Science Cheerleader

Beauty and Brains: “Focus on why we are the same.”

S.C. Kavassalis is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Toronto, Department of Physics with a research specialty in the mathematical foundations of general relativity. She’s the latest addition to our growing list of Sexy Scientists and Engineers.

I asked S.C. (a former high school cheerleader) to tell us what it’s like to bridge two seemingly disconnected worlds. Here’s her reply: (Thanks, S.C.!)

“You asked how I’ve been able to bridge the worlds of beauty and science, and I have to admit, that by most definitions, I haven’t. To bridge something is to connect two disconnected elements, and in my life, I keep my career and ambitions as a scientist separate from my ambitions as a woman. I think the fact that I am able to keep those two aspects as disconnected as possible, is what allows me to be successful.

There are very few women in the physical sciences, and femininity doesn’t seem to be something that is valued very highly. For me, success isn’t accomplishment relative to who I am or what I look like, success is just accomplishment – finishing a proof, writing a paper, feeling inspired to keep working. I like how I look; I care a great deal about my personal appearance, but I don’t let the academic system treat me differently because of it. It is difficult to exist in an environment where you’re different from most other people, and have different values and interests, but instead of thinking about why I’m unlike most of my colleagues, I pay attention to why we are the same.

Yes, most theoretical physicists I know don’t spend nearly as much time thinking about what they’re going to wear in the morning, but we spend the same amount of time thinking about what’s fundamental in the universe. Yes, I have a subscription to Cosmo, but I also have a subscription to Science. I don’t have to bridge two worlds; I just have to enjoy my two separate lives.

As for how my interest in science got started, it probably goes back to before I was born. My parents met in graduate school, one in analytical chemistry, the other in statistical mechanics, so I was raised in a pretty sciencey household. When I was young, my interests were geared more toward the natural sciences – some of my fondest childhood memories are of collecting caterpillars and hunting for fossils with my mom.

It wasn’t until I was in the 9th grade that I fell in love with physics. On one bookshelf in our house at the time sat three copies of Einstein’s Relativity. While I was only vaguely familiar with who Einstein was and what relativity was all about, I knew that if my parents’ had three copies of some book, it must be pretty important. So one day, I decided to try and read it. After making it through the section on only Galilean relativity, my mind was blown. By the time I struggled to the end of special relativity, I knew I wanted to be a physicist. By the time I realized I had no idea what any of the math meant once I made it to the general relativity part, I knew what I really needed to learn was mathematics. And that’s basically my story. From that moment on, because I was so inspired and confused by that book, with some minor detours, I knew what I wanted to study, the universe.

Sarah