Exhibition Development: COVID + Community

Posted: September 8, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

For the past year and some change, it was my honor to work with the BMGF Discovery Center and South Seattle Emerald to develop an exhibition about the COVID-19 pandemic during the COVID-19 pandemic. If that sounds surreal and incredibly challenging––emotionally, professionally, scientifically, the whole bit––it was! But if it weren’t hard, how would we know it was a COVID exhibition?

Even as the pandemic marches on, I feel proud of where this project landed, and if you’re in Seattle, you should check it out. Huge thanks to the BMGF Discovery Center team for trusting me with this work, for the beautiful oral history project that started it all, and for their expertise, empathy, and willingness to embrace the many moving parts of this deeply complex undertaking. Community is the key to survival, after all. More photos and reflections here.

Visitors interact with the new exhibition, “Where do we go from here: Stories From Our Transforming World”, at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Discovery Center in Seattle, WA, on August 4, 2022. Equity interactive inspired by the work of designer Luba Lukova.
An interactive component from the new exhibition, “Where do we go from here: Stories From Our Transforming World”, at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Discovery Center in Seattle, WA, on August 4, 2022.
Two separate interactive components from “Where do we go from here: Stories From Our Transforming World”, at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Discovery Center in Seattle, WA, on August 4, 2022.
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COVID-19 Exhibition: virtual + physical

Posted: April 4, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Exhibit Development, Interactive, Museums, Research, Storytelling, Writing | Leave a comment

For the past year, I’ve been honored to work with folks from Seattle and King County on an exhibition about communities rallying together during the COVID-19 pandemic. The exhibition started online, as a partnership between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the South Seattle Emerald. It will take physical form in the foundation’s Discovery Center in June 2022.

As ever, my job as exhibit developer is humbling, and all praise is due to the folks whose stories are featured here––I hope we’ve done you justice. Thank you for sharing your stories, and most of all, thank you for doing the sometimes impossible-seeming work of leading community through collective trauma.

Many thanks, all, and more information soon.

Screenplays OF SCIENCE (ence, ence, ence)

Posted: January 11, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Exhibit Development, Interactive, Production, Research, Science, Screenwriting, Television, Writing | Leave a comment

Science communicators write screenplays? Heck yeah I do: the kind you see in museum exhibitions and planetariums (planetaria, if you’re nerdy).

I’m stoked and honored to be working on one about human space flight for a NASA grant, working with the Bell Museum and brilliant full-dome producers at Morehead Planetarium. Hoping it will be the kind of film that makes every kid who sees it want to work for NASA.

Every kid?

Well why not, I ask you.

And hey, wow: Victoria the T. rex, the video I wrote and directed for immersive, in-exhibition viewing, has won three awards! 🏆 🏆 🏆 See a sample from it (minus narration) at my instagram page, linked below. Cinematography, animation, and production by the incredibly talented folks at Animism Studio:

Reviews for Consider the Platypus

Posted: January 29, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Art, Books, Dolphins, Museums, Nonfiction, Research, Science, Storytelling, Writing | 2 Comments

Honored and humbled by response to my first book, Consider the Platypus: Evolution through Biology’s Most Baffling Beasts, available now wherever books are sold:

“Victoria the T. rex” now open in AZ

Posted: January 29, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Exhibit Development, Interactive, Museums, Research, Science, Screenwriting, Writing | Leave a comment

“Victoria” is a newly discovered T. rex specimen, the second largest and most complete known to science (after Sue, at the Field Museum). I had the great honor of working alongside some of the world’s leading paleontologists to develop a touring exhibition around Victoria’s pristine fossil remains, complete with “Become Victoria” interactives and a fully immersive Cretaceous-era diorama come to life. Best of all, the entire experience builds directly upon the most cutting-edge T. rex science. (We’re talking forward stance and feathers, people.)

[EDIT] And that’s not all! This November, 2020, I was utterly chuffed to learn that the film I wrote and directed for in-exhibition has won three awards! Much credit is due to the incredible, unrivaled work of Animism Studio with whom collaboration was a career-topping thrill.

The exhibition, Victoria the T. Rex, is open now at the Arizona Science Center. Colossal thanks to the entire top-notch team, including Dr. Dave Hone, Dr. Heinrich Mallison, IMG, NGX Interactive, Stacy Sidman, and Khalil Williams. Check out the suuuuper flashy trailer for the exhibition below:

If All Water Were Blood

Posted: January 5, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Art, Books, Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Writing | 2 Comments

I’m honored to finally have this piece in print, after having read and kneaded and baked it for years now. Thank you yet again to the powerful people of Paper Darts.

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Consider the Platypus

Posted: January 5, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Books, Nonfiction, Science, Writing | Tags: , | Leave a comment

…Is the actual, updated name of my aforementioned and forthcoming illustrated nonfiction book for adults and curious kids. Sneak peeks soon! Stay tuned.

Broadcast Know-It-All

Posted: July 9, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Comedy, Dolphins, Interactive, Performance, Podcast, Production, Radio, Science, Speaking | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ready your ears to get SCHOOLED, folks, ’cause I’m playing Fact Checker on Season 3 of the Tell Me Something I Don’t Know Podcast (starring Freakonomic’s Stephen Dubner)!

First Minneapolis episode: “Three Sheets to the Wind” with special guest John Moe. They named they episode after one of my facts! And about all the drunk talk featured in the episode.

Second Minneapolis episode: “Creature Comforts” with special guest Krista Tippet. That one has a lot of sex talk.

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Woman on the Street, Hot Seat

Posted: April 14, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Comedy, Dolphins, Interactive, Performance, Production, Science, Television | Leave a comment

I finally gathered up some of my science talking and slapped it into a highlights reel. While the video’s still private, I share it with you now, via THIS “EXCLUSIVE” LINK (and below).

More footage upon request. AMA 4ever.

How to Be a Dolphin (Not a Hippie)

Posted: July 6, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Dolphins, Nonfiction, Science, Writing | Leave a comment

My latest for Nautil.us. It was only a matter of time.

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