I Am a Scientist

r. Kristen Lear collects refrigerator magnets when she travels, is a prolific list-maker, loves weightlifting and yoga, and believes that art can help change the way we feel about wildlife. Dr. Lear, Bat Conservation International (BCI) Agave Restoration Program Manager, is one of three BCI scientists featured in a new, dynamic, and innovative outreach program called “I Am A Scientist” (IAAS), intended to guide middle school and high school students toward careers in science.

Dr. Lear—along with Dr. Melquisedec Gamba-Ríos, BCI Endangered Species Interventions Fellow, and Dr. Tina Cheng, BCI Data Scientist—are scientists with impressive doctoral degrees, awards, and accolades. But it is their work in bat conservation, along with their other interesting pursuits, that makes them great model scientists for the program, according to IAAS co-creator Stephanie Fine Sasse, who established the program with Dr. Nabiha Saklayen.

“The ‘why’ behind IAAS is the need to break down psychological barriers on who can ‘do’ science,” Sasse says. “The aim is to show how science can be applied beyond traditional stereotypes, beyond that image of a scientist in a white coat working in a sterile lab.”

Sasse says the BCI scientists were chosen for their relatable and diverse backgrounds. “BCI illustrates real work on the ground and takes science out of the ivory tower. Plus, bats are cool and interesting,” she adds.

Sasse might be called a science evangelist. She’s a Harvard-educated writer, researcher, and “experience designer” who was a co-organizer of global March for Science events in 2017 and 2018. The creators began working on the IAAS concept in 2016, expanding it during the pandemic, by building upon principles from storytelling and learning sciences.

Within two years, the program has attracted corporate sponsors that fund classroom materials, including lesson plans and posters that proclaim “I Am a Scientist.” While the posters have been exceptionally popular, telling engaging multidimensional stories about scientists is the most effective part of the program.

Dr. Lear, for instance, manages planting and restoring corridors of agave to save three Threatened nectar-feeding bat species, including the Endangered Mexican long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris nivalis). In her personal time, Dr. Lear produces and sells a line of clothing centered around bat patterns. Dr. Gamba-Ríos, an avid nature photographer, monitors the habitat of Endangered Florida bonneted bats (Eumops floridanus), the rarest bat species in the United States. Dr. Cheng, a new mother, is at the forefront of collecting crucial data on White-nose Syndrome, a highly infectious disease that has killed millions of bats.

Other than a few periods in her life when she imagined herself becoming a marine biologist, Dr. Kristen Lear was on the path to becoming a bat scientist from a young age. When she was 4 or 5 years old, her favorite book was Stellaluna, a children’s book about a fruit bat who gets separated from her mother. The book, says Dr. Lear, came with a small stuffed toy bat with Velcro wings. “I’d wrap that toy bat around my wrist and take it everywhere,” she recalls.

In middle school, Dr. Lear wrote book reports about Jane Goodall and built four bat houses for her Girl Scout Silver Award. Pursuing a Silver Award requires Girl Scouts to identify a cause they are passionate about that makes the world a better place. Now, in her work for BCI, Dr. Lear shows Girl Scout troops and other community groups how to build their own bat houses.

The IAAS program dovetails with Lear’s public presentations and outreach. In addition to her work rebuilding and sustaining migratory bat foraging routes, Dr. Lear is frequently invited to promote bat conservation at special events. For children’s events, Dr. Lear sets up a mist net with toy bats and invites children to gently extract a bat, then swaddle, weigh, and measure it with tools used by bat scientists. Showing children and adults the possibility of science is gratifying. “The greatest compliment is when someone gets so excited, they do their own bat project,” she says.

Growing up in Bogotá, Colombia, Dr. Melquisedec “Melqui” Gamba-Ríos never imagined himself a scientist. “The only thing that was clear to me is that I knew I wanted—I needed—to work outside,” he says.

In Colombia, Dr. Gamba-Ríos grew up hiking, camping, and rock climbing. In his early 20s, when his family moved from Colombia to Costa Rica, he wanted to incorporate his love of being outdoors with his studies, and decided to pursue a college degree in geology. Dr. Gamba-Ríos recounts that the Costa Rican college he applied to had a year-long waiting list for the geology program, but immediate acceptance into the ecology program. “It was my good fortune,” he says. “I can’t imagine doing anything but what I am doing now: working with bats.”

In his first college semester, Dr. Gamba-Ríos found himself on a class field trip on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, handling a bat for the first time. “Honestly, when I was told I’d be collecting data on fruit-eating bats, I’d never seen a bat close-up on anything but YouTube,” he laughs.

Over the next 10 years, Dr. Gamba-Ríos completed his undergraduate work and conducted research in Costa Rica. Later, as he completed his Ph.D. at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Dr. Gamba-Ríos expanded his scientific studies to antipredator behaviors in bats and was awarded a BCI Student Scholar grant for his research.

Today, Dr. Gamba-Ríos is a neotropical bat specialist, tracking the foraging and roosting behavior of Florida bonneted bats as he traipses through the wetlands and remnants of pine rockland habitat dotted throughout the greater Miami area. In 2013, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed Florida bonneted bats as Endangered due to impacts from intensifying storms caused by climate change, and rampant development throughout its distribution range. “The good news is that we can save this bat by understanding its behavior and how it is adapting,” Dr. Gamba-Ríos said in a recent interview on PBS.

While he’s always eager for bats to take center stage, he doesn’t crave the spotlight himself. “Quite frankly, I’m shy. I don’t like attention or giving interviews, but I recognize a responsibility to share my work,” he says.

Dr. Gamba-Ríos adds he is honored to be featured in the IAAS program and that he hopes to inspire all types of students into looking into careers in science and bat conservation.

“We tend to think that science is this difficult- to-reach domain, but what we sometimes fail to recognize is that the scientific process is inherent in human behavior,” says BCI Data Scientist Dr. Tina Cheng. “We see the scientific process in babies. Experiencing the world for the first time requires observing, testing, and putting experience into a framework you understand and can share with others.”

Dr. Cheng refers to her toddler son, Leo, as a good example of how science is natural to human development. “Babies are keen explorers and experimenters. Watching Leo discover an ant for the first time is watching the process of discovery. I see him puzzle over an ant and apply questions: ‘What is this? Why does it move like that? What happens if I pick it up?’ And then there’s the question many toddlers, including Leo, employ: ‘How does it taste?’” she laughs.

In 2017, Dr. Cheng joined BCI to help compile and analyze population data on bats as part of the North American Bat Monitoring program. She and other scientists use this data to assess impacts from threats, such as the disease White-nose Syndrome and its devastating impacts on North American bats. Previously, Dr. Cheng had studied chytridiomycosis, an extremely infectious disease in amphibians that has caused severe population declines in hundreds of amphibian species around the world, with 90 species believed to have been driven to extinction. “I see my role in compiling data and looking for patterns and solutions as one way to make the world a better place,” Dr. Cheng says.

When she was in middle school and high school, Dr. Cheng was disillusioned with how humans were changing the planet. “I had a grim view of how we humans had messed up the planet,” she says. During high school, she was selected to participate in an environmental camp at Yosemite National Park. The experience was pivotal. “One of the memorable lessons was learning about water and what it takes to source it, conserve it. My thinking shifted: If humans can mess up the planet, humans can contribute to the planet,” she says.

Dr. Cheng believes that welcoming young students into science and conservation is essential to the future of the planet, and incorporating history and culture provides depth and understanding. Dr. Cheng says conservation aligns with her Chinese heritage and she’s happy to share those values. “We have a saying that ‘every grain of rice is a drop of sweat from a farmer’s brow.’ There are other sayings and stories that teach appreciation for what we are provided.”

Dr. Cheng and her husband, Washington Plada, a classical music composer from Uruguay, are focused on teaching their young son multiple languages, lessons from diverse cultures, and how to explore the world. “We are in a beautiful age of information-sharing when everyone can operate as a scientist. We have the ability to find factual sources, find evidence, and establish scientific premises.”