Melanie Peffer, Science Communicator

In this episode, I speak with Melanie Peffer, the best-selling author of Biology Everywhere. Melanie earned both a BS and a PhD in molecular biology from the University of Pittsburgh, and was poised for a career doing academic research. While in graduate school, she began volunteering at a local zoo and became intrigued in how students learn scientific concepts, and this prompted her to switch fields for her postdoc to study educational psychology. She then landed a tenure-track research faculty position, but soon discovered that the job was not a good fit for her, and so she pivoted and became a teaching professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. Although she still holds a part time position at UC Boulder, her main focus now is using the Biology Everywhere philosophy to communicate science and scientific concepts to a variety of different audiences.