Inspiring Women: Joanne Manaster: Science Love

The Science Goddess, Joanne Manaster, is a tireless science advocate, educator and blogger.

From her story, I learned not only of her youthful modeling career, but how she changed course in her vocation, according to what she knows she likes to do. Joanne wished to become a doctor when she was a child, but found she preferred working in the laboratory. In the pursuit of a PhD, she realized she favored teaching over research and that’s what she does today in the classroom and online.

Let Joanne tell you about her change in perspective, it’s really quite insightful and moving: “I began by wanting to view the heavens with a telescope and then ended up looking into the body with microscopes. I started my life by focusing mainly on science and preferring NOT to be seen, to experiencing a world whose main emphasis is image and being larger than life, to withdrawing back into a studious scientific bent and now putting myself once again out in the world, trying to integrate all that I am in my goal of sharing science.”

Especially, Joanne says, her goal is to encourage young men and women to take in interest in science and not be put off by negative sterotyping. To that end, Joanne goes a long way to communicate the beauty in wonder and the wonder in beauty of the scientific phenomena she encounters.

I’m especially impressed with Joanne’s video book reviews and the range of books she spotlights. One she did with her daughter Amanda on the YA novel Math Girls is particularly enjoyable, focusing on an intriguing combination of math problems and teen romance with the emphasis: "Math isn't hard. Love is."

Or see Joanne’s collection of highlights from video posts on chemistry, Joanne Loves Chemistry to get a further sense of her spectrum of interests.

I’m also fond of Joanne’s discussions of the science of beauty, particularly the chemistry of make up, revealing the use and advantage of science in everyday products.

Some are odd, such as Joanne’s experiment of how many cats can fit in a kitchen sink. Another more reflective example is Joanne’s profile of Jacques Cousteau and how his work influenced her scientific interests.

These are just a few examples, however, and I have seen anything else like what Joanne does. Go see for yourself.

Inspiring Women: Sharon Hayes: Putting the Social in Social Media

For many, Sharon Hayes needs no introduction, having been profiled for her social media savvy in publications such as The Huffington Post I've found that her daily interactions and positive messages on Twitter, Sharon shows how to use social media to good advantage because she gives so much through the medium. I remember Sharon tweeting about welcoming everyone we encounter on Twitter because all of us were new once. She doesn’t like direct messages via Twitter but prefers to engage in conversations via her stream and also offers a lot of strategies for getting optimum usage out of Twitter.

However, most influential for me is Sharon’s concept of “snacking.” Social media and our multitasking, technology-driven culture embodies a condition Sharon aptly calls “relationship snacking.” (Another woman I admire used the phrase “treating others like fast food.”) And this is possible not only with an uncountable number of Facebook friends or Twitter connections but in every day encounters among family and analog friends. Not giving the time of day and not being equal to the relationship, I see this for myself so often. Sharon acknowledges her own difficulties, neglecting friendships over time and feeling resentful when others multitask in her presence. That’s why her Twitter usage is so striking, inviting others into conversation, sustaining the interchange and showing genuine concern.

I’m also drawn to Sharon’s words on information snacking: “We skim and get the general idea of information rather than absorbing and understanding it.” I’m especially guilty of this activity. Sharon suggests filtering, taking the time to understand what’s relevant to us, and “take action.” It reminds me a quote from Hesse, “only the thinking we act on has any value,” and the distinction between information and knowledge explained to me by a teacher “knowledge is what you have after all the notebooks have been burned.”

Sharon has two intriguing books scheduled for publication in 2012, My Paradigm Shift, which is about her own personal growth, and another highlighting others' success stories, Don't Tell Me I Can't.

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Reverb 5 Reading

5. Reading
What has been your favorite book (or books if you can’t pick just one) that you’ve read this year?

I haven’t read many books this year. I’ve enjoyed the ones I’ve read, for example Brene Brown’s wise and generous The Gifts of Imperfection; Michele Norris’s The Grace of Silence, which documents not only racial history in America but the author’s coming to know family secrets; Jessica Kristie’s Dreaming in Darkness, rich with stories of survival after heartbreak and insights into the author’s own writing process; and Elaine Schuh’s The Traz, delightful and improbable romp of a young brainiac who joins a biker gang.

One that especially made an impression is Present Value by Sabin Willet. It’s a book about value, the monetary kind and in life. It was timely to read around the 10^th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, which are mentioned in the book, and then a company and a family implode. There’s elements of uncertainty, the characters are drawn sympathetically, even the wife who is addicted to her Blackberry who then finds herself fallen on the concrete on an icy January day. Maybe I connected with this story because it takes place in my part of the world, I identified with parents being disconnected from their children, the flashbacks to college and the idiosyncratic economics lecturer, and the timeframe of the story paralleled an unsettling time for me. I don’t know if it is my favorite reading from this year but one that haunts me at the moment.