Katy Rodriguez Wimberly: Changing My Life for Science

After being discouraged from pursuing science, Katy Rodriguez Wimberly searches for her place in the military and as an actor.

M. Katy Rodriguez Wimberly is a first year graduate student at University of California, Irvine (UCI) in their Physics Department. She is a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and the first Junior Board Fellow of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. She earned her Bachelor’s of Science degree, with a math minor, from California State University, Long Beach in May 2015. At UCI she is working with Dr. Michael Cooper on galaxy evolution research, which studies the coming together of satellite galaxies onto massive clusters of galaxies by comparing large cosmological simulations to observational data. Katy’s research interests lie in galaxy evolution and observational cosmology. Additionally, she loves and conducts astronomy outreach with underrepresented minorities, focusing primarily on K-12 Special Needs students (including children on the Autism Spectrum and those with Down’s Syndrome).

This story originally aired on May 5, 2017

 
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Story Transcript

Let's do an exercise. But there's no calculators required. Don't worry. Picture a soldier Okay, how many of you saw a big burly marine? Okay, okay, good. Being honest Thank you. All right. Did anyone see an infantry woman? No one. Well, we can do that now so you should start picturing it that way. All right.

Who saw me? Yeah, no one. Look, in high school I didn't see that either. But here's how I got there.

So as far back as even like grade school I just never fit in. I always kind of felt like the alien one. So when I hung out with my cool friends I was way too nerdy for them because math and science and space was fun to me. And then when I went hang out with the nerdy kids I was too girly for them because I paid way more attention to all of the makeup and costumes in Star Trek than like the science or the ships. You know. So whatever, I go along my life, and then in my senior year of high school I'm told that majoring in science or math in college would get me nowhere.

Yeah, it was fun.

And then I said, “All right, well, I'll just be a bad-ass lady sci-fi star.” And I was looked at like I was a fool. So my parents, as any parents do, they say you should just join the army. Okay – caveat. They joined the Marines when they were eighteen and they told me that the army would provide financial security while I figured out what I actually wanted to do with my life. Yeah. So okay, after months of like contemplating life, I thought, Well, it is honorable and it's secure not going anywhere. And there is an Army Reserve band nearby. And I do play the saxophone. So that's exactly what I did. And I joined the Los Angeles Army Reserves band and then, being in the reserves, I could still try to become a sci-fi actor. So just a few months after boot camp I had found myself in this routine where on one day I would be playing “America the Beautiful” as I marched down Main Street USA at Disneyland in my dress blues for the Army and the very next day I would be on that same street welcoming Disneyland guests as uh, I was friends with Pooh Bear. So I just I was in this routine. But this really familiar feeling kind of crept in like I was still the alien one. And even though everything seemed like it was just sunshine and patriotic songs and honeypots, it wasn't that way. I realized that even though I love being super dramatic and playing dress-up, the pure creativity of acting is just… it's too, like, grayscale for me. I really need a little more like black and white structure in my life.

So I quit Disneyland. But I realized that being jobless wasn't quite an option for me. So luckily I was still in the Army Reserves and they offered me a full-time position. Now this was as like a paper pusher, not as a saxophonist. But that was okay because I thought, Well maybe I'm contributing to the cause more because playing the saxophone not quite dangerous. So I took this job. Okay, fine. This is going to be the structure that I need. Right. All right. So cut to an industrial complex in East L.A. I have been trapped -- literally trapped -- inside this dimly lit windowless office for twelve hours and there's no end in sight. I am exhausted and I'm angry, like really angry. Just because the general needs to know immediately that all of the soldiers in my unit got their flu shots. Yeah. It might as well have been a matter of national security. So here I am, I’m making phone calls and checking e-mails. I'm constantly refreshing this incredibly slow online health records system just to make sure that these last few knuckleheads got their f-ing flu shots. Okay, so after literally a couple more hours of, like, knucklehead chasing I finally completed my task, I successfully reported back, and I go home. And that night in the car, I realized something huge. I don't belong in the army. I'm just it's too much structure. And then I realized I have this new problem.

I had been forgetting the advice that my mom and my five older sisters had been giving me my entire life. And look, when I say older, literally all five of them are at least eighteen years older than I am. Yeah. It's fun. Fun childhood. But I remembered this advice and I felt kind of bad because I realized that even though my mom had been telling me this countlessly, it always just went in one ear and out the other. You know -- you don't listen to your mom. But when my five older sisters told me that I needed to follow my dreams and that I shouldn't make the same choices that they did, I finally said, “You know what? I'm going to act on it.” I don't quite know how. But that night I realized I was going to do something about it.

So at home that night my then boyfriend and I are just bingeing on Star Trek Voyager as we do, because it's my favorite. And I'm just gushing. Totally fan girling about Captain Kathryn Janeway because she's a bad-ass. Uh-huh. And you know she is the only female captain that has her own Star Trek series and Voyager is the only research vessel in the entire Star Fleet. So that made me realize, Holy cow, she's the only commanding research scientist. And so I'm just telling my BF, like, “I just want to be her. Can I be her? I just wanted to do science, like all day. And he goes, “Uh, you can.” And I went, “Whatever, scientist isn't a job.” Okay. Yeah.

So you know one of those moments where like the second the words fall out of your mouth you're like, Oh that was, that was real dumb. Whoops. I know scientist is a thing. Science is a thing -- it is. But see, I had never like allowed myself to pursue it, to, like, internalize it. So over the next few days I just keep remembering that I want to be Captain Janeway and thinking of all of the science and the astronomy that I just, I've never explored. So I explore it.

And guess what? Astronomer is a job.

And it's a freakin kick-ass job at that.

So I decide I know how I'm going to act on the advice. Instead of being a bad-ass lady sci-fi star, I would be a bad-ass lady scientist. Yeah.

So I quit both my army jobs.

But then I realized, Oh boy I'm twenty-six and I just quit my job. I have no job and I'm an… I'm an actor and I'm going to go do science. Okay. Okay. So I had to think, like, Am I literally changing my entire life for science? Yeah, I am. I'm doing it. If Captain Janeway can be brave, so can I, damn it.

So I apply twice to Cal State Long Beach. But each time I got denied, I just said, “You know what? I'm going to keep going.” And I took more math classes and science classes and I got better. And on my third try, I was finally admitted. Now this program, the physics program at Long Beach, it's amazing. And the professors are so nurturing. And I finally fit in. All of the nerds are the cool kids, and those nerds like that I love sci-fi makeup and costumes. Yes, it was so perfect. So perfect. Okay, but there is one thing missing: I haven't done any astronomy yet. So I spend like literally a couple months and I'm looking for like the perfect opportunity and I'm preparing myself academically. And finally I earn an internship at the Seti Institute. Yes, so Seti, if you don't know, is the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Yeah. That's right. I literally spent an entire summer looking for intelligent aliens. Yeah, I know! I had the same reaction. This like formerly lost and dramatic woman who always felt like the alien had found her habitable zone while looking for actual aliens. That's right. And now I'm continuing my astronomical quest as a PhD astrophysicist student at UC Irvine.

All right. So now picture a scientist. Oh, but wait. You don't have to. Because it's me. Thank you.