It's tempting to think that scientists are judged based solely on their science, and nothing else. But science is a part of society, so biases and prejudices are there, from both outside and inside. These are stories from The Story Collider about those biases.

These are a mix of stories. Some of biases preventing people from going into science, and finding refuge there. Some are stories of the prejudices of scientists themselves, and the ways those keep people from succeeding, and hold back science. Some have happy endings, some don't. It's a vast and complex topic, and this is a small, but hopefully eye-opening sample.

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While studying bioengineering, Craig Lehocky discovers he's different from the other students.

Craig Lehocky's tinkering runs deep. He currently develops surgical robots as an M.D. / Ph.D. student at CMU and University of Pittsburgh. Before that, he worked on prosthetic limbs controlled by the brain at the University of Pittsburgh. And even before that, he restored cars, houses, and guitar amplifiers at the University of his Dad. He doesn't know what tinkering his future holds, but hopes it unfolds in Pittsburgh.

Every week the Story Collider brings you a true, personal story about science. Find more and subscribe to our podcast at our website: http://storycollider.org/

Help keep us going! If you love the podcast, please donate here: http://www.patreon.com/thestorycollider

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Craig Lehocky: Do you always talk like that?

As a science teacher, Marjorie Winther has both entertaining and troubling times with her students, but when she brings them to the South she discovers a whole new side of them.

Marjorie Winther has been performing stories and comedy for over ten years. She is the winner of the 2012 First Person Arts Grand Slam. Marjorie has been voted audience favorite at numerous First Person Arts story slams.  She recently performed at the WHYY Connections Festival, The Women in Comedy Festival at Plays and Players and at the Risk! Show in the Free Library Author’s Event.  She also performs stand-up comedy in clubs and at fund-raisers and corporate and community events.  She was a finalist in Laff-A-Lot productions Philly’s Funniest contest. Veteran comic Paul Lyons calls here “warm, real and disarmingly astute.”  When not performing, Marjorie designs and delivers corporate training programs and leads professional workshops. Before moving into the corporate world she taught middle and high school science in the Chicago Public Schools.  She holds a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Beloit College and a Master’s Degree in English from Southern Illinois University.

Help keep us going! If you love the podcast, please donate here: http://www.patreon.com/thestorycollider

Marjorie Winther: Lighting A Fire

While teaching a math class, Nisse Greenberg is troubled by his student's name, and his own.

Nisse Greenberg is an educator and storyteller who eats mostly vegetarian. Sometimes he eats wings because wings are really good. When he applied for a visa to go to India he tried to type "atheist" into the proposed slot for religion, but he accidentally typed "matheist." He found it more appropriate anyway. He teaches high-school math to high-schoolers and math philosophy to adults. He creates art with spreadsheets and quantitative analysis. He also curates storytelling for The Tank, and hosts the shows Bad Feelings, VHS Presents, and Drawn Out Storytelling. Here is his playground: nissegreenberg.com

Nisse Greenberg: What's In A Name

Marine biologist Shayle Matsuda adapts to his new identity as a transgender man while on assignment in the Philippines. 

Shayle Matsuda researches sea slugs as an MSc candidate at the California Academy of Sciences and San Francisco State University.  When not in the lab, he hosts the interactive science happy hour series “Science, Neat” in San Francisco. He uses watercolors and digital media to make science more accessible to wider audiences, and creates and facilitates unique research experiences for high school students underrepresented in STEM.  Shayle’s science communication footprint includes the California Academy of Sciences, Nerd Nite SF, Ignite at AGU, and regional winner of NASA/Nat Geographic’s FameLab competition

Shayle Matsuda: My First Expedition As A Man

Suze Kundu is forced to abandon dancing for materials science, until materials science comes to the rescue.

Suze Kundu is a Teaching Fellow at Imperial College London, where she shares her love of Materials Science and Engineering with anyone that will stand still for long enough. In addition she presents many Outreach and Public Engagement workshops and demo lectures, and pops up on TV fairly regularly, getting excited about everything from aerogel to zirconia. She is also fresh off the stage from Irreverent Dance's annual Showcase, where she danced as a zombie scientist, a Time Lord and a girl obsessed with the glitz and glamour of Strictly Come Dancing - #typecasting?

Suze Kundu: A New Pair Of Shoes

The joys and dangers of getting pregnant for Tara Clancy and her wife.

Tara Clancy is a writer and performer. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review and The Rumpus. She is also a winner of The Moth GrandSlam storytelling competition and was recently featured on their podcast. Originally from Queens, Tara now lives in Manhattan with her wife and two sons. More at www.taraclancy.com

Tara Clancy: Adventures In Babymaking

Sports writer David Epstein tracks down some surprising health claims circulating in the football world.

David Epstein is author of the recent New York Times bestseller The Sports Gene, an exploration of the genetic basis of athleticism. He is currently an investigative reporter at the non-profit ProPublica. Up until September, he was a senior writer at Sports Illustrated. He has been a crime reporter at the New York Daily News, and an education reporter at Inside Higher Ed. In his past life, David was a geology grad student. He has lived in the Sonoran Desert, on a ship in the Pacific Ocean, in the Arctic in Alaska, and -- like every other writer -- in Brooklyn.

David Epstein: Holographic Supplements

Neuroscientist Indre Viskontas and her friends turn to science to find the right way to date.

Indre Viskontas is a neuroscientist and opera singer. She is also the host of Inquiring Minds, an in-depth exploration of the place where science, politics, and society collide. http://www.motherjones.com/inquiringminds

Indre Viskontas: The Man Chart

On the first day of grad school for her PhD, a fellow student tells Bianca Jones Marlin that she doesn't really belong there.

Bianca Jones Marlin is a neuroscientist and doctoral candidate at New York University, School of Medicine. She received dual bachelor degrees in biology and adolescent education from St. John's University. Her time as a high school biology teacher led her to the laboratory, where she now studies the neurochemicals that govern communication and dictate social memories. Bianca investigates how the brain changes in the presence of the "love hormone," oxytocin. Her research aims to understand the vital bond between mother and child, and uses oxytocin as a treatment in strengthening fragile and broken parental relationships.
Bianca, a native New Yorker, lives in Manhattan with her scientist husband, Joe, and their cat Santiago Ramon y Cajal, who is named after the famed neuroanatomist.

Bianca Jones Marlin: It's Because She's Black

An offhand sexist comment enrages Renee Hlozek, and leads her to dig into how her colleagues really view people who aren't the stereotypical scientist.

Dr. Renee Hlozek is the Lyman Spitzer Jr. Postdoctoral Fellow in Theoretical Astrophysics in at Princeton University; the Spitzer-Cotsen Fellow in the Princeton Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts and is currently a Senior TED Fellow. Her research focuses on theoretical cosmology; as a member of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope she measures the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation to decipher the initial conditions of the universe. When not investigating the cosmos, she loves to sing (loudly), read and bake. She makes a mean Negroni.

Renee Hlozek: Who Looks Like A Scientist?

Geneticist Chris Gunter worries about passing on a rare condition to her son.

Chris Gunter is a human geneticist by training, and a science communicator by choice. She earned her Ph.D. at Emory University and then moved up and down the east coast, ending up as a Senior Editor at the journal Nature. Currently she serves as the Associate Director for Research for the Marcus Autism Center, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, and as an Associate Professor in Pediatrics for the Emory University School of Medicine. If she had any spare time, she would probably garden or bake.

Chris Gunter: My Prosthetic

Ecologist Jessica Henkel finds the keys to her research truck missing, as it's parked on a remote beach with one of the biggest tides of the season about to come in.

Jessica is a Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellow with the National Academy of Sciences and a PhD candidate in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Tulane University. She has a B.A. in English from Stony Brook University and a M.S. in Conservation Biology from the University of New Orleans. Jessica is interested in how environmental and anthropogenic change and habitat degradation are impacting the coastal habitats of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and the communities that rely on them. Her dissertation research investigates the migration ecology and physiology of near-arctic breeding shorebirds that stopover in coastal habitats on the Gulf of Mexico. When not wearing mud boots or waders, Jessica can be found advocating for coastal issues or marching in the Mardi Gras parades of her adopted city of New Orleans.

Jessica Henkel: Stuck

Professor John Dimandja is confused when his class begins snickering on the first day -- until he realizes it's because they weren't expecting him to be black.

John Dimandja is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at Spelman College.  A native of Oxford, Ohio, John grew up in the US, Belgium and the Democratic Republic of Congo.  His professional career includes work as an analytical chemist at the NASA/Ames Research Center and the CDC prior to joining Spelman in 2002. 
An internationally recognized leader in the field of multidimensional gas chromatography, John has given over 250 lectures around the world in the past 20 years.  He enjoys cooking and travelling with his wife Ann, playing the piano (poorly) and golfing, now that his basketball days are over.

John Dimandja: The First Day Of Class

Growing up on a cattle ranch, Amanda Stockton dreams of searching for life elsewhere in the universe.

Dr. Amanda Stockton is an assistant professor in the Chemistry and Biochemistry department at the Georgia Institute of Technology.  Her work walks the line between engineering and science to develop instrumentation capable of looking for organic molecules elsewhere in the solar system.  These molecules could be the feedstock for an emergence of life or the remnants of past life now extinct on places like Europa, Enceladus, and Mars.  Dr. Stockton grew up on a cattle ranch in Oklahoma, where she graduated from the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics.  At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she majored in Aerospace Engineering and Chemistry – seemingly unrelated topics but perfect for her “dream job,” i.e. the one she has now.  After obtaining a masters at Brown in chemistry, she earned her PhD with Dr. Richard Mathies at the University of California, Berkeley working on increasing the analytical chemistry capabilities of the Mars Organic Analyzer microchip capillary electrophoresis instrument platform.  She continued in this vein at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, by furthering the microfluidic engineering side of the technology as first a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow and then as a Technologist.  At Georgia Tech, her group’s work seeks to do both the engineering and the science to synergistically promote instrument capabilities and robustness.  Currently, the group’s main NASA-funded project is a version of the Mars Organic Analyzer that could fit on a kinetic impactor mission to an icy moon – a project for which testing involves a giant rail gun and a magnetic capture system to decelerate the instrument at 50,000 g or the equivalent of hitting a planet at 5 km/s.

Amanda Stockton: The Girl With The Big Nose

Brion Randolph's journey to becoming a doctor begins with a box full of kittens.

Dr. Brion Randolph is currently the Chief of Medical Oncology at Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) in Newnan, Georgia. He joined CTCA as a medical oncologist and hematologist when the hospital opened in August 2012 and is now Chief of Medical Oncology.  He also serves as Medical Director of Hematologic Oncology at the Newnan hospital.

Dr. Randolph earned his medical degree from the University of South Carolina in Columbia, and he is board certified in medical oncology, hematology and internal medicine. Dr. Randolph also earned a Master of Science in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Tennessee (UT) in Knoxville. He completed residency training in internal medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, where he also completed his fellowship training in hematology and oncology. 

While Dr. Randolph started his education in nuclear engineering, he switched to medicine when introduced to the field of hematology/oncology as a graduate student studying the physics of medical imaging and radiation therapy.

Dr. Randolph lives in Newnan with his wife and two children. He has a passion for music and the performing arts, and as a drum major he had the opportunity to lead the UT Band in the 1993 inaugural parade for President Bill Clinton. His hobbies also include tennis and running.

Brion Randolph: Curiosity Saves The Cats

Newborn and premature baby specialist Nitin Ron learns a surprising lesson from one of his young patients.

Nitin Ron is a neonatologist (baby doctor) and loves high altitude trekking and mountaineering. He is an associate professor of pediatrics at New York Methodist Hospital, and loves to use innovative methods to teach medical students. He is leading a research project in the Himalayas, including the Mt. Everest region, involving ultrasound of the eye and the body to predict mountain sickness. He also volunteers as an art guide at the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art in New York City, and this is a reminder that medicine is so much of an art as well as a science!

Nitin Ron: Babies and Mountains

Writer Blaise Allysen Kearsley asks the question: how do you learn about sexuality when no one tells you anything useful, and everyone else seems to know what they're doing?

Blaise Allysen Kearsley: How babies are made

Deborah Berebichez was told she couldn't study physics because it wasn't for girls -- until she got assistance for an unexpected reason.

(En Español: http://soundcloud.com/the-story-collider/deborah-berebichez)

Deborah Berebichez: Passing on the gift

As a young man Tom Levenson tries to follow his deceased father's advice, and takes a wide detour that leads him to contemplate life at the base of Newton's tree.

Tom Levenson: Wide open spaces and the long road home

While hunting for fossils of some of Earth's oldest organisms, paleontologist Phoebe Cohen and her geologist friend encounter a problem with one of Earth's more recently evolved organisms.

Phoebe Cohen: Chasing rocks and bears

In 2007, Matt Danzico engages in a massive project to show that strangers on the internet can be trusted -- and finds himself in the middle of nowhere with a broken-down bus and a stranger with a gun.

Matt Danzico: Strangers on the Internet

When science writer David Dobbs is suddenly unable to remember how to drive his kids to school, he sets off on a quest to understand his own brain, and makes a shocking discovery.

David Dobbs: Lost in your brain

Meghan Groome encounters a young science teachers rite of passage: teaching sex-ed. But it’s not until her honors class that the full reality hits her. (explicit)

“These kids, they’ve been kept deliberately ignorant about the reproductive system. The area between here and here is like one of those blurry boxes in the movies.”

Meghan Groome: Being brave about sex-ed

At ten years old, David Gelles finds himself abandoned and swimming in an ocean with a storm coming. Alone. Except for the pod of dolphins.

“I had this little disposable plastic camera and I’d put it up to my eye and look through the lens, and a whole dolphin head would fill the frame.”

David Gelles: Have fun, be safe... in an ocean

In a high-stakes race in high school, Jim O'Grady draws from his mother's Bronx background for inspiration.

“Why am I a pussy? Is it nature? Is it nurture? I need to know.”

Jim O'Grady: Running from the Bronx

In the IBM pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair, Jamy Ian Swiss encounters a computer that reveals a piece in personality, although maybe not in the way it's inventor intended.

"I was outraged, with all the moral outrage an 11 year old can muster."

Jamy Ian Swiss: The universal personality reading machine

Erin Barker struggles with a disease that only makes her give up four things; they just happen to be the four things worth living for.

Re-issued specially for our Women In Science magazine issue. Check it out at magazine.storycollider.org

Erin Barker: Oh, just those four things?

Having fallen in love with the ability of chemists' to learn about elements by separating them down to their essence, Eli Kintisch has just two obstacles to becoming a scientist: a machine, and another intern.

"I would go to the fridge, and there was this bottle of mustard. And I don't even like mustard, but I would spread it on bread. And that was my snack."

Eli Kintisch: Separating chemistry

Aspiring English teacher Will Garré is given a chance to teach his own class -- a physics class, and he realizes he isn't going to be able to MacGuyver his way out of this one.

"We didn't dissect our pigs correctly, but they had some character development."

Will Garré: Teaching physics, English style

Biologist Kelly Smith and comic artist Zach Weiner were having trouble dating, until they met online and realized what they each needed was another nerd. 

Kelly & Zach Weinersmith: Two nerds fall in love

Journalist Jon Ronson is excited when he hears about some 'sentient' robots, but when he goes to interview them he finds both less and more than he ever expected.

Jon Ronson: A journalist interviews a robot

Writer Jess Zimmerman discovers the dangers of dating a philosopher of neuroscience who thinks he knows what's really happening in her head.

Jess Zimmerman: The Gorilla In the Room

When Paula Croxson began to study memory as a neuroscientist, she also learned a new way of thinking about her grandmother's failing memory.

Paula Croxson: When your grandmother forgets who you are

After a career as a theater manager, Stuart Firestein takes a biology class, which leads him to a completely new life, and a lot of salamander noses.

Stuart Firestein: A mentor with a nose for science

While visiting Guatemala Sarah Everts is bitten by a dog, so she goes looking for a rabies shot. But coming home to Canada is when the real problem started.

Sarah Everts: Bitten in a foreign country

Whether we wear a lab coat or haven't seen a test tube since grade school, science is shaping all of our lives. And that means we all have science stories to tell. Every year, we host dozens of live shows all over the country, featuring all kinds of storytellers - researchers, doctors, and engineers of course, but also patients, poets, comedians, cops, and more. Some of our stories are heartbreaking, others are hilarious, but they're all true and all very personal. Welcome to The Story Collider!