STEAM Spark - Think STEAM Careers, Podcast with Dr. Olufade
STEAM Spark: Think STEAM Careers Podcast with Dr. Olufade. Welcome to STEAM Sparks: The Think STEAM Career Podcast, hosted by Dr. Ayo Olufade. Our mission is to raise awareness about the importance of pursuing college and careers in STEAM fields and the positive impact they can have on BIPOC communities.
Dr. Ayo's journey, fueled by his passion for STEAM education, lies at the heart of this podcast. His experiences and meaningful conversations with guests from STEM and STEAM backgrounds inspire us to highlight the significance of STEM education and careers as sources of empowerment. We aim to better position the next generation for success.
By sharing personal stories and experiences, we hope to inspire and encourage our audience to consider STEAM careers. We are committed to promoting diversity and representation of BIPOC communities in the STEM field, breaking stereotypes, and fostering an inclusive environment where everyone's unique perspective is valued.
Join us as we explore the endless possibilities and opportunities in STEAM fields. With your participation and support, let's work together to shape a brighter future for all.
#ThinkSTEAMCareers #BeInspired #BeAnInspiration
It is time to innovate!
Dr. Ayo Olufade, Host STEAM Sparks: Think STEAM Careers Podcast with Dr. Olufade
STEAM Spark - Think STEAM Careers, Podcast with Dr. Olufade
The Intersection of Chemistry, Entrepreneurship & STEM Advocacy with Savanah Saldaña-Shumaker
This episode shines a light on the journey of Savanah Saldaña-Shumaker, a chemist and entrepreneur who successfully bridges STEM and entrepreneurship and finds inspiration in the performing arts passions. She emphasizes the importance of mentorship for women in STEM and discusses her innovative ventures, including SCS Laboratory Solutions and 8 Count Cosmetics, which focus on enhancing laboratory safety and providing inclusive beauty products for performers. Listeners are encouraged to embrace their passions and seek out mentorship while navigating their paths in the STEM fields.
• Savannah's journey highlights the value of resilience and mentorship in STEM
• Transitioning from struggling in organic chemistry to discovering a passion for chemical safety
• The launch of 8 Count Cosmetics addressing the needs of performers
• Importance of organizations like Women in Bio in supporting women in STEM
• The future vision for integrating arts into science and promoting STEAM education
Welcome to another episode of STEM Spark Think STEM Career Podcast. I am Ayo Lofa, the host of this podcast, of this podcast. Today we have an amazing guest who is making a significant impact in STEM, innovation and entrepreneurship. I just love that combination. I truly do. I think it's a new time. It's a new time really for innovation, combined STEAM and entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1:Who is in a better position to discuss this other than Savannah Saldana Shoemaker? Savannah is an instructor at the US Naval Academy in Maryland the US Naval Academy in Maryland. She is also a co-founder of SCS Laboratory Solution and an eight-count cosmetic oh I'm really excited to know about that and an advocate which is something that we're both very passionate about for women in STEAM, true Hair Organization, women in Bio, wib Capital Region and the Association for Women in Science, awis. Perfect guest for us to explore how innovation, leadership, mentorship shape the future of the science and technology. And, of course, we cannot forget mentorship for women in STEM. We will be diving into her experience in chemical research, lab safety, innovation, cosmetic formulation and empowering women in STEAM. Savannah, welcome to STEAM Spark, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:I'm really excited to be here.
Speaker 1:You're welcome. You're welcome. I cut you off for a moment there, sorry.
Speaker 2:Oh no, that's okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, thank you so much. So let's begin with our icebreaker. Savannah, if you could have a dinner with a famous scientist, past or present, who will it be and why?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think who I would have a dinner with is someone I've actually had lunch with before. His name is Dr Gary Martin and he's a legendary NMR spectroscopist, or a nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. He contributed to a lot of experiments that are used in analytical chemistry today, has been an instructor for a long time, worked with many successful scientists and we got in touch because he also really appreciated the NMR tutorials I was doing online on LinkedIn and Instagram and was able to. We were working together on actually a program for women in bio it was a tutorial on how to get published and he was so willing to share his wisdom, all of his experience. He could keep that to himself, sit back and admire his successes, but he still really wants to help the next generation of scientists move forward. So if I could have even more connection and more conversation, more collaboration, I think that's who I would choose.
Speaker 1:Excellent. The reason why I asked you that question is because it is important to hear from educators, scientists, innovators, entrepreneurs the people that have really had an impact in your journey, and it is important for us to have people like that in our lives, and I thank you so much for sharing that. I have another question. Some of my students don't like to be considered a nerd, and I think it's a really important topic to really to talk about and to hear from people like you who are making impact, who are making a major difference in STEAM. Will you consider yourself a nerd and, if so, if you do, what makes you proud of that identity?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. I think a lot of people are like I'm not a nerd, or they're like I am a nerd and I think there's a couple ways you could look at it. You could think of in cartoons and movies, with the person like with the glasses, or have a lot of allergies. So I sometimes sneeze a lot or cough, or you get really focused on something and maybe you look nerdy. But to be a nerd is someone who really is passionate about a particular subject or a field of study and they really want to do a deep dive on it and become an expert and then share it. Because, again, we a lot of times think of nerds and movies as a kind of like ramble on in a weird voice and share all these random facts. But that's the important part and the great thing about being a nerd and why I think everyone should try to be a nerd is not only have you learned something and you have the skill set, but then you also want to share it with other people.
Speaker 1:Excellent. I really like that. Students, kids out there, here's a nerd. She's proud of it, as you can see, so don't be ashamed. That's my little comment.
Speaker 2:Definitely not, don't be ashamed.
Speaker 1:Thank you for that. So can you share a defining moment that inspired you to pursue chemistry and STEM mentorship? Let's start with chemistry first, because that's really, I guess, your career path. That's something that you loved. I asked you, like my daughter right now and this is for you my daughter, my youngest daughter, she passed chemistry at the University of Maryland, but I told her to take more chemistry. She said no. So I'm asking you this so that she can hopefully she hear and many young ladies can hear from you and be inspired not to be afraid of chemistry. So what inspired you to pursue chemistry and now mentorship for women in STEAM?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was really a series of events and I didn't set out originally to become a chemist. I had done dance all growing up classical ballet. I had some opportunities at the end of high school to potentially pursue a professional ballet career, but I just was realizing it probably wasn't the right fit for me. I wanted to do something else, but I didn't really have other interests at the end of high school because I had only been focused on ballet. And then my senior year of high school is when I had started getting really focused on ethnic folk dancing.
Speaker 2:And so my mom worked at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in Green Bay, wisconsin, where I'm from, and she said just come, take a placement test, see what programs you could get in, because you need to do something, you need to get a job. You can't just sit around the house. I decided to do the dental assisting program and got a technical diploma in dental assisting, worked at a dental office for about six months as a certified dental assistant and then I'm like I think I want to be a dentist. I really like that. You can take again health and science facts, help provide a treatment plan to someone and then use your hands to do some type of tangible outcome to help people using your skills, that nerd set, that specialty that you learned. So I went to University of Wisconsin, green Bay, to get a bachelor of science in human biology so still not chemistry. I'm thinking I'm pre-dental, I want to go to dental school after I get my bachelor's degree.
Speaker 2:And then I actually ended up having to retake organic chemistry one and organic chemistry two because I did so bad. I just had a lot of things in life going on. I was having some health problems. It was just not a good year. I passed organic chemistry one barely with a C and then for part two I didn't pass it, I got a D. And so, having that humbling moment of saying I didn't do a good job, I didn't get the material, it's embarrassing to say, oh my gosh, I failed, because I'd never failed something like that before, but it was worth taking the time. Sit down with my professor, dr Julie Wundergem. She was a great mentor to me and said hey, you did terrible in the lecture but you got almost 100% in the lab. So clearly you're good at chemistry. You like doing it. It's okay, take a step back, retake the classes, because it's more important that you learn the information and because of that experience, because I had a good mentor who worked with me to get the knowledge I needed at the pace that I was capable of doing at that time, I ended up loving chemistry, did research with her.
Speaker 2:My entire senior year of undergrad took advanced organic chemistry, took a synthesis lab and then that made me completely change the direction of my career and I decided to go to Concordia School of Pharmacy in Mequon, wisconsin, to do Master of Science in chemical product development product development. So it was literally because of a woman in science and women in STEAM willing to help me out, even though on paper I literally was a failure. I failed the classes, it wasn't good enough. She said you're more than this letter grade. You just have to put in the work, take the time, sit down, do it again and you'll be able to do it and totally changed everything. That was probably the defining moment of completely changed my life plan at that point.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Now, if you were to advise my daughter, what would you say to her?
Speaker 2:Yeah, again, just be open to things. Part of it too, is a lot of times we think we can't change what we want to do or we're not necessarily open to new ideas. And for some people that have an idea of what they want to do and they do it Like my good friend Jess, she all of school wanted to be a pharmacist and now she runs three pharmacies and is amazing at it. Me, I changed multiple times. Obviously, even recently I changed from doing research in science, doing NMR spectroscopy. I've always done research for all of my jobs in science, switching it into being an instructor, teaching other people how to do it. I never thought I would want to do that. I would always want to do research or running a business, product development. Just be open to the experiences that you're having and that you're enjoying it, cause I didn't think I was enjoying chemistry, I just thought I was working really hard to get the grade I needed to get to the next point.
Speaker 1:But when you take a step back, look around appreciate that you're doing well and maybe you could be someone who contributes something to the field Epic. I love it. I love it. So now I'm going to transition. Let's talk about more chemistry, innovation and entrepreneurship. I just love that combination and hopefully your experience can inspire someone out there. Especially many who are in the STEM field or maybe science field, maybe in education, want to move into entrepreneurship and innovation. They're always innovating anyway. Now the name of the game now is becoming an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:So your career span academia, research and business. What led you to become an instructor at the US Naval Academy? This is located in Maryland, correct?
Speaker 2:Yep, it's in Annapolis, Maryland, right on the waterfront. It's a beautiful campus, beautiful location.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was like a series of events, again just being open to experiences. The last year or two I've had a lot of really big successes, whether it is certain awards and recognitions or projects that I was working on go really well, launching the company 8 Count Cosmetics, bringing a product to market it's just a lot of things went really well and so it seems backwards. But I was like, hmm, if things are going really well like this, maybe I should take a step back, because I was starting to do more mentorship activities Again. Things that I was getting really excited about were actually part of sort of volunteer things in my free time, whether it was someone asking if I could look at someone's resume or participating in more formal mentorship programs.
Speaker 2:My previous role was, like I said, an NMR spectroscopist. I was a contractor at National Institutes of Health. I participated in their Women's Scientist Advisors Program and so for two years worked with another female scientist to help her reach her professional goals. Women in Bio has a lot of opportunities, even just working with younger scientists, and I found that my passion was shifting. I still want to be productive again, still working on my companies, developing different products and things, but I really felt like I was at the point where I could sit back and say, okay, I feel like I've hit so many of my chemistry goals, my professional goals, and now I'm wanting to do something other than just make myself succeed, if that makes sense. You hit a point where you become an adult in science and now it's time to turn around, help the next generation so that they can get to a point where they also feel fulfilled, rather than just only thinking about goals that I want to accomplish for myself.
Speaker 1:Nice Epic. I love that You're also a co-founder of SCS Laboratory Solution, which focuses on extending the shelf life and improving safety of hazardous chemicals. Can you tell us about this innovation and its impact, please?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this is probably realistically the slowest moving project of things that I'm working on. I've always had a full-time day job. I have two business partners with this project. My husband, brian, does all of like the budgeting kind of the business side, like the paperwork types of things, and then we work with an engineer His name is Grant, and he helped refine the design that I had for it's a piece of laboratory equipment that'll make it easier to work with anhydrous liquid chemicals, so liquids that are not supposed to touch moisture, whether it's water from the atmosphere or the environment around it. And I worked with a lot of these chemicals throughout my education through my master's thesis, and I'm like there's techniques and ways to use these chemicals, but I think I can come up with something better, make it a little more streamlined, and we've slowly been working on it over the last couple of years.
Speaker 2:Right now we're on a little bit of a pause with having just I started the new job in October and moving to the Annapolis area out of Montgomery County was a big change.
Speaker 2:Our business partner had been in school through a lot of the project and started a job and all of us going through those life changes and getting more experienced. We participated in a lot of different programs for entrepreneurs, so it's like a slow and steady wins the race approach. But I think a lot of people think you can't start a company or do an innovation unless you quit everything, drop everything, make your life completely chaotic, like you see in the movies, and you're just this person who, 24 seven, is working on a company. Sometimes that works and, depending on the nature of the project, you need to do it that way. But also that's part of again getting older and transitioning into that mentorship role is learning what works for you and what's the most sustainable for you so that you can keep doing good work over time rather than burning yourself out all at once to try to just get something done as quick as possible.
Speaker 1:So if you were to advise someone who is an instructor or maybe working as a scientist and who is interested in entrepreneurship, what will be your advice to them?
Speaker 2:I think my advice for anyone who wants to start a company whether it's in STEM or not is focus on the gaps in the field that you want to get into or a certain product you're trying to develop. I think people get into sticky situations and again they burn themselves out by running into this frenzy because they're just trying to make something, just because they want to make something. Or I've actually seen a lot of people where they're like I want to start my own company because things aren't going well at work, or I don't want to listen to a boss, I want to just be a CEO, just to be a CEO. And I think if you're more mission and service oriented with your entrepreneurship journey, again that's more sustainable and it's just the right thing to do.
Speaker 2:It's not good to just make a bunch of products that are fad products or people don't really need, or, again, you're only focused on the marketing of trying to convince someone to use your product. See where there's gaps. See where either existing products need improvement or where there aren't products for something. Or even, if it's like a service, if you're trying to start a mentorship service or some type of consulting service. There's so many unmet needs in many different fields, not just in chemistry. So see where you can serve others, serve your community, and then everything else flows naturally from there, rather than banging your head against a wall for something that nobody needs and nobody wants.
Speaker 1:That is a great advice because I have fallen into that category. Thank you for that. So you have gone through NSF Innovation Corps and UW University of Wisconsin, I believe, madison Law and Entrepreneurship Clinic. How did this program help you shape your startup journey?
Speaker 2:Yeah, again I was talking about. It's been a slow and steady process and part of this is because we have participated in these different programs. Oftentimes they span the course of a semester or even a year. For the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps program, I learned about it through my time at Concordia University, wisconsin. That's where I started thinking about this idea and I had a lot of really wonderful professors in the School of Pharmacy, where I did my master's degree, who either had a startup on the side or had previously created a business and sold it, had some type of product they were developing or had patented and I was like I have an idea for this piece of laboratory equipment I want to make, but I'm not really sure how to start. I'm not an engineer, I don't have all this hardware sitting around. What do I do? And my instructors said pretty much the same thing I just said. Don't just try to make something because you think you want to make it or because only you want it. You should participate in this program called iCorp through NSF, because what you do is learn how to do market research and it's called customer discovery. So you have to interview a whole bunch of people. I think we interviewed about 50 different people chemists in government, biotech companies, academic labs, pretty much every type of big or small chemistry lab and ask them questions. Just about not even would you buy this product. They don't know what your innovation is. You just say do you have these problems? How much money do you spend trying to fix these problems? Are you open to a new solution? Are you happy with the solutions that exist? And that's something that we could have paid a consulting firm to do or a marketing firm to say okay, here's a bunch of money, go do some market research, give us the data. But instead, by participating in this program, we learned how to conduct those interviews and then analyze all of the data from the interviews ourselves. So then we're like OK, there's definitely a need, let's start working on it.
Speaker 2:Developed the design Again. I had an initial version, kind of changed it. Then our engineer grant came onto the scene and helped us make a rough working prototype. So then you have your innovation. You need to patent it. You need to protect your creation. You're the inventor. It's essentially your property. So that is really expensive to apply for a patent to cover it so that you can start doing other things, potentially seeking funding or maybe giving a little bit of presentations about it. And so someone who was essentially giving like free advice to students got us in touch with the entrepreneurship and legal clinic at UW Madison. And this is another really great program that spans across the course of a semester, where a real law student, for one of their projects and for a grade, helps you with the paperwork or the patent work that you need. So they did a search to make sure that it was patentable, that it was innovative enough, that it was original enough, and then put together the application for us to file. We ultimately had to put it in, pay for it and whatnot, but again, we could have paid someone a whole bunch of money that we didn't have at the time just to get it done really quick. Or a student got a real world opportunity to work on a real world business problem before they even graduated. It was definitely worth participating in that way, even if it meant that we were going a little bit slower, because these are all mutually beneficial programs for the people providing the service and for those of us who are receiving it.
Speaker 2:And even last year, through TEDCO, which is Maryland based, I took a. It was like a once a month eight hour long full day course called their National Science Foundation, sbir or STTR Proposal Lab. So we learned how to basically write a grant, how to take all of your data, your plans, and format it. Format it in a way that people who are evaluating grant applications want to see it. It's clear, it's concise. You have a plan Then.
Speaker 2:It also has just helped me improve my scientific writing as well. Again, that was time where I literally used some of my PTO throughout the year. Instead of taking a vacation, I scattered it throughout the months to take this class. Take the day off of my day job to spend time learning this course so that we could write grants and paperwork ourselves at a higher level than we were performing previously. Again, rather than paying a consulting firm to quickly go through our packet, rewrite it for us, make it look pretty, we wanted to learn how to do it ourselves because it's more sustainable long-term and it just helps us to be better professionals as we plug along on this journey long-term and it just helps us to be better professionals as we plug along on this journey.
Speaker 1:Wow, I love it. Oh my God, I love it, and I believe a lot of college students could take a lot away from this conversation.
Speaker 2:Oh my, what a great advice it just depends on the way you want to do things. Again, if you're trying to do something as quick as possible and you do have the resources where you could potentially do these steps quickly, that's great, but also sometimes you might not like. We didn't have any funding to start with. We got about a thousand dollars from participating in the initial NSF I-Corps program and we use that to buy the supplies we needed to make our initial prototype for demonstration to see if the idea worked some of the early paperwork things that we needed. So finding opportunities where we could do it ourselves, even if it took a little longer, was not only better just for an educational perspective and making us more competent, but it worked with our budget and the resources that we had, because it was like almost none.
Speaker 1:Wow, you need to have a masterclass. Yeah, I'm telling you, you need to have a masterclass. Savannah, you need to have a masterclass. I'm pretty sure many people would pay a lot of money just to be part of your masterclass.
Speaker 2:Let me know when you have one. I learned a lot of lessons the hard way. So I'm always happy to give other people advice so they don't have to again do so many extra steps or learn things the difficult way.
Speaker 1:That was absolutely generous of you. That is really absolutely. Please let me know once you have started your masterclass. I have another question. Many scientists struggle with commercialization of their research. What advice will you give, or what advice do you have for the scientists looking to turn ideas into patent and businesses, just like you have done?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say definitely focus on three categories of getting the work done, because the way you get an idea into a product on the market is a bunch of steps need to happen and I would say focus on what you can do, focus on what you can't do and focus on what you could do. I know that I can think about how I want this design to be. I can come up with a design, I can do all the research, but something I can't do is I'm realistically not going to teach myself to do engineering overnight. So that's when I again brought in a business partner who could focus on that specialty, while I focused on the chemistry and what validation experiments do we need to do and what do strategic partnerships look like?
Speaker 2:I was at Concordia so got a little taste of that too, on top of the chemistry. So, focusing on the things I know how to do and then, knowing I'm not an engineer, it's really not worth my time to try to teach myself or mess something up just because I want to do it myself the whole way. But things I could do are take different classes to learn how to write better, to save us money again, to grow as a CEO or as a president of a company trying to move this project forward. These are things I could do to improve, rather than again paying someone else to do it or trying to do it a quick way, and also knowing that we do have the patience to work on this project slowly over time, even if it's not like an overnight instant hit, like we'll get there eventually, but doing it in our own way.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for that advice. Now let's turn into another important topic science and beauty.
Speaker 2:Yes, very important topic.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about founding 8 Count Cosmetic. You're a co-founder of 8 Count Cosmetic. Let's start with what inspired you to launch a beauty brand, especially being a scientist, I don't know, I think I'm not so sure many students or many kids can see the connection.
Speaker 2:I hope they can, yeah, so this project was really interesting because I played the opposite role as with SCS, so I came in as a technical expert to make my friend's idea come to life. I have a really good friend, michael Baum. We went to a summer performing arts camp called Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Massachusetts back in 2007 when we were, I think, 15 years old, and we stayed in touch the whole time. I was living in Wisconsin and he lived in Massachusetts, toured all around the world as a performer. He was on cruise ships, performed in New York City, and then COVID happened, so he wasn't performing anymore for the first time ever in his entire career and during COVID people were talking on the phone, on Zoom, on FaceTime, all the time, just talking to each other, catching up, spending time at home, and he was like I'm at the point where I still want to be creative, but it's maybe time to start thinking about what can I do behind the scenes? Kind of.
Speaker 2:I went through recently with my transition into being an instructor and he had some different ideas, like clothing design, and he at one point was thinking of like home goods and different fun designs for like bathroom accessories, shower curtains, really anything that could be creative and focus on his design interests. And something he brought up was makeup. So my friend Michael and I are both, on paper, considered biracial. We're both considered Hispanic. We look nothing alike. I'm clearly very pale. Pretty much any color of makeup is going to show up really bright on my skin because I'm so pale. So I can buy into, go into a store, put any formulation, any consistency, any color on and you're going to see it, michael's darker than me. So if we were in a performance and we were supposed to look uniform on stage, have the same character, the same colors on, it's not going to show up on his skin because a lot of makeup and sort of the tools of the trade for performing artists are actually not that innovative and haven't been changed too much over the year.
Speaker 2:So we got to talking about okay, if someone's even darker than Michael, now you're going to have three shades of people that are not going to look uniform when it's supposed to be a costume. So he had some ideas from a marketing standpoint of the branding he wanted. He definitely wanted really bright colors that would show up on anyone on stage but also just that were artistic. He wanted again to cater to the performing arts. So eight count is a term that anyone in cheer dance team, ballet, musical theater, everyone gives you like a five, six, seven, eight. You know what an an eight count is we want to use real dancers in our photos.
Speaker 2:But before we could get to that point, we need a product, and that's when we started talking about okay, savannah, you're a chemist, how do we fix this problem? And so that's when I took in. What do I know? I know how to fix this.
Speaker 2:A lot of performing arts makeup is oil-based. Oil can be really great for the skin, but what is a chemistry fact? We know Oil and water don't mix. What happens when you're performing and exercising? You're sweating, so you literally have this weird combination that doesn't make sense for athletic artists and I'm like okay, we can fix that. It's going to take a little time, but we can fix it.
Speaker 2:Another problem is that a lot of commercially available makeup that people use in performance have dyes and not pigments. Dyes are water soluble, so you have two problems in makeup that performers are using it is separating from your skin when you start sweating because it's oil-based, but then the colors are water soluble, so then you end up with these driplets of colors coming down your face. People look so like strange. It doesn't look good On top of the fact that this overall pore formulation means it's not sticking to anybody's skin, but then people who are not super pale, like me. The colors are streaking everywhere and it just gets lost.
Speaker 2:Everyone looks not great on the stage. So we need to make something that was pigment based and not oil based, so that it would stay on the skin like a costume. The consistency, the thickness would be the same on everyone so we could really fix this problem. So taking a creative need in the market, in a space where you wouldn't think chemistry could fix the problem, and then just taking that book knowledge that I have from studying chemistry going back after I failed the class, learning things over again, to help my friend make his essentially dream come to life, and we just launched in august of 2024 I love the way you live that it all comes together.
Speaker 2:I swear it seems so random, but it all comes together.
Speaker 1:Oh, it all comes together and I just this is the oh my, this is epic, epic. I want everybody to watch this, literally. I'm telling you, if you are passionate, if you are passionate about STEAM, this is an example of how STEAM comes together. I'm telling you, this is a perfect example. Whoever will have thought about this? The creative size of arts and chemistry coming together. This is exciting. I feel like jumping out of my skin. I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding. This is beautiful. This is epic. I'm hoping people will see what we see, right, so let's talk about this.
Speaker 2:Looking at what's in front of you and how can your knowledge and your skills fill the gap? Like I'm not really design oriented at all, the colors I thought we should use my friend Michael, my business partner he's. No, those are not going to look good together in a palette. People don't use those in performance that much. I'm like okay, knowing when it's not your skillset. I'm not really good at decorating, I'm not good at that type of aesthetic type of thing. So it's. This is where someone else has the vision, knows what things need to look like on stage, and I can make that happen by doing like the behind the scenes work. So filling the gaps, but also knowing what your limitations are and what your strengths are.
Speaker 1:Wow. This is why collaboration is so important. I think I can use this as an example in my classroom, because I put my students in a collaborative setting groups. So I always tell them in the real world, we collaborate. We don't know it all.
Speaker 2:Exactly. No one can know it all.
Speaker 1:So this is a perfect example. So your lunch. Let's talk about your luncheon. So you and your co-owner, you began your sale for A Count Cosmetic in August of last year. After four years of your business and product development, what was the launch? I just want to hear about it, please.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I actually started this project, this business, right around the same time that I started working on SCS laboratory solutions, so working on two different products all in my free time, so after work, early morning, weekends, while also having a full-time research job and so we originally had more of a crazy party vibe to the brand. We had a manufacturer picked out, certain packaging and some things just fell through, with pricing, people not being able to provide the service in the way that we wanted to. We were also really strict with the quality of ingredients we were using and the standards. There's certain things that are acceptable to use by law great but we wanted to go a step above and beyond to really protect the performers.
Speaker 2:Finding a supply chain that had ingredients and quality that was up to our standards, a supply chain that had ingredients and quality that was up to our standards, which was more than we are legally required to do that took more work.
Speaker 2:We ended up finding a different manufacturer, getting all of that set up, and then one of our key ingredients actually was discontinued at a certain point.
Speaker 2:So we were like, oh my gosh, we had to start over in that aspect again to get the right colors that we want the right quality of pigments that we want and also a reliable supply chain that hopefully that won't happen again where we're left without one of our key ingredients. So, outside of the chemistry, outside of the branding, there's all of the logistics too that need to happen. That's what the four-year journey was all about and then, leading up to the actual launch, our first formal manufacturing run happened. I don't make them at home, we don't make them, it's actually a full manufacturing site. Doing our first manufacturing run was a really big deal over the summer and super exciting Working with a designer to get our website up and going, making sure that all banking was set up properly shipping envelopes, the labeling of the product, the packaging kind of everything came together at the end by working together, working with our different providers, and then we launched on 8-8-24 with our first sales and it's been an exciting ride ever since then.
Speaker 1:Congratulations, well done, well done. An exciting ride ever since then. Congratulations, well done, well done. I hope everybody's watching, everybody's listening. If you are interested in becoming an entrepreneur, this is a video podcast to watch. Please share this as much as you can, please. Every scientist, every researcher, every student, every woman, please. Every scientist, every researcher, every student, every woman right, every minority. Please watch this, please. You have to watch this. Connect with Savannah. She's on LinkedIn. Please connect with her. Now let's talk about women in STEM and leadership. This is another thing that you're really passionate about. You play an active role in an organization called Women in Bio Capital Region, wib. Can you share how WIB support women in STEAM and why it is important, and why did you even join this organization, or why do you co-chair this organization?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I've been involved with Women in Bio for about two-ish years. I'm just entering my third year of leadership in the Capital Region chapter. I worked my way up from vice chair of the sponsorship committee Last year I was the co-chair and now I'm the sort of solo chair of the sponsorship committee and I actually got involved just because a friend of mine and I wanted to meet other women in STEM, just for friendship purposes. Again, this is post-COVID. Things were lifting up, things were opening again, and she and I both moved from Wisconsin to Maryland to explore more career opportunities in 2020. And we hadn't really made other new friends yet, just because everything was closed down so much of the time. So we would go to work and then come home and that was pretty much it. And so I literally I think I just Googled women, scientists, events or are there mixers? And I saw that there was a coffee chat happening in Gaithersburg, because we used to live in Rockville before I moved out to the Annapolis area and so went to one of the coffee chats that are hosted. We have a spring and a fall series of this. We're different leaders from our region are stationed at a coffee shop and you can just come and go, mix and mingle with other people and we had a really fun time.
Speaker 2:And then I saw a couple of months later that they were looking for a vice chair of sponsorship and I thought this could be a really great way to get involved. I used to be involved with student government in college and just different community initiatives and I hadn't done that for a couple of years, just again moving COVID. No one was doing anything outside the house. This is a way that I can meet other women in STEM again, starting to move along in my career out of that fresh out of school space and I'm like, okay, I need to develop my leadership skills a little bit more, but I really would like that mentorship from women in the biotech industry, cause having that weird space of having a traditional research job but also entrepreneurship, but also trying to develop myself socially as a female scientist. I thought this would be a great way to tie it all together and I've had a wonderful time ever since.
Speaker 2:It's really great there's so many different initiatives on a national and a chapter level. We have programs like Young Women in Bio or YWIB, which is for high schoolers. We have things all the way up to EMAPs, like executive maps programs. Right now I'm serving as a mentor in a revamped program called Mentor Circle, where I have three mentees and we're going to be meeting together routinely for a whole year to talk about professional development. There's also online webinars, for example, dr Gary Martin, who I was talking about, he myself and another young woman scientist called Samantha Miller from NIST.
Speaker 2:We put together that how to get published workshop, where it was a training on okay, your early career. Sam gave advice on how do you negotiate a contract, how do you talk about your salary? How do you set boundaries. Gary talked about okay, you've done all this research and you want to get published. How do you ensure your publication is accepted? And then I talked about okay, you have done all this work, you have these publications. How do you amplify, using social media to grow your network for different trainings and then also other ticketed high-end events throughout the year.
Speaker 1:This is so important and I would like to encourage everyone that you join, especially women. This is a great organization. What you're doing, I can just imagine. You're just fresh out of college and you're a woman. You're trying to make an impact. You're trying to start your career. Where to start, how to start, can really be a challenge, am I wrong?
Speaker 2:No, it can be difficult because, again, the most important thing I think the thing you should always lead with is your technical skills, the expertise. What are you doing that is unique to you? What did you study? But there's also the social interaction, soft skill part that's really important. You can be a really wonderful scientist, but if you're not very good at public speaking or you maybe make people feel uncomfortable when you're networking, that can be a problem. So you need to learn, practice, refine your skills and, again, there's so many different free initiatives or programs that you can participate in.
Speaker 2:Again, I had gaps in my skills for entrepreneurship, so I needed to take the time to learn them. If you're struggling to find your place in the scientific community or as a woman in a scientific community, it's worth taking the time to join these groups because there's so many resources available and everyone in WIB is super nice. I was a little bit intimidated at first because you have executive level women in biotech and out here on the East Coast there's major players in the pharmaceutical industry and the scientific industry, years in the pharmaceutical industry, in the scientific industry and I'm like, am I even good enough to be in this group? But everyone was so welcoming, provided so much mentorship and has really helped boost my confidence, my ability to present, reach out to sponsors network at different events. It's just been a great experience as a WIB member.
Speaker 1:The networking capacity is just great. Just listening to you, that's all I was thinking about. What are some of the initiatives you're currently working on as part of the web sponsorship committee? Do you mind sharing?
Speaker 2:Definitely so. Our big focus right now is our upcoming Her Story Gala. This is our seventh annual Her Story Gala. It's our signature chapter event, kind of the highlight of the year. It's going to be on May 8th at Pinstripes in North Bethesda. It consists of a cocktail, networking hour, a seated dinner. We have two keynote speakers. Then we give out some awards. So there's a DEI award for people like a company or a corporate person.
Speaker 1:Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Did you say DEI, that's a bad word, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yes, always need to adapt over time. But, yeah, a company is recognized for going above and beyond to make sure that the greatest talent is being utilized. It's a great environment for people to work in. So, on a company level, someone gets recognized and then also an individual gets recognized. Typically it's an early career person. Last year I actually won the award it's called the Rising Star Award and one of your recent guests won it the year before that, dr Amrita Madhubushi. She won two years ago, and so it's just a really great way to recognize someone in the local community who's not only professionally succeeded in a certain capacity, but also the expectation is that they're involved in the community as well. So, again, helping those around them being part of women in bio, whether it's the organization itself or just women in the community and then there's more networking at the end and it's really fun because it's like a formal style you get to dress up, you get to meet other professionals and have a fun night out, but it's all centered around success for women in science.
Speaker 1:Excellent, and then you get to meet Dr Madhubushi too. So if you do come to this event looking forward to it myself, I know I'm not a woman yeah, everyone can attend.
Speaker 2:Everyone can attend. It's a ticketed event. If you have a ticket, you can come. And that's true for anything like our webinars or workshops. We're focused on finding gaps and filling them for needs that women have, or maybe trainings opportunities that really anyone can participate, like the how to get published workshop. We had men on that call too, because anyone wants to learn how to get published, so definitely don't feel like if you're a guy that you're not welcome. Anyone can attend the event as long as you have a ticket.
Speaker 1:I love the diversity. Yes, that is good. It's a great thing all right, great, uh, so you're also involved in an association for women in science?
Speaker 2:um, I will pronounce it a ways yes, yep, that's how you pronounce the, the shortened version, a ways all right.
Speaker 1:So how do web and a ways differ in their approach to supporting women in STEAM?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my experience with Women in Bio versus Association for Women in Science. I find that the AWIS Greater Baltimore chapter so I attend their quarterly in-person events it's a lot of early career and academic focused women in science. With women in bio there are some academic type of people but it's a lot of biotech and industrial people. So it's a little bit of two different crowds. There is some overlap. I'm a member of AWIS, I'm a member and leader in women in bio. I attend both events and again there's other people who do both. It's just a little bit, I think, different of the people at least in our chapters and their backgrounds and what their needs are. So it's a really great way if you're involved in both, you'd see different types of careers, different types of needs within those careers, but it's still all oriented at helping women succeed professionally.
Speaker 1:Excellent, excellent. What are some of the challenges you have faced as a woman in STEAM? Have you faced any challenges whatsoever? I know.
Speaker 2:Interestingly, I feel like a lot of the challenges or like the challenge I've had more is a lot of times people think or mistake me for being a lot younger than I am. So then, if it's it seems weird, if someone thinks you're super young earlier mid twenties and you've done all of these things, that I think makes people skeptical. Or if it's a certain leadership type of environment thinking that maybe I'm not as experienced as I am just because the assumption is that I'm younger than I am. So that's something that comes up from time to time. It hasn't happened super recently, but there have been situations where someone's made a comment of like how do know that? Or assuming I'm a student when I'm not. I'm like a staff level scientist. Every so often it comes up again. It's just based on what they see. It's not necessarily because I've done anything, but it is a bias and assuming something about someone based on first impressions and not really knowing what's going on behind the scenes, which is that I'm like approaching my mid thirties, I'm not in my twenties.
Speaker 1:Excellent. I ask that question because you're so successful and sometimes it can be intimidating to some people, I think, the bias the woman go through. So I thought sharing that experience could inspire other young women coming along.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's always going to be challenges. Even if everything goes right, something might pop up or something that does happen happens again. Hasn't happened like super recently, but it does happen from time to time. Is there skepticism? Or how do you do all of this stuff? You must be cutting corners somewhere, cause again, it seems over the top to say I'm developing two companies, one of which has launched, also maintaining a day job, also doing all of these volunteer things, and I still make time to do things with my husband and with my friends, and it seems like impossible for me. Again, I know I've spent the years refining time management. I keep a really strict schedule with certain deadlines, like I don't procrastinate at all with things, expect a lot from myself. I know that's happening, but for someone else it might seem like there's no way you're doing everything properly or to completion and they get skeptical, and I understand to a certain aspect, but on the other hand, it's. If I've been doing this long and not had any issues, I probably am doing things correctly.
Speaker 2:You need to look at the evidence and say, okay, delta product got it to market. I've never had an issue anywhere that I've worked for a job. All of my business partners clearly still want to work with me. Sometimes there's a bias, the concept that you can't have it all or you can't do it all, or the stereotype of a frazzled woman. Maybe people have that in their minds sometimes and it's again.
Speaker 2:They don't see what's happened over the time, or failures in school or struggles with business having to start things over. Sometimes it really is just being patient, taking the time to realize that sometimes other people are reacting based on their own experiences, because they don't know me at all, or maybe they've had a bad experience with a coworker or a friend or a teammate who was cutting corners or not handling things professionally and compartmentalizing their different projects. So giving people benefit of the doubt at first to get to know me, explain about my life or my career to them and then, if they still have a problem, you need to know when to just walk away. It's really not worth the energy, because your time is precious and you can't just give it away to people who don't appreciate it or don't want to get to know you or respect you.
Speaker 1:Epic. What advice will you give younger you or young women interested in STEAM careers and entrepreneurship and leadership?
Speaker 2:I would say focus on doing things in bite-sized chunks but, most importantly, put the technical skills first. You can be great at networking, great at talking to people, but if you don't have all the facts right, if you are not the expert of what it is you're trying to do, if you don't have your chemistry techniques down, that doesn't really matter. That you can talk really well or schmooze your way through a networking event. You need to have the technical skills, the professional competencies, and from there that's when you can start thinking about the extra things. So focus on yourself as a scientist first and don't worry about all of those other things until you're ready to start branching out.
Speaker 1:Excellent, thank you. I have a lot of other questions, committees that you're part of, like panic NMR conferences. I don't know whether you want to go through that, or do you? Yeah?
Speaker 1:we can go over them okay and and then the intersection of science and culture. Not many people know that you're a dancer. I think to hear that part of you. Uh. So this question uh deals with conferences, stem advocacy and community engagement. You are on the organizing committee for the panic and n? N? M nmr conferences. Can you share an update on the upcoming event and what attendees can expect? And, by the way, what is it anyway?
Speaker 2:yeah. So panic is it's an acronym for practical applications of nmr and industry conference, or panic. So it is a conference for people people doing NMR spectroscopy or in the field of NMR spectroscopy to get together and present their research. This one's unique because, again, it's more industry-oriented people at different companies biotech. Rather than doing research to see how certain things work, they're doing research to see how we can use this technique in these different settings, whether it's manufacturing, automation, developing new products that researchers need Like it says in the name, the practical aspect of how do we use this technique to do things out in the world.
Speaker 2:And it's really exciting because the next in-person conference is going to be in May 19th through 22nd, right in Rockville, maryland. We have pretty much all of the social medias LinkedIn, instagram, x. Our website is panic P-A-N-I-C nmrcom and there's information about registration grant. So if someone is studying NMR or wanting to learn more about it and attend the event, you actually have the opportunity to apply for a funding grant to come and meet the other professionals, hear the presentations. If you have something to present, you could submit an application to give a talk or a poster and really put yourself out there. I am one of the kind of co-runners of our social media pages, and this week we featured three people who received the travel grant in the past and they talked about how attending helped them decide where they wanted to go next in their career, and now they're all working professionals in the field of NMR. So I definitely recommend people check it out because it really is inspiring. And also this year we're launching a new sort of tutorial series called Don't Panic.
Speaker 1:It's a play on words where?
Speaker 2:experts of certain NMR techniques are going to give really basic tutorials about how to do different things like quantitative NMR or protein NMR sort of like the basics and the ABCs of what does sample prep look like? How does the experiment work, how do you analyze your data, what supplies you need to run these experiments. So if someone's interested, but they're a little bit intimidated because it's industry professionals and how are people using this technique at companies? We have already thought about that and we want students or even people who are new to NMR for their work or for their research, to be able to come and learn something, take it away and have a positive experience. All right, in the Washington DC area.
Speaker 1:Excellent, thank you. Is it more for college students or high school students?
Speaker 2:I would say probably more for college students. But again, if anyone is interested, definitely feel free to put them in touch with me. Especially, some high schoolers even now are having the opportunity to do NMR techniques in collaboration with certain universities. I learned this through some volunteering I did at a high school in DC. Apparently they were doing NMR at a college in DC and I'm like I didn't even know what NMR was till I was in college. So if anyone's interested, definitely check it out. Don't feel like you're not welcome or you can't learn about it or you can't reach out. We're happy to connect with anyone who's interested or passionate about this technique.
Speaker 1:Excellent, excellent. You have also been involved with Washington Area Magnetic Resonance Association and the Chemical Society of Washington. How did this?
Speaker 2:organization shape our scientific community Washington. How did this organization shape our scientific community? Yeah, so again, these are taking it back to focusing on your technique and your specialty. Right up until I came to the Naval Academy to work and kind of getting switched into teaching and mentorship, I was doing NMR full-time, all the time, doing research in that way, and so Washington Area Magnetic Resonance Association is not just NMR spectroscopy but also MRI. So that is then taking it to the fundal technique of magnetic resonance.
Speaker 2:We're starting to plan and think about our next symposium, which will likely be in the fall, and that's where, again, people can share updates on their research, talk about advances in the field, but it's all going to be in our local area of the Washington DC area. Chemical Society of Washington is similar in the way that it's the local section of American Chemical Society, so we're associated with a larger national entity, but it's our local chapter version In that organization. I'm one of the managers at large for CSW and I also serve on the budget committee, and so this year we have the ACS conference also coming to Washington DC. So there's a lot of really wonderful events happening, and American Chemical Society, or ACS, is known for really working with young students. A lot of people, their first conference or their first scientific poster or presentation is at an ACS conference. So it's really great that our local section is the hub for this national event.
Speaker 1:If anyone is interested in joining the organizations, how can they go about joining this organization?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so any of the organizations or groups that we talked about today have websites and you can join that way. Some it's via a mailing list, some there's a small dues, whether you're a student or professional again all available on the website. You can also try coming to some events to see if you like it. We were talking about that's what I did with Women in Bio. I went to an event first to see if it was what I thought it was, if it was what I needed. Same thing with AWIS.
Speaker 2:I didn't join as a member right away. I went to an event and I loved it. So I think everyone would want to join everything right away. And again, we just talked about all of these amazing things happening in our local area. So I would think it's worth joining. But if you want to see what it's about, first check out the websites, check out social media and come to any of the amazing events that are happening in 2025. Even AWIS, there's a Galentine's Day event coming up. I believe it's the Wednesday before Valentine's Day in Baltimore, so you could come to that. It's going to be speed networking, talk to other people, but also have that sort of holiday twist. I'm already ready for Valentine's Day with my earrings and my sweater.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking about it already, it's been on my calendar for a long time.
Speaker 1:Beautiful earring.
Speaker 2:Or come to the Her Story Gala in May. I'll be there. You can talk to all kinds of professionals and learn more about it. Or you can jump right into a membership and sign right up on the website.
Speaker 1:Excellent. So talking about networking, why is it important? What's important about professional networking? Do you want to talk about that please?
Speaker 2:Definitely. Again, it seems like it's a whole bunch of different things, but it does all tie together because you have the aspect of being a woman. What do I want? What do I need professionally? What is support and learning that I want to experience? But also there's a social aspect of it too. We always have a great time and then you focus on panic or WAMRA or Chemical Society of Washington. This is all focused on the techniques and the job aspect of what I do. Again, you don't want to make everything just one area, all technical or all networking. It needs to be a mix of everything, because you're a whole person. You don't only exist in the lab, but you also don't only exist at a social event. You need to have areas of support that can help you grow in these different areas, because it's important to stay balanced and well-rounded, especially as a young professional who's working your way through school or first entering the workforce. You want to be sure that you're the complete package, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I also like to say it will be really helpful for educators too, especially if you're teaching STEAM right, definitely. So this will be great to be a part of. Let's talk about science and culture, talk about science and culture. We're coming towards the end, but I'm not so sure that people can connect with this idea that a scientist, a successful entrepreneur also it's a dancer, so there's another side of you. So, beyond science, you have a background in dance. So how has your do you want to talk to us about that, and how has your experience in Ukrainian and Mexican folk dance influenced your approach to science and problem solving?
Speaker 2:your approach to science and problem solving.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think the big similarity between the two especially when you're looking at cultural or ethnic folk dancing is a lot of times you're trying to convey a message or a certain story in history or just something about the culture, but you need to make it in a way that's entertaining and is well-received.
Speaker 2:It's really similar to scientific communication. You can have all of the right facts, you can have some exciting new data to share, but if you're presenting it in a way that's not very engaging, people aren't going to receive it. You can have a wonderful story about your culture, or you can have a wonderful success in your scientific or chemistry career, but the beauty is sharing it with others, and that's how you move the field forward. That's how you bring awareness to your culture. That's how you bring awareness to developments in your professional career. So it's taking the kernel or the fact that you're trying to convey, but making it in a way that's exciting and interesting to other people and to get them passionate about it as well, rather than just talking at them. Monotone, not very interesting, it's like all right, next, not interested.
Speaker 2:It seems two totally different fields, but you need to do the same thing. Convey an idea, convey a message, convey a fact, but make it fun and worth people's time to participate, to watch you or to listen to you.
Speaker 1:Is that the reason why A is important in STEAM instead?
Speaker 2:Yeah it definitely is important. A lot of people who are good at science, technology already have a natural aptitude for the arts. There's a lot of similarities. You need to be good at memorizing things, developing a technique, being able to perform, working with other people, but also being really motivated, being consistent, practicing, studying. The way you become good at arts and science is pretty much the same. There's just a different application of them and again, there's an artistry to it. On the cover of scientific publications there's cover art. Somebody does that. An artist is putting that together.
Speaker 2:But they also need to have the scientific knowledge to make the art correct. Or if you're making a presentation or writing a scientific paper, you need to have figures, the diagrams, pictures, and it needs to look good in a way that people can understand what you're conveying. But it needs to be scientifically accurate. You can't just make a pretty picture and then it's totally wrong. A pretty picture and then it's totally wrong. So there is a lot of overlap on a practical level. But then also, people in science and art are very passionate and they dedicate their whole life to these fields. A lot of scientists do the performing arts as a hobby on the side, or I've even known people in the arts who are studying and going to college at night or on the side while they're doing their performing arts career. So there's a lot of overlap, specifically with passion and motivation. You have to have both of those things to be successful in the arts and in science.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Thank you so much. The emphasis on integrated STEAM is very important. It's very essential. Thank you for articulating that for us. Let's talk about the future, future vision and advice. What excites you being a chemist? What excites you most about the future of chemistry, steam, entrepreneurship and women in STEAM.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really am seeing the way people are using social media platforms like this, podcasts and just the overall field of scientific communication growing like. Growing up, I watched Bill Nye, the science guy, and it was so exciting and it made me think I could be a scientist or seeing someone do an experiment. It might have been very, you know, simple things for kids entertainment, but it exposed me to science, even just a little bit, and I think now there's more and more platforms that are being developed and different avenues for people to share not only data it's like advances in the fields but then also just tell people what is a career in science. Because growing up and for a lot of college I really didn't know that much about research. Until I got into it I mostly thought you studied science and chemistry and biology so you could be a doctor or a dentist, something in healthcare.
Speaker 2:I wasn't as aware of other jobs or some people don't realize that with a chemistry degree that's how you become a cosmetic chemist or a flavor chemist I work with. Or I know a girl who works at Coca-Cola. She studied chemistry something totally different than what I do, but just from learning one foundational technique, one type of field in the lab. There's so many different things you can do and so many different ways that you can serve your community, serve the field. People just need to know about it. So I'm really excited to see where the art or the field of scientific communication continues to grow.
Speaker 1:Excellent, excellent. We're closing. Let's talk about this From Savannah. What will be your favorite chemistry experience? To get people excited about chemistry, especially my daughter?
Speaker 2:I'm a little bit biased. My favorite chemistry experiment or technique or thing you can do is anything with NMR spectroscopy. From the outside it looks like it could be as small as a microwave, Some of them like a big washing machine, Some are a whole story of a building high and you put your sample in and then it goes into the magnet and you don't see it anymore and a lot of people don't realize. It's pretty much the same foundational technique as MRI. So instead of a person sliding on like a gurney or a bed into the instrument, a sample is going in the top of the instrument and then again these really fancy physics and chemistry principles are happening to get some type of readout. So it's really exciting to know that there's this big machine doing these really delicate procedures and experiments that you set up at the computer. You control the parameters, you interpret the data. It's just so many different things coming together and I just love being in an NMR lab or working with anything NMR related.
Speaker 1:Excellent. What is the biggest meat about chemistry that you love to debunk?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think one thing is that it's like, super dangerous. Like with anything, you could have an issue if you are in the arts, if you're in dance, you could sprain an ankle. But in theory, if you're doing everything correctly, you have the proper training, the proper techniques to execute something, you'll be safe. Yeah, in the chemistry lab we're using chemicals. It's literally in the title chemistry there's chemicals. But you learn how to use your personal protective equipment or your PPE. You learn what things you can add together, in what order.
Speaker 2:You follow a carefully prepared procedure. You listen when your instructor is telling you what to do, when to ask for help, versus when to step in and be a leader and take over a situation. So thinking that it's this crazy thing and there's dangerous chemicals flying around or you're going to be in this really unsafe environment just isn't true. People have worked really hard over the years to refine safety in the lab and chemical safety techniques. There's people who their whole job is a chemical safety officer at an institution or at a company or in a manufacturing setting. Anything could be dangerous if you're not being careful that the proper procedures are in place. But really I think chemistry is something that anyone could or should be able to do, as long as you're doing everything properly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've been a biochemist myself and also a STEM teacher. I always like to tell my students that your kitchen is a great laboratory. Yeah, exactly. So you can have fun. At least in my home we use the kitchen quite a lot for a lot of experiments.
Speaker 2:Exactly. It's like cooking, like even a lot of things are the same like you're stirring something up and then you need to strain something, like you could burn your hand in the kitchen, or you use oven mitts or something the technique that's available to do it safely. Just like with chemistry, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Take it from Savannah. She knows what she's talking about. That's the real chemist here. What is one book or podcast you will recommend? What is one book or podcast you will recommend, apart from my children's book and this podcast? What is one book or podcast you recommend for aspiring scientists?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so something this kind of again isn't going to seem super obvious, but it's really helped me a lot is. Actually, if you're interested in a career in science or research, I really recommend reading books that are biographies of chefs. Literally relates back to how the kitchen is really similar to chemistry In the culinary arts world or in fine dining, really any type of kitchen situation. It's really similar to science that you have to work up the ranks, you learn certain techniques and then you build on it and then you master that and then you master that. Then you move up through the hierarchy until you're super, super successful in theory, if everything goes well.
Speaker 2:And I've been reading over the last year I would say probably like half of the books I read were biographies of famous chefs like Julia Child or Jacques Pepin, who literally all started out by trying to learn, having a passion, having success in their career, and then got into mentorship. So I think a lot of people in the culinary arts. There's a big parallel between just the career path and the training path. That's so similar to science. But food and cooking in the kitchen is something that maybe is a little bit more relatable to people, especially if you don't have family who's been in a lab, or you don't know anyone that's a chemist, or maybe you don't have a lot of exposure to that. It's something that's really similar, that you can read about people that are probably a little bit more commercially recognizable, but it is really similar to what you'll experience if you want to go into a career in chemistry.
Speaker 1:Epic Wow, what a great. If you want to go into a career in chemistry, epic Wow, what a great. Oh, that was good. That is epic, that was epic. So, as we close, what is one piece of advice you wish you had earlier in your career, and also for our closing? Is there any other things that you would like to share that we didn't talk about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think one thing that I would like especially young scientists to know, or really anyone who's trying to build up their career, is it sounds kind of cliche or maybe tacky to say, but you do need to make time to have fun. After today, literally, my friend's going to come over and we're going to go get lunch together and watch some of the TV shows that we like. I had a really long work week. She travels a lot for work. I'm really focused most of the time. Then you need to have some time when you can relax. If you're on all of the time, you're going to burn out. That's not sustainable. You're not going to be doing your best work. So it's okay to sit back and relax some time and have fun. That being said, you do need to know and learn how to monitor yourself and know when to push through. No-transcript.
Speaker 1:Epic. I love it. Thank you so much, savannah. Savannah, this has been an amazing conversation and I learned a lot from you. I really do, and I want to learn some more. Your work in chemistry, your entrepreneurship and the STEM advocacy is truly inspiring To our listeners. If you're interested in learning more about Savannah's work Women in Bio the Panic NMR Conference. The Panic NMR Conference the upcoming Her Story. Gala in Women in Science the upcoming cosmetic products that's very important, please go buy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, go buy. It counts. Please look out for it. Check her out on LinkedIn and I'm also going to put a little description on YouTube and on Buzzsprout. Please connect with Savannah South Dada Shoemaker. Thank you so much, savannah, for gracing us today. We really appreciate you. You have a wonderful day today. And for my last point, if you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe to STEAM Spark Think, steam Career Podcast and follow us on YouTube, on Buzzsprout, on Amazon and until next time, keep innovating, keep discovering, keep pushing the boundaries of STEAM. See you next episode. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much.
