Profiles
This Chinese scientist now working in England -- and Antarctica -- didn't care about school until math and science linked up with the real world.
A roughneck aboard the JOIDES Resolution is a driller, who uses a long line of piping to bring up sediment from the seabed. Ian Cortez comes from a long line of roughnecks; he has followed in his father's footsteps.
He says he wasn't much of a student, but now he leads a laboratory at Harvard University.

How far would you go to feel at home? How many professions would you try before you found your place?
She mapped her route from Maryland to Hawaii -- then learned to map the deep ocean, diving in submarines and traveling the seven seas.
This graduate student works to understand the "ghost forests" forming as sea levels rise. She learned fieldwork in Mexico -- and isn't scared of alligators.
From Inner Mongolia to Texas: this shipboard laboratory technician assists scientists conducting researching for the International Ocean Discovery Program.
The son of Indian immigrants, raised in England, he grew up to be a polar explorer and works to add diversity to the field.
This California kid fell in love with the sea and the woods -- and with introducing others to these environments. To research or teach -- or both?
"The Shotgun Scientist" gathers oak leaves to learn about the future of New York's Black Rock Forest, and plans ahead by introducing young people to the wild woods.
Math. Geology. Teaching. Dance. Queer. All these communities -- but she once felt alone.
A Costa Rican kid with a "solid gold" head, she credits her father for helping her build the confidence to direct shipboard science.
She wanted to share her view of the natural world through her camera lens, but switched to research. Now she uses a different lens: a museum. Her audience? The next generation of people who have a science identity -- maybe you.
A refugee from Cuba at age seven, this medical doctor worked on the Covid-19 vaccine.
Troubled with obsessive-compulsive disorder, they found each other — then helped others find and build a community united by the wish for mental health resources.
He went into biomedical engineering to work on machines to help people's health, then shifted gears into teaching in response to community need
An ambassador guiding newcomers into a new relationship with her native Hawaii, Cindi works to embody the aloha spirit.
Inner space or outer space? A mom or a scientist? This scientist has the drive to do it all.
Dedicated to understanding how microbes interact with what's around them, Rosa got her start at a marine research station off the coast of her native Puerto Rico.
When she was small she learned plastic pollution was hurting the animals. Now she hopes to put the tiniest organisms to work solving the pollution problem.
A full-time educator and a full-time mom, DJ models herself after Ms. Frizzle to inspire today's kids.
Overcoming troubles with learning and expectations, this scientist uses visualization to keep his eyes on the stars -- and Mars.
A psych major and science teacher, Lindsay has made a study of how kids learn, of what inspires curiosity, and — along the way — themself.
Work on the coastline in tropical Belize led her to work on the coastline of frozen Antarctica — building a wharf to allow research ships to dock.
Potions class may have been fictional, but to this wizard, chemistry proved to be the next best thing.
Like her ancestors, she can find her way across the widest seas, and uses her experience to deepen her understanding of how the ocean works.
This science-minded artist drifts with a goal through the Atlantic and through life that links history and mapping with his personal "stickability."
Feeling that microbes got a bad rap as pathogens, she looked for their benefits — the first step on a path that led her from her home in India to a new life in the U.S.
He got a Ph.D. studying communicating killer whales, and switched to telling science stories to humans.

TRACY ROMANO
This biologist who studies whales from the top of the world recalls the lab she built in her basement as a child. COMING NEXT!