SUCCESS
A WILDLIFE AMBASSADOR UA STUDENT BRINGS SCIENCE, SOCIAL MEDIA AND ACTIVISM TOGETHER LAURA LATZKO • COLLEGE TIMES
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A graduate student Earyn McGee is obsessed with lizards. Her work in the sciences and environmental conservation has led her to the Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list. She was also honored as an American Association for the Advancement of Science mass media science and engineering fellow and an AAAS If/Then ambassador. A statue was made in her likeness and installed in Central Park Zoo as part of the ambassador program’s #IfThenSheCan-The Exhibit. “The ambassador program is about making women in sciences more visible, giving us the tools we need to succeed in our endeavors and our scientific efforts, and building a community of women scientists. That way we can lean on each other and collaborate,” McGee says. McGee has long been an inspiration to others. Working toward her Ph.D. in wildlife conservation and management, McGee shares facts about lizards and other creatures through YouTube, Instagram and Twitter. On Instagram and Twitter, she posts under the name Afro_Herper, a play on “herpetology.” She asks her followers to look for different species of lizards in photographs she posts as part
of her #FindThatLizard game. Sometimes, she engages her followers by sharing their lizard photos. Her videos and posts will often show her in the field, catching and collecting data on lizards. She regularly talks about her favorite species, Yarrow’s Spiny Lizards. In her videos, she shares information such as where to find lizards and how to hold them, tell if they’re pregnant, measure them and determine their sex. “When I’m making a video, I’m making it for my younger self, the one who was sitting there watching Steve Irwin and Jeff Corwin and thinking it would be so great if I could do something like that and have that as a job,” McGee says. She says it’s important to share with others what it has been like to be a Black woman in the science field. “For me, it’s not just about the lizards,” she says. “It was about telling people about my experiences of a Black woman in a predominately white field. It was trying to find the balance of not completely tanking my career but also being true and authentic while entertaining people. Finding that balance was a little difficult. I would say it probably took me a year to figure it out for myself.” Through her work, she hopes to encourage girls to pursue careers in science. “I definitely have parents who email me and tell me their daughters have been inspired. I
have my own sisters who tell me the same,” McGee says.
MEETING GOLIATH McGee went from using social media for personal to educational uses in June 2018 after she posted about a large tadpole named Goliath found at PHOTO COURTESY EARYN MCGEE the Southwestern For UA graduate student Earyn McGee, science education is Research Station. tied to sharing her own story, teaching others and increasing “People just representation of African American girls in the sciences. thought it was the weirdest, coolest thing and was born and grew up for a time went wild for it. It ended up going in Atlanta before moving to relatively viral,” McGee says. Inglewood, California, for middle Although she grew up with social and high school. She didn’t have media, it took time for her to figure many pets, except for hamsters and out how to use it differently. a bearded dragon. “I had to figure out my voice and She thought she wanted to be a what I wanted to share,” McGee veterinarian, but in college leaned says. “I thought no one would toward wildlife management. care. Then, I was like these things “I always had a love for science are important to me, so I’m going and a passion for animals. It really to share them, and hopefully it was a whole lot of hard work, resonates with others.” perseverance and determination,” She hopes to continue to mentor McGee says. and inspire others as she has a Although 2020 was a challenging graduate student. year for everyone, McGee Working as a mentor is not new continued with her work. She for her. For three years, she was a stays socially active by helping graduate student mentor in UA’s to organize Black Birders Week, Doris Duke Conservation Scholars a virtual movement that brings Program, which aims to create together Black birders. This more diversity in the sciences. followed an incident in Central “As a mentor, I felt like even Park where a white woman though they were helping me with threatened to call the police on my field work, my role was to serve Marvel writer Christian Cooper, them and help them get to where who was bird watching. they wanted to be,” McGee says. McGee says she can relate to McGee earned her bachelor’s many of the issues tied to the Black and master’s degrees from Howard Lives Matter movement. University and UA, respectively. “This issue very much does touch She came to Arizona as part science, the outdoors world, natural of the Environmental Biology resources and the environment,” Scholars program, working closely she says. with faculty mentor adviser and “Our goals are to call out our herpetologist George Middendorf. peers who are not saying anything She hopes to expand her research about the atrocities that are and to include foxes, wolves, happening in this country and to octopuses and elephants. also build community and uplift each other as Black people in the LONGTIME GOALS outdoors.” CT The oldest of five kids, McGee
Earyn McGee
PHOTO BY CHRIS RICHARDS
UA graduate student Earyn McGee seeks to educate and inspire others through videos and activities around lizards.
Instagram.com/afro_herper Twitter.com/afro_herper YouTube: http://bit.ly/2K3Ttpe
ECOLLEGETIMES.COM | FEBRUARY 2021 5
