{"425081":{"#nid":"425081","#data":{"type":"news","title":"AE doctoral student Natalie Schloeder aces TechTalks competition","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAE doctoral student\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003ENatalie Schloeder\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;has been named the winner in\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/techtalks.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003ETechTalks\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, a multi-tiered science communications competition.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe final leg of the months-long competition came\u0026nbsp; March 24 when five finalists gave their own take on an open-ended challenge: \u0022\u003Cstrong\u003EWhy society needs science.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESchloeder\u0027s six-minute presentation, \u0022\u003Cstrong\u003EHow Thinking Gets You Pregnant... and Why Society Needs Science\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0022 gave a humorous and thought-provoking perspective on the pitfalls of unscientific thinking.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJoining Schloeder in the finals round were\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003ETessa Solomon-Lane\u003C\/strong\u003E, a neuroscience doctoral student from Georgia State University;\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003EZev Greenberg\u003C\/strong\u003E, an undergraduate Georgia Tech MSE student,\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003EMahdi Al Husseinii,\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;an undergraduate Georgia Tech BME student; and\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003ENick Selby\u003C\/strong\u003E, an undergraduate Georgia Tech ME student.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn the lab at Georgia Tech, Schloeder is working on a NASA-funded project involving Electronegative Ion Thrusters. She expects to defend sometime in the next year.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn her\u0026nbsp;\u003Cem\u003ETechTalks\u003C\/em\u003E\u0026nbsp;presentation Monday night, she was a storyteller, inviting listeners to remember the first time they used science to explain their world.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Your first reference to science is probably your parents, because they explain things to you when your mind is open and very curious,\u0022 Schloeder said in a phone interview this week. \u0022Mine came when I was five, and my mother was pregnant.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022I asked her why she was fat, and she said she was going to have a baby. That didn\u0027t explain why she was fat -- I didn\u0027t know the baby was inside her - so I kept asking her where babies come from. She tried to explain without being explicit.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHer mother\u0027s slimmed down version of the complicated biology involved three conditions - none of them scientific.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022First, she said, you had to be older than 5. Second, you had to be married. And third, you had to be thinking about babies. A lot.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESchloeder wasn\u0027t buying it. Not entirely, anyway.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022I knew the part about being really old wasn\u0027t true. And I knew you didn\u0027t have to be married, but the last part really stressed me out, because I was thinking about babies a lot and I still didn\u0027t know why she was fat...\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAt this point, Schloeder laughs at her misplaced anxiety, but she is quick to bring her point back into sharp focus:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022It reminds me of the 16th century, when the theory of spontaneous generation tried to explain why flies came out of rotting meat. People didn\u0027t have a scientific explanation, so they just put something together that seemed to explain things,\u0022 she said. \u0022It didn\u0027t.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat danger is always present, she said, if people do not probe for facts.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022If we don\u0027t have science, we are all five-year-olds, because we want answers but we don\u0027t have what science gives us.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA video of Schloeder\u0027s talk will be released soon (and will be posted here). Meanwhile, the New Jersey native will be focusing on her work in the High Power Electric Propulsion Lab under the guidance of her mentor,\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003EDr. Mitchell Walker\u003C\/strong\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022When the video is available, I\u0027m going to show it to my parents,\u0022 she said. \u0022They will love it.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003ETechTalks is an annual presentation competition based on the idea that effective science communication is fundamental, not only to how scientists interact with each other, but also to how science interfaces with our larger society.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/em\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/techtalks.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EFind out more.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"AE doctoral student Natalie Schloeder has been named the winner in TechTalks, a multi-tiered science communications competition."}],"uid":"27456","created_gmt":"2015-07-15 14:49:03","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:19:04","author":"Britanny Grace","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-03-27T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-03-27T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1239","name":"School of Aerospace Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[{"id":"2082","name":"aerospace engineering"},{"id":"134891","name":"Natalie Schloeder"},{"id":"88681","name":"TechTalks"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":["communications@ae.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}