Lab Musings 2019: Notes from the Editor
What do organic chemistry and comics have in common? How can a research project in the field teach us about the uses of difficulty and failure? What forms can textual and audio collage take, and what do they have to say about mental illness or about the lives of scientists?
These and other questions surrounding expectations — of science, of artistic genre, of work — are compellingly addressed in this summer’s edition of Lab Musings, the publication for the University of Pittsburgh’s Summer Workshop in Creative Science Writing.
The Workshop, now in its third year and funded by the University of Pittsburgh Honors College and Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences, provides a practicum for undergraduates to pursue their intersecting interests in science and writing. For two months, the Summer 2019 Writers in Residence Jace Bridges, Regina Gee, Jasper Luo, Hannah Piston, and Swapna Subramanian studied in labs across the University of Pittsburgh, ranging from neuroscience and psychiatry, to chemistry and ecology.
Writers in Residence each worked closely with a faculty member in the sciences on the critical thinking and lab work inherent in scientific research, and were also mentored by a faculty member in the English Department who guided them in the writing of the pieces you’ll read here. Bridges worked with Kenneth Fish of Psychiatry and Ellen McGrath Smith of English, writing poems that take a closer look at the intersection of the brain and emotion. Gee, under the mentorship of Judith Morgan of Psychology, created an experimental nonfiction piece weaving her research experiences in depressive disorders with her own and others’ voices. Luo, with guidance from George Bandik of Chemistry and Heather Kresge of English, developed a series of short comics that personify the periodic elements to make learning organic chemistry more personal and tangible. Directed by Lillian Chong of Chemistry and Dan Kubis of English, Piston produced a collection of podcasts in which she fuses interviews with scientists with her own perspective on what it means to be a science researcher in and out of the lab. Mentored by Martin Turcotte of Biology and Lori Campbell of English, Subramanian penned a narrative nonfiction essay addressing the deeply personal experience and repercussions of failure with an ecology field experiment.
Co-organized by Lillian Chong, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Marylou Gramm, Senior Lecturer in English, and Sam Pittman, Lecturer in English, the workshop gave students the chance to practice powerful creative writing strategies and to give feedback on one another’s work. With guest lectures and a final celebratory reading, the Writers in Residence developed a dynamic intellectual community poised to deliver science to the public with accuracy and personality.
Although grounded in scientific phenomena, research, and discovery, the self and the person, along with the struggle and potential for connection, never leave the plane of these creative works. The behaviors that bond us together or repel us from one another sit alongside investigations of how ostensibly disconnected researchers and subjects have parallel, interconnected experiences and lead lives in and out of the confines of research. The ability of our brains to control how we feel for and interact with one another complement an internal struggle to push for excellence and push through disappointment.
Lest it seem like sentimentality is the driving force of the work contained here, be sure that you can come to these pieces to learn about the sciences, too. If you need a brush-up on chemical reactions and how carbon rules all, read a comic. Or get your fill of brain anatomy and its control of human emotion and behavior delivered in lines of verse.
Whatever your motivation for reading, you’ll encounter great work here at the intersection of art and science that will catch your attention and keep you thinking.
