March 21, 2023 • 39 mins
Sammy Ramsey’s interests have always been wide, but many mentors told him to keep those passions private and choose one professional lane. On The Ampersand’s final episode of season one, Ramsey, who is an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado Boulder, discusses how he navigated these pressures, chose to embrace his full self even if it got him kicked out of graduate school and how fighting to bring his entire identity to work and life generally has helped him become a stronger biologist, speaker, graduate student mentor, researcher and human being.
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For more on his research and speaking opportunities, visit Dr. Sammy’s website and the Ramsey Research Foundation.
Music by Nelson Walker.
Written and produced by Erika Randall and Tim Grassley.
Episodes recorded at Interplay Recording in Boulder, CO.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
(background chatter)
- I imagine Sammy Ramsey walking
onto the set of CBS Mornings.
The show host shuffle paper,
skim their notes aboutthe entomology guest,
and glance at Sammy,
expecting to see a shyresearcher who finds comfort
(00:21):
in the granularity of bugs.
But before they can offer him advice,
Sammy breaks into a wide smile,
looks each person in the eyeand says, "You'll do great."
As they blast into the interview,
Sammy weaves together a warmpersonality, hysterical quotes,
and profound researchstated in accessible terms
that causes everyone tosearch for their phones
(00:42):
and glimpse the bugs he discusses.
In a blink, the interview ends,
and I imagine the cast and set crew aglow,
each person wishing they could be pulled
into Sammy's gravity again.
(crickets chirp)
I can't imagine a betterway to end our first season
(01:04):
of The Ampersand.
On this, our eighth episode,
you will hear how Sammyweaves together his loves
of entomology, singingin several languages,
public speaking,
faith, identity, socialjustice, and so much more,
while ANDing comes naturally now,
Sammy also discusses the waysin his career that he tried
to code switch and changehow he presented himself
(01:25):
to match the preferences orcontext that others preferred.
(soft music)
This was equal partsexhausting and lonely.
And instead, he decidedto fully embrace ANDing
and in his words, "Sammy,as he is all the time."
(warm music)
On The Ampersand,
(01:46):
we call this bringingtogether of the impossible,
the alchemy of ANDing.
Together we'll hear stories ofhumans who imagine and create
by colliding their interests.
Rather than thinking ofand as a simple conjunction
in that conjunction junction kinda way,
we will hear stories ofpeople who see and as a verb,
a way to speak the beautiful,
when you intentionally let the soft animal
(02:07):
of your body love what it loves.
As St. Mary Oliver asks,
"What is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"
Oh, I love this question.
When I'm mothering,creating and collaborating,
it reminds me to replace a singular idea
of what I think I should become
with a full sensoryverb about experiencing.
(02:27):
I'm Erika Randall, andthis is Sammy Ramsey
on The Ampersand.
(soft music continues)
- Let me say, I don'ttruly feel like I had much
of a choice when it came to ANDing,
or at least I didn'tlike the other options
(02:48):
because I have a multifacetedintersectional identity.
And so it's been difficult for me in that,
I've never really felt like I fit in any
of the spaces that I jump into.
So as a Queer person,I'm always like too gay
for the Christians, butas a person of faith,
I'm always too Christian for the gays.
(03:10):
Like as a really,
really like excitable scientist,
oftentimes some of theother sciencey folks feel
that the way that I comeoff is unprofessional.
- That shirt you're wearing right now
under that very professorial cardigan.
I know it's got a lot going on,
but we got like professorby the fire and then let's,
let's go like littlecosmo cocktail happy hour.
(03:32):
- That's how I do it though.
- Every day.
- I mean, my choice there
was to either start projecting one aspect
of my identity to different groups
or to give them all of it at once.
Now I gave people all of it at once,
didn't always turn out well.
So for a while,
code switching was a huge part of life.
When I would hang out witha certain group of people,
(03:53):
I would speak the waythat they spoke and try
to present only the side of me
that I knew that they would connect with.
And I got really tired of that.
- And lonely.
- Yeah.
- That's not you, that's not Sammy.
- It's not fully me.
It's only a facet of me.
So ANDing became a reallyimportant part of this.
And it hasn't been something
that I've done throughoutmy life consistently.
(04:14):
I've bounced back and forth,
but at this point Ihave decided it's Sammy
as he is all the time.
- Yes, I'm with this.
I mean, I have very often in my life
been said that I'm extra.
- Oh yeah.
- Do you get extra?
- Oh yeah, I'm like guac baby.
I'm extra.
All the time.
- All the time.
And not on the side.
(04:34):
- Oh, no.
We mix it in.- Yeah.
- We mix it in.
You gotta stir.
- And so, okay.
I really, but it wasn't always this way.
There was the code switching Sammy.
There was the showingup in a category, Sammy,
there was a,
I gotta put this on, right,
so that you went into theproverbial closet and understood
this outfit will now speak to these folks.
And was that a true story
(04:56):
as a kiddo when you were a kitten,
did you think I have tobe in a lane or did you,
were you maybe thatway when you were young
and then you lost.
- Precisely, oh, you got this.
I can tell you've beenthrough some of this yourself.
When I was a kid, I wasthe most bright-eyed,
bubbly, effervescent.
The world is such a beautifulplace and everybody's so nice.
(05:18):
And as you interact with moreand more groups of people,
sometimes that veneer tends to rub off.
There were ways that somecynicism worked its way in.
And I felt like differentgroups of people just didn't
connect to me as all of me.
When people saw ways thatthey could potentially,
I don't wanna say capitalize,but this is capitalism.
So yeah, capitalize off ofthe skillset that I have.
(05:41):
I was encouraged by more than a few people
who wanted to guide my career.
- As a child actor?
No, as an etymologist.
- Well, yeah, no, as anentomologist, as a vocalist,
as a performer, as a public speaker.
- Any of the lanes, someonecould get in there and say,
I'm gonna take thisSammy, and we're gonna go.
- I was told, I want youto take a single theme,
(06:04):
make that your social media theme.
So Dr. Sammy, the scientist.
So no more music.
Don't do the music thing.
That's too confusing for people
that you're singing in English,you're singing in Thai,
you're doing entomology stuff,
you're doing public speaking stuff,
you're talking about faith stuff.
It's all too much.
Pick one.
And the thing that peoplewant to see is Dr. Bugs,
Dr. Sammy the entomologist.
(06:25):
So stick with that one.
And when I was in graduate school,
I was repeatedly told theselittle science lessons that
you're doing online, thescience communication thing.
- Don't do it.
- That's gonna cause peopleto take you less seriously.
As a scientist,
you really need to stop thatand you've definitely gotta
stop the singing thing,
like this whole musical persona.
- These were mentors.- Yeah.
(06:45):
- And hilariously enough,when I was an undergrad,
I was told, you know what?
You had a really difficult timein chemistry this semester.
Everybody's not cut out for college,
but you're a great singer.
Maybe you should just do the music thing.
- And can we also pauseon the do the music thing
as if that were an easy choice.
As a dancer, folks arealways saying, oh, how fun.
(07:06):
Oh, so fun.
You get to do that.
No.
So I'm imagining as a professor,
you're a different kind of mentor.
- I'm definitely adifferent kind of mentor.
My mentoring stylereally considers the fact
that so many students in graduate school
have had a terrible timewith advisors already
or they've heard of theirfriends who have had a terrible
(07:27):
time with advisors.
And I wanna make sure thatI'm not the sort of person
that continues to perpetuatethose difficulties.
It's easy to do because being a professor
is a stressful job.
You're constantly being evaluated.
You're worried about whetheryou're gonna get tenure
and then after tenure full professorship
and yada yada, yada, yada yada.
And it can create this veryselfish dynamic to the way that
(07:48):
you think where your studentsare just a means to an end.
If they do well, then youcan more easily get tenure.
If they're struggling,
you need to stop investing so much in them
so that you can upgrade other levels
of your portfolio andensure you get tenure.
I don't wanna focus soheavily on that set of goals
that I forget that theseindividuals are people.
- Yes.
- And so I take those,
(08:08):
those times where I amgetting really hyper-focused
on different categories.
And remember, I am alot of different things,
not just someone who wants tenure.
And the ANDing is what allows me
to be a helpful professor to them.
- That was a mic drop.
That was the quietest that Sammy
and I will be all day was that.
(08:29):
- I believe that.
- Uh-oh sweater's coming off.
- Oh, it's, yeah.
It's a powerful thing to see humans
for who they are and know that those,
those elements are whatactually are gonna grow them
in their research, intheir humanity, in their,
I talk to my studentsabout doing 10% less.
(08:49):
And that doesn't mean inthe categories of things,
but how do we actually comeat all the things we love
so that we can bringall the things we are,
but just 10% less so thatyou can just not feel
like I have to cut out a lane.
Because that's what's so often said to us,
when I was young and Iwanted to be a dancer,
I also wanted to be a dancer and a writer.
(09:11):
And you know, I had this sense,
but I wanted to be a dancerthat was gonna be the vehicle.
Did you have the vehicle for yourself?
You had it.
- Yeah, no, for sure.
So I knew at age seven,
so I told my parents as a seven year old,
I'm gonna be anentomologist when I grow up.
Yeah, it was pretty cool actually.
- What did it?
Well, I mean,
(09:31):
so the funny thing is Igenerally assumed everybody knew
what they wanted to be when they grew up.
- Oh, me too, a hundred percent.
That's why I'm a failure as a mother.
My 11 year old doesn't know.
And I'm like, wait,
you said something different last week.
Failing.
- 'Cause parents, I mean,
adults ask little kids all the time
and what do you wanna be when you grew up?
So I just assumed everybodyknew and it literally wasn't.
- I thought you were gonnasay you assumed that everybody
(09:52):
wanted to be an entomologist.
- Oh, no, no, no.
That would've been no, no, no, no.
I knew I was, I knew Iwas an oddity in that one.
But I thought everybodyhad it figured out.
- Yeah.
- Until I got to college
and watched all of my friends change
majors like eight times.
So it was actually areally fascinating moment
of interaction with my parents
that I think of as thisreally pivotal point.
(10:14):
- At seven.
- At seven.- Yeah.
- And it's funny because my parents
hardly even remember.
- Of course.
- Like, they're like, oh, we just,
we said this story so much stuff.
Yeah.
- We just heard this story.
But you held on,
did you put it in a,did you write it down?
- I did.
I did.
It was actually published
in the Entomological Society of America.
- You wrote it down at age seven
and it was published in the, okay.
- Yeah, actually I thinkI was 10 at that time.
(10:37):
- So can you read fromyour brain what you said?
- Read from my brain, lemme see.
When I was younger, I wasabsolutely terrified of insects,
but not like typical,
there's a cockroach on the floor
and I'm a little scared of it,
but I'm gonna put it in acup and take it outside.
Not that sort of deal.
No, no, no.
I was the sort of terrified
where I wouldn't go outside for recess.
(10:58):
'Cause I didn't want toencounter any insects
on their own turf.
So I'm gonna stay inside.
- No, encounters.
- No, encounters.
I was the sort that wasconsistently having nightmares about
insects to the extentthat my father had to come
into my room at night when I wake up
in a night terror and step on
individual insects as the only way
to get me to go back to sleep.
- So you hate Jeff Goldblum.
(11:20):
- Jeff Goldblum has made some decisions,
but it was,
it was my mom who had this bright idea
of let's let's get him a library card.
So my parents told me,
people fear what they don't understand.
And as a seven year old armed
(11:40):
with my brand new library card,
my parents parked me inthe entomology section
of the library and they were like,
learn about these creaturesand then you won't fear them.
- I love your parents.- Aren't they the coolest?
Do we love your parents?- Aren't they the coolest?
- Do they feel that way about everything,
about dealing with the world.
This is how Dr. Sammy is.
- What I love about my parents
(12:01):
is they never saw a reason
for me to section off all of the chunks
of my identity either.
They knew that I was a little strange.
I was consistently being told, really?
You wanna be an entomologist?
This is what other people were saying.
My parents were saying, you do this.
If you're excited about this,this is what you should.
- How long did you stay in the library?
How long did you stay?
(12:21):
- Oh my gosh.
So the entire summer I was just going back
pretty much every day, checking out books,
learning about these creatures.
I remember the very firstbook that I checked out
was called "Chirping Insects."
Yeah.
I still remember the book.
I still remember the cover and everything.
- Is it your favorite?
- Well, here's the thing.
- Yeah, love story.
- I had a bunch of bugs that really got
(12:42):
on my nerves and so Iwanted to target them
and crickets and grasshoppers,
crickets and katydids werereally confusing to me because
I truly thought that theywere making all of this noise
to get on my nerves to keep me up.
The hilarious part about it is creatures
like camel crickets when they jump at you,
it's an evolutionary adaptationthat truly wouldn't work if
(13:04):
you were in on what they were doing.
- Okay, what, let's get in.
- So the idea is they jumpat you to frighten you away.
- Yeah, they think you're small.
- No, no, no, no, no, no.
They think that you aregoing to be afraid of them,
because they're so bold.
But they don't haveanything to back it up.
- They're brashest creatures on earth.
- Basically the idea is theythink you're gonna look at them
(13:27):
and say, why is it jumping at me?
It must know something, I don't know.
I'm gonna run away, and it works.
It truly works all the time.
People are constantly callingme about camel crickets
that charge them andare gonna murder them.
And I'm like, no, no, no.
It's just a cricket, it has no powers.
It's all false bravado.
- Yeah.
- I guess bravado is awful, anyway.
- So you went to the naughty list first.
You were like, these arethe ones I can't even take.
(13:48):
- But the very first thingthat I learned about these
creatures were that they wantedso many of the same things
that we want as human beings.
So those crickets are outthere looking for a mate,
and the song that they're singing
is a song of lonelinessand hopefulness, come on,
there's somebody out herethat's gotta hear me,
gotta hear this beautiful song
(14:10):
and think that I'm worthwhile.
Please, please, come on, come on,
come on over here.
And it's like their version of tender.
It's kinda cute.
- So you're an empath.
- I'm just a touch,
just a touch of theempathy going on there.
- So now I have a cricketwith an acoustic guitar.
- Yeah.
- And a spotlight.- Yeah.
- And a field.
(14:31):
And suddenly the world is empty.
And my heart.- Yeah.
- My heart.- Yeah.
I'm glad that you'vetaken that opportunity
to just hear the song ofthe cricket in your heart,
'cause it's a beautiful one.
- If you were to name that song,
what would you call that song?
- I believe that song is called,
(14:54):
hey there sweet thing,
I've been this lonelyfor a long, long time.
Why don't you,
why don't you bring that file on over here
and we can make some sweet,beautiful music together.
Oh yeah.
- I'm trying not to laughinto the microphone.
(15:17):
That was my favoritecricket impression ever.
- Oh yeah.
- Wait till Pixar gets ahold of that.
- Oh yeah.
All crickets are Barry White to me.
The problem that,
you can probably see why I run
into this issue of people feeling
that the way that I doscience is unprofessional.
- Yeah.
- And part of it is the,
(15:37):
I like to tell people that
the most effectively I've been
able to communicate information to people
is when they're awake.
And so my goal is to make sure
that when I am communicating science,
when I'm interacting with people,
that I bring the entirety ofmy personality to that one.
(15:58):
Because people think thatpersonality is a liability
in a lot of these professional contexts.
That's something that needsto be ditched in order for you
to be successful, I disagree.
- Disagree hundred percent.
- But secondly,
because people aren't used to seeing
or hearing people like me in science,
and I need them to know thatI don't have to look or sound
anything like anyone else youhave ever seen in science.
(16:19):
Diversity is absolutely essentialto a healthy functioning
ecosystem in science andto the human ecosystem
that we have built around ourselves.
- Yes.
And this is a critical thing for you
in the role of a professor,
for you in the role as an educator,
just across the areas thatyou're passionate about,
(16:43):
how you showing up?
A hundred percent, 112%.
We gotta get the extra on,
actually does the world as much good
or more good than the science can do?
And the categories that we're told
have more value than the embodied.
And that's what's sowas so exciting for me
when I'm listening to you,
listening to you when I was reading you,
listening to you talking about diversity
(17:05):
as a necessity to theway that we're thinking,
to the way that we're living,
to the way that we're cohabitating
with animal life, human life. I
It's always, there's not a column.
There's not a a placefor us to just check.
But the more that we'relooking at the world
from a diverse lens
and you do this in yourclassroom by showing up.
(17:27):
You do this in yourresearch by showing up.
You do this in church, youdo this in this interview,
you do this in humanity.
Is there a time when all that ending
and all that's showing up, it gets quiet?
And Sammy doesn't have to be.
- So my social battery, if you will,
(17:50):
is actually charged bybeing around people.
I get really excited.
I get full of energy whenI'm around other people.
I can just hang out for reallylengthy periods of time.
As soon as I'm not around people
that all of that energy evaporates.
I take a deep breath andthen I just kinda chillax.
(18:10):
- But you don't go into it,
so I often tell my students,
I'm like, don't worry.
I know I'm a lot, but I cry every day.
I feel like I have tosay that almost as a,
but you feel the same.
Do you feel me?
Is there like the moment where you go,
oh God, it's a lot like,because I'll be feel like,
'cause I'm in all the feelings,
the open wound kind of feeling the world,
you're feeling all the bugs.
I mean, you have a huge population
(18:31):
that your heart is taking care of.
- Ah, yeah.
- Yeah, I mean, I feelit all the time though.
And the question is, howmuch of it do I like,
I kind of have to release it in doses.
My primary way of doingthat is through singing.
- Yes.
- I do a lot of singingrandomly to myself,
(18:52):
a lot of singing when I'm just in my car.
And it's kind of my way ofregulating my mood and releasing
those emotions and ways that are healthy.
Kind of a pressure relief valve.
That's my way of doing it.
I guess that's my versionof crying every day.
If you get through an entire24 hours without me singing
a single note, I'm not alive.
- Not good, not good.
(19:14):
911 immediately.
- Not conscious.
Yeah.
- All right.
So in the world, thereare bugs we wanna step on.
There are bugs that deserve violence.
Okay, I'm not gonna say anything more
about that word violence
that folks have sometimes associated
with one of the most nonseemingly nonviolent humans
I've ever met.
I wanna take a, I wanna,because I am into the metaphor.
(19:35):
There are some bugs we wanna step on.
Are there other things thatSammy wants to step on?
What else do you just wanna just take out?
We don't need it, we don't need,
not healthy to this.
- So you're definitely referring to CBS.
- I might be,
I might be referring to thething that was a TikTok that
became a Insta, that becamea meme that became a meme,
I think it became a Fortnite dance.
(19:57):
- Yeah.
- CBS Mornings probably oneof my most viewed interviews.
I say to Tony and Vladand Gail King, like, yeah,
we as the scientific communitywant you to choose violence.
And I was like,
this is probably gonna be takenoutta context at some point,
so you gotta watch it, Sammy.
But I was specificallytalking about a single insect,
(20:19):
the spotted lantern fly.
And I actually don't thinkthe insect deserves violence.
It's not that insect'sfault that it's here.
We did this, we keep doing this.
We have a global ecosystem now.
They're no longer the discretepockets of ecosystem that
used to exist back in theday where you could say,
the Asian ecosystem,
the African ecosystem, NorthAmerican, South American,
(20:41):
everything moves aroundnow because we are,
we as human beings have gainedthe ability to travel all
the way across the worldin a matter of hours.
So we take things with us.
- We can't expect theinsects not to do the same.
- Exactly.
And as we have done many times,
we've brought over plantsand pottery and other things
from other countries that have had little
egg masses in them.
(21:01):
And those insects havefound an entire environment
where nothing eats them.
And that is amazing for them.
They are living their best lives.
I'm happy for them.
Problem is when they livetheir best lives too long
and too strong, they can actually demolish
important elements of the ecosystem
(21:21):
that we rely on and thatother organisms rely on.
And so our goal is to set things back
to the way that they were before,
to hopefully remove thoseorganisms from the ecosystem
and have them remain in the ecosystem
where they have predators.
- How do we do this?
Violence?
We as the research community
(21:43):
are working on ways to actuallycontrol these organisms,
either through biological control,
through messing aroundwith their genetics.
We are gonna take.
- Shopping malls in their home areas
with really good sushi restaurants.
- That would do it.
That would do it.
- If we were just to take the new not,
you can't just have like row.
You gotta put up somethingthat feels established.
(22:03):
Maybe a pub.
- They would have toliquefy the sushi though,
because their mouth is a straw,so they can't really chew.
- So a pub.
- Yeah, a pub, a pub would be great.
A pub would be great, yeah.
- So that's what we gotta get on.
- Yeah, we're working on that.
In the interim,
we wanna ensure that theseorganisms don't spread farther
and their populations don't get so huge
that even if we come up with a great idea,
(22:24):
we can't control them.
- And why are we so mad at them?
What are they hurting?
These aren't our bee killers.
- Why are we mad at the,
the primary reason why we're mad at them.
- Why are we mad at them?
- They're messing with our wine.
- Oh, well, okay, nowall the moms out there,
all the moms who made it through COVID.
- Yeah.
- You're with me, violence.
(22:44):
- Yeah, there is an oldAfrican American proverb
that I feel like really
applies well here is ain'tnobody got time for that.
And honestly, nobody,
it's got time for these insects
to be destroying our wine crops.
- No, okay.
Or I mean, all these vineyards out here,
they are really, really,
really concerned about theimpact that these insects have.
And they stick their mouthparts in the plant and they suck
(23:06):
the fluids out that wouldallow for these plants
to eventually make the kinds of grapes
that would make for great wine.
- So do you have a like,
free Airbnb stay on theCalifornia Northern coast?
Do they just love you there?
Are you a spokes model?
Do you just get,
like advent wine calendars sent to you?
A new wine a day?
(23:27):
Did you even know that this was coming?
That you were now gonna be.
- The face of protecting wine?
- Yeah.- Yeah.
- The face of big wine.
As somebody who barely ever drinks,
I'm not the one that you would expect
to be the face of big wine.
Yeah, it precisely, what was his name?
(23:49):
Bingo Linga felt what?
- Lean bing heimer.
- But here you are showingup, the face of bugs,
the face of big wine and thenthe face of joy because this,
the joy situation is also happening.
It's happening, it'shappening in your life, right?
Do you feel like you have,
(24:11):
all the choices, all the coming together,
all the ending, is it bringing you joy?
- So here's something really interesting.
Joy can be really difficultfor people sometimes
when they're seeing itconsistently in another individual.
It can leave them with theimpression that something is
wrong with them.
(24:31):
Why am I not feeling that sense of joy?
Why don't I wake up in the morning
with just this verb andexcitement for life?
And so I've actually met a few people
who've really poked at the idea
that this joy exists inside of me.
And they've tried tofigure out if it's fake.
(24:51):
They tried to figure outif it's performative.
They've tried to figure out if it's toxic.
At the end of the day,
I really enjoy getting to be all of me.
And I've had to fight for it.
I've had to fight at churchto just be able to exist
as a Queer person in the entirety
of my identity in all theplaces where it applies.
(25:13):
I've been excommunicated fromchurch and had to figure out
how do I continue to be a person of faith?
'Cause I'm not gonna letpeople just take things from me
that I don't think thatthey should be able to take.
- They don't get that.
- But how do I then do thatknowing that the communities
of faith that I'm used to don't see me
as someone who's welcome there?
How do I continue being an entomologist?
(25:36):
When I was, actually thisis, this was pretty tough.
I was actually removed fromgraduate school during my,
what was it, my second year of my PhD.
I was told, your grades are great,
you've got a great project here,
but something about you
just doesn't seem like doctoral material.
So I'm dismissing you from the program.
(25:57):
Yeah.
- You can see my human face.
- Remember what I told youabout how people are treated
in graduate school at times.
When you don't fit,
even if it doesn't,
even if it's not germaneto the science itself,
if you don't fit, it's like mean girls,
you can't sit with us,you can't sit with us.
And I had to fight to getback into graduate school.
(26:19):
I have fought in all of these categories
of my identity just to exist as who I am.
And I won those fights.
- Yeah, you earned the joy.
- And so the joy that I have,
Tory Kelly has this songcalled Unbreakable Smile.
I feel like I've gotthis unbreakable smile
that I fought for, and noone's taking that from me.
(26:41):
- Nobody's taking that.
It's amazing Sammy,
I think of in my field beingtold not being right happens
all the time, particularlyto female bodies,
to Black female bodies.
- Oh yeah.
- But in my own cis whitebody and in my own Queer body,
I was told no a lot when it came to molds.
(27:06):
And I don't think thatmy brain had caught up
to that notion
in the sciences where it seems
like you have all this evidence
that you were killing it.
All this evidence that youcan be and do and connect
and draw from and move forward.
All this evidence.
And they could still say no.
(27:28):
- They can still say no becausewe have a very problematic
structuring to graduate school.
I've jumped into the mix hereand I know that I'm still
pretty vulnerable as somebodywho doesn't have tenure.
But it is my hope to be able to promote
change or at the very least,
be able to promote the sortsof conversations that get
people thinking about this.
- Yes.
- When you get a degreeas an undergraduate,
(27:49):
that degree is goingto say that you satisfy
the requirements of the university
and the department that you are a part of.
When you get a degreeas a graduate student,
it says you satisfied therequirements of the department
and the university andyour faculty member.
That faculty mentor is theonly element of that where what
you need to do is not defined.
(28:10):
The number of credits you need is defined.
The number or the sorts of classes
you need to take are defined.
But what your faculty membermight want from you can even
come down to, you need tobe more doctoral material.
I'm not sure what that is,but you just need to be it.
- Be it.
- And unfortunately, I was told, yeah,
it just doesn't seem like you can be it.
(28:32):
I'm not sure quite whatit is, is an exact quote.
I can't quite put my finger on it.
But you're missing something.
You just don't have theskillset of a scientist
and I don't think you can learn it.
- Okay.
And I was told as a dancer,
you're gonna have to openyour aperture to data.
- Yeah.
- What does that mean?
- Dancers can't count past eight.
(28:54):
So thank goodness you knew not to listen.
Thank goodness thecricket song was louder.
- I love that.
The cricket song was louder.
The cicada song was louder.
And the song of my heartthat sings in different keys
and is constantly modulatingmelisma's everywhere.
I knew that that song couldnot be the vibrant symphony
(29:17):
that it should be unless I got to include
all the different instruments,all the different movements.
And so I fought,
and I am really glad thatI am currently in a space.
I love being here at Boulder.
I love being at theBio Frontiers Institute
and the Department of Ecologyand Evolutionary Biology.
(29:37):
They have spent so muchtime making it clear
to me that they support me.
That they understand thatthis multifaceted identity
is going to be differentfrom what they're used to,
but they're here for it.
And I love finally being ina context where all of those
elements of my identityget to just vibe together.
and create this super cool frequency.
(30:00):
- Oh, my face hurts.
My actual,
I have like the tear duct feeling
where I'm gonna cry at any second.
And then I got my cheeks pushing into it.
So there's this, because
it's really rare to getto spend time with a human
who is as present with whothey are and the challenges.
And so I feel like you'renot an under bug at all.
(30:21):
There's not a single part ofyou that is feeling like that
old stuff is stopping
the curiosity,
the ANDing,
the just the loving being here.
It's amazing.
So singing, there's alsothings that bugs do,
which is they build things, right?
(30:43):
Do you get into all bug activities?
Like are you like obsessedwith like the bugs
and then so you sing,like, are you a builder?
Are you a what do you what,
what are the other wayswhere you're like, oh my God,
I really am metamorphosizinginto my research.
- I see you over there, I see you.
- I'm feeling, I'm justlike, I'm just receiving.
I'm just a mirror to your awesome.
(31:03):
- Not even remotely true.
The way that you aresynthesizing this information
is allowing for this conversation
to really be just verymutual, very beautiful.
I'm really enjoying this.
- I'm super grateful.
- As an entomologist,
I like to tell people I primarily
study pollinator health and symbiosis,
close relationships between organisms that
(31:25):
make incredible things happen.
- Like this that's happening.
- This one's a mutualism.
- Yeah, yeah.
Sometimes it's parasitism.
Sometimes it's commensalism.
This one's mutualism.- Mutualism, okay.
I'm so glad to know that.
- I also like for people to know
I'm an equal opportunity entomologist.
I have been studying all the different
kinds of insects for a long time.
The very first lecture that I gave
in my insect bio class this semester,
(31:47):
I wanted to focus onthis one specific theme.
I told my students, entomologyis the study of diversity.
There is no more diverse group
of organisms on this planet than insects.
Just, what is it?
Two thirds of every,
two thirds of all the animals are insects.
Like three quarters bysome measures, actually.
(32:08):
So it's really remarkable tothink that the greatest amount
of diversity are creatures
that we consistently step on or ignore.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, I mean, bugs arethe most fascinating thing
we've ever stepped on.
- But when we just said that, I know,
but then they,
when you put that intothe metaphor of the world.
- Yeah.
- Oh, you just broke my heart again.
- I mean, it's rough considering
that in the world that we exist in,
(32:30):
the people that, well,
am I gonna jump into that right now?
Let's go.
- Well, okay, here we go.
In the world that we currently exist in,
if you were to look atso much of our media,
so much of our attention, it'smostly about white people.
Even though they are notthe primary group of, like,
(32:51):
there are more people who are not white
on this planet by far.
And it's interesting to considerthat we as human beings,
there are a lot of people thatwe forget about that we don't
consider or that we even stepon at times and think about
what they bring to the table.
(33:13):
I think it was Stephen Jay Gould who said
that he has to think about the fact,
and this is paraphrasing,
he has to think about thefact that while Einstein
was incredible, there are intellects
just as amazing as histhat have lived and died,
never leaving the paddyfield where they grew up.
Never once have many of us hadthe opportunity to interact
(33:37):
with individuals from thesefar-flung reaches of the world
and think about the thingsthat they can teach us.
Because as I said before,
entomology is the study of diversity.
But what is diversity itself?
Organisms that achieve diversityby finding a way to solve
a problem that anothercreature hasn't thought of.
And think about how incredible
(33:57):
that would be for us ifwe truly embraced that.
Our country,
the United States is so incrediblebecause of the remarkable
diversity that we have allowed in
and that we have nurtureda number of ways.
And now that we are startingto see so many different people
from so many different places,
there are individuals who havesought to use that as a way
(34:18):
to divide us and frightenus into thinking that that
diversity is going to be our demise,
when it has only been ourstrength to this point.
- I am so glad you went there.
- Yeah.
- I'm so glad you went there.
I am so glad because I hear it
in the depth of yourresearch and your knowing
and that it isn't a metaphor,
(34:39):
that it's actually it's science.
- Oh yeah.
- And it's also, it's super human
to be able to articulate it.
I'm looking to Tim, doI have to, is it time?
Can I keep going?
- Oh, no.
- Because I,
this is the moment I was afraidof from the very beginning.
It doesn't mean we can't.
Okay
- It just means you gotta have me back.
(35:00):
- I'm gonna have you back and/orthat we can look for bugs.
It's happening.
We're doing the thing.
- Let's do this thing.
- Okay, but before we do the thing,
this is our flash round.
I call it the quick and dirty.
- Let's do this.
- Are you ready?
Okay. So you.
- This is the lightning bug round.
- This is lightning, oh my God.
Oh, why didn't I, God Sammy.
- Well, you thought of under bug.
(35:20):
I love that.
- Okay, I didn't evenmean to think of that.
I just said it, all right, okay.
So I'm gonna give you a topicand you're gonna say the first
word or phrase that has andin it that comes to mind.
So if I say a terrifying yet harmless bug,
you could say the giant grass and cicada.
You see how the and was.
Okay.
Can you work with me on this?
- Oh, this is gonna be tough.
- Okay, you could say two together.
(35:41):
You could and it together, okay, okay.
A terrifying yet harmless bug.
- Terrifying yet, ah, ah, ah,
the New Zealand Wetar.
- The New Zealand Wetar.
Great, well played, well played.
- They're gigantic.- They're gigantic, but not,
we can ride them, but wedon't be scared of them.
- They can like eat a wholecarrot outta your hand.
(36:01):
They're so cute.
- So cute, really cute.
- Okay, you heard thatfriends at home, really cute.
Title of a bug book peoplewould read with and in it.
- Ooh, you can be making this up.
- Yeah, no.
Dr. Sammy and the Giant Bee.
- Okay.
If you were to have a TikTok moment,
(36:24):
what would you and on the TikTok.
- What would I and on the TikTok?
- Finger post to mouth, release.
Finger post to mouth release.
That was the dance annotationof what Dr. Sammy just did.
What would you, is that the move?
What would you And on the TikTok.
(36:46):
- I think I would and
black tie and gospel.
So black tie is my Thai singing persona
when I sing Thai music.
And I love like,
mixing Thai music with likethat gospel sensibility.
So yeah, some black tie, some gospel.
Yes.
- Okay, tuning in.
(37:07):
The greatest one hit music album.
- Oh.
Oh my.
These are tough.
- Know, I know.
Because they say fast justto make you just search
into the library of your mind.
But it's not really fast.
- No, no, it's not at all.
- Okay, all right, I'm gonna make it easy.
The greatest album in your heart space
that has and in it, any album.
(37:27):
Doesn't have to be one hitany favorite album with and.
- Kirk Franklin and the Family.
- I don't know this woman,I'm gonna listen to it.
All right, your favoritePollen inspired food with and.
(37:50):
- My favorite polleninspired food with and.
- So like honey and toast.
- Be bread and jelly
- Be bread and jelly.
All right, we're gonna have that
on our picnic when we go out.
- Yeah, let's do that.
- Looking for bugs, okay.
Every episode we have a moment.
(38:11):
You're addressing a crowd.
- Okay.
- You're sending them off.
To the next.
And.
- And I would like to say,
don't let anybody tellyou how your story ends.
You are establishing somethingthat is all your own.
(38:33):
This is your song, this is your story,
this is your movement.
And nobody knows how this is going to end.
You don't even know howthis is going to end.
So don't let other peopletell you that they know.
Don't let them modulate
or change how all ofthis is going for you.
You got this.
(soft music)
(38:54):
- The Ampersand is writtenand produced by me,
Erica Randall and Tim Grassley.
If there are folks you'd liketo hear from on The Ampersand,
do please email us at asinfo@colorado.edu.
Our theme music was composedand performed by Nelson Walker,
a CU Boulder alum,brilliant cellist composer,
and a fantastic dancer.
(39:16):
Episodes are recorded at Interplay Studios
in Boulder, Colorado.
I'm Erica Randall.
And this is The Ampersand.
(background chatter)
- I imagine Sammy Ramsey walking
onto the set of CBS Mornings.
The show host shuffle paper,
skim their notes aboutthe entomology guest,
and glance at Sammy,
expecting to see a shyresearcher who finds comfort
(00:21):
in the granularity of bugs.
But before they can offer him advice,
Sammy breaks into a wide smile,
looks each person in the eyeand says, "You'll do great."
As they blast into the interview,
Sammy weaves together a warmpersonality, hysterical quotes,
and profound researchstated in accessible terms
that causes everyone tosearch for their phones
(00:42):
and glimpse the bugs he discusses.
In a blink, the interview ends,
and I imagine the cast and set crew aglow,
each person wishing they could be pulled
into Sammy's gravity again.
(crickets chirp)
I can't imagine a betterway to end our first season
(01:04):
of The Ampersand.
On this, our eighth episode,
you will hear how Sammyweaves together his loves
of entomology, singingin several languages,
public speaking,
faith, identity, socialjustice, and so much more,
while ANDing comes naturally now,
Sammy also discusses the waysin his career that he tried
to code switch and changehow he presented himself
(01:25):
to match the preferences orcontext that others preferred.
(soft music)
This was equal partsexhausting and lonely.
And instead, he decidedto fully embrace ANDing
and in his words, "Sammy,as he is all the time."
(warm music)
On The Ampersand,
(01:46):
we call this bringingtogether of the impossible,
the alchemy of ANDing.
Together we'll hear stories ofhumans who imagine and create
by colliding their interests.
Rather than thinking ofand as a simple conjunction
in that conjunction junction kinda way,
we will hear stories ofpeople who see and as a verb,
a way to speak the beautiful,
when you intentionally let the soft animal
(02:07):
of your body love what it loves.
As St. Mary Oliver asks,
"What is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"
Oh, I love this question.
When I'm mothering,creating and collaborating,
it reminds me to replace a singular idea
of what I think I should become
with a full sensoryverb about experiencing.
(02:27):
I'm Erika Randall, andthis is Sammy Ramsey
on The Ampersand.
(soft music continues)
- Let me say, I don'ttruly feel like I had much
of a choice when it came to ANDing,
or at least I didn'tlike the other options
(02:48):
because I have a multifacetedintersectional identity.
And so it's been difficult for me in that,
I've never really felt like I fit in any
of the spaces that I jump into.
So as a Queer person,I'm always like too gay
for the Christians, butas a person of faith,
I'm always too Christian for the gays.
(03:10):
Like as a really,
really like excitable scientist,
oftentimes some of theother sciencey folks feel
that the way that I comeoff is unprofessional.
- That shirt you're wearing right now
under that very professorial cardigan.
I know it's got a lot going on,
but we got like professorby the fire and then let's,
let's go like littlecosmo cocktail happy hour.
(03:32):
- That's how I do it though.
- Every day.
- I mean, my choice there
was to either start projecting one aspect
of my identity to different groups
or to give them all of it at once.
Now I gave people all of it at once,
didn't always turn out well.
So for a while,
code switching was a huge part of life.
When I would hang out witha certain group of people,
(03:53):
I would speak the waythat they spoke and try
to present only the side of me
that I knew that they would connect with.
And I got really tired of that.
- And lonely.
- Yeah.
- That's not you, that's not Sammy.
- It's not fully me.
It's only a facet of me.
So ANDing became a reallyimportant part of this.
And it hasn't been something
that I've done throughoutmy life consistently.
(04:14):
I've bounced back and forth,
but at this point Ihave decided it's Sammy
as he is all the time.
- Yes, I'm with this.
I mean, I have very often in my life
been said that I'm extra.
- Oh yeah.
- Do you get extra?
- Oh yeah, I'm like guac baby.
I'm extra.
All the time.
- All the time.
And not on the side.
(04:34):
- Oh, no.
We mix it in.- Yeah.
- We mix it in.
You gotta stir.
- And so, okay.
I really, but it wasn't always this way.
There was the code switching Sammy.
There was the showingup in a category, Sammy,
there was a,
I gotta put this on, right,
so that you went into theproverbial closet and understood
this outfit will now speak to these folks.
And was that a true story
(04:56):
as a kiddo when you were a kitten,
did you think I have tobe in a lane or did you,
were you maybe thatway when you were young
and then you lost.
- Precisely, oh, you got this.
I can tell you've beenthrough some of this yourself.
When I was a kid, I wasthe most bright-eyed,
bubbly, effervescent.
The world is such a beautifulplace and everybody's so nice.
(05:18):
And as you interact with moreand more groups of people,
sometimes that veneer tends to rub off.
There were ways that somecynicism worked its way in.
And I felt like differentgroups of people just didn't
connect to me as all of me.
When people saw ways thatthey could potentially,
I don't wanna say capitalize,but this is capitalism.
So yeah, capitalize off ofthe skillset that I have.
(05:41):
I was encouraged by more than a few people
who wanted to guide my career.
- As a child actor?
No, as an etymologist.
- Well, yeah, no, as anentomologist, as a vocalist,
as a performer, as a public speaker.
- Any of the lanes, someonecould get in there and say,
I'm gonna take thisSammy, and we're gonna go.
- I was told, I want youto take a single theme,
(06:04):
make that your social media theme.
So Dr. Sammy, the scientist.
So no more music.
Don't do the music thing.
That's too confusing for people
that you're singing in English,you're singing in Thai,
you're doing entomology stuff,
you're doing public speaking stuff,
you're talking about faith stuff.
It's all too much.
Pick one.
And the thing that peoplewant to see is Dr. Bugs,
Dr. Sammy the entomologist.
(06:25):
So stick with that one.
And when I was in graduate school,
I was repeatedly told theselittle science lessons that
you're doing online, thescience communication thing.
- Don't do it.
- That's gonna cause peopleto take you less seriously.
As a scientist,
you really need to stop thatand you've definitely gotta
stop the singing thing,
like this whole musical persona.
- These were mentors.- Yeah.
(06:45):
- And hilariously enough,when I was an undergrad,
I was told, you know what?
You had a really difficult timein chemistry this semester.
Everybody's not cut out for college,
but you're a great singer.
Maybe you should just do the music thing.
- And can we also pauseon the do the music thing
as if that were an easy choice.
As a dancer, folks arealways saying, oh, how fun.
(07:06):
Oh, so fun.
You get to do that.
No.
So I'm imagining as a professor,
you're a different kind of mentor.
- I'm definitely adifferent kind of mentor.
My mentoring stylereally considers the fact
that so many students in graduate school
have had a terrible timewith advisors already
or they've heard of theirfriends who have had a terrible
(07:27):
time with advisors.
And I wanna make sure thatI'm not the sort of person
that continues to perpetuatethose difficulties.
It's easy to do because being a professor
is a stressful job.
You're constantly being evaluated.
You're worried about whetheryou're gonna get tenure
and then after tenure full professorship
and yada yada, yada, yada yada.
And it can create this veryselfish dynamic to the way that
(07:48):
you think where your studentsare just a means to an end.
If they do well, then youcan more easily get tenure.
If they're struggling,
you need to stop investing so much in them
so that you can upgrade other levels
of your portfolio andensure you get tenure.
I don't wanna focus soheavily on that set of goals
that I forget that theseindividuals are people.
- Yes.
- And so I take those,
(08:08):
those times where I amgetting really hyper-focused
on different categories.
And remember, I am alot of different things,
not just someone who wants tenure.
And the ANDing is what allows me
to be a helpful professor to them.
- That was a mic drop.
That was the quietest that Sammy
and I will be all day was that.
(08:29):
- I believe that.
- Uh-oh sweater's coming off.
- Oh, it's, yeah.
It's a powerful thing to see humans
for who they are and know that those,
those elements are whatactually are gonna grow them
in their research, intheir humanity, in their,
I talk to my studentsabout doing 10% less.
(08:49):
And that doesn't mean inthe categories of things,
but how do we actually comeat all the things we love
so that we can bringall the things we are,
but just 10% less so thatyou can just not feel
like I have to cut out a lane.
Because that's what's so often said to us,
when I was young and Iwanted to be a dancer,
I also wanted to be a dancer and a writer.
(09:11):
And you know, I had this sense,
but I wanted to be a dancerthat was gonna be the vehicle.
Did you have the vehicle for yourself?
You had it.
- Yeah, no, for sure.
So I knew at age seven,
so I told my parents as a seven year old,
I'm gonna be anentomologist when I grow up.
Yeah, it was pretty cool actually.
- What did it?
Well, I mean,
(09:31):
so the funny thing is Igenerally assumed everybody knew
what they wanted to be when they grew up.
- Oh, me too, a hundred percent.
That's why I'm a failure as a mother.
My 11 year old doesn't know.
And I'm like, wait,
you said something different last week.
Failing.
- 'Cause parents, I mean,
adults ask little kids all the time
and what do you wanna be when you grew up?
So I just assumed everybodyknew and it literally wasn't.
- I thought you were gonnasay you assumed that everybody
(09:52):
wanted to be an entomologist.
- Oh, no, no, no.
That would've been no, no, no, no.
I knew I was, I knew Iwas an oddity in that one.
But I thought everybodyhad it figured out.
- Yeah.
- Until I got to college
and watched all of my friends change
majors like eight times.
So it was actually areally fascinating moment
of interaction with my parents
that I think of as thisreally pivotal point.
(10:14):
- At seven.
- At seven.- Yeah.
- And it's funny because my parents
hardly even remember.
- Of course.
- Like, they're like, oh, we just,
we said this story so much stuff.
Yeah.
- We just heard this story.
But you held on,
did you put it in a,did you write it down?
- I did.
I did.
It was actually published
in the Entomological Society of America.
- You wrote it down at age seven
and it was published in the, okay.
- Yeah, actually I thinkI was 10 at that time.
(10:37):
- So can you read fromyour brain what you said?
- Read from my brain, lemme see.
When I was younger, I wasabsolutely terrified of insects,
but not like typical,
there's a cockroach on the floor
and I'm a little scared of it,
but I'm gonna put it in acup and take it outside.
Not that sort of deal.
No, no, no.
I was the sort of terrified
where I wouldn't go outside for recess.
(10:58):
'Cause I didn't want toencounter any insects
on their own turf.
So I'm gonna stay inside.
- No, encounters.
- No, encounters.
I was the sort that wasconsistently having nightmares about
insects to the extentthat my father had to come
into my room at night when I wake up
in a night terror and step on
individual insects as the only way
to get me to go back to sleep.
- So you hate Jeff Goldblum.
(11:20):
- Jeff Goldblum has made some decisions,
but it was,
it was my mom who had this bright idea
of let's let's get him a library card.
So my parents told me,
people fear what they don't understand.
And as a seven year old armed
(11:40):
with my brand new library card,
my parents parked me inthe entomology section
of the library and they were like,
learn about these creaturesand then you won't fear them.
- I love your parents.- Aren't they the coolest?
Do we love your parents?- Aren't they the coolest?
- Do they feel that way about everything,
about dealing with the world.
This is how Dr. Sammy is.
- What I love about my parents
(12:01):
is they never saw a reason
for me to section off all of the chunks
of my identity either.
They knew that I was a little strange.
I was consistently being told, really?
You wanna be an entomologist?
This is what other people were saying.
My parents were saying, you do this.
If you're excited about this,this is what you should.
- How long did you stay in the library?
How long did you stay?
(12:21):
- Oh my gosh.
So the entire summer I was just going back
pretty much every day, checking out books,
learning about these creatures.
I remember the very firstbook that I checked out
was called "Chirping Insects."
Yeah.
I still remember the book.
I still remember the cover and everything.
- Is it your favorite?
- Well, here's the thing.
- Yeah, love story.
- I had a bunch of bugs that really got
(12:42):
on my nerves and so Iwanted to target them
and crickets and grasshoppers,
crickets and katydids werereally confusing to me because
I truly thought that theywere making all of this noise
to get on my nerves to keep me up.
The hilarious part about it is creatures
like camel crickets when they jump at you,
it's an evolutionary adaptationthat truly wouldn't work if
(13:04):
you were in on what they were doing.
- Okay, what, let's get in.
- So the idea is they jumpat you to frighten you away.
- Yeah, they think you're small.
- No, no, no, no, no, no.
They think that you aregoing to be afraid of them,
because they're so bold.
But they don't haveanything to back it up.
- They're brashest creatures on earth.
- Basically the idea is theythink you're gonna look at them
(13:27):
and say, why is it jumping at me?
It must know something, I don't know.
I'm gonna run away, and it works.
It truly works all the time.
People are constantly callingme about camel crickets
that charge them andare gonna murder them.
And I'm like, no, no, no.
It's just a cricket, it has no powers.
It's all false bravado.
- Yeah.
- I guess bravado is awful, anyway.
- So you went to the naughty list first.
You were like, these arethe ones I can't even take.
(13:48):
- But the very first thingthat I learned about these
creatures were that they wantedso many of the same things
that we want as human beings.
So those crickets are outthere looking for a mate,
and the song that they're singing
is a song of lonelinessand hopefulness, come on,
there's somebody out herethat's gotta hear me,
gotta hear this beautiful song
(14:10):
and think that I'm worthwhile.
Please, please, come on, come on,
come on over here.
And it's like their version of tender.
It's kinda cute.
- So you're an empath.
- I'm just a touch,
just a touch of theempathy going on there.
- So now I have a cricketwith an acoustic guitar.
- Yeah.
- And a spotlight.- Yeah.
- And a field.
(14:31):
And suddenly the world is empty.
And my heart.- Yeah.
- My heart.- Yeah.
I'm glad that you'vetaken that opportunity
to just hear the song ofthe cricket in your heart,
'cause it's a beautiful one.
- If you were to name that song,
what would you call that song?
- I believe that song is called,
(14:54):
hey there sweet thing,
I've been this lonelyfor a long, long time.
Why don't you,
why don't you bring that file on over here
and we can make some sweet,beautiful music together.
Oh yeah.
- I'm trying not to laughinto the microphone.
(15:17):
That was my favoritecricket impression ever.
- Oh yeah.
- Wait till Pixar gets ahold of that.
- Oh yeah.
All crickets are Barry White to me.
The problem that,
you can probably see why I run
into this issue of people feeling
that the way that I doscience is unprofessional.
- Yeah.
- And part of it is the,
(15:37):
I like to tell people that
the most effectively I've been
able to communicate information to people
is when they're awake.
And so my goal is to make sure
that when I am communicating science,
when I'm interacting with people,
that I bring the entirety ofmy personality to that one.
(15:58):
Because people think thatpersonality is a liability
in a lot of these professional contexts.
That's something that needsto be ditched in order for you
to be successful, I disagree.
- Disagree hundred percent.
- But secondly,
because people aren't used to seeing
or hearing people like me in science,
and I need them to know thatI don't have to look or sound
anything like anyone else youhave ever seen in science.
(16:19):
Diversity is absolutely essentialto a healthy functioning
ecosystem in science andto the human ecosystem
that we have built around ourselves.
- Yes.
And this is a critical thing for you
in the role of a professor,
for you in the role as an educator,
just across the areas thatyou're passionate about,
(16:43):
how you showing up?
A hundred percent, 112%.
We gotta get the extra on,
actually does the world as much good
or more good than the science can do?
And the categories that we're told
have more value than the embodied.
And that's what's sowas so exciting for me
when I'm listening to you,
listening to you when I was reading you,
listening to you talking about diversity
(17:05):
as a necessity to theway that we're thinking,
to the way that we're living,
to the way that we're cohabitating
with animal life, human life. I
It's always, there's not a column.
There's not a a placefor us to just check.
But the more that we'relooking at the world
from a diverse lens
and you do this in yourclassroom by showing up.
(17:27):
You do this in yourresearch by showing up.
You do this in church, youdo this in this interview,
you do this in humanity.
Is there a time when all that ending
and all that's showing up, it gets quiet?
And Sammy doesn't have to be.
- So my social battery, if you will,
(17:50):
is actually charged bybeing around people.
I get really excited.
I get full of energy whenI'm around other people.
I can just hang out for reallylengthy periods of time.
As soon as I'm not around people
that all of that energy evaporates.
I take a deep breath andthen I just kinda chillax.
(18:10):
- But you don't go into it,
so I often tell my students,
I'm like, don't worry.
I know I'm a lot, but I cry every day.
I feel like I have tosay that almost as a,
but you feel the same.
Do you feel me?
Is there like the moment where you go,
oh God, it's a lot like,because I'll be feel like,
'cause I'm in all the feelings,
the open wound kind of feeling the world,
you're feeling all the bugs.
I mean, you have a huge population
(18:31):
that your heart is taking care of.
- Ah, yeah.
- Yeah, I mean, I feelit all the time though.
And the question is, howmuch of it do I like,
I kind of have to release it in doses.
My primary way of doingthat is through singing.
- Yes.
- I do a lot of singingrandomly to myself,
(18:52):
a lot of singing when I'm just in my car.
And it's kind of my way ofregulating my mood and releasing
those emotions and ways that are healthy.
Kind of a pressure relief valve.
That's my way of doing it.
I guess that's my versionof crying every day.
If you get through an entire24 hours without me singing
a single note, I'm not alive.
- Not good, not good.
(19:14):
911 immediately.
- Not conscious.
Yeah.
- All right.
So in the world, thereare bugs we wanna step on.
There are bugs that deserve violence.
Okay, I'm not gonna say anything more
about that word violence
that folks have sometimes associated
with one of the most nonseemingly nonviolent humans
I've ever met.
I wanna take a, I wanna,because I am into the metaphor.
(19:35):
There are some bugs we wanna step on.
Are there other things thatSammy wants to step on?
What else do you just wanna just take out?
We don't need it, we don't need,
not healthy to this.
- So you're definitely referring to CBS.
- I might be,
I might be referring to thething that was a TikTok that
became a Insta, that becamea meme that became a meme,
I think it became a Fortnite dance.
(19:57):
- Yeah.
- CBS Mornings probably oneof my most viewed interviews.
I say to Tony and Vladand Gail King, like, yeah,
we as the scientific communitywant you to choose violence.
And I was like,
this is probably gonna be takenoutta context at some point,
so you gotta watch it, Sammy.
But I was specificallytalking about a single insect,
(20:19):
the spotted lantern fly.
And I actually don't thinkthe insect deserves violence.
It's not that insect'sfault that it's here.
We did this, we keep doing this.
We have a global ecosystem now.
They're no longer the discretepockets of ecosystem that
used to exist back in theday where you could say,
the Asian ecosystem,
the African ecosystem, NorthAmerican, South American,
(20:41):
everything moves aroundnow because we are,
we as human beings have gainedthe ability to travel all
the way across the worldin a matter of hours.
So we take things with us.
- We can't expect theinsects not to do the same.
- Exactly.
And as we have done many times,
we've brought over plantsand pottery and other things
from other countries that have had little
egg masses in them.
(21:01):
And those insects havefound an entire environment
where nothing eats them.
And that is amazing for them.
They are living their best lives.
I'm happy for them.
Problem is when they livetheir best lives too long
and too strong, they can actually demolish
important elements of the ecosystem
(21:21):
that we rely on and thatother organisms rely on.
And so our goal is to set things back
to the way that they were before,
to hopefully remove thoseorganisms from the ecosystem
and have them remain in the ecosystem
where they have predators.
- How do we do this?
Violence?
We as the research community
(21:43):
are working on ways to actuallycontrol these organisms,
either through biological control,
through messing aroundwith their genetics.
We are gonna take.
- Shopping malls in their home areas
with really good sushi restaurants.
- That would do it.
That would do it.
- If we were just to take the new not,
you can't just have like row.
You gotta put up somethingthat feels established.
(22:03):
Maybe a pub.
- They would have toliquefy the sushi though,
because their mouth is a straw,so they can't really chew.
- So a pub.
- Yeah, a pub, a pub would be great.
A pub would be great, yeah.
- So that's what we gotta get on.
- Yeah, we're working on that.
In the interim,
we wanna ensure that theseorganisms don't spread farther
and their populations don't get so huge
that even if we come up with a great idea,
(22:24):
we can't control them.
- And why are we so mad at them?
What are they hurting?
These aren't our bee killers.
- Why are we mad at the,
the primary reason why we're mad at them.
- Why are we mad at them?
- They're messing with our wine.
- Oh, well, okay, nowall the moms out there,
all the moms who made it through COVID.
- Yeah.
- You're with me, violence.
(22:44):
- Yeah, there is an oldAfrican American proverb
that I feel like really
applies well here is ain'tnobody got time for that.
And honestly, nobody,
it's got time for these insects
to be destroying our wine crops.
- No, okay.
Or I mean, all these vineyards out here,
they are really, really,
really concerned about theimpact that these insects have.
And they stick their mouthparts in the plant and they suck
(23:06):
the fluids out that wouldallow for these plants
to eventually make the kinds of grapes
that would make for great wine.
- So do you have a like,
free Airbnb stay on theCalifornia Northern coast?
Do they just love you there?
Are you a spokes model?
Do you just get,
like advent wine calendars sent to you?
A new wine a day?
(23:27):
Did you even know that this was coming?
That you were now gonna be.
- The face of protecting wine?
- Yeah.- Yeah.
- The face of big wine.
As somebody who barely ever drinks,
I'm not the one that you would expect
to be the face of big wine.
Yeah, it precisely, what was his name?
(23:49):
Bingo Linga felt what?
- Lean bing heimer.
- But here you are showingup, the face of bugs,
the face of big wine and thenthe face of joy because this,
the joy situation is also happening.
It's happening, it'shappening in your life, right?
Do you feel like you have,
(24:11):
all the choices, all the coming together,
all the ending, is it bringing you joy?
- So here's something really interesting.
Joy can be really difficultfor people sometimes
when they're seeing itconsistently in another individual.
It can leave them with theimpression that something is
wrong with them.
(24:31):
Why am I not feeling that sense of joy?
Why don't I wake up in the morning
with just this verb andexcitement for life?
And so I've actually met a few people
who've really poked at the idea
that this joy exists inside of me.
And they've tried tofigure out if it's fake.
(24:51):
They tried to figure outif it's performative.
They've tried to figure out if it's toxic.
At the end of the day,
I really enjoy getting to be all of me.
And I've had to fight for it.
I've had to fight at churchto just be able to exist
as a Queer person in the entirety
of my identity in all theplaces where it applies.
(25:13):
I've been excommunicated fromchurch and had to figure out
how do I continue to be a person of faith?
'Cause I'm not gonna letpeople just take things from me
that I don't think thatthey should be able to take.
- They don't get that.
- But how do I then do thatknowing that the communities
of faith that I'm used to don't see me
as someone who's welcome there?
How do I continue being an entomologist?
(25:36):
When I was, actually thisis, this was pretty tough.
I was actually removed fromgraduate school during my,
what was it, my second year of my PhD.
I was told, your grades are great,
you've got a great project here,
but something about you
just doesn't seem like doctoral material.
So I'm dismissing you from the program.
(25:57):
Yeah.
- You can see my human face.
- Remember what I told youabout how people are treated
in graduate school at times.
When you don't fit,
even if it doesn't,
even if it's not germaneto the science itself,
if you don't fit, it's like mean girls,
you can't sit with us,you can't sit with us.
And I had to fight to getback into graduate school.
(26:19):
I have fought in all of these categories
of my identity just to exist as who I am.
And I won those fights.
- Yeah, you earned the joy.
- And so the joy that I have,
Tory Kelly has this songcalled Unbreakable Smile.
I feel like I've gotthis unbreakable smile
that I fought for, and noone's taking that from me.
(26:41):
- Nobody's taking that.
It's amazing Sammy,
I think of in my field beingtold not being right happens
all the time, particularlyto female bodies,
to Black female bodies.
- Oh yeah.
- But in my own cis whitebody and in my own Queer body,
I was told no a lot when it came to molds.
(27:06):
And I don't think thatmy brain had caught up
to that notion
in the sciences where it seems
like you have all this evidence
that you were killing it.
All this evidence that youcan be and do and connect
and draw from and move forward.
All this evidence.
And they could still say no.
(27:28):
- They can still say no becausewe have a very problematic
structuring to graduate school.
I've jumped into the mix hereand I know that I'm still
pretty vulnerable as somebodywho doesn't have tenure.
But it is my hope to be able to promote
change or at the very least,
be able to promote the sortsof conversations that get
people thinking about this.
- Yes.
- When you get a degreeas an undergraduate,
(27:49):
that degree is goingto say that you satisfy
the requirements of the university
and the department that you are a part of.
When you get a degreeas a graduate student,
it says you satisfied therequirements of the department
and the university andyour faculty member.
That faculty mentor is theonly element of that where what
you need to do is not defined.
(28:10):
The number of credits you need is defined.
The number or the sorts of classes
you need to take are defined.
But what your faculty membermight want from you can even
come down to, you need tobe more doctoral material.
I'm not sure what that is,but you just need to be it.
- Be it.
- And unfortunately, I was told, yeah,
it just doesn't seem like you can be it.
(28:32):
I'm not sure quite whatit is, is an exact quote.
I can't quite put my finger on it.
But you're missing something.
You just don't have theskillset of a scientist
and I don't think you can learn it.
- Okay.
And I was told as a dancer,
you're gonna have to openyour aperture to data.
- Yeah.
- What does that mean?
- Dancers can't count past eight.
(28:54):
So thank goodness you knew not to listen.
Thank goodness thecricket song was louder.
- I love that.
The cricket song was louder.
The cicada song was louder.
And the song of my heartthat sings in different keys
and is constantly modulatingmelisma's everywhere.
I knew that that song couldnot be the vibrant symphony
(29:17):
that it should be unless I got to include
all the different instruments,all the different movements.
And so I fought,
and I am really glad thatI am currently in a space.
I love being here at Boulder.
I love being at theBio Frontiers Institute
and the Department of Ecologyand Evolutionary Biology.
(29:37):
They have spent so muchtime making it clear
to me that they support me.
That they understand thatthis multifaceted identity
is going to be differentfrom what they're used to,
but they're here for it.
And I love finally being ina context where all of those
elements of my identityget to just vibe together.
and create this super cool frequency.
(30:00):
- Oh, my face hurts.
My actual,
I have like the tear duct feeling
where I'm gonna cry at any second.
And then I got my cheeks pushing into it.
So there's this, because
it's really rare to getto spend time with a human
who is as present with whothey are and the challenges.
And so I feel like you'renot an under bug at all.
(30:21):
There's not a single part ofyou that is feeling like that
old stuff is stopping
the curiosity,
the ANDing,
the just the loving being here.
It's amazing.
So singing, there's alsothings that bugs do,
which is they build things, right?
(30:43):
Do you get into all bug activities?
Like are you like obsessedwith like the bugs
and then so you sing,like, are you a builder?
Are you a what do you what,
what are the other wayswhere you're like, oh my God,
I really am metamorphosizinginto my research.
- I see you over there, I see you.
- I'm feeling, I'm justlike, I'm just receiving.
I'm just a mirror to your awesome.
(31:03):
- Not even remotely true.
The way that you aresynthesizing this information
is allowing for this conversation
to really be just verymutual, very beautiful.
I'm really enjoying this.
- I'm super grateful.
- As an entomologist,
I like to tell people I primarily
study pollinator health and symbiosis,
close relationships between organisms that
(31:25):
make incredible things happen.
- Like this that's happening.
- This one's a mutualism.
- Yeah, yeah.
Sometimes it's parasitism.
Sometimes it's commensalism.
This one's mutualism.- Mutualism, okay.
I'm so glad to know that.
- I also like for people to know
I'm an equal opportunity entomologist.
I have been studying all the different
kinds of insects for a long time.
The very first lecture that I gave
in my insect bio class this semester,
(31:47):
I wanted to focus onthis one specific theme.
I told my students, entomologyis the study of diversity.
There is no more diverse group
of organisms on this planet than insects.
Just, what is it?
Two thirds of every,
two thirds of all the animals are insects.
Like three quarters bysome measures, actually.
(32:08):
So it's really remarkable tothink that the greatest amount
of diversity are creatures
that we consistently step on or ignore.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, I mean, bugs arethe most fascinating thing
we've ever stepped on.
- But when we just said that, I know,
but then they,
when you put that intothe metaphor of the world.
- Yeah.
- Oh, you just broke my heart again.
- I mean, it's rough considering
that in the world that we exist in,
(32:30):
the people that, well,
am I gonna jump into that right now?
Let's go.
- Well, okay, here we go.
In the world that we currently exist in,
if you were to look atso much of our media,
so much of our attention, it'smostly about white people.
Even though they are notthe primary group of, like,
(32:51):
there are more people who are not white
on this planet by far.
And it's interesting to considerthat we as human beings,
there are a lot of people thatwe forget about that we don't
consider or that we even stepon at times and think about
what they bring to the table.
(33:13):
I think it was Stephen Jay Gould who said
that he has to think about the fact,
and this is paraphrasing,
he has to think about thefact that while Einstein
was incredible, there are intellects
just as amazing as histhat have lived and died,
never leaving the paddyfield where they grew up.
Never once have many of us hadthe opportunity to interact
(33:37):
with individuals from thesefar-flung reaches of the world
and think about the thingsthat they can teach us.
Because as I said before,
entomology is the study of diversity.
But what is diversity itself?
Organisms that achieve diversityby finding a way to solve
a problem that anothercreature hasn't thought of.
And think about how incredible
(33:57):
that would be for us ifwe truly embraced that.
Our country,
the United States is so incrediblebecause of the remarkable
diversity that we have allowed in
and that we have nurtureda number of ways.
And now that we are startingto see so many different people
from so many different places,
there are individuals who havesought to use that as a way
(34:18):
to divide us and frightenus into thinking that that
diversity is going to be our demise,
when it has only been ourstrength to this point.
- I am so glad you went there.
- Yeah.
- I'm so glad you went there.
I am so glad because I hear it
in the depth of yourresearch and your knowing
and that it isn't a metaphor,
(34:39):
that it's actually it's science.
- Oh yeah.
- And it's also, it's super human
to be able to articulate it.
I'm looking to Tim, doI have to, is it time?
Can I keep going?
- Oh, no.
- Because I,
this is the moment I was afraidof from the very beginning.
It doesn't mean we can't.
Okay
- It just means you gotta have me back.
(35:00):
- I'm gonna have you back and/orthat we can look for bugs.
It's happening.
We're doing the thing.
- Let's do this thing.
- Okay, but before we do the thing,
this is our flash round.
I call it the quick and dirty.
- Let's do this.
- Are you ready?
Okay. So you.
- This is the lightning bug round.
- This is lightning, oh my God.
Oh, why didn't I, God Sammy.
- Well, you thought of under bug.
(35:20):
I love that.
- Okay, I didn't evenmean to think of that.
I just said it, all right, okay.
So I'm gonna give you a topicand you're gonna say the first
word or phrase that has andin it that comes to mind.
So if I say a terrifying yet harmless bug,
you could say the giant grass and cicada.
You see how the and was.
Okay.
Can you work with me on this?
- Oh, this is gonna be tough.
- Okay, you could say two together.
(35:41):
You could and it together, okay, okay.
A terrifying yet harmless bug.
- Terrifying yet, ah, ah, ah,
the New Zealand Wetar.
- The New Zealand Wetar.
Great, well played, well played.
- They're gigantic.- They're gigantic, but not,
we can ride them, but wedon't be scared of them.
- They can like eat a wholecarrot outta your hand.
(36:01):
They're so cute.
- So cute, really cute.
- Okay, you heard thatfriends at home, really cute.
Title of a bug book peoplewould read with and in it.
- Ooh, you can be making this up.
- Yeah, no.
Dr. Sammy and the Giant Bee.
- Okay.
If you were to have a TikTok moment,
(36:24):
what would you and on the TikTok.
- What would I and on the TikTok?
- Finger post to mouth, release.
Finger post to mouth release.
That was the dance annotationof what Dr. Sammy just did.
What would you, is that the move?
What would you And on the TikTok.
(36:46):
- I think I would and
black tie and gospel.
So black tie is my Thai singing persona
when I sing Thai music.
And I love like,
mixing Thai music with likethat gospel sensibility.
So yeah, some black tie, some gospel.
Yes.
- Okay, tuning in.
(37:07):
The greatest one hit music album.
- Oh.
Oh my.
These are tough.
- Know, I know.
Because they say fast justto make you just search
into the library of your mind.
But it's not really fast.
- No, no, it's not at all.
- Okay, all right, I'm gonna make it easy.
The greatest album in your heart space
that has and in it, any album.
(37:27):
Doesn't have to be one hitany favorite album with and.
- Kirk Franklin and the Family.
- I don't know this woman,I'm gonna listen to it.
All right, your favoritePollen inspired food with and.
(37:50):
- My favorite polleninspired food with and.
- So like honey and toast.
- Be bread and jelly
- Be bread and jelly.
All right, we're gonna have that
on our picnic when we go out.
- Yeah, let's do that.
- Looking for bugs, okay.
Every episode we have a moment.
(38:11):
You're addressing a crowd.
- Okay.
- You're sending them off.
To the next.
And.
- And I would like to say,
don't let anybody tellyou how your story ends.
You are establishing somethingthat is all your own.
(38:33):
This is your song, this is your story,
this is your movement.
And nobody knows how this is going to end.
You don't even know howthis is going to end.
So don't let other peopletell you that they know.
Don't let them modulate
or change how all ofthis is going for you.
You got this.
(soft music)
(38:54):
- The Ampersand is writtenand produced by me,
Erica Randall and Tim Grassley.
If there are folks you'd liketo hear from on The Ampersand,
do please email us at asinfo@colorado.edu.
Our theme music was composedand performed by Nelson Walker,
a CU Boulder alum,brilliant cellist composer,
and a fantastic dancer.
(39:16):
Episodes are recorded at Interplay Studios
in Boulder, Colorado.
I'm Erica Randall.
And this is The Ampersand.
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