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Imagine a secret organisation that combine the exceeding talent and physical acquirement of its agents with unbelievable appliance to protect the world from malign villains bent on using skill to decree the reality .
No , we ’re not talking about the next instalment of James Bond , but the unbelievable female scientists in the " Curie Society " series of YA graphic novels .
Teen science prodigies Simone, Taj and Maya [from right to left] with their mentor Emma
Ahead of the 2nd book ’s launch , we spoke to MIT professorRitu Raman , one of the lead science advisor on the series , about how lifelike novels can help promote STEM education , why diversity is so important and what it ’s like to be immortalized in comic leger form .
Alexander McNamara : How did you get involved in the making of the Curie Society book ?
Ritu Raman : I assemble Heather and Adam [ Einhorn and Staffaroni , authors of the script ] several days ago when I was postdoc at MIT , and we were talk about how there ’s a lack of content for preadolescent and teenage girls that register science in both an exciting direction , but also an precise style . Something that motivates the great unwashed , but then also shows them , within reason , what ’s going on in the world of STEM today .
When Heather and Adam did the first book , they talk to a bunch of unlike scientists and engineers from a diverseness of dissimilar perspectives . There was a immense collaborative effort to put the first story together , which I think was particularly important when they ’re flesh out the three main characters and their parentage storey .
AM : What was your use in the series and how did you serve in its cosmos ?
RR : It shift between books . In the first , they talked to a portion of different scientists who do different kinds of work and had different paths to skill . I think that was really important for them to take bits and pieces of multitude ’s authentic experience and weave them into the characters .
Teen science prodigies Simone, Taj and Maya [from right to left] with their mentor Emma
Part of my tale is moving around a lot rise up , and as a event I skipped a lot of grades bouncing between different schools . And so of the three characters , Simone ’s experience of being younger and not necessarily emotionally matched in maturity to the office that she is , while being matched scientifically , comes from me .
Then in the context of Maya , who is supposed to be South Asian or Amerind , the ethnic exploration of science and other things , I think amount a small bit from myself . The third fibre [ Taj ] , is frigid diametrical from me , but frankly , prompt me of one of my close Friend .
In the first book I shared my experience and provided feedback on a trivial bit of the scientific discipline , but actually we talked more about depiction of bioethics and how scientists do or do n’t guess about the consequences of their work . Who should be in the room when these decisions are being made ? How do we portray a villain who starts off sort of as a unspoiled scientist and maybe things go wrong ? I was provide feedback more at that level .
In the second ledger , they decide to pursue a strategy of have one independent scientist to work on with , and so I have to see the story and help craft it from very early visions . I did a lot more accuracy checking , but also if we needed a technology that would , say , paralyse somebody but not hurt them forever , I was brainstorm the different tools and technologies that could be highlighted .
We also decided to do a long feature of the work that we do in our lab . Sometimes , when you want to make something super cool and exciting to read , you ’re depicting technologies five or 10 years from now , right ? So we also wanted to give kinsfolk something that ’s hap in labs mighty now , and that citizenry might be like , " Wow , I would have reckon that that did n’t survive yet . "
We wanted to show myself , as well as the women work with me in my lab and the kinds of thing that they do . It was really nerveless to be able to highlight some real students at MIT in the context of the Curie Society .
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AM : How does it feel to be immortalized in amusing book of account physical body ?
RR : I ’m dwell in the dream , really . I ’ve always wanted to write and contribute to the world of fable , but when I write for work , I ’m a scientist , I write a very specific plan of how to get a Hiram Ulysses Grant fund in the next five years that will do exactly this and this . There ’s creativeness in there , but it ’s creativity within very strict constraint , and I think the opportunity to loose those constraints a little bit and still scratch that creative part of my brainiac , while talking about the science … . It ’s very cool , I ’m very happy about it .
AM : That creative outgrowth is pretty important , and obviously the record is cram with science . As the advisor to the story , how far can you push the science from fact to fiction ?
RR : That ’s an interesting question , particularly because there are in all probability different aspects of science that I treat differently in that manner . I mean one of the thing about being a PhD trained scientist and working in a research lab is that I know about some very recess areas , but then I also have a academic degree in mechanically skillful and aerospace engine room . But it ’s not like I can really comment too deeply on some of the work on airfoil design for plane , which show up in one of the leger .
I sometimes feel like I ’m hypercritical of the thing that are closer to my piece of work refer to genetic technology or ready new tissues by 3D impression — that form of stuff that I know a lot about . So the first thing I do is test to modulate . For things that are not straight in my area of expertness , I intend I ’m able to give a lot more freedom — if this passes the smell test or it does n’t defy or fundamentally break the police of purgative , it ’s good . Maybe it ’s not exactly perfectly right , but it ’s a floor and that ’s OK . With poppycock that is more related to the things that I do , I have to first seek to censor myself a little act more .
So I examine to first become off that part of my brain , but I think now that we ’ve shape together for many years the team hopefully feels comfortable being like , " Hey , this is the reason we wanted to say it that way . If you feel this is fundamentally wrong , is there something else we could say that would still move the report from point A to guide B ? "
I think particularly being demand in an early draft is great , because then before they ’ve committed too much to something , I can figure out how to just lead scientific discipline into that . I think just have a good kinship with the generator over many years has help .
AM : It must have been fun really being able to explore other areas of science that you ’re not an expert in . Did you learn a portion from researching the story as well ?
RR : Yeah , I mean , I ’m not incentivized in my job to think outside of the accurate context of use of what my science laboratory work on because I ’m yield to be an expert . zoom back out and being a Renaissance man sparks your own exuberance for the thing that you imagine were nerveless when you were a kid . I really require to go into aerospace and make rockets , and I still think those things are exciting , but it ’s not what I ’m doing right now .
You ca n’t do everything , but I think that some of the engineering , in particular related to vim and the climate crisis , are very exciting . Even though a spate of my work is focused on human health — which is great and very motivating — sometimes , as a human being be on the major planet , you ’re also think more loosely about other grand challenge that are facing us . So catching up on what everyone else is doing is very inspiriting and exciting to see .
AM : How effective do you think graphic novel are in get people into STEM .
RR : One of the thing that I think is very important is verify we ’re meeting masses where they are . Some masses respond really well to the write word , some the great unwashed respond well to digital media , some masses would favour everything to be delivered to them in the configuration of a dance — and that ’s o.k. . unremarkably most people are a combination of those things and you need to hear clobber repeated three or four dissimilar times for it to really sink in .
I think graphic novels fit out in a nice space . We have TV shows where the great unwashed draw science for kids of dissimilar audiences , and there ’s a circumstances of YouTube picture that do that . skill fiction novels also do a chore of research that space , but they often seem to target sure-enough audiences and really concenter on dystopian visual sensation of the future .
So when you ’re think about this audience , how do you introduce naturalistic science fiction in a visually compelling way , that has a narrative and also spotlight several different kind of people ? You could sure do it through superhero movies , but [ graphical novels ] are another way of doing it that I think could actually get hold of a net ton of people , and can be something they revisit over time . Maybe it ’s in their bookshelf and they look at it but ca n’t understand it the first fourth dimension ; then they go and they learn something in schooltime and they can come back and go to that varlet .
I mean it ’s one part of the arsenal , which does n’t have a net ton of things in it right now , but there ’s a big opportunity for us to reach a lot of people who would not otherwise see these form of narration .
AM : The book itself has a very various cast of characters and is plain focused on getting more women into STEM . From your position , is scientific discipline doing enough to make this positive alteration , and what more could we be doing ?
RR : I believe as long as guild is evolving we ’re always play catch up in any subject to ensure that we ’re capturing whatever the current distribution of the universe is . I think in science , for example , we have made tremendous procession in levy more women into undergraduate programs — certainly at MIT we ’ve had 50 % cleaning woman in our undergraduate curriculum for many years , which is adorable — but as you go farther along , for sure in graduate schooltime , in the professoriate , in the leading of STEM businesses , the delegacy , at least of women and sure as shooting mass that match different panorama of multifariousness , it ’s still very low-down .
One of the thing I really like about the way the Curie Society structure its characters is that even though the protagonists are jr. , there are a lot of olderfemale scientiststhat are portrayed as really senior people in the book . I think that ’s very important because they pretty openly recognize that the world they faced was evenhandedly different to what these younger girls are face , and that interplay has been really nice to see . I have n’t really find that in other metier or other stories .
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I do call up that despite inroads in get more the great unwashed activated about skill , when I interact with middle schoolers , and teenaged female child in fussy , there is still a lot of waver and a lack of ego - belief about the role that they can play in skill . I do n’t think it ’s something that we can chuck ourselves on the back and say , " This is a figure out job , we do n’t need to occupy about this any longer . " We ’re combating thousands of age of all of us take sure beliefs about who ’s adequate to of what , so I think we still have some work to do there , at least to keep the pipeline going .
But we also have to recognize that just getting a bunch of 12 - year - olds agitate about skill is not enough . You want to actually preserve and promote and retain that exuberance throughout their lives , and that ’s a much prospicient scurf problem .
AM : Do you think there are any especial challenge to get younger multitude , particularly immature girls , into science ? Is there anything we can do ?
RR : One scourge that I see right now is that it ’s wonderful to highlight women and young girls that are aroused about science , but if those are the only people in the story , you ’re sort of remove them from a born context of use or the fact that we live in a very gender - diverse beau monde . I would love to see more male characters interact with these distaff scientist in respectful way .
I think we ask to be very deliberate of not just evidence young woman to engage science , but also educating new world that , " Did you know that there are women who do scientific discipline and are very good at it and we can all play together and do cool things ? "
More broadly speaking , ensure our intercession are not just target at people who identify as girls is the lose gap in the airfield that we can keep pushing toward .
AM : So essentially what we postulate to do is see more masses who are in the science environment in front of people talking about what we ’re doing ?
RR : Yeah , and get more young son to show these account book too . I just think about the number of Quran I show as a tiddler that featured young boys and I still learned a raft from them . I would love for it to go the other manner . Yes the account is about woman and I hope immature girl like it , but I hope a draw of boys read it too and remember that it ’s an exciting story and something to emulate .
AM : Finally , if you were a character in the Holy Writ , what would your specialized science be ? If you ’re already a member of the Curie Society and are keeping it mystic , that ’s ok …
RR : One of the thing I always wish I could do — particularly because we in my lab are always building small tissue paper and model of thehuman bodyand then trying to interpret what pass off inside the human body — is being capable to go inside a somebody and see on the button what ’s going wrong . I think probably being able to see , at very high declaration , how cell are speak to each other and how we can keep in line that , that would believably be the secret skill — but you ’ll never know , I ’ll never tell .
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Although aimed for stripling , the Curie Society books are an excellent read for anybody who is after a skill - tinct gambol . It ’s peachy to see how the characters develop , tackle topics like cultural expectations and sexuality which are empathetically woven into the narrative alongside scientific melodic theme like gene editing and golem .
