Transcript

Bridget Todd (00:04):

There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unboss Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is, There Are No Girls on the Internet. Worldwide, we've lost over a million people from COVID. And here in the United States, we've lost over 200,000 people to COVID. According to the APM Research Lab, one in every 1,020 black Americans is now dead from COVID. Let that sink in. It's an absolutely staggering figure. Yet, we've had no national large-scale mourning of these deaths. Earlier this fall, Trump even said that COVID impacted "virtually nobody."

Bridget Todd (00:52):

Micki McElya, a professor of history at the University of Connecticut and author of the Politics of Mourning told CNN that instead of mourning, Americans have been fed a kind of wartime attitude about how he must defeat the virus and must not let the virus win. And that that response has largely been about not marking deaths, not marking tragedy and not marking the horror of the ongoing lack of meaningful response. But instead, focusing on that, this is what Americans do. But that's now what we should do. Collective mourning is important and mourning is an important step of dealing with grief. We can't just pretend these people never existed. They did. And they're more than just data points on some chart about COVID. There are mothers and daughters and friends and family and colleagues. This week, faith leaders from all over the country held vigils in person and online to mourn those we've lost to COVID.

Bridget Todd (01:46):

And I wanted to tell you about someone we lost too. Lynika Strozier was just 35 when she died from complications of COVID. She was a gifted scientist and a researcher in the DNA lab at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, one of the largest in the world. She didn't have an easy life. Her mother struggled with drugs and Lynika lived with her grandmother. A learning disability made math and reading a challenge, but she found creative solutions to manage these challenges. Rather than working out complicated math equations on a calculator, she did them on paper by hand, which helped her visualize the number she worked with. A visual learner, drawing pictures and diagrams helped her map out her lessons. She went on to successfully earn two master's degrees. She wasn't really sure what she wanted to study, until in college her mentor, Yvonne Harris, suggested she think about exploring the sciences.

Bridget Todd (02:39):

"My philosophy is that we're born scientists and mathematicians, and we experiment and observe the world around us all the time," Harris explained. "Having the A student is nice, but we want people who have tenacity and determination and a refusal to fail." Harris told the Chicago Tribune in a 2012 profile of Lynika's academic success. When Lynika got involved in the sciences, it just clicked and she loved it. One of her professors even nicknamed her golden hands, because she was able to get DNA from very small samples, a difficult task. Everyone who talks about Lynika was struck by her determination. You get knocked down so many times, you have to learn to pick yourself back up. And sometimes it's about hard work and faith and having people who can help you push forward. "Sometimes that's all you have to go on," she explained to the Chicago Tribune.

Bridget Todd (03:30):

Field Museum president, Richard Louviere, called Lynika's death a devastating loss, both to her own family and to her museum family and all who knew Lynika. Her life goal was to be in front of a classroom, teaching the sciences to others. And right before she died, that goal had actually become a reality. Who knows how many more lives Lynika could have touched? Who knows how this loss will reverberate for generations? A gifted scientist who overcame so much to accomplish so much. A teacher and a black woman excelling in a field not traditionally known for its diversity. How many lives could she have gone on to shape? And how can you even begin to measure such a loss?

Corrie Moreau (04:10):

She really just had this fire in her that she always wanted to succeed.

Bridget Todd (04:18):

Lynika's scientific research involved bugs and plants and other kinds of organisms. It's a pretty particular subject matter, and that's something that her colleague Corrie Moreau says really brought them together. How did you get involved in being a scientist?

Corrie Moreau (04:32):

I wouldn't have predicted it from being a child. I grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana, and neither of my parents went to university or graduated college. So despite the fact that I knew that I wanted to go to college, I didn't necessarily know what I could do with that degree when I got out. And I always loved nature and I always loved science, and so I knew that I wanted to study biology when I went to the university. And insects were always my favorite. But I thought that the options for me probably were limited in the sense that the only people I knew with college degrees that I interacted with personally were my high school teachers. So I thought maybe I could teach biology, or since I liked insects, maybe I could work for a pest extermination company, because those were the only people I knew who had jobs to play with bugs.

Corrie Moreau (05:19):

But I loved PBS, and I always wished that I could be one of the explorers on the television shows growing up and essentially my dreams came true. When I got to university, the world was opened up to me in the sense that there are so many ways you can use a science degree. And now I get to run around jungles all over the world, collecting bugs. I have the dream job.

Bridget Todd (05:42):

What was it about bugs for you? Why did you like bugs so much?

Corrie Moreau (05:46):

I think because I grew up in a city and I loved nature. There wasn't a lot of it outside. I also liked that there was just so much diversity with insects. You could go outside and catch dragonflies or beetles or butterflies or watch the ants on the sidewalk. And I just think it was that there was so much wonder out there that I could take advantage of no matter where I live, and that's true anywhere.

Bridget Todd (06:11):

So how did you wind up at the Field Museum?

Corrie Moreau (06:14):

Yeah, so I've always been associated with natural history collections throughout my entire career. So I started as an undergrad working in the entomological collection at San Francisco State University. I then did my master's also at San Francisco State, but in collaboration with the California Academy of Sciences, again, using their scientific research collections for my master's thesis. I then went away to Harvard and I was using the collections at the Museum of Comparative Zoology on a daily basis. And so I've always had this connection with natural history museums and the cool science you can do by using them. So when I finally finished all my schooling and did a postdoc at Berkeley, I started a position at the Field Museum in Chicago. And although most people think of natural history museums as places to go and have educational and entertainment, what most people don't realize is that almost all natural history collections have scientists working behind the scenes, using the vast collections to ask scientific questions.

Bridget Todd (07:18):

It was during this time, playing with bugs and answering questions behind the scenes at the Field Museum, that Corrie met Lynika. And right away, they clicked. So is that the first time that you met Lynika?

Corrie Moreau (07:31):

That's absolutely true. I met Lynika in 2011. She had done an internship with a colleague and was looking for another internship and he knew that I was looking to hire someone. And so he introduced us and Lynika and I hit it off right away.

Bridget Todd (07:48):

What was it about her that made you hit it off?

Corrie Moreau (07:52):

I think it was her openness, her honesty and her tenacity. She really just had this fire in her that she always wanted to succeed. And I don't just mean be a successful scientist, but even with an experiment. If she couldn't get it to work, it would really gnaw away at her. And she had to figure out not just how to make it work, but why it wasn't working. And that is something as a scientist, you can't teach that sort of drive or that creativity to someone. She just already possessed it.

Bridget Todd (08:24):

Yeah. And reading about her life, it seems like that drive was a defining ... I think that really defined her. She was someone who faced a lot of limitations growing up and still managed to get to where she was at the end of her life.

Corrie Moreau (08:37):

Absolutely. I mean, she was really a very thoughtful person, she was incredibly hardworking and she was such a loving person. Anyone she came across in her life, she really wanted to connect with them. I mean, I think one of the things I always respected the most about her is her openness and honesty about both the things she's experienced in the past. Some people would have shame over things that they can't control, she didn't have that at all. But the flip side of it was, she also loved to share her successes. And so I think when you have someone who is willing to let you see when they're down, but also let you see when they're succeeding, they're an inspiration.

Bridget Todd (09:22):

Can you tell us a little bit more about her research?

Corrie Moreau (09:25):

Yeah. When she was at the Field Museum, she did lots of different projects because we have dozens of scientists working on pretty much every kind of organism you can imagine. So I know she did a bunch of work on early land plants and on fungi. And for me, she of course was sequencing DNA of ants. And in that project, essentially what we were trying to understand is the diversity, both genetic diversity, but also the host associated microbiome or the microbes living in ants from the Florida Keys. So for me, she did a lot of sequencing of DNA of ants. But she then went on to do a master's degree, a research master's degree, as well as an educational master's degree. And I was on her master's committee where she was studying the follow geography of these birds for Madagascar. And she did a bunch of beautiful work on that and even published that research.

Bridget Todd (10:18):

Let's take a quick break. And we're back. Women being in community with one another is a powerful force. Not only did their shared interest in science unite Corrie and Lynika, but it also created the conditions to bring more underrepresented women into the field. And the more Lynika came into her own as a scientist, the more focused she became on bringing others with her as a teacher and a mentor. Lynika didn't have the picture perfect A student story, her openness around her background and her struggles allowed others to see science as something they could do too.

Bridget Todd (11:01):

I just can't get over how interesting this body of work is. I'm not a scientist, but you never think of someone studying birds and ants and these very specific types of organisms. It's just so interesting how ... I mean, I guess I can imagine you finding another woman who is captivated by all of these things that you're captivated by and really just clicking.

Corrie Moreau (11:25):

Absolutely. And that's the thing. I mean, what I loved about Lynika is not just that she had this general awe of the natural world and wanting to learn everything she could about it, but one of her other passions was she loved sharing it. If I ever needed people to be trained in the lab, she was my go-to person. And not that other people didn't have the skills, it's that Lynika had joy in showing people how to do science and helping them succeed and overcome hurdles. She was just spectacular. There's not a lot of people like her in the sense that she could pursue a scientific question, but she could also talk about it to the public and she could share her enthusiasm and get other people to essentially want to do the same thing she's doing.

Bridget Todd (12:12):

Did she have a position as a role model for other students, other students from marginalized backgrounds?

Corrie Moreau (12:18):

Absolutely. And that was one thing she was very vocal about and I absolutely loved about her, is that she wanted to make sure that we had opportunities to engage other underrepresented students in research. And so she was instrumental in making sure that we always kept that on the forefront of our minds, as we were thinking about what programming we were creating or which positions we were hiring. She was heavily involved in the Field Museum's Women in Science program. She often was the point person that was training the interns we brought in for the summer, and she was a role model to many people across the museum.

Bridget Todd (12:58):

What is your ... maybe you don't have one particular one, but if you had to think of one of your favorite memories of her or the most vivid memory of her, does anything come to mind?

Corrie Moreau (13:09):

Of course I have many. I think that the thing I remember most about Lynika is that even after she had not worked for me for a while, she had gone on and done all these amazing things, gotten these two master's degrees. She would always pop in my office, just come by to talk to me. Either to share some success she had or if she was struggling with something, she would often want to come and bounce it off of me just to have another perspective. And most of the time, she didn't need advice. It was like she needed a sounding board. She would say it out loud and she would reach a conclusion that she probably already knew herself, but she felt like having someone else hear it gave her the courage to come to the right decision.

Corrie Moreau (13:53):

And I liked watching her go through that, essentially this vocal thought experiment just right in my office. And it was kind of ... every time she came in, I would get a small smile because I knew I was going to get to see her think through a problem and reach a conclusion. She didn't need me, it was just, she needed a space to do it. And I just really loved that about her.

Bridget Todd (14:20):

Lynika's friends and family raised almost $85,000 on GoFundMe for funeral costs and to establish a scholarship fund to help support young black women with internship opportunities at science and technology institutions in Chicago.

Corrie Moreau (14:33):

Because Lynika was so passionate about both science, but also including marginalized communities in science, it only seemed absolutely the right decision to do, is to sort of create a scholarship. And we're able to do that because we had a very successful GoFundMe campaign and the museums and the institutions she's been involved with are all on board. And so, we're going to make sure that the next generation not only knows about Lynika, but they actually continue to benefit from her impact in the world.

Bridget Todd (15:09):

More after this quick break. Let's get right back into it. In this time of COVID, it's been heartbreaking to see the amount of people who have lost their lives to COVID, and yet we have not had any kind of official, large-scale memorial for these people. And sometimes it can feel like these people weren't people, they are numbers or data points. How can we get to a place where we remember that these were people, they were friends, colleagues, daughters, sisters, loved ones, and not just another number on the news?

Corrie Moreau (15:58):

I wish I knew the answer to that. I mean, I remember early on in the pandemic, I didn't say it out loud to anyone, but to myself I had said, I really hope that I get through this not knowing anyone who's personally been severely affected. And that was this weird internal wish I had for myself. And then when Lynika passed away, I was absolutely devastated for days. I mean, I couldn't stop crying. And even now thinking about it, it's tremendously sad. And to think that we have hundreds of thousands of people who are dying and we just choke it up to like, well, at least the infection rate's low and the death rate's low. But if it's even one, that's too many. I mean, these are people and they're important and they have contributions to give to the world. And so I just hope that we can control this soon and that we don't have to lose any more beautiful, inspiring people like Lynika.

Bridget Todd (17:05):

Yeah. I mean, that was one of the reasons I was so moved by her story. Because I thought ... and obviously, one life is too many to lose. But when you look at people and you think all the lives this person could have continued to touch, all of the generations of people who are missing out on knowing this person, getting mentorship from this person, being inspired by this person and really taking a bird's eye look of that scale of loss, we can't even calculate it. If you can't even really fathom it, to say how many people could have benefited from knowing her or working with her and learning from her, seeing her. It's just sort of ... we'll never know the loss.

Corrie Moreau (17:51):

That's absolutely true. And I think that's why we were all so moved to make sure that there's going to be opportunities for other people to still have some of those experiences. At least to have access to learning what science is and getting hands on experience through these internships we're creating. Because her legacy is just so impactful and we want to make sure that even though she can't be there to inspire them, they'll still know about what an amazing woman she was.

Bridget Todd (18:21):

I'm so grateful that you all are doing this work.

Corrie Moreau (18:24):

Lynika touched so many people's lives that it's such a loss to have her not here anymore.

Bridget Todd (18:34):

I'm so sorry. I think that's another thing that really moved me about her story, is, I was reading an article that said that she always wanted to have this classroom of her own and that she was finally on track to make that goal a reality. And then this happens and it's just so ... Yeah.

Corrie Moreau (19:01):

Yeah. Somebody who had so many hurdles and none of them stopped her, and that is remarkable. And every thing she wanted to come true in her life, despite the fact that when she first started dreaming of them that was such a far reach, she reached every one of them. And that to me just shows the kind of amazing person she was. And she got there, not by stepping on others or throwing other people under the bus, she did it by being a loving, caring, compassionate, dedicated person.

Bridget Todd (19:34):

Through this scholarship, Lynika's colleagues are using the tragedy of her death to inspire the next generation of girls to fall in love with science just like Lynika did. What do you hope the scholarship achieves? When the scholarship is up and running, what kind of impact do you hope that it has on her name?

Corrie Moreau (19:57):

I know that the young women who will receive this scholarship will benefit immensely. Mostly because they'll have an opportunity to continue in her footsteps, right? They'll essentially be the first in their family to do research or to learn how to educate and mentor others. And the most important thing I think for us is that we want to make sure that the work Lynika was doing continues, and it continues to impact the next generation of scientists.

Bridget Todd (20:36):

I have no doubt that it will. Already, I think so many people are moved by her story and her legacy and the work that you and your colleagues and her family are doing to keep that alive. So I'm so grateful that you all are doing that work.

Bridget Todd (21:01):

Lynika isn't really gone. Not really. She'll live on in classrooms. Wherever little black girls are getting excited about science or bugs or any other subject that she's realizing could be hers to master. People like Lynika mattered. We won't forget about them or the way they shaped our lives. Their names won't be forgotten. We won't let them. We hope you've enjoyed listening to season one of There Are No Girls on the Internet. We're taking a short hiatus, but we'll be back real soon with more. In the meantime, keep in touch, say hi at hello@tangoti.com. And follow me, Bridget, @bridgetmarieindc on Instagram and @BridgetMarie on Twitter. And we'll see you real soon.

Bridget Todd (21:47):

Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi, you can reach us at hello@tangoti.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangoti.com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unboss Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.