 Mandy Joye describes her life as a deep ocean explorer. Photo Credit: Lauren Lipuma, AGU. |
 Simeon Pesch tells his story about a trip that changed his life. Photo Credit: Lauren Lipuma, AGU. |
C-IMAGE and Story Collider Collaboration at AGU
– JANUARY 14, 2020
(From Fall 2019 Newsletter) Contributing Author: Ari Daniel
On the evening of Thursday, December 12, C-IMAGE welcomed Story Collider to the annual AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco. Story Collider is an organization dedicated to telling and sharing true, personal stories about science on stage across the country and around the world, and in a weekly podcast. The theme of the AGU show was disaster response, and it showcased five different storytellers at the Tabletop Tap House.
Laura Guertin, professor of Earth science at Penn State Brandywine, kicked things off with a story about how she came to use quilting as a way of depicting resilience and hope in the Gulf of Mexico. Samantha (Mandy) Joye, a microbiologist, deep ocean explorer, and educator at the University of Georgia, treated the audience to a journey through important moments and turning points in her career as a researcher. Simeon Pesch, a process engineer at the Hamburg University of Technology, spoke about a life-altering and perspective-changing trip that he took to Ghana where he visited the Agbogbloshie waste dumping site, one of the top 10 most polluted places on the planet. After breaking for intermission, Paula Buchanan, a doctoral student in emergency management, talked about what it was like to experience Hurricane Katrina from a distance after having made New Orleans her second home. The evening concluded with a poignant story by Jessica Moerman, a paleoclimatologist and AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow, about the legacy of her grandfather’s Tennessee cabin in her family and her life.
The show was well received by a full room of over 75 people, and it was hosted by Senior Producers for Story Collider, Ari Daniel and Shane Hanlon. Special thanks to Liesl Hotaling and Sherryl Gilbert for their help in organizing the event.
[Back to the Fall 2019 Newsletter]
The storytellers wait for their turns at the microphone. Photo Credit: Lauren Lipuma, AGU.
