Get ready for this inspiring STEM Education chat with guest speaker, Mike McKee! He is the Associate Director of Undergraduate Programs in Photonic Science and Engineering at the University of Florida CREOL (The College of Optics and Photonics). Mike delves into the heart of STEM education and the ways photonics can shape the future of scientific careers. Uncover why he passionately advocates for photonics within all engineering degree programs, and the crucial role early exposure plays in nurturing a diverse talent pool in the sector.
With the moderator, Sri Priya Sundararajan of Hewlett Packard, he addresses the disappointing lack of diversity in national-level science Olympiads and STEM spaces. Priya herself has led large scale MakeHer workshops and Introduce a Girl to Photonics programming. Together, they stand at the forefront of change, championing efforts to bolster diversity and inclusion at the local level. Hear from both on the power of being a visible minority and the struggles to confront bias and resistance in these spaces. Spoiler Alert: They do not just talk about the problem; they share solutions to create an inviting, inclusive environment for all participants!
Host:
Akhil Kallepalli
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow
University of Glasgow, UK
Moderator:
Sri Priya Sundararajan
Senior Silicon Photonics Researcher
Hewlett Packard Enterprise, USA
Expert:
Mike Mckee
Associate Director, Undergraduate Programs
University of Florida CREOL, USA
Get ready for this inspiring STEM Education chat with guest speaker, Mike McKee! He is the Associate Director of Undergraduate Programs in Photonic Science and Engineering at the University of Florida CREOL (The College of Optics and Photonics). Mike delves into the heart of STEM education and the ways photonics can shape the future of scientific careers. Uncover why he passionately advocates for photonics within all engineering degree programs, and the crucial role early exposure plays in nurturing a diverse talent pool in the sector.
With the moderator, Sri Priya Sundararajan of Hewlett Packard, he addresses the disappointing lack of diversity in national-level science Olympiads and STEM spaces. Priya herself has led large scale MakeHer workshops and Introduce a Girl to Photonics programming. Together, they stand at the forefront of change, championing efforts to bolster diversity and inclusion at the local level. Hear from both on the power of being a visible minority and the struggles to confront bias and resistance in these spaces. Spoiler Alert: They do not just talk about the problem; they share solutions to create an inviting, inclusive environment for all participants!
Host:
Akhil Kallepalli
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow
University of Glasgow, UK
Moderator:
Sri Priya Sundararajan
Senior Silicon Photonics Researcher
Hewlett Packard Enterprise, USA
Expert:
Mike Mckee
Associate Director, Undergraduate Programs
University of Florida CREOL, USA
Illuminated by IEEE. Photonics is a podcast series that shines light on the hot topics in Photonics and the subject matter experts advancing technology forward.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone and welcome to today's episode of Illuminated. My name is Akhil and, as the Associate Vice President of the Young Professionals and Chair of the Young Professionals Advisory Committee, it is my pleasure to be your host for today. I'm a biomedical physicist working at the University of Glasgow, but in my role for the IEEE Photonic Society, I'm supporting and promoting initiatives very much like this one to raise the profile of valuable young professionals within various sectors and also bring together people who will give us valuable input for our journeys along the way as well. The Young Professionals Initiative is for graduate students, post-doctoral candidates and early career researchers anyone after 15 years, both their first degree. This affinity group within the Photonic Society is committed to helping one pursue a career in Photonics. We're here to help to evaluate your career goals, to better understand technical pathways and subject matters, help refine skills and bring people closer together so that professional networks can get stronger through mentorships and many other initiatives.
Speaker 2:So on to our podcast for today. This podcast is one I've been looking forward to all week. Sometimes you go to conferences as I did to go to Florida earlier this year to eat up and you meet people who make you feel like simply being in their presence might give you a few bright ideas. Our special guest for today, mr Mike McKee, and moderator Sripriya Sundararajan are our guests for today. We will talk about STEM education, its value for science and the broader community, and so much more. Thank you very much for listening to this episode. It's definitely going to be a good one. I'll introduce you to your moderator for today, sripriya Sundararajan.
Speaker 2:She's a research engineer at Hewlett-Backet Labs. Within Hewlett-Backet Enterprise, she's worked in the semiconductor, photonics and optical telecommunications industry in many roles, with product and test engineering, technical program management roles and so much more. Her breadth of knowledge includes silicon, photonics, 35-phase lasers and photonic integrated circuits. She enjoys bringing novel technologies from design phase to mass production. Having received her doctorate in electrical engineering exploring nanophotonics from Rice University, she completed her post-doctoral studies at McMaster University.
Speaker 2:She received her BS and MN in electrical engineering from Cornell University and she has organized a lot of workshops specifically in the STEM space for girls in middle and high schools, entitled Photonics is Fun, which we all know because we absolutely love photonics. She's done these initiatives with Sunnyvale Public Library and the Girl Scouts of Northern California and I am sure we'll get into that during the podcast. She's worked with the IEEE Women in Photonic Silicon Valley group, and she's also recently worked with the IEEE Ventura on STEM outreach activities in the Ventura County. As many of us, myself included and Mike as well, she's passionate about STEM education, outreach, inclusion and diversity across all fields. Over to her, and the stage is all hers for her to chat with Mike.
Speaker 3:Thank you, akal. I'm really looking forward to talking with you and with Mike today about, like, the STEM education pipeline. The STEM education pipeline has been gaining a lot of attention nationally now as highly skilled manufacturing and design jobs are being ensured in the US in a move mayor globally to build a resilience of the supply chain to unexpected events. The University of Florida Creole is a leader in training next generation talent for the photonics and optics workforce, with Mike McKee at the very center of this effort. Mike is the associate director of the undergraduate program at the University of Florida Creole and through his work we can understand and learn how to identify diverse talent early on and ensure that we keep unique minds engaged and excited, such that students early in their education and through to collegiate level elect to stay in the field to contribute to the STEM workforce, especially in the areas of optics and photonics.
Speaker 3:So for 33 years Mike has worked in K-12 and higher education. Starting in 1990, he was a high school physics teacher, a K-12 science instructional coach, he's run a charter school science program in the Bay Area. He's managed it in the NSF funded GK-12 program and for the last 10 years he's been the associate director at Creole in the University of Central Florida. Mike is also the state director for the Florida Science Olympiad for 20 years, hosting about 30 state and regional tournaments as well as two national tournaments at UCF. And, by the way, mike likes to travel a lot and he loved shooting tons of video along the way. So with that, mike, could you tell us about what you do at Creole and some of the challenges you face in making students aware of photonics as a career?
Speaker 1:So great to be here. Yeah, so I basically run the program and do everything other than teach. So a lot of the work that I do involves getting out and promoting the photonics program across the state and around the region, which actually sort of leads to the second part of the question. Is you know what are some of the challenges that we face? The big challenge is no one knows what photonics is. So when you go around and ask, have you heard the term photonics, I might be lucky if 5 or 10% of the students that are in the room raise their hands. So that's probably the biggest challenge that we face. And I gotta say, here's the interesting thing We've actually had a debate here in the college about whether we even should change the name, to go and call it something else rather than Photonic Science and Engineering, which is what our degree is, and maybe change it into Optical Engineering.
Speaker 1:And I'm actually against that, weirdly enough, even though I just said, this is the challenge, and it's because Photonics is an unknown term, so a lot of times it's easier to get people hooked on something that's not known, versus if we went around and started calling it Optical Engineering. I'm a little worried that we would start to have people go. Well, that's, you know, I don't wanna be an eye doctor, I don't wanna go into that kind of thing. So we'd have to work on two layers of messaging. Try to get the word out. So you know generally and I think this is a problem that's not just here in Florida but it's across the United States and around the world is how do we recruit more students in the major? Just by letting them know that this is a potential field that they could go into. So I think that's probably the biggest layer that we've got as far as a challenge right now.
Speaker 3:For sure, mike, and you know, sometimes when I'm trying to motivate students during our outreach workshops, I ask them oh, what do you think Photonics is? What do you think lasers are? And for example, a young girl was just like a laser is something you use to tease cats with. So you know we wanna kind of engage interest but perhaps like share all the other things that you can do that are cool with lasers. But that was kind of funny.
Speaker 1:Well, and that was really the person who made the laser that that cat is chasing after was some level of an engineer. So you know there is that. So that's legit. I'll go with that.
Speaker 3:For sure it's very accessible. So with that in mind, mike, you're talking about how, like, people might not know or be familiar with what Photonics is and you know they might have different perceptions and conceptions about like, optical engineering, and part of engaging a diverse population is kind of explaining what Photonics is about and what it's useful for. And, along those lines, what do you think the importance of role models and representation within the STEM education pipeline could be in helping making the field more accessible, and what are some strategies that you've deployed to be able to attract and retain that talent, as you've experienced at UCF Creole?
Speaker 1:Okay. So this is a big question. We I'll start off with this, I just pulled these numbers that our undergraduate program that I run were 30% female and we're about 51% minority. The female female enrollment is great and that is something that is. It doesn't represent the rest of the university's engineering programs here. So and we're so we're the highest of all the engineering programs here at UCF. The 51% minority is actually right in line with where the university is, where 52% minority, so that requires sort of no effort. It's the number of students that are in the major.
Speaker 1:If female students that are in the major, that is good and I wish I could say, okay, we did this and these tactics worked. What I know we have done is from the very beginning of the major we had a couple of female students who got very active and involved in the Society of Optics Students, which is our undergrad program or undergrad club. So you know she got to be front and center and that helped bring in, I think, more students. So then recently I asked some of our female students like why do you think we're at that high number? And they shared that. Well, the college is friendly, it doesn't feel threatening to female students and so we have a culture here in the college that is not the rice of against female students, and you know there is implicit bias that can a lot of times people will carry, and just the way that they unknowingly treat people that are not like them can have a strong impact on them, whether they one come into the program or are retained in the program. And of course, these students are also strong advocates for other students coming into the major. So once we start to get a few of them in, then they start to say, hey, listen, this is a great place to be come on in. Generally, we also provide a lot of support among the students, so it's not a competitive environment, and so the lack of that competitive environment I think is also enticing. So here's something interesting.
Speaker 1:There was Matt Posner and I. We've done workshops, and in preparing for some of the workshops there was a report that came out of the United Kingdom about how do you engage females in STEM fields, and one of the things I learned about it is is that when you start to create ultra competitive environments, that actually sort of a negative toward females they this head to head thing a lot of times doesn't work real well. But if it's a collaborative process which could still have a little bit of a competitive side, but if it is one in which you are solving a problem so climate change is a major problem, so you know, you do something along that lines then that tends to draw more students in and it's more female friendly. So being aware of these kinds of things, I think, is really important. So I think what we do is just create that supportive environment.
Speaker 1:I think we also have built in the following we have a non competitive workforce experience when they graduate. What I mean by that is they're not competing against each other for jobs, not like some of the other majors where there's potentially hundreds or thousands of students graduating from one university. Here at UCF it's just not as competitive. So then that means that they can be a lot more collaborative and help each other. So these are the kind of things that we do to try to entice more students of diverse backgrounds into the major.
Speaker 3:For sure for sure, and I think it's so important to create an inclusive culture and a sense of belonging for all the students.
Speaker 3:Because, you know, I feel like sometimes competition has its place, it can create a bit of adrenaline, it can create like a desire or urgent people to do better, but then there's also the flip side of it.
Speaker 3:So this is something that I see in STEM workshops as well is that when you're trying to solve a problem like how do I build the biggest racetrack or how do I make the brightest laser, then that kind of draws everybody in and it's very collaborative, and so there's a place for both being the best, but there's also a place to trade knowledge and exchange and make everyone feel welcome, and I think that is so important. So, you know, kind of like building on that and building on your efforts on making UCF a very inclusive environment for females and other minorities. You know, is there anything that you can tell us about what you draw from your experience in running science olympiads, where you're like reaching students who may be at a younger age and maybe haven't like internalized some of those societal expectations of what they can do or who they can be, or you know whether science is for them or not, and share some instances of maybe how you know you were able to interrupt the bias or encourage minorities and diverse individuals to like stay in the pipeline.
Speaker 1:So on. With science olympiad, I'll tell you, the first time I went to a national tournament it was up in Washington state. It was in Spokane, Washington, and this was in 2000,. I think I was stunned by the lack of diversity there at the nationals and it was stunning. I mean, it was just stunning. It was Asians and white males and I made a comment about like this is sort of doesn't have a good look and everything, and it was sort of like, well, these are the best students. And then there was no addressing that. There was really a visual problem there and I would argue that just by dismissing that observation is a problem. So at the time in the state of Florida we were quite small, so we only had gosh at that point, you know, probably 20 teams competing. As we've gotten larger, we've grown more diverse because we've gotten into more schools and everything, and what you see is that the regional tournaments.
Speaker 1:So Science Olympiad is a competition for middle and high school students. They compete as teams of 15 together in 23 different events. So these 15 students form a team, they go off to the competition and compete in these 23 different events against other students and everything, and so some of them are knowledge based, Some things are building and some things are more lab based. So what we also see is that some female students will sometimes go to some types of events versus the males. Now, this is not exclusive. I'm not saying that all the females go and do all the knowledge based events and vice versa, but we started to see a little bit of this natural ebb and flow. But just by getting larger, we were able to attract more students into the program.
Speaker 1:I was not in a position to affect what was happening at the national level. I did serve on the executive board, but I actually think it's still a challenge that they have in getting diverse faces at the nationals. I'll say this much we did have a state competition here while I was still doing this. It was probably 2012, 2013. And we had an all female. There were all girls.
Speaker 1:I think it was middle school. They had the best fun and I think we'd heard from the teacher that they won one medal and they lost their minds when they won that one medal, but they had the most fun. So, don't you know, they went back to the school and talked that up. That's the kind of thing that you want. So the fun part is what I think was triggering it, but I actually enjoyed it because I was doing the award ceremony and they sort of losing their minds, but they were cheering for everybody else. So I don't know, I don't have a good answer for this. This is actually sort of the challenge that I wish we did have an answer. I'm gonna turn that around. How do you think, how can you interrupt bias? I mean, is there when you're doing workshops and everything? What does the workshop look like? You know, when you're constructing this and getting people in, what does that look like?
Speaker 3:You know, I think that, like you touched upon a couple of things like the role of having fun, making science something that's fun and welcoming instead of being something that's for someone else or something that's scary. When I was organizing workshops in the Sunnyvale library, oftentimes even the people who are facilitating the activities, who are from the best companies in the Bay Area, were having more fun. Like we got into trouble for throwing like frisbees with LED lights on them and the girls perhaps learned from that that like hey, you know what. This is something that you see like grownups, like having a lot of fun with, and maybe it's something for me, right? Because one other thing that you brought up, mike, was the impact of being a visual minority.
Speaker 3:So often, what happens if you go into this space and then you go and you look around and like there's no one who looks like you there, there's no one who maybe you know you can identify with there, then the first question as a human being that may cross one's mind is do I belong here?
Speaker 3:And I've grown so accustomed to being in, like you know, engineering spaces where, like there might be less women For me. I've gotten used to it to the extent that, like when I was in Bangalore Airport, I was standing in the all men's line and I didn't even notice till the guard came up to me and said, hey, excuse me, there's a ladies line, can you please go there? I'm like, oh right, okay, so I'll go over there, you know. But it's bringing that barrier down, I think, showing you know, women and people of color, that these spaces are for them. They have very valuable ideas that what they bring to the table, quite literally, maybe something different, and I think that, like you know, we've had like different mixes of people and different demographics, but for me personally, until a photonics activity looks like target, I think we all still have work to do. You know, that's what I think.
Speaker 1:That's actually a great like. Yeah, if it looks like target, then we're there. Here's the interesting thing is then what do you? How do you get students or whoever to confront when they come up against resistance? Right, because they may not be equipped with how to handle that, and I don't know that there's a lot of people that are equipped to be able to handle what happens when they encounter some level of either sexism, racism, namierism, right, how do you do that? How do you do it without, like, getting punched in the face and draw attention to it? You know, if it's people you know, then it's probably easier, but then we also encounter this all the time, you know, at Target, for example. It can still happen there as well. So I guess that's. The question is what do you do to try to you know, person by person changes, or at least bring some awareness that like, hey, you know, you probably need to really rethink what you're doing here, you know, so you can be a little bit more inclusive.
Speaker 3:For sure. I think that, like you know, maybe earlier on I thought that fighting prejudice was something that you would do, as like Mahatma Gandhi did or Martin Luther King did, where you're standing on a big memorial addressing a large group of people and saying, you know, I have a dream, for example. Right, but I think that, like addressing prejudice is as much as something that happens in the small moments, like when you're correcting people, you're like, hey, this is your assumption about me, but no, that's not right, you know. Or it can be a gentle moment, it can be a small moment, but it'll be a transformative moment for whoever is at the other side of prejudice. You know, and I think we all encounter prejudice, maybe we also maybe make assumptions that we need to correct in ourselves. So I think it's like a slow and steady work. It's something that needs to happen, and people like yourself my core allies who are within the system, who know how the system work and perhaps are aware and, like you know, looking at ways to draw people in, are very important because, you know, if you wanna change the system, then you have to work with it.
Speaker 3:It. Revolutions are fine, but maybe the small moments where you're kind of like doing a maybe attitude correct, as they would say. In aeronautics terms. Those are equally important as, like the large, you know, spotlight, limelight moments of people having a large stage and a big message, those are important too. They help draw people in. But you know, for example, in your Science Olympiad example, a smile and hey, welcome, we're so glad to have you here, it goes a long way to get people over those initial jitters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know the other thing I think this happens a lot is that the you know when something happens, because I run into this all the time what's the one thing that you do not wanna hear? Well, you're the only one with this problem.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm. Yes sure?
Speaker 1:Okay, seriously, that's probably not true and that statement is absolutely dismissive. And it really doesn't matter what it is, because my view is if I've got a student because I also do advising for our program so if a single student comes to me with I don't care what the problem is. I'm having problem registering for classes or I'm having problems with another student, and I've had those on both sides. You're the only one with that problem, but it's still a problem and it's utterly dismissive to use that kind of terminology. So by just watching what is said can, a lot of times, be either the solution or contribute to the problem.
Speaker 1:So that's where it's like taking a person seriously about where they are and addressing that can go a long way. And so and by the way, I do know because I've had this happen where we've had students that have had other, you know, they've had confrontations in class that were sexist related confrontations and the way that it gets addressed. They talk and they tell other students and either they're gonna say, oh yeah, mike is gonna take care of this or is looking into it, or he dismissed me, and which do you think is gonna have a bigger impact, you know? So it can be very destructive if it's. I got dismissed.
Speaker 3:For sure, for sure. And I think that in order to make a space inclusive, people need to feel both visible as well as heard. And so I think it's very important, as a leader or a person in a position of authority, to do that to, you know, allow people to feel that they're part of a community and allow them to feel that what they're facing is something that others are facing, that they're being heard, that they're visible and that that's being taken into account in order to figure out how to fix the issue. Because that's the other thing about diversity, you know, it's that because the perspective is a unique one or a new one, then, like, there might be like bias that has not been seen before or has not been perceived before, but it is now, you know. So I think that is so important and, you know, I think that like it's top of mind for people and it's really important, as we're trying to solve these big problems, these big societal problems, in a collaborative manner, to continue to do that, to continue to like, amplify those voices and make sure people are seen. But that I'd like to pivot a little bit and just kind of get your thoughts on some of the contributions.
Speaker 3:Perhaps that a school like Creole Florida could have to solving some of the big issues we're seeing with climate change, with, like you know, with all the like extreme weather events we're seeing, you know, what do you think the role of photonics and the role of like diversifying STEM education pipeline is to kind of preserving, monitoring, saving spectacular systems, ecosystems such as we see in Florida, you know? Do you find that that can have a role in motivating students to kind of join and study and learn about photonics? You know, what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1:Well, I think that the you know any challenge that we face, the more diverse voices and faces that you've got, they can bring unique positions to the table to help solve these problems. I was listening to a podcast on. It was Hidden Brain and it was just this. I just finished it this morning and it was on great teams how do you make great teams? And they it had nothing to do with intelligence. There was no correlation between intelligence and the making of a great team.
Speaker 1:But what they said is like, if there was diversity so they were talking about basically females and everything if there was a good mix of females and males, then that actually led to better teams. And they think it's because the females tend to be more attentive to other people, where the males will just dominate and roll over people, you know. So the females will be like hey, you know, this person hasn't spoken here, maybe they've got some ideas and they can open up the floor for more diverse voices. And, of course, we know that anytime that there's more diversity on any team, they bring perspectives that we never even considered right. And so we've got this planet, which, you know. We're seeing Hurricane number 24 out in the Atlantic right now I don't know how many and we are right now. They're getting worse.
Speaker 3:Too many, too many.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like you know, and there are.
Speaker 1:There are some countries that are starting to go under water, you know, island nations and everything we need to hear from them.
Speaker 1:There could be solutions out there, you know. It's sort of the same kind of thing as okay, we're destroying the forest, you know the rainforest and everything. Well, there are drugs in the rainforest that we haven't discovered, and so we're just mowing them down, burning them and everything, and we'd be losing some advances that can save humanity, you know, and the next great virus. So I think that's why we've got to have these voices, and they'll say that photonics, you know, is one of the things that will, is great because it uses less energy, it improves bandwidth, so, really, the drivers for solving some of the major challenges of the 21st century are gonna be photonics based. So it's really important that we start getting those diverse voices in now so that they can be sitting at the table as trained individuals that have the PhDs, that have the masters, that have the bachelors that have the associate's degrees, that have the certificate degrees, so that they can help solve the problems as we move forward.
Speaker 3:For sure, mike, and I think that, like a lot of the communities that are impacted by these events are disproportionately, you know, minority communities or their First Nations communities. They're like Native American communities and tribal communities that, like you know, really have been stewards for those lands and might have a like a better understanding of, like the ecosystems and how to manage the local climate. Like, for example, in California, there's been a lot of wildfires and some of the traditions of the communities here have been to do like very localized, controlled burns that could have helped wildfires from like spiraling out of control. And even when the tsunami hit in India, some of the tribes in the Andaman's knew that they had to go to higher ground and they were able to like avoid a lot of the negative impact that, like perhaps urban dwellers didn't know what to do when the ocean receded. So there's a lot of knowledge there. There's a lot of things we haven't discovered about, like the rainforest, a lot of things that we need to understand before we lose it, you know, and I think photonics has a very important role to play in that. So you know, I know that Akhil is leading this initiative on behalf of the young professionals and some of the folks that are listening in may help to like build those bridges. Maybe they have things that they'd like to share, but, you know, perhaps they might not know how exactly to get there.
Speaker 3:So, you know, my question to you is if there's a grad student who's listening to this podcast and maybe it's resonating with them and they're wondering, you know, how do I network? How do I get to where you are? Because, you know, here I am, I'm considering maybe two or three different routes. I might want to be a professor. I might want to be an undergraduate advisor and help students along in the pipeline that speaks to me. Maybe I want to work in industry, you know, in a research lab, and I'm not quite sure which way to go. So if I go to a conference, then how do I network? What is your advice to me?
Speaker 1:Yeah, how do you? I get this question a lot from the undergrads, like what do I do to network and everything you know? A lot of it has to do with just going up and saying hello. I know this is really difficult if you're an introvert. Right, we sort of live in an extrovert society. So if you're an introvert, this is painful to be able to go up and engage with somebody and the reality is that's, you know, that's what you have to do. You don't have to be showy and everything, but just introduce yourself. And what I also find is good is maybe if you're shy, you don't have to talk about yourself. Ask questions, come loaded with questions and you'll find that when you ask people questions like we are here, the person who talks about themselves walks away from the conversation like man, that was great, you know. So if you go up to a person and they walk away and you may not have said much because you may be an introvert, they're gonna walk away remembering. So you know that's a great little tactic. Of course, if you're an extrovert, then it's super easy to be able to network and get to know people you know, collect business cards and put yourself into as many opportunities as you can. I know, you know, okay.
Speaker 1:So I did Science Olympiad while I was teaching and then I also became Science Instructional Coach. So I was the Science Olympiad State Director for 20 years, while I had another job I mean that was a volunteer job because I had this incapacity of saying no. I mean I said yes to everything. As I've gotten older, I say no more because I'm lazy and I've said yes to a lot of things in the past. But I think, availing yourself as many opportunities as you can, you may be exhausted, you know, and go my goodness, why did I do that? But that'll give you some opportunities.
Speaker 1:And then the deal is is that if you do something so I tell this to the undergrads go do an internship. If you don't like it, you've learned something, because sometimes you go to a company that may not be the right culture, it may not be the right fit for you, but you tried it. So it's better to have a regret of trying and failing than never have tried at all. So those are the kind of things that you know you can do, but you just you avail yourself for the opportunity to get out there, you know, and don't say no. Don't say no, unless you're going to try it. If they say, hey, can you breathe underwater? That's probably.
Speaker 3:That is true, and that's so important, mike, because sometimes, like I think, with unconscious bias, people might self-select themselves out of the process, and it's always better to have tried and failed than to not have tried at all.
Speaker 1:I want to follow up on that Because, yes, this is, by the way, that is actually a very important lesson Don't say no to yourself, say let them say no to you. You know so, apply for jobs, apply for things, let them say no. But don't go up and say no, so I'll tell you. Here's the deal. My first job I had a high school physics teacher. My first job was actually in middle school and I was having a hard time finding a job. For some reason in the 1990s there was actually like a little bit of a surplus of science teachers. That doesn't exist anymore. So I found out that the science supervisor for Orange County Public Schools here in Orlando was at a luncheon at a hotel by SeaWorld.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:So I'm like huh. So I went over to it and it went up to. This was there were 300 people there. They were in the ballroom having lunch and I went up and I said hi, my name is Mike McKee and I'd like to know if Dallas Madron is here. So they go, oh, hold on. So they went into the ballroom during lunch. He came on and said hi, I'm looking for a job.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. I'm not joking.
Speaker 1:So he goes. Well, you know there's a couple of jobs. You know what? Why don't you just come on in and have lunch with us? Because I'm like unemployed and everything. So I think he felt sorry. I went in, sat at this table in the middle of the ballroom he was there. Somebody the supervisor from Seminole County Public Schools, which is just north of here. Somebody from Miami Dade was there. Every single one of them said if Dallas doesn't get you a job, I'll hire you. It's wonderful, and it was like it was just one of those crazy things because I'm like what's the worst they can do? Say no and get out. But it turns out at the end of the week I had two job offers.
Speaker 3:That's a great achievement, mike, and it shows the importance of putting yourself out there and like taking that first step, and that's just so inspiring. So with that, I'd like to pass the mic back to Akhil, and I really enjoyed this conversation. So much great advice there and I look forward to hearing more.
Speaker 1:Thanks, and great here as well.
Speaker 2:Excellent. Thank you very much. I've got a couple of questions of my own and then we can sort of call it a day if it's safe. But you might have something, Mike. I got my current position when I'm based right now. When I went to a conference and my lab PI was giving one of the keynote addresses, I sat at the back of the room, finished my CV, attached a motivational letter onto an email and waited until it was to break. After his speech, had a chat with him Very nice to meet you, you do some amazing work, It'll be lovely to work with you. The usual questions and he basically said okay, could you send me a CV and I'll take a look. Took my phone out and hit send on the phone. And the best part of this I don't think he will ever forget that interaction.
Speaker 1:It works. I'm telling you because most people say that and they don't expect it, and when you do it it's just like wow, you know. And again, what's the worst he can do? He'll just ignore it or say no. So you're right where you are right now. That's great.
Speaker 2:Yep, exactly, it was quite wonderful sort of listening to your experiences and all of the all of the things that you've done. I've got a few general questions, but I'll start with a very specific one. I can see that you've done a lot of work with the NSF GK12 program. Can you tell us more about that, in terms of background and sort of where the program's going as well?
Speaker 1:So that was a program that was funded in the mid 2000s and it was designed to get graduate students into science classrooms in an effort to approve their communication skills, so it was not designed to turn them into science teachers. The idea was that if they were in science classrooms they would have to learn how to communicate with very difficult audiences that were reluctant learners, and so we ran that for three and a half years and there were a whole bunch of chapters all around the United States that did that. And then the goal is is that when they became scientists, they would know how to communicate effectively with the public, politicians, non-scientists in a way that wasn't demeaning. So when I do workshops, one of the things I talk about is you want to speak simply, and I don't like the term dumbing down because of course connotation that I'm smart, you're dumb and let me explain it to you you idiot, right?
Speaker 1:Speaking simply is, oh, you just lack the information, you don't have the background, and it could be a colleague that's in a slightly different research area that just doesn't know the terminology. There's a lot of terms that we use, and so if you're not in that particular club, then you just don't understand, right? So speaking simply just means hey, explain it in a way that's not demeaning. So that's the kind of stuff that we did and we worked at over the three years. I think we were probably at 20 different schools in Orange County, so it had benefit for the teachers as well and the students.
Speaker 2:So that's interesting because you're effectively preparing people to communicate science, and I know, for example, from my personal experience as well, a lot of academic, researchers and people who sit at universities are quite happy to sit in their dark room, flip the lights off, turn the laser on and effectively spend the rest of the afternoon there. But even that specialization, the degree of knowledge that people have gained working on something for their entire lives, is brilliant. It's unique, it's a wonderful resource. But why do you think it's important? Why should professionals get out of their dark room and talk to instead of saying dumb and down, I'm going to say general public anyone who's not at a university?
Speaker 1:Well, I think well, okay, let's start off with the most obvious one. If it's funded by the public, then I think they it's required that they do that. I think they have a responsibility, because there's public dollars coming in, and I think they have a responsibility to the public to explain what they're doing with the research. But I also think it's important that scientists learn how to do this, because we are increasingly in an age of misinformation, and so I think it's important that they get out there, explain how science works, what truly is the process of science? It's messy. It's a messy process behind the scenes, and make sure the public in general knows how it works so that they have confidence in it, and then they can help. That starts the process of being able to differentiate between science and conspiracy theories, and information that comes from reputed sources versus misinformation that comes from just because it's on the internet, it has to be true, which we know is not the case. So I think that scientists have got to do more of that to help educate the public.
Speaker 2:So, in that regard, then, in your experience and everything that you've done so far, everyone that you've worked with spoken to as well I'm going to come back to a question that's going to be related to this. But what else can we do? There's all of the approaches, the mandates. One thing that comes to mind, for example, is with regards to climate change. So I absolutely adore Formula One as a sport, and Formula One now talks about net zero, how, by 2030, everything has to be net zero. But that's a mandate. That is something that they have made as a promise to a future version. These already exist. So what more can we do on a university or an organization or a professional body level, and what can individuals do?
Speaker 1:I think let's start off with straws. This is something that individuals can do. Why on earth do we have straws Really? Not that that was there in the forefront, but as we've had this discussion, at least in the United States, about some places banning straws, I'm just like, yeah, why I can drink, or out of a. You know, that's one little tiny thing, but when you imagine the number of things like that, like another thing that gets me are the cake cups.
Speaker 1:You know the coffee pods. It's one. So I've got a coffee pod over here and I just bring the bag of coffee and I do it in a blah, blah, blah, blah. Right, I think we've even got the metal coffee. You know where the grinds go. Yes, there you go.
Speaker 1:Imagine, like, how much of a landfill have we created from those pods? So, yeah, we can't go out and scoop up all the garbage that's in the ocean right now, but we can certainly, one person at a time, do that on a very local place. That, by the way, costs no money, right? Yeah, that kind of thing absolutely costs no money. And actually the weird thing is, let's take the coffee pods, for example. It saves money because if you get a bag of coffee, it's less than the equivalent amount of those pods.
Speaker 1:So I think that that's the kind of stuff that needs to be doing. But then you know the bigger organizations. You know they should be doing position papers and everything, because we know that this is a big political hot potato. But I don't think we should shy away from it. I mean, there's too much. When the politicians say the kind of stuff that they say, it seems like everybody just withdraws because they're worried about the funding being pulled and I just feel like that, as a unified source, everybody should go forward on this and say no, that it's just not correct. You lost me with that question.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's one of those things that we always ask ourselves what can an individual do? The common question that people ask is how much impact? Is me doing one little thing going to make a difference in the grand scheme of things? But then you sort of rule that back to if you do something and a hundred people do the same thing, now you've created a positive impact, and I think, when it comes to impact, I'm going to sort of shift gears now into a couple more questions before I ask you the big question about career advice.
Speaker 2:So the question that I had was we're talking about inclusion. We're talking about equality and diversity in the workplace, wherever you are, in terms of making things inclusive, in terms of improving the representation across the board. What is the least talked about? Challenge what is the one thing that everybody should be talking about right now? But you don't hear the conversation happening just yet, because there's so many aspects that come to equal to diversity and inclusion, but somewhere something is always either not looked at or neglected, or it's not a problem for today, but could be a problem tomorrow sort of a question, I think, the role of parents in this.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I'll tell you the story. So I was at a conference that was here in Orlando and it was the homeschool association. So we took Science Olympiad to get homeschoolers involved and a mother came up with her two kids, daughter and son, and she said, oh, my son would love to do Science Olympiad. And I said, without thinking, well, your daughter would love it too. And she said, oh, girls, don't do science. Done Well all the work that NSF does to try to get more females, more minorities, into it.
Speaker 1:If you've got parents at home that are projecting that message, those kids unless they're sort of a rare type kid that will rebel against them in the right way. They're going to rebel because that means the loss of the family unit. If the parents are really adamant about that and that girl was standing there when she said that so the kind of impact that has and we have not addressed that at all and I think that that's actually the major barrier that we face. I know that at the university we have this problem that you have a hard time reaching audiences where, if the parents didn't go to college, they don't know how to navigate the whole university structure and what it's like. It's scary big. How do we do the forms, kind of thing? So you have to work with the parents, boy, that's a big piece. That's a big piece, and that is something that I've never really heard anybody talking about.
Speaker 2:And I think that's quite interesting because, in the grand scheme of things, if you look at it, most people who come to outreach events, most people who come to science fairs and events like that, that is already a certain buy-in to the idea from the parents. But if a parent actually brings both their kids one male, one female and goes to do science in front of the person, you're quite right. You've effectively destroyed how much effort of work has been done to make sure that that equal stage is present. On the flip side, there is also probably interactions you've had that are extremely positive. I'll tell you one of my own, to sort of see if that gets the board rolling for you.
Speaker 2:The first outreach event I did, I went to a school and this was after hours, so that they had their entire school, went back home and the parents were then invited to come back for an evening outreach session. I had a physics kit with me and, in the simplest of ways, take a plastic bottle, a soft drink bottle, whirl it around and then take the cap off and what you have is a whirlpool as the water leaves the bottle. I had a little girl, who was probably 10 years old, who came up to me and told me you must be a magician. That is quite amazing. Literally on that day I thought I'm going to do this for the rest of my career. Have you had any good experiences?
Speaker 1:I'm sure I have. I've had a lot, but none that I can think of. I wish I had one for that one. No, I mean, I've done so many things with science, Olympiad and teaching and everything. I wish I had an answer for you.
Speaker 2:I'm sure we can actually have a follow-up conversation about it and you can tell us all about it. That one will effectively be just your story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think it's quite incredible because we met at ETOPE earlier this year and it was quite incredible to actually see the number of people who were there, the interactions that you have had. It must be quite a wonderful experience and more of me effectively saying congratulations, it must have been a wonderful experience to sit back and see all of these people from around the world come together and talk about education, about how do we train the next generation of optics and photonics individuals who can then continue the wonderful work that you have done. I'll conclude with a simple question, and I know we've talked about STEM. We've talked about equality, diversity, inclusion, all of the work that you've done at different school levels.
Speaker 2:We usually try and cater for young professionals and now, obviously, young professionals for the EdGRIP play is a very, very important rather 15 years after your first degree could be anyone. Basically, what is the one piece of advice you have for somebody in the early stages of their career? You can keep the specific STEM. You can keep it to a specific societal impact, or this could be a lesson that you've learned in all of the experience that you have had, and let this be, for example, no pressure the concluding statement of our conversation. What's the one thing you want people to take away from today?
Speaker 1:Don't say no.
Speaker 2:It's a wonderful experience, isn't it? It's a wonderful place to be in when people come to you and ask you to do things, ask you for your help and ask you that give you the opportunity to have that impact. So it must be quite wonderful to actually go. I've actually got too many things to do. That's a very unique problem to have. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I guess say this much because as an advisor I get a lot of students that because that's in my job title as part of being an advisor. The deal is all I do is clear the way for them. Their job is to be a student and my job is just to clear the bureaucratic hurdles so they can be a student. At the end of the day they've accomplished it. I'm just getting rid of this stuff that's just messing up the works as they go along. It's like I really don't do much. I just get in there, clear the pathway so they can be successful, because I want them to graduate and if they graduate that makes me happy and that's fantastic.
Speaker 2:And I think that's quite a wonderful ethos to have as well, because I am sure, if I was at the other end of working with you or having a conversation with you, I think it's quite incredible to know, for example, that my only job is to study and graduate and I don't have to worry about 100 other things that happen, because graduation, graduate studies, education is one of those challenges where, for the first time for instance, when somebody's at university for the first time life starts to happen. For the first time, you have challenges that you've never experienced before, and by you, removing those obstacles in some shape or form is already such a wonderful contribution. So I hope you do many, many, much, much more and I've got questions for you, but for next time. So you definitely have to come back.
Speaker 1:All right, I'll do that.
Speaker 2:I wanted to say thank you to both Mike and the Shreya for that Saim, for everything that we've had as a conversation today. If there's anything that you would like to add, this is everything from me. Thank you very much to the audience, but if there's anything that Shreya or Mike would like to add before we say goodbye, then over to you. But thank you very much for everyone who's joined us today.
Speaker 1:Nope, thank you so much for having me.