November 11, 2024 • 21 mins
The future of science, technology, engineering and mathematics will require many perspectives to achieve its utmost potential. Keivan Stassun, professor of physics and astronomy at Vanderbilt University, discusses astronomy, his efforts in expanding diversity in STEM and some of the discoveries that are resulting from it at the Frist Center for Autism and Innovation, and his recent MacArthur Fellowship that acknowledges those efforts.
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(00:03):
This is The Discovery Files podcastfrom the U.S.
National Science Foundation.
The future
of the science, technology, Engineeringand Mathematics Enterprise will require
input from all sorts of unique individualsto achieve its utmost potential.
Innovation in the makeup of the Stemworkforce will come from individuals
representing a wide varietyof neurocognitive perspectives.
(00:25):
We're joined by Keivan Stassun,the Stevenson Chair in Physics
and Astronomy at Vanderbilt University,where he also serves
as director of the centerfor Autism and Innovation.
His work advocating for diversityin STEM was recently acknowledged
with the genius grant,the MacArthur fellowship.
Professor Stassun,thank you for joining us today.
My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
(00:46):
So I'd like to start with a little bitof background, and I want to ask you
when or how did you knowyou wanted to be an astronomer?
Oh, gosh.
Well, the honest answeris that all through high school,
I was obsessed with the ideaof becoming an astronaut.
And I learned that, at least at that time,the best chance
I would have for joining the astronautcorps would be to become a military pilot.
(01:07):
So I went through the process of gettingmyself admitted to the Naval Academy,
and I even attended for the first summerfor basic training and summer.
They call it.
Decided after thatthat my military career wasn't
the path that I was going to want.
And so I went to Universityof California, Berkeley instead,
and I found myself there asking,so if I'm not going to go up into space,
(01:30):
what am I going to do?
Instead, I decided that studyingthe stars would be the next best thing.
And, I don't regret it.
Keeping on the astronomy theme to beginhere.
What keepsyou excited about working in the field?
Like, is it the sense of discovery,
the endless possibilitiesthat are out there? Yes.
You know, to put it generally,that's certainly true.
(01:50):
I mean, I think that's probably trueof every scientist or engineer.
There is that sense of all the thingswe don't yet know that that's out there
to discover.
With astronomy specifically,I wake up every morning literally excited
about the possibilityof discovering some new Earth out there
that might be habitable,might even be inhabited.
(02:13):
That is tremendously exciting to me.
The idea that within my own lifetime,you know, we may come to know
of another place out therethat is like our own planetary home,
where we may yetdiscover the signs of other life,
maybe even a place that we could imaginepeople here eventually going there.
We are living in a timewhere science fiction is becoming more
(02:36):
and more science fact, and it's somethingthat specifically is very exciting to me.
Thinking about your work.
Is there any particular discoverythat you're
proud of or feel likeis your favorite to share with people?
Oh yeah, actually there is.
I'm proud of a lot of the work
that I and my research teamhave done over the years, but there is one
(02:57):
that in my mind, just brings together
so much about unexpected discovery.
On the one hand, involving talented
students from different backgroundsand different abilities and perspectives.
On the other hand, all in one.
So some years ago, about ten years agonow, my research
team and I were working with datafrom NASA's Kepler spacecraft.
(03:21):
Which was collecting data on lotsand lots of stars
in our galaxyto look for planets orbiting those stars.
It was an exemplar huntingmission, and I had in my research group
at that time, an autistic studentin computer science at Vanderbilt
(03:41):
also had, an African-American student
who had joined my lab througha partnership program that I helped create
with Fisk University, togetherwith Vanderbilt here in Nashville.
And the autistic studentworking in my group
developed a new way of analyzingthe Kepler telescope data,
(04:02):
literally turning the light signalsthat the telescope collected into sound,
so signifying the datawhich gave us a new way
of just sort of quote unquote,looking at the data and understanding it.
And with that tool that he invented, my
PhD student was able to makea completely unexpected discovery,
(04:23):
which is thatit turns out we can accurately determine
the sizes and ages of starsjust on the basis of what
we came to call light flickering or soundflickering in the stars data.
This had not been known before, andwe published this in the journal nature.
In the process,the student who led that work became
(04:46):
the first African American woman everto lead in astrophysics paper in nature
and the data analysis toolthat my autistic student had developed
became licensed by NASAfor use in their data analysis work.
So you see what I mean?
Unexpected discovery.
Involvement of talented studentswith lots of different abilities
(05:08):
and backgrounds and perspectives. On one.
It was that that meant a lot to.
Me, and it's the kind of workthat has some legs where that technique,
I'm sure, isthen used on many other kinds of projects.
Right? That's right. Very cool.
So that kind of leads into the next areaI want to ask you about.
And that's thinking about neurodiversityin science.
Can you talk a little bitabout how you became interested in that.
(05:30):
And and maybe for the general publicthat's not thinking about it.
Why it's important. Yeah.
My own journey in this directionbegan from a very personal place.
My first born son is autistic,was diagnosed
with autism when he was 4 or 5 years old,for several years thereafter.
You know, again, just in my personal life,
(05:51):
you know, that experience as a parent,
was shaped entirely by tryingto figure out how to support my son.
And, you know, what he needed.
So, you know, early interventionsand supports
and helping himbe ready for the world of school and just,
you know, sort of all of that earlylittle kid stuff, which is so important.
But eventuallyI began to think about his own future.
(06:15):
And, you know, what his experiencewould be like in life as an adult
and beginningto see alongside his support needs,
which will be there forever,beginning to see real, unique abilities.
You know, the away that he had of sort ofseeing the world, of recognizing patterns
and things, noticing thingsthat most people would miss.
(06:36):
And I began to wonderif there was an opportunity for the world
to benefit from these unique abilitiesthat I was able to see as his father.
Could the world right learn how to betterrecognize and enlist these abilities
at the same time that we are learningto better support people like him?
And so that inspired me to beginintentionally
(06:59):
recruiting autistic studentsat Vanderbilt into my research group,
which gave me an opportunity to learnhow to manage a neurodiverse team,
you know, beyond a diverse team,a neurodiverse team in particular,
which meant not only for meas a supervisor
and advisor and manager,you know, learning how to work with
(07:21):
more and
different kinds of people,but also helping
everyone on my team understandhow to interact with one another
so that everyone was enablingand enlisting the best of each other.
Right?
So that was a real learning opportunityfor me.
But also,you know, had the opportunity to witness
(07:42):
firsthand how real, unique
and impactful scientificdiscoveries are enabled
when we recognize
and enlist and supportall different kinds of minds.
Right.
There's a human diversity of mindthat we need to fully leverage
if we're going to have the best chanceof tackling the grand challenges
(08:06):
that we face as a society.
Absolutely.
You need all those fresh perspectives andand people
that'll, like, kind of flip something overand look at it from a little bit
of a different angle, right.
So as part of this journey for you,you've started the first center
for Autism and Innovation.
Can you talk a little bit about thatcenter itself? Yes.
So about six years agonow, together with colleagues
(08:27):
in the School of Engineering andthe business school here at Vanderbilt,
we launched this, academic researchcenter called the Frist Center for Autism
and Innovation,
named after a philanthropic family thatgenerously helped to endow the center.
And in looking at where
we could make the most sort of valueadd to the world of autism research
(08:50):
and related work,you know, what we saw is that for decades,
there has been a large amountof investment
and development of expertiseand programs and interventions,
largely around early years, earlydiagnosis, early interventions,
clinical approaches and supports,all of which has been hugely important.
(09:14):
That's important to acknowledge,
but wherethere has been much less investment
and development of expertise and programsand supports and interventions,
is around transitionsto adulthood and transitions
to independenceand transitions into the workforce,
including and particularlythe STEM workforce.
And so we launched the first center
(09:36):
for Autism and Innovation in the Schoolof Engineering and in collaboration
with the business school,with the idea that we can bring in
engineering and hard scienceto bear on developing technologies
that support individualsin making those transitions
to adulthood and independenceand access to meaningful employment.
(09:58):
And at the same time, we can be working
to build real pipeline and to employment,
in part through betterequipping individuals to be successful
in accessing work,but also working with employers,
including specifically companiesand other employers
who are seekingStem talent right for the Stem workforce.
(10:21):
That's where we wanted the Frist centerfor Autism and Innovation
to be operating technology developmentand transforming the workplace.
Inspired by the human diversity of mindand enabling access
for individuals, and enabling accessfor those who seek to employ
those talented individuals. Very cool.
One of the specific programsI know has been very successful there
(10:43):
I wanted to ask you about.
It's the Frist center's
PhD program in neurodiversityinspired science and engineering.
Can you tell us a little bitabout the success of that program?
Yeah, I'm very proud of that.
And I want to clearly acknowledgeand thank the National Science Foundation
for the NSF Research TraineeshipGrants, the NRT grant
(11:03):
that we receivedto help create this interdisciplinary
PhD program, develop a set of graduateseminar courses to support it.
And, of course, the abilitythat that Grant gave us to recruit
students, support them with stipendsand all the rest.
But the Neurodiversity Inspired Scienceand Engineering, or Nice program
(11:24):
was developed with the idea
that especiallybut not only for neurodivergent students,
in science and engineering,having an interdisciplinary PhD program
that would support them in their journeytoward a PhD.
In coming up with ideas, inventions,
(11:48):
technologies, scientific approaches,and algorithms, all the kinds of things
that PhD students doin the course of their doctoral training.
But to invite students to be thinkingcreatively
about those things researchprojects, dissertation projects
that would intentionally
(12:08):
include their neurodiverse perspectives,we believed,
and it had been borne out
after five years of running the program,that we would be able to better recruit
neurodiverse studentsto better support them,
and have better outcomesin terms of their own PhD completion.
But also just
the great discoveries and innovationsthat they would create along the way.
(12:32):
For example,we have had PhD students who have designed
virtual reality platformsthat teach autistic adults
how to engage in social communicationthat will allow them to be
more successful in gaining employmentand being successful on the job.
We have had PhD students who have created.
(12:55):
This has nothing to do with autism per se,but bringing their creative perspective.
Have designed and patented detector
for mining a rare earthmaterial from asteroids that
and we have, an
autistic woman,who is finishing her PhD now
in biophysics, who, based on her own livedexperience, has designed
(13:20):
and is commercializing an ear implant
that will allow individualsto fine tune their auditory experience
if they have auditory sensitivitiesthat can create challenges for them
as they move through the world,you know, much more
intelligently than a simple noisecanceling headset, right?
I mean, by inviting that creativityand that inventiveness that springs
(13:44):
from one's own lived experience,we're seeing a tremendous outcomes.
As just one more example, we havean autistic man in our neuroscience
PhD programbecause participating in our Nice program
and our program, who,when he completes his PhD in neuroscience
in a couple of years,he will, to our knowledge,
become the world'sfirst non-verbal autistic neuroscientist.
(14:08):
Think about that.
These are outcomes and opportunitiesthat are now possible
because of the advent of technologiesthat we didn't have available to us
even ten years ago.
And, you know, these folks are changingthe world, changing
how we understandthe very nature of the human mind.
Right?
Because they are now able to bringand communicate and express
(14:31):
and share their unique perspectivesand their inventiveness and creativity.
It's really cool because maybe even 20or 30 years ago like that wouldn't.
Happen, right?
The path to that opportunitywouldn't exist, right?
The time. It's so cool.
And this work has been acknowledgedin a big way.
This year. You got the MacArthurfellowship.
(14:51):
Can you talk a little bit aboutyour experience getting the genius grant?
What was that like?What does that mean to you?
Oh my goodness.
Well,I mean, first of all, just what an honor.
And, you know, it's the kind of thingthat I think you can't expect.
I mean, it's not something you apply for,and it's
such an out, outrageous
(15:12):
recognitionthat I certainly never imagined it coming.
It was very unexpectedand and just a tremendous surprise.
But a great honor.
One of the things that I am gratefulfor about it
is that it gave me an opportunityto talk about this work
that we've been discussing,and to talk about it in the terms
(15:32):
that the MacArthurfellowship is intended for,
which is about creativity,you know, sort of creative genius.
And I don't mean to apply that to myselfnecessarily, but rather
that the workthat I do as an astrophysicist,
but also as a developer of Stem talent,
is really very much inspiredby the idea that creative genius
(15:55):
is out there and oftentimesin unexpected forms or in ways
that we in the pasthave not understood how to recognize.
I think of that actuallyas sort of my life's work,
beyond my legacy as a scientist and thescientific discoveries that I'm a part of.
It's all learninghow to recognize and enlist human talent
(16:16):
for scientific discovery in new ways,
recognizing creative geniusin new and different ways and new forms.
The MacArthur gave me an opportunityto speak to
that work that I find so meaningful,and to speak to it in those terms.
I think that was important.
Now, you mentioned NSF supportslightly earlier,
and I like to try to work that insince we're yeah, where we are right now.
(16:37):
What difference has thingslike your career award
made to the trajectory of your careeritself?
Like what difference has the NSF supportmade for you?
It is not an exaggeration for me to say
that NSF supportthroughout my scientific career,
from the very beginning tothis day, has fueled,
(17:00):
has accelerated, has enabled in waysotherwise not possible
that every stage and at every turnin my career NSF support has been
the enabler, has been the fuel has beenthe accelerate technology.
Yeah.
As a graduate student,I received a graduate research fellowship
from NSF that gave me a recognition andand premature,
(17:22):
but also a certain amount of independenceto be able to shape
my own PhD experience in waysthat I might not have
otherwise been able to,including as a graduate student
undertaking some professionaland leadership development activities
that would later position me to be ableto, for example,
(17:42):
create the partnership programbetween Vanderbilt and Fisk
that has become one of the top producersof PhDs to underrepresented
minorities and neurodiversepeople in the physical sciences.
The ability that I had to developthat work
as a part of my NSF career,grant supported early career work
(18:03):
was very much enabled by NSF support of me
as a PhD student to begin learningthose leadership development skills,
and then later the NSF partnershipsfirst right
I in astrophysics research and education,the pair grant
that we receive to really build outand scale up and institutionalize
(18:24):
the Fisk, Vanderbilt Partnershipprogram was critical for taking
what was initially an individualPi project, but
really scale it up and institutionalize itinto what it has now become
all the way to now, the active
NSF Research Traineeship grantthat has allowed us to create and operate
(18:44):
the Neurodiversity Inspire Scienceand Engineering PhD program.
These have been NSF supportsto me as an individual,
but even more importantto the sort of the Institute symbolization
and scale up and model developmentkind of work that has enabled
not just the support of me asan individual scientist, but the creation
and dissemination of model programsthat touch lots and lots of lives.
(19:09):
It has all been enabledand fueled and accelerated by NSF support.
So my last question hereis thinking about the future.
What do you see ahead in your workor more broadly,
if you want to, I'll, I'll leavehow you answer this question.
Up to you.But what do you see in the future?
What makes you optimistic aboutwhat's coming up in the next few years?
(19:30):
Well, I'll give you an astrophysics answerand I'll give you a human talent answer,
because I think very much and very hardabout both of those things.
On the astrophysics front, I am excited.
Literally every morning
I wake up just filled with excitementabout the discoveries
that I know are right on our horizonaround habitable worlds.
(19:53):
Signs of life elsewhere in the universe.
I mean, these are real discoveriesthat are waiting to be made,
and they feel likethey're right around the corner.
And to have a front row seatand to be actively involved, to have my
fingers literally.
And the data that we're collecting to makethose discovery is this.
Oh, I just it feels likeI'm a kid in a candy shop with that.
(20:16):
And at the same time,I feel so privileged to be
working at a time when we are learning
how to recognize human talentfor the science and technology
workforce needsthat we're going to have now,
and that we're going to have more and morethrough this century, learning
how to recognize human talent in new ways,where we didn't know
(20:39):
how to recognize talent in the past,that human diversity of mind that we need,
and learning how to recognizeand support it, that excites me, too.
It fills me with that very humankind of hope
that we really will be able to tackleand solve big, big challenges
that only scientists and engineersand technologists can solve.
(21:00):
There is a depth and a breadthto the talent
that exists in the diversity of human mindthat is available to us,
and we're learninghow to recognize and tap into it.
Special thanks to Keivan Stassun.
For The Discovery Files, I'm Nate Pottker.
You can watch video versions
of these conversations on our YouTubechannel by searching @NSFscience.
Please subscribe wherever you get podcastsand if you like our program,
(21:22):
share it with a friendand consider leaving a review.
Discover how the U.S.
National Science Foundationis advancing research at NSF.gov.
This is The Discovery Files podcastfrom the U.S.
National Science Foundation.
The future
of the science, technology, Engineeringand Mathematics Enterprise will require
input from all sorts of unique individualsto achieve its utmost potential.
Innovation in the makeup of the Stemworkforce will come from individuals
representing a wide varietyof neurocognitive perspectives.
(00:25):
We're joined by Keivan Stassun,the Stevenson Chair in Physics
and Astronomy at Vanderbilt University,where he also serves
as director of the centerfor Autism and Innovation.
His work advocating for diversityin STEM was recently acknowledged
with the genius grant,the MacArthur fellowship.
Professor Stassun,thank you for joining us today.
My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
(00:46):
So I'd like to start with a little bitof background, and I want to ask you
when or how did you knowyou wanted to be an astronomer?
Oh, gosh.
Well, the honest answeris that all through high school,
I was obsessed with the ideaof becoming an astronaut.
And I learned that, at least at that time,the best chance
I would have for joining the astronautcorps would be to become a military pilot.
(01:07):
So I went through the process of gettingmyself admitted to the Naval Academy,
and I even attended for the first summerfor basic training and summer.
They call it.
Decided after thatthat my military career wasn't
the path that I was going to want.
And so I went to Universityof California, Berkeley instead,
and I found myself there asking,so if I'm not going to go up into space,
(01:30):
what am I going to do?
Instead, I decided that studyingthe stars would be the next best thing.
And, I don't regret it.
Keeping on the astronomy theme to beginhere.
What keepsyou excited about working in the field?
Like, is it the sense of discovery,
the endless possibilitiesthat are out there? Yes.
You know, to put it generally,that's certainly true.
(01:50):
I mean, I think that's probably trueof every scientist or engineer.
There is that sense of all the thingswe don't yet know that that's out there
to discover.
With astronomy specifically,I wake up every morning literally excited
about the possibilityof discovering some new Earth out there
that might be habitable,might even be inhabited.
(02:13):
That is tremendously exciting to me.
The idea that within my own lifetime,you know, we may come to know
of another place out therethat is like our own planetary home,
where we may yetdiscover the signs of other life,
maybe even a place that we could imaginepeople here eventually going there.
We are living in a timewhere science fiction is becoming more
(02:36):
and more science fact, and it's somethingthat specifically is very exciting to me.
Thinking about your work.
Is there any particular discoverythat you're
proud of or feel likeis your favorite to share with people?
Oh yeah, actually there is.
I'm proud of a lot of the work
that I and my research teamhave done over the years, but there is one
(02:57):
that in my mind, just brings together
so much about unexpected discovery.
On the one hand, involving talented
students from different backgroundsand different abilities and perspectives.
On the other hand, all in one.
So some years ago, about ten years agonow, my research
team and I were working with datafrom NASA's Kepler spacecraft.
(03:21):
Which was collecting data on lotsand lots of stars
in our galaxyto look for planets orbiting those stars.
It was an exemplar huntingmission, and I had in my research group
at that time, an autistic studentin computer science at Vanderbilt
(03:41):
also had, an African-American student
who had joined my lab througha partnership program that I helped create
with Fisk University, togetherwith Vanderbilt here in Nashville.
And the autistic studentworking in my group
developed a new way of analyzingthe Kepler telescope data,
(04:02):
literally turning the light signalsthat the telescope collected into sound,
so signifying the datawhich gave us a new way
of just sort of quote unquote,looking at the data and understanding it.
And with that tool that he invented, my
PhD student was able to makea completely unexpected discovery,
(04:23):
which is thatit turns out we can accurately determine
the sizes and ages of starsjust on the basis of what
we came to call light flickering or soundflickering in the stars data.
This had not been known before, andwe published this in the journal nature.
In the process,the student who led that work became
(04:46):
the first African American woman everto lead in astrophysics paper in nature
and the data analysis toolthat my autistic student had developed
became licensed by NASAfor use in their data analysis work.
So you see what I mean?
Unexpected discovery.
Involvement of talented studentswith lots of different abilities
(05:08):
and backgrounds and perspectives. On one.
It was that that meant a lot to.
Me, and it's the kind of workthat has some legs where that technique,
I'm sure, isthen used on many other kinds of projects.
Right? That's right. Very cool.
So that kind of leads into the next areaI want to ask you about.
And that's thinking about neurodiversityin science.
Can you talk a little bitabout how you became interested in that.
(05:30):
And and maybe for the general publicthat's not thinking about it.
Why it's important. Yeah.
My own journey in this directionbegan from a very personal place.
My first born son is autistic,was diagnosed
with autism when he was 4 or 5 years old,for several years thereafter.
You know, again, just in my personal life,
(05:51):
you know, that experience as a parent,
was shaped entirely by tryingto figure out how to support my son.
And, you know, what he needed.
So, you know, early interventionsand supports
and helping himbe ready for the world of school and just,
you know, sort of all of that earlylittle kid stuff, which is so important.
But eventuallyI began to think about his own future.
(06:15):
And, you know, what his experiencewould be like in life as an adult
and beginningto see alongside his support needs,
which will be there forever,beginning to see real, unique abilities.
You know, the away that he had of sort ofseeing the world, of recognizing patterns
and things, noticing thingsthat most people would miss.
(06:36):
And I began to wonderif there was an opportunity for the world
to benefit from these unique abilitiesthat I was able to see as his father.
Could the world right learn how to betterrecognize and enlist these abilities
at the same time that we are learningto better support people like him?
And so that inspired me to beginintentionally
(06:59):
recruiting autistic studentsat Vanderbilt into my research group,
which gave me an opportunity to learnhow to manage a neurodiverse team,
you know, beyond a diverse team,a neurodiverse team in particular,
which meant not only for meas a supervisor
and advisor and manager,you know, learning how to work with
(07:21):
more and
different kinds of people,but also helping
everyone on my team understandhow to interact with one another
so that everyone was enablingand enlisting the best of each other.
Right?
So that was a real learning opportunityfor me.
But also,you know, had the opportunity to witness
(07:42):
firsthand how real, unique
and impactful scientificdiscoveries are enabled
when we recognize
and enlist and supportall different kinds of minds.
Right.
There's a human diversity of mindthat we need to fully leverage
if we're going to have the best chanceof tackling the grand challenges
(08:06):
that we face as a society.
Absolutely.
You need all those fresh perspectives andand people
that'll, like, kind of flip something overand look at it from a little bit
of a different angle, right.
So as part of this journey for you,you've started the first center
for Autism and Innovation.
Can you talk a little bit about thatcenter itself? Yes.
So about six years agonow, together with colleagues
(08:27):
in the School of Engineering andthe business school here at Vanderbilt,
we launched this, academic researchcenter called the Frist Center for Autism
and Innovation,
named after a philanthropic family thatgenerously helped to endow the center.
And in looking at where
we could make the most sort of valueadd to the world of autism research
(08:50):
and related work,you know, what we saw is that for decades,
there has been a large amountof investment
and development of expertiseand programs and interventions,
largely around early years, earlydiagnosis, early interventions,
clinical approaches and supports,all of which has been hugely important.
(09:14):
That's important to acknowledge,
but wherethere has been much less investment
and development of expertise and programsand supports and interventions,
is around transitionsto adulthood and transitions
to independenceand transitions into the workforce,
including and particularlythe STEM workforce.
And so we launched the first center
(09:36):
for Autism and Innovation in the Schoolof Engineering and in collaboration
with the business school,with the idea that we can bring in
engineering and hard scienceto bear on developing technologies
that support individualsin making those transitions
to adulthood and independenceand access to meaningful employment.
(09:58):
And at the same time, we can be working
to build real pipeline and to employment,
in part through betterequipping individuals to be successful
in accessing work,but also working with employers,
including specifically companiesand other employers
who are seekingStem talent right for the Stem workforce.
(10:21):
That's where we wanted the Frist centerfor Autism and Innovation
to be operating technology developmentand transforming the workplace.
Inspired by the human diversity of mindand enabling access
for individuals, and enabling accessfor those who seek to employ
those talented individuals. Very cool.
One of the specific programsI know has been very successful there
(10:43):
I wanted to ask you about.
It's the Frist center's
PhD program in neurodiversityinspired science and engineering.
Can you tell us a little bitabout the success of that program?
Yeah, I'm very proud of that.
And I want to clearly acknowledgeand thank the National Science Foundation
for the NSF Research TraineeshipGrants, the NRT grant
(11:03):
that we receivedto help create this interdisciplinary
PhD program, develop a set of graduateseminar courses to support it.
And, of course, the abilitythat that Grant gave us to recruit
students, support them with stipendsand all the rest.
But the Neurodiversity Inspired Scienceand Engineering, or Nice program
(11:24):
was developed with the idea
that especiallybut not only for neurodivergent students,
in science and engineering,having an interdisciplinary PhD program
that would support them in their journeytoward a PhD.
In coming up with ideas, inventions,
(11:48):
technologies, scientific approaches,and algorithms, all the kinds of things
that PhD students doin the course of their doctoral training.
But to invite students to be thinkingcreatively
about those things researchprojects, dissertation projects
that would intentionally
(12:08):
include their neurodiverse perspectives,we believed,
and it had been borne out
after five years of running the program,that we would be able to better recruit
neurodiverse studentsto better support them,
and have better outcomesin terms of their own PhD completion.
But also just
the great discoveries and innovationsthat they would create along the way.
(12:32):
For example,we have had PhD students who have designed
virtual reality platformsthat teach autistic adults
how to engage in social communicationthat will allow them to be
more successful in gaining employmentand being successful on the job.
We have had PhD students who have created.
(12:55):
This has nothing to do with autism per se,but bringing their creative perspective.
Have designed and patented detector
for mining a rare earthmaterial from asteroids that
and we have, an
autistic woman,who is finishing her PhD now
in biophysics, who, based on her own livedexperience, has designed
(13:20):
and is commercializing an ear implant
that will allow individualsto fine tune their auditory experience
if they have auditory sensitivitiesthat can create challenges for them
as they move through the world,you know, much more
intelligently than a simple noisecanceling headset, right?
I mean, by inviting that creativityand that inventiveness that springs
(13:44):
from one's own lived experience,we're seeing a tremendous outcomes.
As just one more example, we havean autistic man in our neuroscience
PhD programbecause participating in our Nice program
and our program, who,when he completes his PhD in neuroscience
in a couple of years,he will, to our knowledge,
become the world'sfirst non-verbal autistic neuroscientist.
(14:08):
Think about that.
These are outcomes and opportunitiesthat are now possible
because of the advent of technologiesthat we didn't have available to us
even ten years ago.
And, you know, these folks are changingthe world, changing
how we understandthe very nature of the human mind.
Right?
Because they are now able to bringand communicate and express
(14:31):
and share their unique perspectivesand their inventiveness and creativity.
It's really cool because maybe even 20or 30 years ago like that wouldn't.
Happen, right?
The path to that opportunitywouldn't exist, right?
The time. It's so cool.
And this work has been acknowledgedin a big way.
This year. You got the MacArthurfellowship.
(14:51):
Can you talk a little bit aboutyour experience getting the genius grant?
What was that like?What does that mean to you?
Oh my goodness.
Well,I mean, first of all, just what an honor.
And, you know, it's the kind of thingthat I think you can't expect.
I mean, it's not something you apply for,and it's
such an out, outrageous
(15:12):
recognitionthat I certainly never imagined it coming.
It was very unexpectedand and just a tremendous surprise.
But a great honor.
One of the things that I am gratefulfor about it
is that it gave me an opportunityto talk about this work
that we've been discussing,and to talk about it in the terms
(15:32):
that the MacArthurfellowship is intended for,
which is about creativity,you know, sort of creative genius.
And I don't mean to apply that to myselfnecessarily, but rather
that the workthat I do as an astrophysicist,
but also as a developer of Stem talent,
is really very much inspiredby the idea that creative genius
(15:55):
is out there and oftentimesin unexpected forms or in ways
that we in the pasthave not understood how to recognize.
I think of that actuallyas sort of my life's work,
beyond my legacy as a scientist and thescientific discoveries that I'm a part of.
It's all learninghow to recognize and enlist human talent
(16:16):
for scientific discovery in new ways,
recognizing creative geniusin new and different ways and new forms.
The MacArthur gave me an opportunityto speak to
that work that I find so meaningful,and to speak to it in those terms.
I think that was important.
Now, you mentioned NSF supportslightly earlier,
and I like to try to work that insince we're yeah, where we are right now.
(16:37):
What difference has thingslike your career award
made to the trajectory of your careeritself?
Like what difference has the NSF supportmade for you?
It is not an exaggeration for me to say
that NSF supportthroughout my scientific career,
from the very beginning tothis day, has fueled,
(17:00):
has accelerated, has enabled in waysotherwise not possible
that every stage and at every turnin my career NSF support has been
the enabler, has been the fuel has beenthe accelerate technology.
Yeah.
As a graduate student,I received a graduate research fellowship
from NSF that gave me a recognition andand premature,
(17:22):
but also a certain amount of independenceto be able to shape
my own PhD experience in waysthat I might not have
otherwise been able to,including as a graduate student
undertaking some professionaland leadership development activities
that would later position me to be ableto, for example,
(17:42):
create the partnership programbetween Vanderbilt and Fisk
that has become one of the top producersof PhDs to underrepresented
minorities and neurodiversepeople in the physical sciences.
The ability that I had to developthat work
as a part of my NSF career,grant supported early career work
(18:03):
was very much enabled by NSF support of me
as a PhD student to begin learningthose leadership development skills,
and then later the NSF partnershipsfirst right
I in astrophysics research and education,the pair grant
that we receive to really build outand scale up and institutionalize
(18:24):
the Fisk, Vanderbilt Partnershipprogram was critical for taking
what was initially an individualPi project, but
really scale it up and institutionalize itinto what it has now become
all the way to now, the active
NSF Research Traineeship grantthat has allowed us to create and operate
(18:44):
the Neurodiversity Inspire Scienceand Engineering PhD program.
These have been NSF supportsto me as an individual,
but even more importantto the sort of the Institute symbolization
and scale up and model developmentkind of work that has enabled
not just the support of me asan individual scientist, but the creation
and dissemination of model programsthat touch lots and lots of lives.
(19:09):
It has all been enabledand fueled and accelerated by NSF support.
So my last question hereis thinking about the future.
What do you see ahead in your workor more broadly,
if you want to, I'll, I'll leavehow you answer this question.
Up to you.But what do you see in the future?
What makes you optimistic aboutwhat's coming up in the next few years?
(19:30):
Well, I'll give you an astrophysics answerand I'll give you a human talent answer,
because I think very much and very hardabout both of those things.
On the astrophysics front, I am excited.
Literally every morning
I wake up just filled with excitementabout the discoveries
that I know are right on our horizonaround habitable worlds.
(19:53):
Signs of life elsewhere in the universe.
I mean, these are real discoveriesthat are waiting to be made,
and they feel likethey're right around the corner.
And to have a front row seatand to be actively involved, to have my
fingers literally.
And the data that we're collecting to makethose discovery is this.
Oh, I just it feels likeI'm a kid in a candy shop with that.
(20:16):
And at the same time,I feel so privileged to be
working at a time when we are learning
how to recognize human talentfor the science and technology
workforce needsthat we're going to have now,
and that we're going to have more and morethrough this century, learning
how to recognize human talent in new ways,where we didn't know
(20:39):
how to recognize talent in the past,that human diversity of mind that we need,
and learning how to recognizeand support it, that excites me, too.
It fills me with that very humankind of hope
that we really will be able to tackleand solve big, big challenges
that only scientists and engineersand technologists can solve.
(21:00):
There is a depth and a breadthto the talent
that exists in the diversity of human mindthat is available to us,
and we're learninghow to recognize and tap into it.
Special thanks to Keivan Stassun.
For The Discovery Files, I'm Nate Pottker.
You can watch video versions
of these conversations on our YouTubechannel by searching @NSFscience.
Please subscribe wherever you get podcastsand if you like our program,
(21:22):
share it with a friendand consider leaving a review.
Discover how the U.S.
National Science Foundationis advancing research at NSF.gov.
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