Science Identity Videos

Status: Available for screenings. A global exploration of the centrality of observation to science and the human experience. The film crosses multiple disciplines, as well as oceans and continents, to give audiences insight into the drive to expand knowledge and see our planet and universe from new perspectives.

Chronicles the groundswell of researchers who are writing a new chapter for women scientists. Along the way, we encounter scientific luminaries - including social scientists, neuroscientists, and psychologists - who provide new perspectives on how to make science itself more diverse, equitable, and open to all.

Hawaiian microbiologist Kiana Frank takes us to a sacred fish pond and explains how traditional knowledge and microbiology can work together to help us understand how to care for and manage the land.

Manu Prakash always yearned to know the why and the how of things. As a boy in India, he spent endless hours playing outside with animals and making flammable artifacts in an abandoned lab in the basement of his home. Having the chance to explore his surroundings with open-ended curiosity, he learned to find the sublime in the mundane. Today, as a world-renowned researcher and inventor at Stanford University, he continues to be inspired by these childhood lessons, and is creating low-cost tools to empower people around the globe to go on their own journey of science and discovery.

Biochemist Judith Simcox recounts her journey from battling cancer to rediscovering her passion for science, and becoming a mentor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Dr. Mónica Feliú Mójer heads home to Puerto Rico to explore how her culture, community, and identities have shaped her work as a scientist and science communicator.

Dr. Tshaka Cunningham is a molecular biologist and a Black man of faith. This short film explores Dr. Cunningham’s personal and professional identities, and how they unite to help him promote community health through personal genomics.

Status: Actively Fundraising. Two Black graduate students came to UC Berkeley expecting a progressive institution that welcomed diversity. They found something different. This launched Valeria King and Khansaa Maar on a search for context and solutions to confront the challenges of being Black in STEM.

Rebecca Calisi Rodríguez’s research on pigeons, like her life, is one of charting an original path. Her experiences as a Mexican-Italian-American woman, professor, artist and mother have provided her with fascinating and unusual perspectives to study the biology of parental behavior. And in so doing, she is redefining what it means to be a scientist.

There is ample evidence that race can be a major factor in health outcomes. But racial and ethnic minorities are underrepresented in clinical and biomedical research. In this series, Dr. Esteban Burchard talks about the consequences of this underrepresentation and what does it mean for equity in research and medicine.

Neuropathologist Virginia Man-Yee Lee, Ph.D., challenged prevailing stereotypes about what a Chinese woman could accomplish to become a leader in Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative disease research. Learn about her journey in this short film.