WEBVTT NOTE This file was generated by Descript 00:00:00.420 --> 00:00:00.840 Anna Lytical: Hey! 00:00:00.840 --> 00:00:05.910 This is Anna Lytical and I love combining STEM and drag because 00:00:06.240 --> 00:00:10.920 computer science and engineering are all about solving problems using a set of 00:00:10.920 --> 00:00:13.020 skills and tools that you've learned. 00:00:13.290 --> 00:00:18.150 Drag is filled with problems: How can you transform your face with makeup? 00:00:18.420 --> 00:00:21.030 Style a wig a foot tall on your head? 00:00:21.270 --> 00:00:25.110 Or create a look using a limited set of supplies? 00:00:25.860 --> 00:00:29.490 Once you see that you can apply engineering and technical concepts 00:00:29.520 --> 00:00:32.879 in fun and creative scenarios, then you'll see that they aren't 00:00:32.879 --> 00:00:34.710 so intimidating after all. 00:00:35.896 --> 00:00:38.866 Sassy Science: One of the reasons I love merging drag and science 00:00:38.866 --> 00:00:44.566 communication is that as a bisexual, nonbinary person, I don't really see many 00:00:44.566 --> 00:00:46.756 people like me when I go into my lab. 00:00:47.146 --> 00:00:50.056 And this option makes me wonder if I belong there. 00:00:50.416 --> 00:00:56.026 I think drag is a way to reclaim the spaces and to scream as loud as we can 00:00:56.416 --> 00:01:01.666 that being outside of the norm does not make us any less rigorous or any 00:01:01.666 --> 00:01:02.926 less of a scientist for that matter. 00:01:06.464 --> 00:01:06.884 Shrouk El-Attar aka Dancing Queer الراقصة المثلية شروق العطار: Hello! 00:01:06.884 --> 00:01:12.654 My name is Shrouk El-Attar, also known as dancing queer, and I am an electronics 00:01:12.674 --> 00:01:19.354 engineer by day, a belly dancing drag king by night and a 24/ 7 LGBT+ refugee. 00:01:19.654 --> 00:01:25.894 I grew up being taught that I could be a successful artist or I could be a 00:01:25.894 --> 00:01:29.724 successful engineer and I really wanted to show people that, you know what? 00:01:29.994 --> 00:01:31.899 You can embrace the power of "and." 00:01:32.109 --> 00:01:36.339 I've had an incredibly successful career as a drag performer, performed 00:01:36.339 --> 00:01:41.649 around the world, countries as far as India, Japan, and I've had an equally 00:01:41.799 --> 00:01:46.059 successful engineering career, built a machine that can detect cancer 00:01:46.059 --> 00:01:47.859 based on electron quantum spin. 00:01:48.609 --> 00:01:52.629 And I made a system that can help surgeons with eye surgery. 00:01:52.809 --> 00:01:56.574 And right now I'm the lead senior electronic engineer at a FinTech 00:01:56.694 --> 00:02:00.714 startup, hopefully en route to being the head of department. 00:02:01.014 --> 00:02:04.434 And I really wish when I was younger, I saw people who looked 00:02:04.434 --> 00:02:05.664 like me doing these things. 00:02:05.694 --> 00:02:11.604 That's why it's really important for me to be able to talk about both of my passions 00:02:11.634 --> 00:02:17.154 very loudly and be able to show other people, other refugee young girls that 00:02:17.154 --> 00:02:21.354 they can do something like this and they don't have to choose one or the other. 00:02:22.080 --> 00:02:25.650 Lana Vuli: I turned two of my PhD papers into musicals, both 00:02:25.650 --> 00:02:27.510 very camp, one of them in drag. 00:02:27.840 --> 00:02:30.780 And I saw great potential in merging STEM and drag. 00:02:31.290 --> 00:02:34.700 You can perform at conferences and advocate for creative identities. 00:02:35.010 --> 00:02:38.160 The shows have a great reception and non-queer peers get used to 00:02:38.170 --> 00:02:42.120 diversity and hopefully queer people feel empowered to be themselves. 00:02:43.255 --> 00:02:46.555 On the other hand, I've also delivered science content in lots 00:02:46.555 --> 00:02:52.105 of nightclubs and bars, so it works both ways and it's so fun! 00:02:52.279 --> 00:02:54.529 Austin/Twylla Scene: It's a main part of my mentoring, teaching 00:02:54.589 --> 00:02:58.369 and learning philosophy that my personal identity and work are not 00:02:58.369 --> 00:03:01.429 completely different identities, but rather an integrated whole. 00:03:02.211 --> 00:03:06.321 I love all things drag at both the local and international scale, so 00:03:06.321 --> 00:03:09.141 over the summer of the pandemic, I wanted to try my hand at it. 00:03:09.721 --> 00:03:14.481 Engaging both my academic and personal life in drag has not only allowed me 00:03:14.481 --> 00:03:19.071 to help me better understand myself, but also give me an opportunity to 00:03:19.071 --> 00:03:22.791 give back to the community that has allowed me to grow in this way as 00:03:22.791 --> 00:03:28.137 both a scientist, and an academic, and as a very, very baby drag queen. 00:03:28.627 --> 00:03:31.786 In the future, I want to show that Drag Queens can be scientists and vice versa. 00:03:32.986 --> 00:03:36.106 And it would mean the world to me if one person saw me walking down 00:03:36.106 --> 00:03:39.346 the street in full drag and a lab coat and thought I can do that, too. 00:03:39.976 --> 00:03:42.646 So that's why I love the merging of science and drag. 00:03:42.696 --> 00:03:46.086 It removes the mysterious facade of STEM academics being these 00:03:46.086 --> 00:03:50.116 untouchable, straight old people and illuminates the queerdom that 00:03:50.116 --> 00:03:52.036 does exist in higher education. 00:03:53.225 --> 00:03:57.795 Dyna Cockus Rose: Dyna is a combination of all of my creativity, all of my 00:03:57.795 --> 00:04:03.515 femininity, living out my pop star diva dream, but also incorporating all 00:04:03.515 --> 00:04:08.565 of my passions and my nerdiness with science, with video games, with sci-fi. 00:04:09.345 --> 00:04:14.625 And I love the fact that I get to do this and talk about science to other people. 00:04:14.960 --> 00:04:20.150 I realized in grad school that I really didn't love doing a lot of the research 00:04:20.150 --> 00:04:24.530 itself, troubleshooting experiments, but I love talking about my work and I 00:04:24.530 --> 00:04:26.570 love sharing science with other people. 00:04:26.780 --> 00:04:30.980 I love seeing that click in people's minds when they finally understood 00:04:30.980 --> 00:04:33.840 something that they've been wondering about, or they've learned something 00:04:33.840 --> 00:04:35.730 new that they didn't realize existed. 00:04:35.910 --> 00:04:38.160 That is so fascinating to me. 00:04:38.370 --> 00:04:39.510 And that's why I do what I do. 00:04:40.575 --> 00:04:41.135 Scary/Dean Adze: Hello. 00:04:41.185 --> 00:04:42.205 My name is Scary. 00:04:42.314 --> 00:04:48.384 I do drag as drag king Dean Adze but I also explore satirizing masculine power 00:04:48.384 --> 00:04:54.354 in universities as Professor Dick Mum, and I've done my time as a feminine 00:04:54.354 --> 00:04:57.064 sparkly sensation Polly Chromatic. 00:04:57.306 --> 00:05:00.426 I like combining Drag and STEM because it gives me the opportunity 00:05:00.426 --> 00:05:03.516 to take the piss out of the masculine- dominated worlds I work in. 00:05:03.675 --> 00:05:08.210 And the exaggerated drama and too-much-is-not-enough of drag 00:05:08.270 --> 00:05:11.570 is a brilliant counterbalance for the understatement that goes along 00:05:11.570 --> 00:05:12.950 with being a British physicist. 00:05:13.203 --> 00:05:15.453 Plus, it's honestly nice to have the attention. 00:05:15.804 --> 00:05:17.094 Romi: Hi, I'm Romy. 00:05:17.274 --> 00:05:20.754 I am a PhD candidate at the University of Washington bio department. 00:05:20.824 --> 00:05:23.764 So when I joined UW, I felt like my life was split in two. 00:05:23.814 --> 00:05:27.234 On one side, being a queer and trans immigrant and person of color. 00:05:27.294 --> 00:05:30.144 I've always seen others at this intersection of identities as 00:05:30.204 --> 00:05:31.494 a part of my chosen family. 00:05:31.554 --> 00:05:34.014 For queer performers, like drag performers, performance 00:05:34.014 --> 00:05:37.799 spaces are not just about makeup, they are about survival. 00:05:37.829 --> 00:05:42.089 Around 40% of homeless youth today identify as queer and or 00:05:42.089 --> 00:05:47.609 trans and around 35% of Latine and Black trans feminine people in our 00:05:47.609 --> 00:05:49.319 community participate in sex work. 00:05:49.349 --> 00:05:52.229 Many of them acknowledging that they have used sex work as a 00:05:52.229 --> 00:05:54.689 means to find somewhere to sleep. 00:05:54.899 --> 00:05:59.759 So I understand these spaces as how we find community and finding community 00:05:59.759 --> 00:06:03.299 is so important to our survival because traditionally we have taken care of each 00:06:03.299 --> 00:06:04.649 other and that's how we've survived. 00:06:04.699 --> 00:06:08.599 So on the other side being an academia, I always understood that those issues, 00:06:08.599 --> 00:06:12.649 my community face they're taboo to talk about, and that I'd probably not find 00:06:12.649 --> 00:06:15.469 my community within the UW bio program. 00:06:15.709 --> 00:06:16.849 And I'm working to change that. 00:06:16.879 --> 00:06:20.449 Since being here at UW, my advisor and the members of my lab had been super 00:06:20.449 --> 00:06:26.999 understanding of my need to engage in drag activism and efforts that promote 00:06:27.029 --> 00:06:30.449 the inclusion of communities that have been historically excluded from academia. 00:06:30.592 --> 00:06:32.992 Their support has been super impactful. 00:06:33.212 --> 00:06:36.092 In 2018, my advisor encouraged me and we applied together for 00:06:36.092 --> 00:06:37.562 the HHMI Gilliam Fellowship. 00:06:37.592 --> 00:06:41.882 And in 2019, we were one of two pairs on campus that were awarded this fellowship. 00:06:42.152 --> 00:06:44.912 Through that fellowship, we've been able to fund a lot of DEI 00:06:44.912 --> 00:06:46.322 efforts that we've come up with. 00:06:46.372 --> 00:06:51.512 I've also found people at my intersections of identities that are also in 00:06:51.512 --> 00:06:53.702 science that are also doing DEI work. 00:06:54.062 --> 00:06:58.322 And so that has been really important to, for me to find my place in academia. 00:06:59.072 --> 00:07:01.862 I'm continuing to bring drag and science together through a number 00:07:01.862 --> 00:07:05.732 of projects where I'm celebrating my existence in both spaces. 00:07:05.826 --> 00:07:10.716 And I'm also using this drag to work in a number of efforts, both at conferences 00:07:10.716 --> 00:07:13.596 and also through my Sensitive Roots project dedicated to teaching mentors 00:07:13.596 --> 00:07:17.316 and academia the nuances of mentoring, queer and trans scientists of color. 00:07:17.496 --> 00:07:21.015 So bringing my communities together, it's always going to be risky but 00:07:21.015 --> 00:07:25.060 it's a risk that's, I think, is well worth it if I get to see the amazing 00:07:25.060 --> 00:07:29.353 people from my community both thrive and also participate in science.