STEM Today

Rising Superstars of the STEM World

NOAA Scientist Dr. Tracy Fanara and Mythbusters Co-Host Tamara Robertson love fashion, the ocean, superheroes and tinkering with things. They’re also two of the most prominent scientists promoting and mentoring kids in STEM.

By Robert Yehling

Tracy Fanara remembers the day she knew what she wanted to do. An elementary teacher was talking about the 1978 Love Canal disaster, in which barrels of chemicals from a toxic landfill dislodged and bled into the Niagara Falls, NY water table and leached into backyards, basements and a schoolyard. The disaster resulted in the creation of the EPA Superfund and a host of new regulations.

“That’s what sparked my interest in environmental engineering,” she recalled, “protecting people from natural disasters, making sure they have clean water and food to survive.”

As for Tamara Robertson? It took a little longer, but the way it happened was equally random. “I grew up taking things apart — not always a good thing!” she laughed. “I’ve always been a tinkerer, naturally curious. Only when I was a sophomore in college, did I realize engineering could be an option, but at the time, the only thing I knew about it was that Scotty was an engineer on Star Trek.”

Two amazing careers germinated from these casual early brushes with science — part of the point they make every day in their work with younger STEM students. Dr. Fanara manages coastal and national modeling efforts for NOAA, a most crucial job in these times of sealevel rise and coastal change. Dr. Robertson is the co-host of the Science Channel’s Mythbusters Jr. with Adam Savage, former co-host of Mythbusters 2.0, and engineering consultant and wardrobe designer — a fascinating

Tracy Fanara and Tamara Robertson

combination. Together, they presented a virtual session in the recent SciFest All Access, produced by USA Science & Engineering Festival; Tamara co-hosted the entire event as well.

They also co-publish the Seekers of Science comic, a fun mixture of cool animation and sound, teen-grabbing science, which has a circulation of hundreds of thousands and is a huge hit among students and parents alike.

“SciFest All Access is amazing,” Fanara said. “It’s a great resource for students to get connected with people in the STEM and science fields. Everyone has a unique story, and it’s important to hear of STEM successes, because it’s not all rainbows and butterflies; in fact, there are a lot of obstacles, and it is hard at times. But it’s all worth it in the end. You get through things you might not ordinarily; it builds character and work ethic.”

While both women place high importance on mentorship and working with kids — they run a STEM camp together in Florida — Robertson has made it a major part of her life’s calling. Besides Mythbusters, she’s a board member for a number of STEM organizations, and devotes much of her consultancy to creating platforms to maximize student involvement — particularly girls and young women.

“I wanted to champion women, and I realized during my corporate life, in five tiers of management, there were no women,” she said. “On my own, I did research, and realized so many young girls quit STEM based learning and programs before even entering high school. Something had to be done.”

Enter Mythbusters, interactive projects — and Superhero Science, which she’s championed through ComiCon panels, outreach camps with Tracy, and keynote speeches to inspire more young women to seek STEM careers.

“My main outreach is Superhero Science, comic books etc., so as an example of what I love to do, I was doing a science prank show, tied into Mythbusters, at the Clipper SciFest in LA. There was no ability for a full stage show, so we pivoted to a booth and a show floor, with pretty talented kids. You could get a photograph and autograph if you asked a superhero science questions. I became like this Magic 8 Ball. I invited the physics department from UCLA to take up half my booth, worked with the science editor of Big Bang Theory and retrofitted a Jazzercise bike to illuminate light bulbs, to show the amount of energy it takes to light something. Projects like this draw in kids and keep them interested.”

In a world that will need more and more engineers as climate, infrastructure and other challenges continue to mount, Tracy believes the way to the hearts of tomorrow’s scientists — particularly girls — is to tell her story and then put it right to work with students. And within her story is part of the secret sauce to creating value and achieving greatness: find a way to create a better approach or method for the world.

“I chose a career in science and the environment,” she said. “With science, you get to see something you’ve never seen every day, and you’re going to lose, often — that’s what happens with experiments. Until you win. When you win, though, you have the potential to change the world. My degrees combine design and environmental engineering, water and the environment. If you look at every catastrophe in the U.S., you see scientists and engineers not talking to each other, just staying in their specific corners. Well, I’m an environmental engineer, and I am also a hydrologist and ocean scientist, focusing on coastal resilience; I do both.

“I really enjoy mentoring students. I had over 40 interns in my previous job, including 13 in one summer. The kids did what they wanted to; this was not an internship where they do monotonous tasks. They explore science and

learn what drives them. They research and then build the piece, learning they can build the world around them.”

Robertson’s career followed an entirely different arc. She was a licensed chemical and biocmolecular product engineer for more than a decade for Fortune 500 companies. Her areas of experience include global tech transfers, process and facilities design, pandemic vaccine manufacturing, patented additive technology development, and product design. While working with the likes of Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Tupperware, she also launched Women in Leadership mentoring programs, started plant-based product initiatives, and engineered shifts to more sustainability in product design and manufacturing.

However, the tireless, diminutive scientist with endless personality also was something else — a card-carrying member of the Screen Actors Guild. When 2015 rolled around, she made her move into full-time consultancy, speaking and presenting — and eventually onto Mythbusters.

“I always had this creative spark, whether choreographing dance, doing art, or being an engineer,” Robertson said. “I did commercial acting in the Southeast while in college, and it’s been a side hobby since, but I was never able to land the roles I wanted, a nerdy science/ engineer, you know, Amy Farrah Fowler in The Big Bang Theory.

“I’d go for these roles, and they’d say, ‘you don’t look like a scientist or engineer.’ I’d say back, ‘Would you like to see my degrees?’ Instead, I only got ‘girl next door’ roles.”

Now, she’s spent the past several seasons on screen, in a much different way than she expected — but it does combine camera and science.

“Every engineer hopes to explode conventional myths. What most don’t realize is that Mythbusters really is reality TV. It was a whole new branch of TV that I, as an actor, never knew I would be going toward. I was so surprised. I never thought I’d land in a TV show like it, getting to play while I hosted, getting to tinker with things. Really cool,” she said. ■

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Next Issue

Top 50 Most Innovative Products

Get ready for this one. We’ve been gathering the hottest tech and saving the best for last. In our winter you will find the hottest gadgets from around the world of tech. You can expect the best in outdoors and active gear, health tech, gaming tech, life tech, and an expanded Product Revolution section. You won’t want to miss this one.

Drones for Everything

It wasn’t long ago that drones were an exciting new toy. Quickly, they became a tool for the military. UAV’s have made countless strikes around the world with (usually) pinpoint accuracy. In the decade or so that followed, they have transformed into a vital element of many businesses — large and small, alike. Companies are rapidly looking for ways to work drone deliveries into their services. From film crews to Amazon, from pizza delivery to survey work, we’re only now just beginning to unlock the full potential of what drones will mean to our society in the long run.

Tech for Boomers

The Baby Boomer generation brings to light an interesting new subject. This will be the first generation of (mostly) tech savvy senior citizens. It’s a new situation we haven’t faced as a society and will likely come with its own advantages — and struggles. We will be looking deeper into the topic for the next issue as we look for tech designed with seniors in mind, as well as what it will mean for less tech-savvy seniors. Will it affect activity levels or memory function in old age? And what about the seniors who are more reluctant to dive into new technology?

Working and Learning from Home

Covid-19 has created yet another exploding new industry that will be worth watching closely. As more and more people find themselves working and learning from home, a large crop of businesses have sprouted up with ways to make your life easier. From conference call devices to new software solutions, the world is filling up with ways to make working from home feel a little more like going to the office. We’ll be chatting with a number of people in the industry and make sure you’re up-to-date with everything you need to know.

TheLighterSide 8

OF THE STRANGEST THINGS ABOUT WORKING FROM HOME

By Corey Noles

Working from home can be a glorious thing — for some people.

If you’re a person who can roll with the punches, laugh off weirdness, are very much a self-starter and don’t really need to be in contact with other humans — then it might be for you.

The freedom of working from home in a comfortable environment is awesome until, of course, you realize that you’re working … from your home. It has all of the people you love, the things you love, and even the opportunity for a bed lunch.

But it can be a double-edged sword for a whole host of reasons.

8. Your workspace is omnipresent. Home

becomes the office. This means not only do you work from home, you’re also at the office when you’re not working. So, while you’re trying to veg out and enjoy the latest episode of whichever crappy sitcom has sucked you in, your desk is taunting you with all of the tasks you didn’t quite finish during the day.

7. Your pets get to see you more — and you

see a lot more of them. Our little dachshund

remains as sweet as can be, but our cats have taken a particular interest in my work. They often like to stomp across my keyboard, stare deeply into a zoom camera, or use my back as a scratching post in an important meeting.

6. Technology regularly becomes possessed.

With five devices in arm’s reach capable of handling an important meeting or interview, there is a direct correlation between their failure rate and the importance of the meeting I’m attending.

5. A trip to the convenience store seems

like a treat. After many hours in whatever dungeon you’ve chosen for an office, you might decide to venture out. The sun will burn your eyes and skin, but this is only the first part of your transformation into a vampire.

4. You become friends with the wildlife

around your home. For me, it’s a family of bunnies that sit right outside my office window. I named them Ralph, Oscar, and Smithy. A friend recently suggested a rabbit hunting trip, and I felt like he was encouraging me to go commit war crimes.

3. People can’t seem to understand that

you’re working. Friends call on random days just assuming that because I’m home, I’m available. I’ve worked from home for years, and they are well aware, but somehow people around you seem to think you’re “working” and not actually working.

2. Suddenly, you realize you only eat at

supper. Countless days I have wrapped up my day only to realize I forgot lunch, and breakfast, and even snacks. The real benefit of working at home is the ability to chow down steak and eggs while you go through your emails. In about 8 years, I haven’t done it once. But, damn, what a fantasy.

1. Your lovely family needs you — all the

time. Those same sweet folks who barely speak to you in the evening, have consistent needs during the day. Important things, like the need to discuss Minecraft for an hour, why homework is unreasonable and they shouldn’t be expected to do school work at home, and the ever famous: Will you run to the store for me?

While working from home has its challenges, once you properly train those around you, it can be a great experience. But never, ever, let your kids bring up Minecraft.