17 December 2021
#AntarcticLog: To Antarctica and beyond!
Posted by Shane Hanlon
#AntarcticLog is a series of comics by Karen Romano Young. You can find the originals here.
If you think it’s hard being a researcher in Antarctica, consider being a one-of-a-kind researcher in Antarctica. Of course, we’re all one-of-a-kind. But what’s it like being the lone representative of a minority?
This week’s I Was a Kid polar profile is of Prem Gill, a doctoral candidate at Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge University, England, and the founder of Minorities in Polar Science, @polarimpacts.
An immigrant to England from India, Prem grew up among a multicultural group of friends, and experienced culture shock as he rose through the ranks of science. His organization works to ease this shock as well as to increase the numbers of minority folks in his field and in the field, to reduce the problem — and enrich science.
Through the brand new I Was a Kid program, at IWasaKid.com and @iwasakidSTEAM, I’ve followed Prem along his pathway to Antarctica and beyond, in order to demonstrate to today’s kids how one man chooses direction at the crossroads.
The Plainspoken Scientist is the science communication blog of AGU’s Sharing Science program. With this blog, we wish to showcase creative and effective science communication via multiple mediums and modes.