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May 14, 2025 20 mins
Dr. K. Renee Horton is breaking barriers in the world of physics and inspiring the next generation of Black women in STEM. In this empowering episode of Stay A While, host Tommi Vincent sits down with Dr. Horton to discuss her journey from childhood dreams of space to becoming a leading voice in science and education. She shares the challenges she faced, including overcoming hearing loss, navigating a male-dominated field, and balancing motherhood while pursuing her Ph.D. This conversation is a must-listen for anyone passionate about representation and breaking barriers.

Guest: Dr. K. Renee Horton

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to a special edition of Stale Wild, recorded live
on Radio Row at Super Bowl fifty nine. I'm your host,
Tommy Vincent, and we are going to be hearing some
dynamic conversations with phenomenal guests here on Radio Row.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
So take a seat, get comfortable in stale Wall.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
This episode is sponsored by the House of Joy. Hi everyone,
I'm Tommy Vincent, your host of Stale Wild podcast, and
today joining me at the table, we have doctor kay
Renee Horton, and we are so excited to have listen.
She is a physicist and an inspirational speaker. But I'm

(00:42):
really excited about this piece of you that is into
the science. It's not often that you get to sit
down and speak speak with someone who sits in a
space that's not talked about as a physicist and the
things you've accomplished in your life. I want to know
from you, at what age do you recall that something

(01:05):
about this area just really just said, Oh, that's me.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
So I've probably known since I was seven I wanted
to be a scientist. My grandmother used to make Barbie
her first lab coats. My cabbage pat had a lab
coat to match minds and so but it was nine.
My dad gave me a telescope when I turned nine,
and so it was the first time that I was
like doing my own kind of experiments and doing the
things that I was seeing scientists actually do that I

(01:33):
was reading about in the encyclopedia.

Speaker 4 (01:35):
And so I remember we got I got the telescope.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
My dad was like figuring it out before you go look,
And I remember telling my brother that night, We're gonna
go up on the roof, and my brother was like, uh.

Speaker 4 (01:45):
I was like, uh huh, not a roof. Yeah, the roof, right,
that's the best view.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
But my brother knew he was my protector, so he
knew even if he wasn't interested in what I was doing,
he needed to go. So that night we climbed out
of the window and scaled up the side of our
house the antenna, and I propped up my telescope, and
it was the first time I was looking at like
what I thought was the stars, but I saw the moon.
And so it was the first time it was like

(02:12):
seeing the moon, but like looking at the moon because
I was doing something that was giving me just a
little bit of more of an advantage than my brother was.

Speaker 4 (02:20):
I was hooked.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
I came down off that house and right then I was,
I'm gonna be an astronaut and I'm gonna go to
space because I.

Speaker 4 (02:28):
Knew it's something bigger than me.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
I'm there and I want to know what that is. Right,
So I definitely nine. And my dad laughed about that.
He's like, you remember that very well, and I was like,
I do.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
I do. It's amazing that.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Your grandmother and your father invested in you enough for
you to know that this was okay to desire to
be an astronaut or whatever it was you were thinking
about in that time. Because a child can express something
to a parent of something they would like to be,

(03:03):
and it could be.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Whatever it is.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
But if the parent doesn't validate that, it could cause
that desire to just fizzle right on out. You know,
there was a light that came on and you when
somebody could have said nah and poured the water on it.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
I still experienced that though I was gifted and so
ended up reading early, walking early, doing all the good
things gifted kids do fast, right, And my parents really
did not know how to nurture me. And I said before,
like it was an accidental nurturing because they knew not
to say no, but they didn't know what to keep
saying yes too, yes, And so I took a lot

(03:39):
of enrichment courses, a true nerd little and it was
like I wanted anything that was going to give me knowledge,
and they were like they were okay with that.

Speaker 4 (03:48):
So they were constantly giving me that.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
But when it got to the point when it was
time for me to get ready to go to college,
and I started college at sixteen, I remember saying to
my dad, like, I really wanted to be a scientist.

Speaker 4 (03:59):
I didn't even know what kind at that time.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
I just knew I wanted the lab coade, I wanted
to pocket protect her. I want it depends that's what
I wanted, right And my dad said, no, you're gonna
have to do something different because I don't know any
black scientists, but I know black engineers, so why don't
you do that? So I chose engineering simply because I
didn't have anybody to mentor me in that space.

Speaker 4 (04:22):
And my dad had reached his capacity.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
To be able to help me get there too, because
he didn't know anyone else.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
And that was from a place of love where he
felt like, you know, I want to put you in
a position to win.

Speaker 4 (04:35):
So this is what I do know.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
But then you went beyond engineering and you became a physicist.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
Yeah, but that's a whole round the corner, back through
the woods kind of thing. Because at seventeen, I had
decided to go Air Force to ROTC because I wanted.

Speaker 4 (04:52):
To be a nastronaut.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
I said I could be a pilot, and I had
joined the ROTC. Well, when they sent me to get
my physical, my hearing failed. And I'm looking at these
guys and they were like, you ever had any air infection,
No injury to your ear, no loud music, No, but
my hearing was degrading and we did not know that.
And so I have a recessive genetic trait that shows

(05:14):
up later in life, and at seventeen it had surfaced
and had created such a loss that I didn't.

Speaker 4 (05:20):
Qualify for the Air Force. Well, I had a good looking.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
Boyfriend and looking away Casey c this but good looking boyfriend.
I go home, I get consulted and I get knocked up.
And so now I'm knocked up and my dad is like,
we from the South to get married until I got married.
And so I ended up dropping out of college.

Speaker 4 (05:40):
He was. He was in the army at the time.
We went overseas.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
We lived overseas for three years, came back, lived in
Georgia for four. But that was also about the duration
of that marriage, Like we were young, we were immature,
and it just didn't work out and I ended up splitting.
I went back to school with three kids in so
and my daughter wasn't two at the time. I finished
out my engineering degree and then went on didn't have
a job, so went on to grad school and then

(06:05):
ended up getting a full ride scholarship to go on
and get my PhD and then to finishing physics.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
As a mom in that moment, having your kids and
still pursuing something greater than yourself from an educational perspective,
where did you get the drive to stay at it
and still be you know, take care of your children
and focusing on school to become what you've become.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
During my time of traveling in the army and then
working on those military bases and those.

Speaker 4 (06:40):
Kind of things, I was working with people who weren't logical.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
That just I was thinking, like I don't get this
thought process, Like I kept trying to figure out, like
how did you get here? Like, this don't even add up,
so I'm not sure how you got there. And what
I realized then it was one of those moments that
even though my hearing was there, the hearing losses there
was consecutively getting worse and worse and worse. Right, it
didn't stop my brain from wanting to be And so

(07:09):
working in spaces where people aren't smart as you, or
they've gotten a job because somebody gave it to them,
it's a stark reality that this.

Speaker 4 (07:16):
Is not the space you should be in.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
And so when I decided to go back to school
was after my daughter was born and they handed her
to me and she had these big, old dobe like eyes.
But kind of it was like one of those what
are you gonna do now? Like what you're gonna do
to make this world better for me? And so when
I went back to school and moved, we moved into
family dorms at LSU, and I was making nine thousand
dollars a year. I would look at them, the three

(07:40):
of them, and I'd be like, yeah, somen's got to
be better for them.

Speaker 4 (07:43):
It just has to be better for them.

Speaker 3 (07:45):
But then it was like, once I got back in school,
something came alive, like this is like, this is where
I belong, Like this is part of my tribe, This
is where I belong. I don't belong in the world
floating around, but people who don't think logically, I need
to be over here. People got some thought process and
you know, smart enough to be putting two and two
together and understanding that that's four, but also understanding that one.

Speaker 4 (08:07):
And three is four and zero and four it's stick.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
Before right, Like I needed that, and I realized I
needed that more than I needed to be feeling sorry
for myself because I had been given something that I
now needed to carry with me, which was my hair
and loss.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
Okay, with the you're a physicist, So when did you
achieve that in your life?

Speaker 4 (08:32):
Oh? Lord?

Speaker 1 (08:33):
So I just feel like you're so smart, and she's
so smart.

Speaker 4 (08:38):
I went to this conference called the National Society of.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
Black Physicists, and I ended up serving as their president
and the second woman to hold that office for them.
But I had gone to this conference as a chafferon
because the HBC used on play like if they're gonna
send their babies over there, they're going with chafferons. But
because I was older, I was as a chafferon. But
I walked into the room and I was like, yo,
it's crazy, Like it's like Gian is smart, smart black people.

(09:05):
Like they were sitting down having these deep intellectual conversations,
you know, like the drinking the hand.

Speaker 4 (09:10):
I was like this something you see in a movie. Yes,
like this ain't real, but it was real.

Speaker 3 (09:15):
And I was standing there and I was engaging with
other people and we were having these deep intellectual conversations
right up that alley. Yes, how to make these changes
at the fundamental level. We're talking about cellular level of things.
And it was like, uh huh, this is where I
want to be. There's gonna be my people, It's gonna
be my tribe. I left there as a chaperone and
went back and changed my major from engineering to physics

(09:40):
for the next semester. Yes, ma'am. It was like I
had found my people.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
Well, now the opportunity to presented itself. Where your dad
stirred you in the direction of the engineer in your
heart of hearts. You didn't know the science, but you
knew I wanted to do this, and now you it
was like, here it is. The opportunity presented itself.

Speaker 3 (10:03):
And I wasn't terribly upset even about this steering with
engineering because engineers are very logical, and so it was
still a space that I could function in, and I'm
talking about function high and be okay with.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
So I want you to break down because you've said
logical thinkers, and I mean there's a basic there's the
basic understanding of that. But when you say that, give
me an example so that we understand what you mean
by that. Because you're thinking, you're thinking up here and

(10:39):
I might be thinking down here.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (10:41):
So when I think about logical I also think about
independent thinkers, right, yes, and so independent thinkers understand that
there's more than one way.

Speaker 4 (10:48):
To get to a solution.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
Okay, So even if I just just basic down, just
basic math. Right, when you look at the number four,
there's multiple ways to get to the number four. You
can start at ten and make a subtraction, you can
zero and add, but there's multiple ways to get the four.
There's two times two, so I can get to four
multiple ways. Logical thinkers understand that it does not have
to be one way.

Speaker 4 (11:11):
So a lot of times when I'm dealing with people
and I, you know, I.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
Just left an inspirational thing, and they were talking about
you can be the sheep or the shepherd.

Speaker 4 (11:19):
You know, you're either a leader or you're a follower.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
Yes, well, a lot of times, a lot of logical thinkers,
they're probably leaders, and that's because they're willing to think
outside of the box.

Speaker 4 (11:28):
Yes. On doing that.

Speaker 3 (11:29):
A lot of people ask me how did I get
through school with three children and then to go through
to get my PhD? We never thought inside the box.
My first solution never was inside the box. That's probably solution.
I'm a three or four And if it was one
that everybody else would come up with immediately, it was
one I never used.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
Is that is that your personal a personal regulator for you?

Speaker 1 (11:54):
If this is what everybody else thought of, I'm gonna
do it a different way.

Speaker 3 (11:58):
It has definitely carried me through because it was like,
you know, I would hear it, there's no way you're
gonna go to school with three kids. So if I
had taken that thought process, I never would have. Well,
my answer became, well, how do I go to school
with three kids? Okay, like, what what does that look like?
What's the hardest thing I have to do? Get the
kid from daycare, Like, I got to be finished to
get this kid from daycare. That was the hardest thing

(12:20):
I had to do was to be finished, to pick
up before the six o'clock before they called CPS. Yes,
the rest of them don't even matter I.

Speaker 4 (12:28):
Feed them or not. He's saying, which rest that stuff
befall into place?

Speaker 3 (12:32):
Yes, yes, But each time I would go to look
at those I really was looking at the work. Wasn't
that hard, It's not the work, but it was Okay,
what do I need to do to say I need
to be able to study?

Speaker 4 (12:43):
What does that look like?

Speaker 3 (12:44):
We started a whole single parent group where the kids
rotated each day with a parent.

Speaker 4 (12:51):
You dropped your kids off with their snacks, and that
parent was responsible.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
For all nine, ten, twelve of the kids and then
they literally was just taking them to the park, let
them play, let them do whatever. But that gave each
parent two hours worth of study time. We came up
with that because that's outside of the box. Daycare shuts down.
That's the answer for everybody in the box daycare. But
how do we fix that around daycare or outside of that?

Speaker 4 (13:16):
So for me, that's the kind of leader I am.
Now I would.

Speaker 3 (13:20):
Prefer to sit down and say, look, everybody bring their
stuff to the table. But if it comes to the
table three times, that's probably not it because that means
somebody else outside of my team is also thinking that.
So if it came so many times and somebody outside
of my team can be thinking that, that also means
that they can be thinking of how what's that's our downfall?

(13:40):
So I like playing offense.

Speaker 4 (13:44):
I like being proactive and not reacting, So I prefer offense.
I just want to do some offense. But if I
have to be on defense, i am. But it still
needs to be outside of the box for me.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
Where has your phdtails you talk to us about your accomplishments.
I want to know more about that. And the reason
why is this space of thinking out of the box.
There could be somebody listening that has a secret aspiration

(14:22):
but they've tucked it away because.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
Somebody said, nah, that isn't it.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
So when I think about all the places that I
have gone with a PhD, I'm still blown away at
myself because I'm a little black girl out the hood,
out of South Bendon Rouge, where there were times my
mama couldn't keep the water on right, and so that
is my upbringing. And to say that I just negotiated

(14:48):
for somebody to fly me from Trinidad first class to
where I have to go to speak, simply because it's
a thirteen hour flight and I don't think I want
to ride in the back.

Speaker 4 (14:59):
So I'll be in Trinid in March. You know.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
It's places like that. I am an avid traveler and
I absolutely love it. And so I have been able
to travel to the UK. I've been to Canada multiple
times to speak. I've been to the mountains in Mexico
to speak. You know, places like that. But I've been
to Brazil, I've been to South Africa. I met Mae Jamison,
who is my idol in South Africa working on a

(15:24):
project with girls. And I was there for the International
Union up here in Applied Physics, and they got and
they brought us together. I have said at tables with
dames unighted, dames okay, and those are things that I
never ever dreamed of, the idea that a PhD.

Speaker 4 (15:41):
Would be taking me there. It brought me to your couch.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
The reason why I brought you on the couch is
and even when we were talking about when Alexis and I.
Alexis is my producer. We were talking about looking at
your bio. I said, people need to hear from her.
Other young women need to hear from her, because somebody

(16:14):
has such a high desire to be something that they've
never seen before, and that makes people afraid, because how
do I do that if.

Speaker 4 (16:24):
I've never seen it before? You know, when you haven't seen.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
It before, the message is that's not where we belong, right,
And for me, I had come through like the educational.

Speaker 4 (16:37):
System where most of the time I was one of
two blacks.

Speaker 3 (16:41):
So to be in that environment wasn't anything odd for
me because it was from where I started from elementary school,
right being in a gifted program that usually were only
two or three of us in a class.

Speaker 4 (16:51):
Sometimes sometimes I could be the only one.

Speaker 3 (16:53):
So I've learned to deal with that pretty early on
on what that looks like, and like understanding that they
are know better than we are and sometimes they are
a lot less than we are, but because of who
they are, they get to walk in that privilege, right,
And so there are plenty of times I walk into
a room, even on my team now working with NASA,

(17:14):
I walk into a room sometimes I'm the only woman.

Speaker 4 (17:17):
Sometimes I'm the only black.

Speaker 3 (17:19):
The thing is, I want to focus on my happiness,
and I want to focus on what I feel, my passion,
on my purpose and my calling is, and so all
those other things don't really matter anymore for me, right.
What matters now is that I can look in the
mirror and think that I've done. God proud by the
work that I've done and the things that I'm doing.
And so that's what I focus on. I'm less worried

(17:40):
about who's in the room now. As long as me
and God going together, I'm good, right, I'm going with
that armor. I'm good because I know that if I
walk into a room and I sit at your table,
I'm going to walk out of there with more than
one person on my side.

Speaker 4 (17:54):
Yes, I'm confident of that.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
I am. I'm so grateful I have had an opportunity.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
One to meet you.

Speaker 4 (18:08):
We're gonna be friends.

Speaker 1 (18:12):
And to hear from you. I really am, I really am.
And I want you to know that you are welcome
to come and stay a while with me anytime. Where
were we at, Kara, tell me where I'm coming to, where
you want to go?

Speaker 4 (18:25):
I don't know, let's see.

Speaker 3 (18:28):
Look, I went with my lawyer at the time. She
was my pro bowl lawyer from a nonprofit that I had.
She turned sixty, and she took all of these women
to the Dominican She rented home out there in the
Dominican Republic, and then she stuck us with people we
didn't know, and I shared a room, actually shared a band.

Speaker 4 (18:46):
In a room with a judge.

Speaker 3 (18:50):
And it was such an amazing experience to think women
could be here together like there was no cat calling,
there was no fighting.

Speaker 4 (18:58):
It was an It was all of us there. And
every night I went to sleep with that judge. We
talked until each.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
One one of us fell asleep, just about her experiences
of being the first, my experiences of being the first, yes.

Speaker 4 (19:11):
And being able to compare notes.

Speaker 3 (19:13):
But it was the first time that I had been
in that kind of environment with so many accomplished women,
and all they wanted to do was be a support
for the younger ones that were in the room. So
you tell me where we're going, and we're going. I'm there,
all right, beach, preferably some warm I don't mind doing

(19:34):
some snow stuff, but.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
You know, you like the warmth.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
I feel you on that I feel you on that,
but sincerely, doctor k Renee Horton, you are welcome at
my table anytime.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
Thank you so much for joining me.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
Today, well, thank you for having absolutely I hope you
felt the love and connection in today's conversation. Every woman
you heard from has faced the impossible and emerged stronger.
This is your personal invitation to stale while longer at
Tommy V dot com. That's t O M M I

(20:11):
V dot com for more inspiration for your mind, body
and soul and let's not forget your belly.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
You're always welcome at my table.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
Please be sure to subscribe, make yourself at home and
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