Ana Maria Porras

Tell me about your origin story. How did you end up in your field?

 

“I moved here to the U.S. to study biomedical engineering 13 and a half years ago because at the time there were very few biomedical engineering programs in my home country, which is Colombia. That’s what all of my degrees are in. I have a bachelor’s in biomedical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, I have a master’s and a Ph.D. also in biomedical engineering from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. I used to study tissue engineering, so that’s things like creating organs and tissues in the lab that we can then use to replace an organ or a tissue in the human body. Now that I am a postdoc at Cornell, I study the gut microbiome, so it’s a very different field. As I began studying the gut microbiome, I realized that I didn't know that much about a microbe and about the gut microbiome, and I really started to get into science communication and all the things people were doing on social media.”

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What do you research and what excites you about it?

 

“I originally became interested in the gut microbiome because, like I said, I’m from Colombia, and what I was doing before didn’t really allow me to work with people in the Global South and it wasn’t really global health related. So, my current project is looking at the differences in the compositions of the gut microbiome between people who live in different parts of the world. Specifically, between people who live in the Global North, so the United States and Europe primarily, and the Global South, so places like Latin America. I obtain samples from people in the United States, Fiji, and Guatemala, to study how differences in the gut microbiome affect susceptibility to infection. We ask questions like, if I have the microbes of someone in Guatemala versus the United States and we both go to Chipotle and eat a piece of lettuce contaminated with E. coli, who’s going to get sicker — those types of questions.”

 

You also crochet gut microbes. How did you get the idea and how have they been useful in science communication and outreach?

 

“Two years ago, at the 2018 USA National Science and Engineering Festival, a bunch of us at Cornell had a microbiome booth. You know, this festival is huge, it has National Geographic, NASA, The Discovery Channel — so we were brainstorming ways to attract people to our booth. I crochet, so I was like, you know what, I can crochet a few bacteria. I think everyone thought I was a little crazy, but then I made them and they turned out really cute. I brought them to the festival and I was shocked, honestly, at how well it worked at attracting children to come to our booth and the ways in which the other volunteers were using them to teach basic microbiology concepts, like how bacteria move. At the festival, one of the professors that was with me used a spirochete to show children how bacteria that have this shape move in soil. The cool thing was later seeing his son explain it to another kid. That was pretty fun. That’s the idea that sparked what I do now, which is my #MicrobeMonday on social media in both English and Spanish where I teach people new things about microbes and microbiology using crocheted bacteria or other microorganisms. That’s kind of how I got started into this science communication thing.

 

Another thing that has happened that was really cool is that sometimes I’ll make my crocheted microbes and then later again, they pop up in the news and become relevant again. I made a coronavirus forever ago, in December 2018, to highlight work that one of my friends does, and now we’re in the middle of a coronavirus epidemic. I brought out that coronavirus again, and actually right after I hang up with you I’m going to interview live for my channel in Spanish to answer questions about the coronavirus outbreak. That has also been really cool, that we can use this art to spark interesting conversations. 

 

Last April, my microbes participated in an exhibit at our local library and my exhibit was specifically about the different microbes that you can find on human skin. It was really fun because random people I know at Cornell would message me and say, oh I was just at the library and I saw your microbes, just wanted to say I learned something really cool today. That was really fun, too, you know — I don't have to be physically present in the room in order to communicate a message. That was eye opening. I hope I can do that again sometime.”

 

What other science communication work do you do?

 

“Probably the biggest thing that I’m involved with is this organization called Clubes de Ciencia, and it’s an international organization that has branches in different countries across Latin America. I work with the branch in Colombia, where I’m from, so we organize summer camps, week-long, very intensive, STEM camps for children in Colombia, primarily those of lower economic backgrounds. Last year, for example, I was an instructor for a club in my hometown. My club was really all centered around art and science communication, so it was called Science Reporters and we trained the participants on how do we research a story, how do we interview a subject. I also taught some of them how to crochet, so we taught about how we can use art to communicate science a little better. Really, each instructor can create their own lesson plan for whatever it is they're trying to do. The cool thing is that each club is taught by two instructors, one that is based outside of Colombia and one that is based inside of Colombia. This year I’m the director of communications for that group. My main role is leading our communications and coordinating all the clubs that are happening.”

 

When did you first start seeing yourself as a science communicator or advocate? What does that role mean to you?

 

“I didn’t feel like I could call myself a science communicator until maybe three or four months into my #MicrobeMonday project, when I felt like I had been doing it for a little while and knew what I was doing. That’s when I really started calling myself a science communicator, which is also funny, right, because inherently in our scientific enterprise, we are communicating all the time. I wonder if it’s a little bit of imposter syndrome, what you feel normally in your technical scientific field. For me, I would see people like Science Sam who does a lot of work on Instagram and I would see the stuff she was doing and that’s what I would aspire to be. I was like, oof, I’m a baby science communicator and I've done like three posts on Instagram. It didn't feel like I had the credentials to call myself a science communicator, I guess in the same way that when I was a baby engineering student and all I had done was take a calculus class, I was like, I can't call myself an engineer, I'm not an engineer yet. I felt like I needed more experience and expertise before I could formally call myself a science communicator.”

 

You’re also a cofounder for a group called LatinXinBME. What’s the history behind the group and why are affinity groups like this important?

 

“I started it with my friend Dr. Brian Aguado, and it started because we are both in pretty much the same field, for a long time we were researching almost the exact same topic, and I still did not know Brian existed until almost three years ago. After we met, we hit it off right away, he’s one of my closest friends now. We realized it took an absurdly long time for us to meet each other, so we floated a bunch of ideas around about how to make this better. Our ideas were originally much bigger, at the level of “in science,” or “in engineering.” But that was too broad. I’m a member of some Slack groups and I’ve really benefited from participating in those, so I told Brian, what if we make it a slack community? It’s closed, anyone can join, anyone can ask whatever questions they want, and so we did that.

 

Within a week, we already had faculty signing up — we didn't expect faculty to want to sign up! It’s grown now, in our Slack we have over 100 members and we also have members who are just not on messaging apps. We’ve done virtual writing groups, virtual Q&A sessions for people applying to grad school for example, we’ve done meetups at as many conferences as we can within the biomedical engineering space. It’s just been a really great way to connect many of us who are representing different institutions and share resources. For me personally, I’m on the faculty job market this year and connecting both with people who are on the market as well as with faculty who have been on the market and who can give advice has been really instrumental. These moves toward inclusive science communication have been more recent. A lot of us have come out talking about how to make science communication more inclusive and how to use science communication to create more inclusive environments.”

 

You’re an AAAS IfThenSheCan Ambassador. What does the role entail and how has it impacted you so far?

 

“The IF/THEN program is a partnership between AAAS and Lyda Hill Philanthropies. The goal overall for the program is to increase the representation of women in STEM. It’s both the representation of women in STEM in the media and also working through us, the 125 ambassadors, to empower us to be role models for women and particularly for middle school girls. What that means is they're giving us the opportunity and time to keep doing what we were already doing, but they also connected us to each other and connected us to a bunch of different opportunities. Some of us have been on a TV show, not me but other people, called Mission Unstoppable on CBS. I’m doing an online chat next month through NEPRIS talking about how I became a biomedical engineer and what it’s like being an immigrant coming here to the U.S. So there’s a bunch of different stuff that we’re all doing and the fun thing is that each one of us has a completely different field and background, so it’s also a really diverse group of women. It’s been equally inspiring for me as much as it has been for the girls and women that we’re also trying to inspire.”

 

What are some strategies or lessons you’ve learned for how to best engage with people about science and equity? 

 

“At first, honestly, I was kind of just winging it. I think the hardest part once you realize you want to do something that’s public-facing and that engages the public with science, is lack of ideas. Then I had ideas and I was like, I’m just going to go for it. So, at the beginning I was just vomiting information at people. Then, last year, I took a science communication workshop at Cornell and that really got me thinking about storytelling, being very deliberate with information, making sure the stories are digestible, that I’m communicating one central message and it doesn't get lost in all these other details that as scientists we feel like we have to include. 

 

I do the crochet stuff, I also use my platform to profile a lot of other Colombian scientists, and every now and then I’ll do a post on something cool I did in the lab. What I've noticed is that people respond and engage so much better with the art. People particularly like something pretty to look at, and they are also really engaged with learning about what scientists do — like who we are as scientists, what our lives are like. They respond a lot less to posts about the science itself, unless I find some way to make it fun. Those are some of the lessons I’ve learned in the last two years. You have to find entertainment to bring people in and tell a story so that you can keep those people coming back. Also, make it personal — it’s just like when you pick up a book. If it’s personal and you can relate to it, you’re more likely to keep reading.”

 

What would you go back in time and tell past-you? What advice do you wish you’d been given earlier on, that you might give yourself?

 

“I would for sure tell myself to just go for it. Anytime you have an idea, just go ahead and try it. I wish I had started doing science communication sooner. For a really long time, I also wanted to crochet my science-related things and I waited way too long to start. I would tell myself to be braver and just try things and it’s okay if they’re not perfect. That applies both to a more technical aspect of what I do as well as to science communication.”

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