Raft of Bitches
A podcast about women supporting women. Like otters.
Raft of Bitches
Dr Astrokat Ross - I discovered the sun!
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Dr Kat "Astrokat" Ross is an astrophysics post doctoral researcher who studies teenage black holes using radio telescopes.
Dr Kat is also the leader of the national #IncludeHer movement, which aims to correct high school courses to include a more diverse representation of scientists.
A proud bisexual and agender person, Dr Astrokat was diagnosed as an adult with ADHD. She is looking to help create safe spaces and welcoming environments for other LGBTQIA+ and neurodiverse individuals in STEM.
If you would like to support Dr Astrokat's mission to bring more representation to the world of STEM, you can start by following @includeher on Bluesky or @includeher_stem on Instagram. Or, if you are eager to volunteer (or help fund) the movement, you can reach out to Dr Kat directly on Instagram, Tiktok or email.
For centuries we've been told that women are each other's worst enemies, but in reality we're more like otters than queen bees. Female otters, bitches, if you will, join hands with each other to create rafts that stop them from drifting apart and losing each other while they are asleep. Thriving women have one thing in common: they have a tight-knit circle of other women who help them get there by providing information and support. Join us each episode as we shine a light on an amazing woman and give her a platform to share with us her story, her passion, and the raft of bitches supporting her.
SPEAKER_00:It's true. Oh my god. I have very nimble, very long toes, and I got teased about them a lot as a child because um, like when you're in primary school, you aren't wearing shoes a lot of the time, like when you're basically. I also sung a song.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, hang on, you were singing the song while you were peeling the banana?
SPEAKER_00:I did too. I did that just as a joke, and then I also sung a song. All right. I am joined here today by my co-host Ricky, and Ricky's fun fact today, she does not have. Are you ready for this? A TV or a microwave or a toaster or a dryer. Yep. None of none of those goes wild. Why?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, I just I I have no need for these things. I actually was on, I got a phone call from like Telstra or Optus or something one time where they were like trying to sell me on things. And at the time I also didn't have internet at home. So she was like, Oh, so can I interest you in like a tablet? I'm like, well, no, because I don't have internet, so there's no really any point. She's like, okay, well, can I interest you in like Foxtel? I'm like, well, no, because I don't have a TV. And she was like, sorry. Sorry, I just, and you know, they they do the script. She broke script and she was like, sorry, can I just ask, what do you do? Well, I spend a lot of time reading and I just, you know, kind of chill out, like, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well.
SPEAKER_01:But I have I do have the internet now. COVID forced me because I had to work from home. So I probably still wouldn't if I didn't.
SPEAKER_00:I just can't imagine like spending that much time with myself. Bruce. We are joined today by our wonderful guest, Dr. Kat Ross, better known as Dr. AstroCat, who is an astrophysics researcher who works with radio telescopes, baby black holes, and twinkling galaxies. Kat has also worked extensively as a science communicator and activist for women in STEM, including leading a national campaign, hashtag include her, to correct high school courses to include a more diverse representation of scientists. Dr. Kat has also appeared as a host in the documentary A Hidden Universe, which aired on Channel 7 in 2022. Dr. Kat is a proud bisexual and agender person and was diagnosed as an adult with ADHD. She is looking to help create safe spaces and welcoming environments for other LGBTQIA plus and neurodiverse individuals in STEM. Welcome to the podcast, Kat.
SPEAKER_02:Hi, thank you so much for having me. Um I'm still a little distracted. I can't fathom how you don't have a toaster. Yeah. What's the snack?
SPEAKER_01:Do you know what? That will both like a toaster. Let's not even put that on the list because it's not important. Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_00:No, I just can't imagine. Like not having a microwave or a toaster.
SPEAKER_01:How do we heat things up? I don't heat things up.
SPEAKER_00:Do you have like an air fryer?
SPEAKER_01:No. That whole part of it's not back here. I just don't even know where we go from here. There's been a lot of like fun facts about Ricky so far.
SPEAKER_00:Shall we jump into our icebreaker?
SPEAKER_01:Yes. So so actually, we should just quickly explain. So, probably on account of the ADHD, I'm guessing, Dr. Kat has not managed to fill out her questionnaire yet. I actually didn't even know there was one. Okay, great. Also, apologies. So we're choosing your icebreaker today. Did I have a choice and I've thrown that out the window? You did, yeah. You've lost the privilege. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So, Joe, what is the icebreaker? Your friend. Any friend. Okay. Is on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. I love that for them. They use a lifeline to call you. What is the question that they've been asked that they know that you know the answer to?
SPEAKER_02:That's a tough one. I mean, it would be anything astrophysics related, definitely. I'd be coming up, which is a concern because I'll be honest, space is like it's pretty big. Uh there's a lot of things you've heard though about space. Yeah. It it is a vacuum, but also filled with a lot of stuff. So there's a lot that I don't know about space. The dangerous move. I would think it would be that or some unbelievably obscure random facts that they're like, I don't even know what this question's asking. Cat may know. Yeah, nice. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I love that. Do you have like a specific fun fact about space that you just like to tell people?
SPEAKER_02:Oh my god, I have so many. Let me try and pick one. See, okay, this is my my other issue. A lot of people say, like, what's your favorite thing on space? Your fun fact on space. But I actually think the bigger question, which you will get many more interesting answers, asking astrophysicists what their least favorite thing is. Because I guarantee you every astrophysicist has a rival enemy, absolute, like they're gunned for this thing.
SPEAKER_01:So for example, um who is what is your space nemesis?
SPEAKER_02:I am really lucky. I have several. Oh I have many that I despise with my entire being. First and foremost, in my PhD, I was studying these twinkling galaxies, which means you have to kind of like look at them multiple times over the year. So multiple observations of multiple galaxies in different colours with the same telescope. And each like two-minute image that you take of this with this telescope has like thousands of galaxies in it. And I'm interested in like the little spot right in the middle. Like that's it. And then there's these sources called the A-Team. And they're called the A-Team because they're the brightest things in the sky and they ruin your data. But we know which ones they are. The the A-Team is definitely on my hit list for sure. But we know where they are, we know what they're doing. And then there was one that was like incredibly bright and wasn't just being like automatically subtracted like all the other A-Team sources. I was like, well, what is this guy? Who's this? And I sent the coordinates to my supervisor and I was like, which one is this? And she's like, Oh, I like might be 3C044. Checked it, wrong coordinates, not the right source. Checked the same patch of sky with the telescope, but from a survey that was done like a decade earlier. So I was like, same survey, telescope would have seen it, done. No, nothing there. So I've seen this like giant thing that's popped up and it's in multiple images at the same spot. So like it's it's clearly a thing. And I'm like, this is really exciting. It's like the biggest, brightest thing in the sky. I'm gonna like change the game here. I've found something really cool. I start messaging around all my collaborators, my international group of collaborators in the public channel that we have to discuss these things. And then I went to take note of the observation, just being like, I'll come back to that later, figure out what's going on. Opened up the observation details, and lo and behold, there's an image of what you're looking at in the sky, and right where my pesky source was was the sun.
SPEAKER_01:Oh no. So, so what you're telling us is you discovered the sun.
SPEAKER_02:I did then have to go back to all my collaborators being like, um, it's actually not that interesting. It's fine, guys. It's fine. I would love it if no one asked me any follow-up. I said, Thank you so much. Thank you. So the sun is my biggest nemesis, first and foremost.
SPEAKER_00:Is there a likelihood those people are gonna be listening to this podcast?
SPEAKER_02:Well, to be fair, I mean, it's on me. I did do a viral TikTok about it to the point that now when I go to conferences, they're like, oh, you're the person who discovered the sun. I was like, I have actually done some really cool research, also. Um, but yes, that that is me. Yeah, yeah. Nice.
SPEAKER_00:Uh so these international researcher people that you're talking to, are any of them in your raft?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, definitely. Because I started my PhD and I came from a supervisor that was frankly a piece of shit. Uh, not fun at all, not supportive. And so I moved to do this PhD and was very conscious of like, don't ask for help, don't let anyone see that you're struggling, like, gotta do it all yourself. And thankfully, just like everyone in the group knocked those those barriers down. And now they are very much the reason that I'm able to get stuff done, able to work independently. Because it turns out when you ask for help and you need it, you build the confidence in the things that you do know how to do. So absolutely, the the people at work, very supportive, and it's always like a give and a take. This is a raft of pictures. I love this idea because it's not, you don't have a raft for like a single person necessarily. You know, the raft is for everyone, the otters are all holding hands to keep together. And so it's a a give and a take. And it's a I'll tell my story of finding the sun, and yay for me, I guess. But then uh literally, not like a year later, one of the PhD students had a very similar situation, and it turns out they discovered the galaxy. Oh so I love that for them also. And then suddenly I promise, like, you should go talk to Kat. I think that um, I think that this is gonna be really supportive for you.
SPEAKER_01:Is there anyone specific in your raft that you want to give a shout-out to?
SPEAKER_02:I will give a shout out to Addy, my absolute best friend from high school, who is one of the only people I still chat to from high school, but I think we can all agree. Anyone who's known you through those years and then continue to know you, she has frankly too much dirt on me to ever leave my life. Um and also my uh powerful pals chats. We consider ourselves, I would say, very much a raft of bitches. We have a code word when you need support and you're like, okay, I don't want to go into it, things are bad. Can someone send me memes, cute dogs, whatever it is? And so you just send hummus into the chat because everyone loves hummus and it's really great. So a shout out to my powerful pals and a shout out to Addie as well. They're definitely my raft of bitches.
SPEAKER_01:I love that.
SPEAKER_00:I am interested to know what made you decide and when did you decide that you wanted to be an astrophysicist?
SPEAKER_02:So I loved space as a kid. We used to always go out into uh like the street whenever the International Space Station went over. I loved it, you know, seeing like a movie in Dot, just going over in space. And then my mum said that like people live up there, and that's like a spaceship essentially floating through space. And because I was young, the first thing that came to my mind was if people are living up there, they must also be pooping up there. Which, like, where does it go? And so uh every Where does it go? I think they like dehydrate it and send it back when they get like supply missions.
SPEAKER_01:Sure, sure.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think I'm actually I have no idea.
SPEAKER_00:If any of our listeners have a uh an answer for that, we're not gonna Google it. Yeah, you can just email it to me.
SPEAKER_02:My search history is dodgy enough. I don't there's too many random facts I need to know. I don't want to add that to the list. But to this day, my family still goes out and we all cover our heads to stop from flying space poop. Uh, and so like I'm I'm always enjoying looking up with my mouth closed. And yeah, always enjoyed space. And I think as I got to school, there weren't many people doing science. I loved science, I loved all science, so I did it, but I changed what area of science I was interested in, like 20 times. Ultimately, I liked physics, but I was like, well, no one really does this, like it's just empty. I went to a science camp and I loved it. It was like the first time I'd seen that there's actually a career as an astrophysicist. I genuinely didn't think that was possible. I started to learn about radio astronomy and like it's not just optical, and there are jobs all around the world. And so that was kind of the first time I was like, this is what I'm gonna do. I love this. And then I got to university, and it turns out lots of people do take physics. It was just that not many people like me take physics. So my class in high school was small because it was an all-girls school, it was not a very scientific school, but the lectures were packed, and it it was an interesting shift from I'm doing this highly specialist thing, no one's studying it, to oh, I'm the odd one out in this big room of everyone. And I walk in this room and all eyes will turn to me and stare at me as I walk in. And it's an uncomfortable feeling for anyone, not to brag, still happens because I'm a fashion icon. You are. Thank you very much. So I often get people being like, oh my god, the outfit, but that's a very different feel from a lot of fresh out of high school boys staring at you in class. Still to this day, if you talk to the male undergrads, if you ask them how many girls are in your class, they'll be like, Oh, like five, I don't know, five, ten. And it's all round numbers. If you ask the girls, every single one of them will be like, there's three, and these are their names, and these are the ones in my class. Because you walk in and you're like, I see them. I coined you immediately, I've picked it. And like the same is true, obviously, for other minorities. The moment you walk in, you're like, I see you, we're giving each other the nod, that's that. So it was a big eye-opening moment for me. And then continuing the journey, it was just every step of the way, it's kind of reiterating that like this isn't meant for you, you're not meant to be here. So I did have to remake that choice, that decision, like several times over. And I think the main reason I even lasted as long as I have is because like space is fucking cool, and so every time I'm like, do I actually want to do this? And then yeah, I because space is really fucking cool.
SPEAKER_00:So you stay motivated, sorry not many women in uh yeah, in general, studying physics. What about teaching?
SPEAKER_02:As in the the lecturers and stuff that I had. Yeah, so this is interesting because it sort of depends on the uni. And in my experience, like I actually had quite a few teachers who were women, but I see now in academia, a lot of the time the ones that are doing the teaching are the postdocs, the people that aren't on the ongoing contract. And so they're the ones that are doing it specifically to add to their resume to get the next job. Whereas the ones that have the permanent positions are not necessarily doing the teaching. Sometimes that that is the case, they'll have their regular class that they teach. But those people in those positions are either not doing the teaching or are very unlikely to be women. And so the ones that we see doing the teaching may often be women, but it's the women that are being sidetracked from their research to do the teaching because in order to get the job that men get without doing teaching, they have to have everything. They have to have teaching, they have to have supervising, they have to have exceptional research, they have to be above and beyond in all categories. So while I had women who were lecturers, I think a lot of the time it was exactly that scenario. And I did have many male supervisors, but they were all the ones that are like, it's professor, I have the steady job. So there was a real disconnect in who was teaching and what they were teaching, and that's it. This is certainly my personal experience. Yeah. I hate that.
SPEAKER_01:I'm not surprised by it. Yeah. But I hate it. I know, it sucks. So this I think is a good uh segue into include her, which we heard about briefly in the intro. Can you tell us more about that and how you got involved in it and you know what the impact of it is?
SPEAKER_02:So this actually all started after my honours. I wanted to go into a PhD, but I was a little bit like I don't quite know where to go, what to do. And I actually had someone come and say, Would you like to work for me in physics education research? So researching how you can teach physics. So it was all about the actual practices of education. And this was when uh they were introducing a new physics curriculum in New South Wales. So I was hired basically to help teach teachers this new curriculum. So I was painstakingly going through like every single dot point, analysing this entire document from end to end and creating resources, running workshops, teaching the teachers. And it was actually a male colleague who came up to me and was like, Oh, did you know that in radioactivity they don't mention Marie Curie? And I was like, I'm sorry, that that cannot be true. I've spent the last year of my life looking at this document. Surely I would have noticed. I hadn't, it completely slipped uh my notice. So I went back, I looked, there is no mention of Marie Curie in the radioactivity section. And so I looked at the rest of the curriculum because if Marie Curie isn't mentioned, like double Nobel Prize Chemistry and Physics coins the term radioactive, not mentioned in radioactivity. If she's not included, who else is not included, but who is included? So I looked at the entire physics curriculum and noticed there are about 25 men that are mentioned well over 50 times. There are zero women that are mentioned anywhere in that curriculum. So I took to Twitter at the time, did a big rant on Twitter of just there's no women that are mentioned here. And it's not like there aren't women to mention, there are plenty. And in fact, there are plenty that relate specifically to the content that's already being included, that's already there. And it went pretty viral, so much so that New South Wales Education actually saw it uh and responded, which is super exciting. I was like, finally, we can get some changes because I had actually worked on some changes on the curriculum already. Turns out they absolutely are all for making those changes when the maths is wrong. But their response to this uh issue was Marie Curie is mentioned, but she's mentioned in chemistry, not physics. Also, we mentioned Rosalind Franklin in biology and they misspelled Rosalind Franklin's name. So, like that's not a great start. And if your justification for excluding Marie Curie from physics is don't worry, she's in chemistry. Well, what about all the people that take physics and not chemistry? That that doesn't solve that problem. Uh, and how you're just going to ignore all the other women that I've mentioned in this thread, that should also be included. So I decided if their justification was that it's okay because we mentioned women elsewhere and it's just physics that's a problem. You had better bloody hope that that's the case. So I decided to review every single curriculum that got to year 11 and you tell students never make an ADHD person angry on a moral issue because I will hyperfocus and do everything of my power. So I read like hundreds of pages of documents and I went through looking at who was mentioned, how they were mentioned, and where they were mentioned. And it turns out across all of the curricula in New South Wales. So this is physics, chemistry, biology, environmental science, extension science, like all of them. It turns out there are about 80 men that are mentioned, and they're like mentioned well over a hundred times, and there are four women. Mari Curie is mentioned. She's mentioned in uh extension science, I think it is. She is an optional dot point, and she shares it with Henry Beckerel. Extension science is not one of the major subjects, so most students won't even take it. On top of that, optional dot point. It's up to the teachers to choose that dot point to teach. So, not great. She's also not in chemistry, like they claimed. That was a lie. The other women uh that are mentioned, there's Barbara McClintock, who won a Nobel Prize for her work in genetics. She's also in one of the extension subjects. And then the other two women that are mentioned Edna Krebapel and Maggie Simpson. I'm sorry. The cartoon characters.
SPEAKER_01:Those famous scientists. Lisa, not even Lisa. Maggie's a baby. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Um, I'm so mad right now. I have already heard this before, and I'm still mad. I think this is new. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:So you've heard this before. As many cartoon characters as women in STEM in New South Wales. Yeah. And that's still happening, or it's changing, but bureaucracy is a very slow process. Of course. So this was back in 2018, and then obviously COVID hit. And so the focus was very much to support teachers through virtual learning. And that is absolutely fair enough. But it doesn't mean that that work stops while we focus on adjusting online learning as well. So Includer really was born from that moment of just sheer indignation and anger and fury of there is something that is so clearly wrong in the way we're presenting science to students. And it's such an easy fix. I do not think that this is going to solve sexism. We're not going to just be like, oh, women in STEM, we don't need to worry about that anymore. It's not a problem. It's a band-aid on a stab wound. But it's also a hundred percent just credit where credit is due and recognition for work that was done. Because I also analyzed what is included and who is getting credit for what. So if you look at the content, if men make the discovery or if men are the ones that have put the work in, then it says look at so-and-so's work on XYZ. And if it's work that women have done, it's just look at XYZ. There's no mention, it's just kind of spontaneous knowledge. So even just by accrediting the work that's already included in the content, you're not actually changing any of the content. You're just adding the name of the person who did that work. You can increase the representation to like over 30% without even that much work. So the way we're teaching it, the way we present it is fundamentally flawed. But there's also a quick, easy solution before we even consider science education as a whole and what the purpose of science education is. So it's just, it makes me so mad that we would even delay something that you could just let's slap that on and deal with the rest later. And here we are.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And thus include her. Yes, very good. Can you tell us a bit about like how Include Her kind of worked or you know?
SPEAKER_02:So I have COVID to take for this, actually, because during COVID, obviously everyone's in lockdown, there's no traveling around, but universities still needed to have people come to give their weekly colloquium, etc. So thankfully, I actually got invited to give virtual talks at Monash University, specifically the women in physics group at Monash. And I talked about include her basically this discovery because someone had seen this Twitter rant that I went on. And then people in that group were like, this is actually, it's such a simple thing. It's so obviously wrong. We should be doing this talk for all of physics. We should do a bigger talk for this. And then I started just doing a talk essentially just all up the east coast of Australia virtually, which I would never have been able to do pre-COVID. I would not have been able to do that travel. Also, like this was not my PhD research. I'm a PhD researcher at this point. I can't justify taking all that time off to talk about very much not my PhD research. But in all of those talks, enough people were like, I care about this. I want, I want in, I want to help. And so we kind of grouped a group of volunteers of let's work on changing this and reached out to curriculum developers in various states to be like, here's where you sit and how you can change that. And we're willing to work with you to implement those changes. So Includer has grown significantly. We're actually international now, baby. Yeah. Uh, but now we also have a team in the UK. They're doing the same analysis that we've done in Australia. Uh, so we're growing. We're a team of about 20 people across the world. We ended up doing a full review of all courses across Australia. So not just New South Wales, but we looked at, you know, the big four bio, physics, chem, and environmental science for all states and territories in Australia, just to see like, is this just an issue from New South Wales or where does everyone else stand? It's not just New South Wales. Wow, you are really insightful. That's amazing. Huge assumption to make and absolutely correct. So across all of Australia, there are 145 scientists that are mentioned. One of them is a woman. What? Just one. Do you want to take a guess at who? Is it Marie Curie? No, it's not.
SPEAKER_01:It is not Marie Curie. The main one if you ask the anyone to name a female scientist.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. That's the one. She's the like the equivalent Einstein, you know? Like that she's on that level. And no, she's not included. Oh my god, who? So uh it's Rosalind Franklin. Oh. Also a banger. Correct. Also a banger, it is correct. She's not in New South Wales, but she is mentioned in Queensland, a Northern Territory in South Australia. So it's not even all states that mention her. Yeah, sure. But also Rosalind Franklin is largely only ever taught in the context of men stealing her work. Yes. So it's still a narrative of male scientists. Yeah. You're not actually learning about the incredible science that she did, you're learning about the men who won the Nobel Prize from stealing her science. So it's still a it's still not an encouraging story for a young woman in STEM. You're looking at this future in this point where you're trying to decide whether you want to pursue science. And that's the only representation you get, unless you are lucky enough to have a teacher who is an expert in the field to put in the energy and time to do extra research and add that into the classroom, which what teacher has that time? They're underfunded and have no time on their hands. So it's a mess. Yeah. Yeah. So we published this paper to basically show everyone where we stand. It is published. It's published on the Australian Journal of Education. So it's free access. Everyone can read it. It's quite dense if you're not into academic papers. It might be a bit dry. Although I did appreciate that it's it was nice to put like a feminist rant in science format. Like it was really, really nice. It felt like taking this thing that was traditionally masculine and all of this institution that was fundamentally designed to keep someone like me out in every possible way, to make me not survive, not thrive, absolutely not be able to do anything. And to take that and then publish feminism with it. It was a really nice, nice circle moment. I really enjoyed it. Yeah. We've now been working with curriculum developers across Australia, including the Australian curriculum. Um, and Queensland has actually already implemented these changes, and we're hoping to publish the results of that, the uptake from the teachers and the response of the students to that as well. Good work, Queensland. Thanks, Queensland.
SPEAKER_01:Have you seen any kind of changes in your field of people coming through, you know, not necessarily to do with the school curriculum, but is there like a kind of a shift in, you know, you're seeing more women come through or more girls come through to do first year physics at uni and that kind of stuff? Or is it, would you say it's still pretty much where it was when you were?
SPEAKER_02:I think actually I'm starting to see the opposite. I think we're starting to go backwards. I physics and particularly astronomy, astronomy is actually quite well represented for physics fields, but physics as a whole is already so low, like the numbers of women that are taking it up. And I think it was a very maybe slow increase. And I think we've just kind of stagnated. And part of that is also the lack of women progressing. We don't see women that are getting those ongoing positions, we don't see that like continual appointment. And that's because those jobs are very hard to get, but there is also so much bias in that hiring process. There's attempts at the moment to have a different approach to hiring to try and address that. But none of these approaches by themselves will solve this issue. They'll all help and they're all necessary, but none of them individually will fix this issue. And so I think even if we have more women enrolling in the undergrad courses, I very rarely see them actually progress the entire way through. There's usually only the one or two that that make it all the way through. And that's because we're not necessarily creating a space. We can bring them in, but if it's not safe there, they're going to leave. Rightly so. I find this definitely, again, it's anecdotal from me, but I notice in academia you find little bubbles. There's usually these spaces where a woman has created a group of students, postdocs, and if they have a secure position, this bubble is a secure spot. And that woman, knowing the environment, knowing what is going on, creates this kind of safe haven. So you see these regions where there are departments that report higher than normal levels of women, and it's because they support those individual, I would say, pillars. Little baby rafts. And they hold those pillars up, they hold that team together. And then if you're lucky enough and they they have an ongoing position enough, those bubbles start to join. And you see overall the growth into the rest of the whole community, into the rest of that organization. So these little rafts are essential because I genuinely don't think I would have gotten to where I am without those rafts, without having other women in STEM that you know those issues. I can come to you, I can explain this. I don't have to say, you know, my professor did XYZ and then have people go, well, you should report him, because yes, you should, but it is a lot more complicated than that. And so the raft is incredibly important. I actually, I almost left my honors entirely. I had a very sexist supervisor at the time, and I was really struggling. So it was the last two weeks or so of my honors, and I still didn't have results. I'm still trying to write this up. I've also got exams going on. It was one of the most intense years of academia for me. And it was one of my friends in this powerful pals group. It was her birthday, and they were all going to the pub and they were like, come, you know, join us for the pub. We haven't seen you in basically a year. And I was like, I'd love to, but I'm working on my honors thesis, you know, day in, day out. I don't have the time. And I it got to about like 6 or 7 p.m. I'm obviously still in the office, nodding away at this thing. And then the results came back from the simulation I was running and it had failed. And I just sat there being like, I actually can't do this. I'm gonna go and see. I'm gonna tear up even thinking about it. I love them so much.
unknown:I'll have some water.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So I rock up uh at the pub. They're all sitting there, so excited just that I'd even come because I'd obviously already told them, I'm not coming, I have thesis to work on. And I got there, and I the whole bus ride over, I was like, I'm not going to bring anything up. I'm not gonna raise anything. This is her birthday. I'm just here to see my friends and just have a night off. I sit down, and the first thing they say is like, How are you? And I just sat there and was like, and then immediately burst into tears, just full sobbing, terrible, and all of them. No like prompting needed, picked up the dog, the dog they had with them, and they were like, dog on the lap. Here's the drink. Yep. Yes, here's a margarita, we'll put that in front of you, we'll get the tissues and just kisses everywhere. So I spent I spent the rest of the evening like covered in lipstick kisses, cuddling a dog, and it was just this moment of like honors is hard, science is hard, but the raft of bitches. Yeah, that's what you need. They get you through it, and it's I I genuinely wouldn't have made it through without them. Love you guys.
SPEAKER_00:Damn it, what a shattering. I think that um one of my favorite things about you is your email signature. Oh, thank you. Um, and specifically, I'm gonna read out the sign. Oh, yeah. This is not specifically from your email, but I just noticed you've got it in your contact form section as well.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And it says, please note, I have ADHD and can often forget to reply to an email. If you're waiting for a response or it's important or time critical, please let me know or send a reminder email.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And honestly, giving people permission to hound you is so good.
SPEAKER_02:This has been like of post-diagnosis things I've done to advocate for myself, that email signature has been the biggest removal of guilt and saving time ever. Because now, all like I was gonna get those reminder emails everywhere, because I'm gonna forget inevitably. So I was always gonna get them, but people would send them after the due date because they didn't want to feel like they were pestering me. Yes. She'll get to it when she gets to it, she's busy, whatever. So they wait till it's late and then say, I still haven't heard from you, just like a reminder, checking in. At which point then I'm like, fuck. So then I'm frantically doing it in a rush, way faster than I should do it. So it's not good quality. I also feel guilty, the shame of like being so late and getting to the point where they had to remind me. But now that I have this in my signature, people will message me far in advance and say, Hey, I'm still waiting for this. At which point I figure it's now impacting enough for them. Like they do actually want it there. So it's this is now enough of an urgency that the ADHD is like, we can do this. Yes, uh, but it's not so urgent that you're like, I cannot believe I've left this till it's too late. I forgot about it, everything. Genuinely one of the best things I've added in my life.
SPEAKER_01:So you obviously you are very open about having ADHD, but presumably that has also had an effect on, you know, being able to have such high academic achievement and all of that kind of stuff. How has that presented for you in your journey?
SPEAKER_02:I think so. There's a few different ways it's influenced my life, both good and bad, realistically. Firstly, I think there is definitely still the stigma around ADHD, unfortunately. I was I was a textbook case, got kicked out of maths, but like because I was doing well academically, it was never flagged as an issue. So uh this is the classic, yeah. The annoying thing for me about ADHD, particularly for AFAB people and people that don't fit in that very narrow young white boy in class distracting everyone, it means that unless you are a nuisance to others, you don't get diagnosed. So it means you internalize everything, it means that you learn to mask all of it, and it becomes you're the problem, not ADHD is a problem. So, in some senses, I started to perform significantly better when I had this diagnosis because I could start to work with my brain, not against it. But there is definitely still that stigma. And I find it hilariously ironic because I don't know if you've ever met a physicist. I've actually got one sitting across from me right now. So 100% of your sample is neurodivergent. Um, it's pretty common in physics. There is a lot of neurodivergence there. But I think that that also comes from like there's embedded ableism in just the perception of it's a learning disability and therefore bad things. It's a bad, bad thing. When actually there are many ways that the ADHD helps me, the creativity, the piecing things together in the big dots are one of the favorite things about academia for me in research of just having this big picture view of everything and then getting to see how that connects. And it's views that in my experience, neurotypicals really struggled to have. They have their kind of siloed perceptions and they find it hard to make those links. But then writing details about it. No, thank you. I've done the fun part and I would like to leave. So it is unfortunate that it's still uh an industry and it's still an institution where you have to be doing all of those things. So I can't finish my project and present at a conference and mark that as done. You still need to write your paper and complete that paper and review that paper. And I personally, my first draft is my final draft. I will not reread something I have written because the dopamine is gone. It is out of there. I'm not interested anymore. So, in some ways, it has been very difficult, but at least the self-compassion has increased significantly post-diagnosis. And it has meant, I think, that the people that I work with are more understanding because I'm open about it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So I have two questions.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:The first question is what's next for Include Her?
SPEAKER_02:Oh my gosh, this is actually a really exciting answer. So we have built um an Include Her workshop. This workshop is designed for mostly students, but also teachers, community members, everyone. It's basically to provide participants with the skills to be able to break down a narrative of science. And what's a narrative you're being told, what's missing from that narrative, but also why am I being told the narrative I'm being told? We start with no prior knowledge, and we just say, what are the big moments in whatever field we're working in? So what are the big moments in astronomy? What are the big moments in tech or coding? And we just get students to build that word cloud together. And then one by one, we go through those and say, well, why do we think this is a big moment? What's the nor the story with this, the narrative with this? Who was involved, or who are the big people? And you see a lot of the time, obviously, you know, we mentioned this for astronomy, and people are like, Galileo is the big thing, and the moon is amazing. And there's very rarely women that come up. And so we break that down. Why are we not learning of women? And why do we have the perception? So it's important, obviously, to break down those narratives, but it's also about teaching the participants to be able to see those narratives beyond just this workshop. So in the classroom, in their schools, in their conversations with friends, and try and practice breaking that down to help change the stereotypes that we have, the narratives that we hold. Uh, we're also building an encyclopedia of women. So these are women that are easily implemented into the curriculum. They're ones that can easily fit in what you're already teaching. And we're developing our website for that. It's currently got about 400 women and is ever growing. It's one of our biggest projects. We were also doing the same analysis that we've done in Australia, but on the UK system as well. So they have a slightly different approach, but we now have UK researchers that are doing that work. So hopefully that paper will be published by the end of the year. But who knows? Because peer review process is a lot. And as we've established, I hate writing papers.
SPEAKER_00:There's a lot of things in the works. That coincidentally brings me to my next question. Oh my goodness. How can we help you with that?
unknown:Oh, yay!
SPEAKER_02:So uh we're always looking for volunteers. If you're interested, we're really gonna need people to run those workshops also. And we need people who are interested in receiving those workshops. And if you know businesses, grants, government funding, anything, we're really looking to start providing the payment for this to be able to actually build up as well. So we're looking for funding. If you're a business and you're like, I want to support women in STEM, but I don't want to do anything, you can just write me a check and forget about it.
SPEAKER_00:So easy. I love that. That's actually the best ask that we've ever had on a podcast, I think.
SPEAKER_01:Give me money. She understands that people are time poor.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. So we'll do that work for you. Don't you worry. Yeah. Just give us the money and we'll be fine. Love it. Yeah. Also, please follow us on social media and everything as well. All the usual. So we're include her stem on Blue Sky and Instagram.
SPEAKER_01:So we heard a little bit about your raft before. Who else do you need in your raft? Who are you missing that would be able to help you deliver on your mission or in the include her mission?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So honestly, we need we need everyone. We need all skills because this is currently entirely run by people who are just passionate but working elsewhere. So if you have any skills in IT for helping us to code up a lot of things, if you work in education resources, If you're a teacher who can implement these changes straight away in the classroom, like we want we want you to be a part of this, we want you to to help us. All of the resources we're doing are hopefully designed for teachers to just grab and use straight away. But that does mean that we need to get them to the teachers in some way. So any of those ways to to help us. And it it means that we can all focus on the bits that we're good at, which is the research and the development of these things when we're working with teams that are already distributing the stuff to the people that need it the most.
SPEAKER_00:And how can we use our raft to help you? So if we're not one of those people, is there particular things we should be listening out for?
SPEAKER_02:I think taking that time to hear the narratives and like notice the moments when people are spinning that narrative that is perhaps missing some things or is an old narrative of what a scientist is. Because as much as you know, we love our rafts, we love the support, people have this internalized as well. I mean, I wasn't even the one that noticed Mary Curie was missing, and now this is led to include her, but like that is someone in my raft who who helped make that happen. So listening out in your raft to help support people, but also listening out for the moments when they need that support to make sure that your raft is strong and sustainable.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I love that. Unfortunately, once again, we are utterly out of time.
unknown:That was great.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. But if you have a story to share about being a woman in STEM, or you know exactly what happens to space poo, we'd love to hear from you. And where can people reach us? We are on Instagram at Raft Podcast, or you can email hello at raftpodcast.com.
SPEAKER_01:And for previous episodes or to find out more, don't forget to check out our website, raftpodcast.com.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for listening, Rafters. Catch you next time.
SPEAKER_02:He should have been. Thank you.