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hi folks here listening to inherited

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a sound rich solutions focused

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youth storytelling podcast about the

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climate crisis i'm sheila martyrs

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your season three host

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an episode five priest what more introduced

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us to an innovative future world and

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beyond the and through mass

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one

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were in human kind in earth's

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natural resources and organisms

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work in tandem a world

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where are raincoats are made of macro algae

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or bacterial heels cracks in the sidewalk

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were screens or bioluminescent

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i met with recess production one into the so

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called hurry up phase the busy

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period somewhere after reporting and scripting

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but before tracking and sound design i

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wanted to know how she got into audio from engineering

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and why she chose to create a soundscape for

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peace

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here's race what more i raymond

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race or you she they pronouns and

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i'm a student i am currently

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sitting in university a to the material

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science and engineering but i

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honestly really like the term student in general

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i think i'm learning a lot about

1:10

both the technical

1:13

side of engineering and just life right

1:15

now so you

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and i are chatting as your episode

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is going through like those rough edits we're

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still waiting to find allies and and

1:24

try can sound design

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so i'd like to know what you've learned so

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far through this process and what

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are you hoping for as we finish up your story

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i think i've been really inspired to this process

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i definitely had a strong vision coming into the

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episode on the

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message i wanted to get across and

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i think that a lot of climate change is really

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sad to hear about and there's

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a lot of negativity and i had

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this vision of positivity and i

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hope for the future that i went to bring but

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i think sometimes it's almost scary to have that

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idea because

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like what if the hope isn't there? Like what if I don't find

2:02

those solutions that I am

2:04

thinking or what if I can't get that positivity?

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So I think that I was nervous about that going

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in that this vision wouldn't

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come to life but I've been really inspired by everything

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that I've learned. And I

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think I've been

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comforted and excited by

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all the technologies I've learned

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about, all the people I've interviewed. In

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terms of learning, I've learned that

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that positivity does exist and that there

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is that hope for the future. And we're

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moving forward. I'm really excited for

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sound design. I think that my story

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lives in kind of this future world. And

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I think that

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through the medium of sound you could really

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bring the imagination to life.

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Wonderful. Oh, wonderful.

2:48

What I find so interesting about your

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piece, Reese, is that a lot

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of our storytellers are talking about solutions

2:55

on a mass scale. You know, talking about

2:57

corporations, talking about organizing, talking

3:00

about natural disasters and

3:03

government response. And while your story

3:05

addresses many aspects of the anthropomass,

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you're taking us down to like a cellular

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scale almost. So what is it

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like to focus on these proteins

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and algae and bio matter? They're

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so small, but at the same time they're so expansive.

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Yeah, I think that that's why I chose material

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science because

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everything around you is made of materials.

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And I think that sometimes we forget that.

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I've always been really passionate about sustainability

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and combating climate change and all of that.

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And when I was trying to decide what to study, I

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was really moved by the potential to change

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the physical things in front of us and

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the impact that that could have on

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so many scales.

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And in a lot of my classes, we

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learned down to atomic arrangements.

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We're looking at geometry of atoms

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and you can get so deep into

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this microscopic scale. And then all of a sudden you look

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at it

3:59

back and you're like, wow, that is

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what we're seeing. And I think it's

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very poetic almost that we

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can alter a protein, for example,

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and have that impact

4:13

a whole industry. I see in your

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piece this beautiful blending

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of material science with

4:20

narrative storytelling. And honestly,

4:22

like, listening to your rough edit, it sounds like the

4:24

Matrix to me. It sounds like a video game.

4:27

So can you tell me a little bit about that, like

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balancing STEM with audio

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journalism and podcasting?

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I grew up listening to a lot of those science

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podcasts. And I've always

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loved the way that audio can

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bring

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these scientific concepts to

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life in a way that you can't see

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these things, right? You can't see atoms

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and we can't see the cells of algae.

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So even if we draw a picture, it

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kind of loses something in a

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way versus if we have it through audio,

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we can imagine it in a way that makes

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sense to us. Right.

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And I think that allows us to connect and

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understand these technologies

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in a very unique way. Because

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it's not necessarily about all

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of the nitty picky technical terms.

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It's about the ideas.

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And I think that audio enables

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everyone to relate to those ideas

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and understand technology in their

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own way. These ideas,

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when you're reading a paper, it can seem

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boring. But then as soon as you have the sound

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and the whole

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imagination comes to life, I think it just

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gains a whole new, like, creativity.

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If you could pluck

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one thing for you personally,

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like one of the technologies that

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you talk about in your piece, like whether

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that be the raincoat or like anything

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like that, if you could just pluck

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for yourself right now, which would you choose?

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I've had a lot of experience

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in a way with more of these like

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algae based bioplastic materials. I

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think that I've actually experimented myself

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with making some, which is really

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fun. Yeah. And actually

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the lab I work in right now, I work with hydrogels

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for my internship. And some of them are from

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seaweed derived materials. So I think that those

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bioplastics are super interesting.

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But I think that

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the OLAD screen,

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that's something that I've

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never seen. And I think that

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I would love to just peel

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back the layers of that. And

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I would love to have one in front of me and look

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at it like a screen and then look

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at it under a microscope, optical

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microscope, and then like a STM

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imaging microscope, which is go deeper, deeper, deeper

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until yes, the proteins. I think that'd be super

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fun. And I think that's what I would love to

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have. Yeah. I think that that OLAD

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screen thing is super, super cool. And

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of course, like

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imagining, you know, looking into that, there's

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so much that goes into it and so many

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difficulties that scientists can run into

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for yourself. What were some

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of the difficulties that you encountered

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reporting this story?

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So I had a really hard time, especially

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at first, finding people to talk to the

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field of biomaterials and. Synthetic

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biology and all this is such a

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booming field right now. And it's so important

7:28

and so relevant that everyone working

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in it, especially at a successful

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level is so busy. Yeah. I

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think the second nicer answer,

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I guess, would be, I think

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that putting together a storyline

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was a little bit difficult because I think that

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a lot of these technologies

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don't interact in an immediate

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way. I really wanted to

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have a diversity in scale. I

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really wanted to make sure I was talking about

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something that went down to proteins and then something that

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went up to macroscopic building.

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So that was really important to me.

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And then it becomes a question of how do you connect all of these?

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Because I know

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in my head, I see the world, right? I

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see the vision, but it's how do you take

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someone through that vision? How do you take what's

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in your head? And that kind

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of exists in this like obscure imagination

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and

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make it a storyline

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that you can guide someone through. I think that

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was a really difficult part of the

8:27

process as well. What

8:30

kind of learning from that, what advice

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would you give to other young storytellers,

8:34

climate storytellers in particular?

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I don't think this is necessarily advice or just

8:40

perspective to share is something that

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is really close to my heart in this story,

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is

8:46

the positive side of fighting

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for sustainability. I think

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that it's so easy to get caught in the

8:53

negative negativity surrounding the

8:55

space, and it's so easy to fall into

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a really negative and

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desperate mindset. But

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I think that the whole movement has created

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so many incredible things and there

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are so many incredible people

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that remembering that

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and seeing that I

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think is really inspiring. I want everyone who's

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listening and

9:20

listens to my story to feel

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hopeful for the future, because I

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think that that's one of the really

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incredible things about material science

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and about physical things

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is that when you have a physical

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thing that is more sustainable, that

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is offering a

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future that we need and a future that

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I believe we will have, it is possible.

9:45

It is a concrete thing. Oh,

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that's amazing. Because this is like inherited

9:50

is solutions based,

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right? It's about climate advocacy.

9:56

So it's just really nice to hear that.

9:59

There is that hope.

10:02

Is this your first, like, journalistic

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piece? Yes. Wow.

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How does that feel?

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It's really exciting to me.

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I think that people of my age

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aren't often given the opportunity

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to have an audience that will listen. So

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I think that it feels really empowering

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and really, yeah,

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just a really special opportunity to get

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to share something that I'm really passionate about and

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that I think other people will be excited by as

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well.

10:57

A national network of young journalists

10:59

and artists creating content for this generation.

11:02

We're distributed by Critical Frequency, a podcast

11:05

network founded by women journalists. For

11:08

more information about our show, team,

11:10

and storytellers, visit our

11:12

website at yr.media slash

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inherited. See you next week.