HOW DID I BECOME A SCIENTIST?
I started to develop an interest in science, probably, since I was 6 years old. I remember playing in the garden of my house with “earthworms” that nowadays, based on my mom stories of me, I know they were snakes. I was fascinated by the snakes’ scales (‘skin’) coloration patterns.
As my mom and sisters noticed I wasn’t scared of creatures, they soon declared me responsible of taking out of the house any creature. This sounds like a fun early life job, except that this sometimes would mean they would wake me up at 5 AM, even though I have no (school) reason to be awake that early.
Anyhow, thanks to that early wildlife 'job’, I handled spiders, tarantulas, frogs, toads, rats, crickets, and grasshoppers. I also grew up watching iguanas, birds, squirrels, and turtles. If you have read this far (thank you), I imagine you wonder if I grew up in the middle of the jungle. Well, sadly, I did not! Instead, I grew up in a small neighborhood in David City in the Western region of Panama. However, my home was the last one in that street and behind it, there were no houses, but a little ravine and a tiny patch of forest on the other side.
With all that early interaction, by the time I needed to decide a profession, I had an easy decision!
Once I was in college, at the University of Panama, I started to seek for extracurricular activities. Lucky me, in Panama we have the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, an academic platform of which I have been able to take advantage of. I participated in field ecological courses, research projects, and over the years, I have been to build a strong network with researchers from around the world. For instance, it is where I met my current advisor, Meg Crofoot!
I consider myself a bad researcher because I don’t mind much about pleasing the academic “needs” of the scientific system/community. Instead, I am scientist to serve to society! I love doing outreach, either by giving public talks or engaging in educational activities with students (from 6 to 20+ age), or sharing results of science to society with help of communication platforms (i.e., radio, journals, and newspapers).
I advocate for more a fare, inclusive and representative scientific community. Particularly, representation in science of women, LGBT+, and broadly, students from the Southern Hemisphere. When possible, I engage with insightful conversations with researchers from the Northern Hemisphere on how can they be better advisors to students from SH countries.
I also work together with other Latin researchers on encouraging younger students to apply for grad, and share with them how to do so.
And, I stand against practices of Helicopter Science!