Giving Tuesday: Inclusion

Parmvir Bahia - National Director

I am a short, loud, British-Indian woman. A child of immigrants, a daughter, sister and wife. But of all my identities, the one that causes most confusion is Parmvir the scientist. I always loved science and when I discovered this was something I could pursue as a profession I jumped at the chance!

I was completely enamoured by every new nugget of information that helped me better understand the world around me, but it took a long time for me to realize that this was not true for others.

When I started a national science festival I did so with with the aim of helping more people understand the scientific process so that they could be better informed but after one of our earlier events, I realized we could and should be doing more.

For so long it was an activity for rich gentlemen. Even now there are myriad reasons why science is inaccessible for the many. One thing that really brought this home to me was a thank you email from one of our attendees that she wrote after one of our events. She found it “was a terrific learning experience.” She also told us how, as someone who failed college she now had the words to explain the immune system to her grandsons. "Do you have any idea how awesome that is?". Her final comment was to say "Thank you for teaching and creating a conversation". That last part really stayed with me.

Communicating science is not just about relaying facts, it's about allowing everyone to participate in the conversation. This might involve bringing an audience into a bar to talk immunology, it might be a collaboration with local religious leaders or it might be reaching out to students in a Title I school. In each case, the needs of the audience are different and participation requires those of us doing science outreach to create our events with care. This is why I head up Scientists Inc and taste of science.