Adrianna Drindak (she/her) is a senior at Dartmouth College, where she majors in Earth Science and minors in environmental studies. Science has been a passion of Adrianna’s from a young age, and in high school, she had the opportunity to spend three years researching invasive pests on hemlock trees. Now as she enters her senior year at Dartmouth, she studies the history of the climate as a member of the Quaternary Geology Lab. Despite her ample science experience, she felt something was lacking from her strict science background.
“The world needs scientists, but perhaps now, more than ever, we need people communicating the science that is essential to navigating our future,” she wrote. “The world needs science communicators – people translating data and essential research into accessible, engaging material. I have been growing my skill set in research methods over the past couple of years, and now I’m shifting gears to thoughtfully consider the ways in which science can be communicated to a wide range of audiences.”
During her time in the Young Voices of Science program, Adrianna certainly fulfilled her wish to communicate science to a broader audience. For her project Adrianna wrote a creative nonfiction piece about climate change effects on black bears for a nonprofit called Biodiversity for a Livable Climate.
In the piece, she describes her experience running into a black bear in the backcountry, and how it shifted her thinking on species coexistence. “My experiences in the California backcountry have shown that mutual respect between our species is possible – and has the power to be a beautiful relationship,” she writes. “In the face of climate change, we must learn to co-exist and compromise with care and empathy in our ever-evolving landscape.” You can read the full article HERE.
