I AM SCIENCE kickstarter

Gosh, my pal Aspen says this best in this post on sort of the power of the internet to bring more people together for a certain cause. Some call it crowd sourcing, people on Tumblr call it signal-boosting, but the short of it is with the internet it's hard not to be connected.

Kickstarter is one of those amazing products-of-internet-connectivity. It's a new way to find funding; projects include everything from public art to app development to children's books, and Kickstarter allows you to connect with those projects, and donate in anyway you see fit.

And here's where the science comes in. So obviously Kickstarter is not going to replace the NIH when it comes to funding options, and I think if a post doc ever told his PI, "No, instead of working on my K award I'm just going to put this project up on Kickstarter," that PI would think they were crazy. (Don't mark my words on that, maybe that's what science will come to eventually.)

But here's a science kickstarter project we should all get involved in.

The #IamScience hashtag was started on twitter a month ago, and the day it started I watched with glee as my twitter feed became this science confessional of sorts. I was nothing short of inspired, and I cannot say this clearly enough, this is one of the most important messages for young scientists to hear.


In the microcosm of my lab world, I'm surrounded by a lot of people who did take traditional paths to end up as postdocs or PIs. You go to college, you major in biology, you go to grad school because that's what people that major in biology that don't go to med school do, you get a post doc after grad school because everyone goes and gets a post doc after grad school, and then you look for a faculty position somewhere. Oh I am so glad the next 15 years of my life are already planned out.

This isn't me. And the fact that this wasn't me, until about a month ago, when I started reading the #IamScience stories, scared me. And now it's exciting.

I had my daughter my junior year of college, and I've always had kind of a lagging work ethic, and I'm not sure if grad school is really for me--yet. And now I know that that's ok. And this is the message we need to be sending young people. Or older people. Or all people that have a love for discovery and logic and creativity. To know that "science" isn't this unobtainable ivory tower of people that just want to be shut up in a lab all the time. Science is accessible. And meaningful. And useful. And really freakin' exciting. And an amazing community to be a part of. 


So I was in a bad mood the other week, and I bought a pair of shoes. Because I thought that would make me feel better. (And it did!) But holy hell, this is way more important. And by funding this project, I hope that I will be able to make a difference, and inspire other people like me. Other techs that are lost in their jobs. Other people wondering if they can do it.

I'm donating now. It would be very very awesome if you would join me.

I can't wait to write my own story. And to hear all of yours.