaving messages on our answering machine, It's beautiful say and 80 degrees. And one day I was just like, I'm done. I just applied to UF. I even forgot about it, and I was a camp counselor over the next summer, for a boys camp in Maine and my mom called me and she's like oh by the way, you didn't get into UF. And I was like, what. So I took my transcripts, and went down to the University of Florida and knocked on every door until, until I found someone. And it happened to be environmental engineering and I had never heard of environmental engineering before. Yeah, so they told me that environmental engineers are the people that protect people from natural disasters and clean water and make sure there's enough food and clean air and build things and design things and I was like I want to be a superhero. So that's how I became an environmental engineer he let me in right then and there, UF actually rejected me three times in which I got all three degrees.

Laura
That's amazing.

Dr. Tracy Fanara
No joke. It's hilarious. Yeah.

Laura 
Persistence. I love it.  Yeah.

Nic  
That's awesome. That kind of, you know, maybe this is gonna roll right into our next question because I know, like creating content is daunting, and it can be really intense, and you've done a lot of it, you've developed an initiative known as Inspector Planet, and before you tell us about it. I am dying to know if this is a combination of Inspector Gadget and Captain Planet because the first thing I thought of.

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
It absolutely is. It absolutely is. Because of entropy and we can never have true sustainability and the only reason, And the only way we're going to get to achieving anything close is through innovation, and so I was two things combined is Inspector Planet, nice, nice work on that. But yeah I mean I was going through my PhD and people were my friends were throwing trash out their car windows and I was asking them where they, where they thought it went and they either didn't know or thought I went to a wastewater treatment plant, when in fact every single drop of rain that lands in the state of Florida goes to a natural water body. Right, and I realized that their behaviors changed. I'm telling them that.

Nic  
That's great.

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
Yeah yeah so there's power in education and communication and that's when I started making content.

Nic
Yeah, so So, tell us a little bit more about Inspector Planet like what's the goal of the of the initiative.

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
You know it's an ever evolving mission that ends up coming back to exactly where it started really my goal is not only to educate communicate, and just allow for a place for people from all walks of life to come and, you know, just be part of environmental mission, but also I want to solve real problems and get to them before the media does my last position and Mote Marine Laboratory really highlighted the importance of that because misinformation miscommunication during the environmental crisis can run rampant and something like a mobile lab where citizens are actually involved in collecting samples and that analysis is the best way to really educate the general public and to increase that environmental literacy and scientific literacy.

Nic 
Yeah, I mean, that's a great, great point and I think we've seen that quite a bit, talking about all of the misinformation that can come out so it's that that is the way you found is the best way to connect with people is going out into communities and getting them involved.

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
Oh absolutely, you know, during the Florida Water Crisis in 2018 I was, I was one of the very few experts in the only one that was actually putting myself on social media and out in public, and I learned so much, it was the hardest time of my career, but it was definitely the point in my career where I had the most growth not only communication wise, but also just understanding people and the most important thing is to have empathy and to listen and it's so hard at first because you're like, You're wrong. And that never works. And so like you're paid off. Yeah, you know, so it really is an art, and I haven't mastered it. I haven't but I'm getting closer.

Nic  
Yeah, that's a really great point. I mean, nobody likes hearing being told they're wrong. Nobody does. Yeah, one person

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
Nobody.  Especially if they're passionate about that incorrect information because with the Florida Water Crisis, we had a dual toxic algae blooms. So these are phytoplankton species, and cynobacteria that was releasing a toxin, the one in our Marina environment is called Florida red tide and that toxin is released into the air, so it affects people by breathing in, coughing, sneezing, or if they eat shellfish infected with it they can get very very sick. So it was a very serious thing and everybody just wanted to point to one thing because if they can point to one thing, they can fix it and I get that. But it's never one thing, there's always something that each individual can do so if you're pointing the finger at someone else. Very, very unlikely that you're going to look in the mirror.

Nic
Exactly.

Laura 
Awesome, so you know you talked about Buffalo and some of the stories that your teacher was telling you and obviously you cared about the environment even at a young age, and now moving to Florida, you see how much water I mean for me growing up in Florida. I actually until I got my biology degree didn't understand myself how it was all connected and how important it is to diversity and wildlife and in our own existence, At what point during your education, or just your own personal experiences to the water because I know a lot of people who are environmental engineers who are scientists and they don't all go all in, as far as you are so you're right, where passion and drive come from support you're not there on social media when no one else is doing that and you know make this, you know, a crusade for you.

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
You know everything that you just said is so correct and you having a biology degree, probably allows you to see it, because it's not all scientists and engineers are equally passionate about what they do. For me two things First of all, you know, coming down to Florida. My first job was in civil engineering before I went to grad school and I saw how we were mismanaging our land. And I realized that telling our clients or land developers, that there's a cheaper way that they could be more environmentally friendly which you can't tell them that I learned that one. Because the automatically associate sustainability with cost,

Nic 
right Yes, yeah.

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
So I was like hey I can save you time, money, they're like, no, no thanks. I know exactly how much it's going to cost and how long it's going to take. So, I'm gonna do it the way it's always been done and look at our problems now, but really what drove me to go to grad school and prove that there was a better way and I did and and nothing changed. I'm still working on it because, obviously, people are going to start listening because of all of our problems, and low impact development and retro fit can help a lot of it, but you know, from my high school seven people have already been diagnosed with cancer. And yeah in Williamsville Williamsville New York, which is a suburb outside of Buffalo. People don't even know they don't even know that there was a nuclear waste facility that it was part of the Manhattan Project, that there are so many, there have been 100 superfund sites in but like it really, really think about that the whole city  I think has would have has had like 34 You know what I mean. Yeah. Yeah and, And it's just, people don't want to know this stuff so it's almost like I feel the responsibility to fight for the people that refuse to fight for themselves. And so I think that that's where some of it comes from.

Laura 
Nice, well, kudos to you for doing that. And then so back on the algal bloom front. I did work on some of that. then, when I was still in Tampa. So cool. What do you see is sort of like how can we do more to address it, or is that something that you're working on.

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
Yeah, I mean, you know, we get over millennia we've gotten 70% of our oxygen from phytoplankton. Phytoplankton is essential for our ecosystem, but just few species are toxic and with climate change and with our manipulation of the water cycle and land development and all of that, we are increasing the frequency and intensity of the cyanobacteria is which are these freshwater species, One of the most notable toxic species is called Microcystis, and that shut down Toledo's water system years ago, and that's what in Florida right now we use groundwater, mostly as our drinking water source, but still this Microcystis have been linked or microcystin, the toxin has been linked to ALS and Parkinson's. Yeah, so I mean it is, it's in people's backyards, and it affects all income basis, no one can really get away from it you think that you're coming down to Florida living on the water and it's going to be amazing. And then your plagued with this kind of thing, and Florida red tide you know we get a bloom every year. These blooms start off shore at the ocean bottom, they're slow growers, so they're out competed closer to shore, but their powers and numbers. And so when there is a bloom and it does move close to your shore. That's when humans can play a role, our surface water, nutrients coming in our wastewater overflows. So many people don't realize that throughout the entire United States coastline, building on the coastline, we get something called infiltration inundation, which allows for stormwater to enter sewage pipes, go back into the sewage facility that doesn't have a set capacity to handle that and there's mandated sewage raw sewage outflows, as happens in Florida, a lot because we get a lot of rain. Yeah. So, low impact development retrofit changing our activities, you know the amount of fertilizer that people use on their lawn, it did the fact that we have lawns at all I mean, they're seriously, The number one agriculture product worldwide that produces nothing.

Nic
Right, absolutely. but  great grass. Amazing grass.

Dr. Tracy Fanara
Nice, nice. I mean, we have prettier species in Florida but, you know, yeah. Homeowners associations, we just wanted to look like is Connecticut.

Nic 
Right, Yeah, everywhere, which is crazy. And that's wild. I think the dynamic across the country with water is very different, you know, I go back where we are on the east coast it rains a ton. You know we've talked before about how little it rains out west and how challenging it is for them. And it's a, it's almost like two different universes, you know, they deal with water included different ways and we do. But, how close are we to actually getting to a place where we can actually combat these issues because I feel like sometimes it feels like we're so far away. It will never get.

Dr. Tracy Fanara  
Yeah, I think the science is there. I think the science is there, I mean, Yeah, you know, mimicking the natural water cycle and engineering design to allow for that and allow us to live on the land and make it look hydrologically like there was nothing is built on top of it. That's what I did for my dissertation. Advances in water treatment are there. Yeah, it's just mandating changing the way we do things, mandating and fixing what's is seemingly not broken putting money into solving a problem. By changing things that worked just fine. And that's the hard part right. We don't have unlimited funds. Right. So to go back to an urban environment, and retrofit a city like Philadelphia did with their Philadelphia green streets project is kind of expensive but not as expensive as one might think actually it does improve the aesthetics, but we have a bigger challenge than Philadelphia does because of our water table, you know, we don't have as much room to infiltrate but still we have the engineering designs to do that right now. Marine Laboratory is working on ways to mitigate these blooms out in the ocean. Before I left them went to NOAA, I had four or five projects that were funded under that and they were really cool. Really cool. But these blooms are going to happen no matter what it's really what we're doing in our land, that we have immediate control over. And when cyanobacteria blooms. I mean, same thing where we're going to do keep on putting band aids over problems and just let the problems, keep on growing. Yeah, apparently, the answer is yes, we've been doing it for 100 years.

Nic  
Right, yeah, exactly right. It's like putting a bandaid when your arms off, you know, it's like, the problem is you don't have an arm anymore, it's yeah, it's amazing so I mean I think this is a really great project I hope we can get closer to that solution, but I love that you mentioned NOAA. So you're a coastal modeling manager there. So what are you doing with not right now, what are you working on.

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
Yeah, so this is a perfect segue from algae bombs so we had been studying marine laboratory and others had been studying photo retired for like 70 years. and we still have so many answers about initiation about dissipation about lifecycle, and a lot of that is because we're looking at a microscopic organism and a huge body of water that acts differently in the laboratory than it does in the natural environment so getting the answers is very difficult. But then I started to you know do my own research really look into things and look into research that NASA has done on these blooms and seeing that hurricanes can play a role and has played a role in these really big blooms In 2004, 05', and 06'. That was a huge bloom, We had four hurricanes preceding 2017 and 19' their most recent really big red tide bloom, we had a hurricane, Irma. And then this recent bloom, you know, you heard about that in Tampa Bay probably that bloom, initiated about two weeks after Hurricane Ada came through the west coast of Florida, and then we had this big phosphate mine release into Tampa Bay, which is very controversial and very environmentally hazardous. But we saw the currents bringing the bloom, up north. And then, you know, we started getting cell counts in Tampa Bay, which is, I wouldn't say rare but we haven't had a really bad boom in Tampa Bay since the 1970s. And then we had hurricane Elsa come through and bring all of those patchy blooms up that fish and then basically it started to feed itself.

Nic  
Yes, exactly. Yeah,

Dr. Tracy Fanara  
so hurricanes have played a role to Saharan dust coming over from Africa. Yes, feeds the Amazon but also feeds another species of marine cyanobacteria called trichodesmium that dies and then feeds border red tide offshore. Okay, so we have blue holes we have, we have these caves and caverns that come up basically like sinkholes 50 miles offshore in Florida and my friends are finding that there's possibly nutrient fluxes from land nutrients in 50 miles offshore where it's expected that these blooms initiate. And then we had some scientists are hypothesizing that 40% of the US that drains into the Mississippi- Appalachian watershed. Yeah, causing the second largest dead zone in the world. Right, right. I play a role. So basically, we have no local phenomena, there are no local problems. It's all cases in earth system phenomenon, And so, when I had the opportunity to apply for this position, to look at, earth system phenomena. To answer these questions I took it.

Nic  
Yeah. Wow, that's awesome. That's incredible.

Dr. Tracy Fanara
It's a really long story to say that.

Nic
It's great. I just like I'm stunned I'm thinking about, you know, Sahara, the new the Sahara fed the Amazon I did know that, but I didn't know it was coming up here messing with our algae. That's crazy. That's wild to hear. 

Dr. Tracy Fanara
It is right. Yeah, it's my favorite, everything is connected. example.

Nic
Right, and you know it's dead zones are an economic thing, right, like I feel like that's the easy thing to say, well you know we've got dead zones we should fix the dead zone because it costs money.

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
But how do you convince a farmer in Iowa to care about a shellfish farmer in Louisiana.

Nic 
Exactly. And that's the challenge.

Laura 
Yeah so, even bigger than that. So, I have a  colleague named Megan Andrews, and she's, she's working towards getting into work at the intersection of space and environment. And that's, I think how I came across you. Which is funny because you're in Tampa. She's not so she had, she had liked a post that you made about how you were just had just learned that you were one of the finalists for the SpaceX challenge. So, what is that how did you, what did you submit and what's that all about.

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
Yes. So, for years I was probably one of those people saying why are we putting money into space research when we have so many problems on Earth. Right. And that was before I started actually doing space research, NASA approached me well, it was actually initiated by an intern that relationship, they wanted to put aquaponics in space. And so I started working with the PI over there Luke Roberson. And he started telling me, Well, this project was first inspired by unsafe drinking water in third world countries which is a big, big like passion of mine on unsafe drinking water, and then he's like, and I want to fix the problems in the Indian River Lagoon, which is a river in Florida, which has undergone such ecosystem changes that we have experienced a mass magnitude mortality event one like never before. I think we've lost over 900 manatees this year, in that area. Oh my god. Right. And I was like, Wait a second, you know, like so, you're trying to do this, and it's actually, you know, your goal is actually to solve these problems on earth. And he was like, Yeah, and I was like, so we're using space money for Earth problems, and I was like, This is amazing. We're literally breaking the boundaries of sustainability that we don't have to reach right now but we should be. Yeah. And so that's what got me involved in space at all. And then from there, I saw my friend Kevin J DeBruin put on his social media that he applied for this. It's called Dear moon, and it's billionaire from Japan. And he is basically funding a SpaceX trip around the moon with eight individuals. He wanted them to be artists from around the world. And so, I mean I, science is an art, but I use art and science and everything that I do from sustainable design and my comic book that I co-produced and, you know rapping about science and social media and videos and TV stuff, all that stuff that's

Laura 
Stop being so cool. That's fantastic.  So how many teams like was it a team or did you apply individually, or

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
yeah I applied individually. You know as shots, so I thought that everybody was asked to go to the video stage but that was not the case. Yeah, but I still knew that there was hundreds of 1000s of people that got to that point, so I'm like do I even, you know, we were undergoing a change in administration, of course with the United States, and we had a lot of budget requests and new mandates and executive orders everything that we were, we were working on it was only it was a little bit much, so I wasn't even going to submit my video because I thought I had no chance, the last minute, I put together something, and it was at night, like everybody was sleeping. And so I had to put together pieces of things that I already had. Right. And it was not my best showing whatsoever and I really wish I could do it over, but apparently he was enough to get to the next stage. And and it's just been a whirlwind, like things just went so fast.

Nic  
Yeah.

Laura
And so what is the next stage. You did a video and now, what do you have to do next.

Dr. Tracy Fanara  
Oh, so I signed an NDA so I'm not allowed to talk.

Nic
Okay, I got you.

Dr. Tracy Fanara  
I can discuss exactly, but there were several steps after that.

Nic 
That's cool. That's awesome. So,

Laura
Hopefully you can come back and tell us later.

Nic
Yeah. And, yes. Yeah, please do, and then sign us up, because I would love to do that too. I'm just saying,

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
Here's the thing, you know, like, I really hope that I'm chosen. I know that there's still a very, you know, it's a long shot, it's a moon shot. Still, but at the same time, I do have an application in with NASA's astronaut program where I can actually perform research in space. And so, you know, even if this doesn't work out, because this really is a lottery ticket right right right right. Millions of people applied.

Laura  
It's like a space Willy Wonka.

Nic  
Right, right. Yeah. Yes.

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
It literally is like a space Willy Wonka. I hate to say this but everything that I've gotten I've really had to work hard for that I never get stuff like this. I'm not, I'm trying not to get my hopes up.

Nic 
Yeah, and I hear you. I hear you and we know it's true if you're going to University of Florida three times and they're rejecting you, yeah you have had to work hard, and that's, you know.

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
 Yeah, I mean, here's the thing when I graduated undergrad, the grad school program was I think top four, and you had to have a 3.2 GPA and they told me that I couldn't do the five year program in three years and I insisted on doing it right, but I didn't have the 3.75. Right, right. So, they're like Go work first and then I worked first. So that was two times, and then during my PhD. My first professor which, if you ever want to do a podcast about grad school. I have so much advice.

Nic 
Yeah.

Dr. Tracy Fanara  
Yeah, so of course now, all the old professors left, University of Florida they retired, and they got all new professors. So now my department is ranked to like 12th. I probably couldn't get in. Right, right. When I graduated, they were number three.

Nic 
There you go, yeah right right yeah and then you left and it went downhill, yeah that makes sense.

Dr. Tracy Fanara
Right, yeah. It's totally me.

Nic
But yeah, you know, we talked about a few of the other things you've done, you know, like, you worked with Mythbusters and Marvel and how did you get to manage to work on all these really cool things whether you say they're cool or not, they are cool, so

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
I guess there are some times I do get lucky. So let's go back in my previous statement. No Mythbusters found the video that I did about my dissertation, my first video ever. That's what they saw, and they let me on, but, you know, to be fair, that was my like fourth event, like attempt with discovery. I had always been working with them on developing my own show. Before that, that never pans out, I mean I've been through that process like 70 times, right side note, if you want to do TV, do not look at it as the end game. Be the best at your career whatever you're doing, be the best at it. And, you know, do some TV, just, it's a hobby, it's not a career. But yeah so Mythbusters took me on from there and then from there, the Marvel agent of girl thing happened so Agent of G.I.R.L  is Geniuses In Research Labs. And so, what mission are the ends. Sorry, there's a show I'm on a mission, unstoppable with this is the Unstoppable Wasp not stopping. So, the Unstoppable Waps, was really cool because it brought in real scientists with every issue, and I was lucky enough to just be one of those scientists that they brought it in for an issue. But from there, comic writer contacted me and another girl from Mythbusters and we started our own comic called Seekers of Science.

Nic
That's so cool. Man. Laura, what are we doing, What are we doing, a podcast.

Laura
Well we talked about this Nick It's gonna evolve into something else.

Nic
There you go.There you go.

Laura
So, as Tracy, it seems like you just keep going and something else like your mission to circle the moon, just might land to something else instead of that actual thing.

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
You're exactly right. It might like being on this podcast.

Laura
Yeah, you're going to be on this podcast and then straight to the moon.

Nic
yeah, oh yeah, to the moon. that's exactly right. Yeah. 100% agree with that. Yeah.

Laura 
That's awesome. So you do a lot of public speaking to and being in front of camera and stuff. Do you enjoy public speaking, have you had to learn to do that. Are you just kind of natural at it.

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
I gotta be honest, every single time I speak, I hyperventilate first. Yeah, it's like the whole breathing thing before really does help, but apparently my will for nerves just like combats it every time. And so like you can hear you can hear that I can't breathe in the beginning it almost sounds like I'm going to cry and then I'm fine. But um, but it's crazy because I've done over 350 talks now. And it started when I was doing the same talk every time I was still getting nervous because it was a new audience. But eventually, it started being fun like oh I've beaten my fears. The minute I switched up my topic. Right, right back. Or you know, during quarantine, I didn't do it as much or just a video. Yeah, so it's tomorrow is my first, I was on a panel, which was my first in person but that doesn't really count because there's a bunch of people out there and they just asked you a specific question since tomorrow is my first talk. Sorry, July, what month are we in August. August, August, 8 2021 was my first live talk and how I do on that we don't know.

Laura
Yeah. Awesome. You nail it. You nailed it. It was amazing.

Dr. Tracy Fanara  
I was amazing. but it was it was, but tomorrow I'm trying a totally new thing I was going to NatGeo shark Fest this year about anomaly shark bites, and off the east coast of Florida, and I actually found out why they have in like science doesn't work like this. Well, so, yeah, yeah, it was crazy like the data was so this doesn't happen. Yeah, it doesn't happen. So hurricane Irma, the same event that started the Florida red tide the two year, quarter red tide boom. Yeah, so cold and it caused an upwelling event on the East Coast, which brought nutrients to the surface and that photosynthesis occurred, the production, just spiked. So we had one of those producers that bring in bait fish. And the bait fish brought in the sharks that's, that's what my hypothesis is at least but then those data were pretty clear, but I'm really excited to talk about that. That's incredible. Yeah and then that'll lead into a red tide, which I know how to talk about,

Nic  
so Right. Yeah, that's yeah you know that's really cool. I love that science really plays out, that's really really neat.

Dr. Tracy Fanara  
And rare. 99% of the time in science you lose. If you wanted to play a video game that you knew how to pass every single day, you can win every single day if you take on a transactional job, but with science, it's like you're not a new board new game. Every single day, and not lose a lot, but 1% of the time you change the world so that's what we do it for.

Laura
It's a game worth playing

Nic 
I love that playing 1% of the time you can change the world. That's the I thought the tagline was going to be space money for Earth problems but maybe it's that, I love that

Dr. Tracy Fanara
Space money for Earth problems.

Nic  
I love it. So one of the things I wanted to ask you about too is, you know we all have moments where we put our foot in our mouths or, you know, and it's scarier when it's public speaking so like I remember I was teaching, and I once asked a roomful of college students if they ever had coke up their nose. What I meant was Coca Cola, but that's not how they took it right and so I am mortified if the seconds after the words come on my mouth, like no no I'm like the drink the drink. Have you ever had carbonation right yeah yeah and it burns you like, ah, you know, this is, you know, because there's an opening, but you know I was trying to say your nose and your mouth are connected. And so, that's not how it came out, if you ever had a moment like that where you said something,

Dr. Tracy Fanara
All the time. All the time. And the thing is I laugh at my own jokes and no one else does. Right, right. What if you if you teach, yeah if you teach, you're probably had them all, like, I said shut up to a kid, they were like, hey, Venus blah blah blah I was like no way Shut up. I was like, Alright, I need to find another way to make money through grad school.

Nic 
Yes, yeah. That's hilarious.

Laura
Oh, that's great.

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
But yeah, but you know what's more serious, is when we communicate science at the time. Okay, science is always evolving. So we communicate the science that we know to be true. And then that science bolts. Yeah. And they're like well you said this last time. And I'm like, Well, we learned more, but they were like no someone's paying you.

Nic 
Come on.

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
Yeah, it's been rough. It's been way communicating, I feel for all of those immunologist, through COVID, that tried to communicate science because its, and Fauci oh my gosh,

Nic 
I know.

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
Oh my gosh. I mean, the mask thing I went on weather channel, and they, they asked me about masks and I showed them a particle size distribution and the window openings of different mass, and I'm like, so these masks really won't. They're not going to get these, you know, they're not getting in most of them it's going to help a little but for the majority, and apparently that helping a little because now we know that the concentration of the virus needs to be a certain amount for you to be infected, which is more associated with those bigger particles so the masks have been working, you know, it's like, but we didn't know that that is the science that we had. And so, when science evolves, people have a hard time understanding that, because they haven't been through it, and that's why community science and citizen science is so important, getting people on the ground with the scientists to understand that evolution.

Nic 
Yeah, yeah, and it's like we know we know until we know better. And yes, and like, it's funny because this one for me is a this is historically what's happened, right, but this has never happened before. What's happening right now has never happened before. And, you know, you can look at the Spanish flu, but this is not the Spanish Flu it's it's a different thing. So yeah, I think you're totally right is really hard for people to see that because they just see that the change from one thing to another, they don't see the steps in between.

Dr. Tracy Fanara  
Right, and the amount of science that we did in a year, was mind blowing.

Nic  
Incredible. Absolutely, absolutely.

Laura 
You have done so much and you have persisted throughout Do you have a mentor or someone that you want to shout out or someone who gave these been giving you advice and helping you get to where you are.

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
That's it, thank you for letting me do that yeah so Dr. Chadik, Paul Chadik was the one that got me into University of Florida, Dr David Mazyck was the one that told me I couldn't graduate in three years, which I did. And then he got me into grad school, he has been my, he was on all my committees, he's been such a support and such like when I, when my funding ran out, he got me a position, but he's just an amazing person Dr David Mazyck from the University of Florida. And then, you know, I think that my journey has been very different. You know, I didn't really have an advisor through my PhD, I was pretty much on my own or a lot of things happen. Yeah, I mean, my professor huge such a brilliant person is such an amazing person but he was like, open the university. Yeah, so he really wasn't there, which was fine, because I knew what I was doing, I was actually in the field working before I came back from grad school, but so I wish I had a really long list of mentors, but those two I will always remember and Dr Bitone, Gabrielle Bitone who got me my first science job.

Nic  
Awesome. Yeah, and if those people that really influences they stick with you to eat, whether it's one or 20 I'm glad you have I'm about to get here, who they are, on the show. And so, I know. Yeah, and we're wrapping up here we're coming to the end, I want to thank you again so much for being here. It's so awesome. We hope you come back and spend some more time with us, once you're famous astronaut. And, you know, maybe show us the moon rocks or something I don't know, I don't know, we'll work it out, we'll figure it out as we go, but is there anything else you want to mention before we let you go.

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
No, I think that we covered a lot more than I've ever covered in a podcast before, so.

Nic
I love it I love it so all right before we let you out. Where can people find you.

Dr. Tracy Fanara 
My handle on pretty much all social media is @inspector planet, and yeah inspectorplanet.com, but you can sign up to be on our team to be part of the Inspector Planet whether you're an expert or a community member, anywhere in the world. so please join, join our mission.

Nic 
Yeah, yeah, for those of you that are fans of the show Captain Planet, there's also a nice, nice tie in theme, I think the website so it's a really cool, dude, hope you guys check it out at the inspectorplanet.com. Is that right. Yes. Yeah, there we go and so thank you so much, Tracy for being on, and good luck with all your future endeavors.


Dr. Tracy Fanara
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

[Outro]

Laura  Thanks so much. All right, that's our show. Thank you Tracy so much for joining us today. Nic, I think, I'm not doing enough stuff.

Nic 
But we got to stop having some somebody a wonderful people on because they always make us look bad, that's all I can think of so much she's doing it's great.

Laura 
Yeah, super cool, so. Anyway, thanks for joining us today please be sure to check us out each and every Friday, and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Bye

Nic
See you everybody.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai