Microbiology senior Justin Frost ('16) has been an enthusiastic and eloquent public relations ambassador for the College of Science, communicating his love for science and the University to diverse audiences. He has also been a prolific science writer and reporter for the campus newspaper The Daily Barometer.

After graduation, Justin heads to Boise, Idaho, to teach science in a public school as part of the Teach for America program.

Now he is eager to take his love and fascination with science to 6^th-12^th graders. The selection process was rather rigorous: in 2015, 4,100 Teach for America candidates were recruited from 44,181 applicants. But after acing a number of standardized science tests, Justin has been certified to teach biology, chemistry and earth science.

Teach for America recruits motivated and accomplished graduates from top U.S. universities to serve as teachers for a period of two years at schools in low-income and underserved communities.

Justin is elated and can’t wait to start. “My plan right now is to be the best teacher I possibly can be.”

The wide-ranging applications of science that he encountered in the classroom and laboratories as well as in his adventurous everyday life as a mountain biker and hiker has been Justin’s source of inspiration. He hopes to transfer the significance and beauty of science to his students.

“My coursework in immunology has been really influential. It helped me see the impact of how the human immune system interacts with the environment,” said Justin.

“Learning about microbial diversity and microbes in the human environment has made me understand the dynamism of the biological world.”

Justin observed that while his foundational coursework has been remarkable, it was equally instructional and rewarding to engage people in the community with science as an outreach volunteer and ambassador.

Justin had an opportunity to deliver his Teach for America sample lesson plan to a general microbiology class before his final interview.

“I got so much great feedback from the students and my microbiology advisors that I was able to go to my interview and just knock out my lesson plan. Having this community has been extremely helpful for applying to Teach for America.”

Justin describes his journey in microbiology and Teach for America as a series of happy accidents. An Oregon native, Justin arrived at OSU as a bioengineering major and discovered that the discipline wasn’t quite what he was looking for. Instead, he was drawn to the subjects of genetics, evolution and the science of the natural world.

While attending the hugely popular Corvallis Science Pub—one of his favorite science events, Justin happened to meet a scientist from OSU’s Linus Pauling Institute and asked him about undergraduate research opportunities there.

The person turned out to be Dr. Stephen Lawson, a former director of Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine, and he encouraged Justin to write to him. One thing led to another, and Justin snagged a research opportunity in biochemist Dr. Adrian Gombart’s lab. He performed molecular biology research and acquired a solid understanding of how RNA and DNA molecules interact with one another in living systems.

Justin promptly changed his major to microbiology.

“My science education has been finding out what I want to do,” said Justin. “I found out that I am passionate about communicating health and science issues to the larger public. Here I got a chance and the tools to understand and talk about the natural world and the world in general.”

Justin plans to obtain a master’s degree in STEM education and continue on his path of teaching.

Michael Baym, professor of biomedical informatics at Harvard Medical School, was driving across Texas with his wife when award-winning science writer Ed Yong tweeted a photo of a striking charcoal drawing by Oregon artist Bets Cole entitled “Evolution of a Superbug/11days 1000x Antibiotic Solution.” Yong was sharing the art from Oregon State's exhibit “To See the Unseen: Where Science and Art Converge,” co-sponsored last spring by the Microbiology Department and the Corvallis Arts Center.

Cole's art just happened to be inspired by Baym's experiment demonstrating how bacteria, as they reproduce across a giant petri dish, mutate over the course of 11 days to be able to withstand antibiotic at 1,000 times the concentration normally used to fight infection.

Baym decided almost immediately to purchase the artwork.

“First off, it was a gorgeous piece. And it was very cool that I had created something that inspired someone else to do something so lovely.”

The chain of events between Baym and Cole may seem like mere coincidence, chance “sparks” between art and science, but in fact it is exactly the sort of interaction that the creators of SPARK, a yearlong collaboration celebrating the interplay between arts and science at OSU last year, envisioned and hoped for. Jerri Bartholomew, head of the Microbiology Department and an accomplished glass artist who was a lead organizer of the event, offers this about the intersection of the two disciplines.

“Although the increasing specialization in science during the last century seems to have drawn a line between science and art, those lines are becoming blurred. Scientists increasingly see the value of art in interpreting their research and in collaborating with artists in looking for solutions to the problems that face society.”

The backstory behind Baym’s giant petri dish experiment, oddly enough, is itself a striking example of how art can spark science. In 2015, Baym was working as a postdoc with Roy Kishony at Harvard Medical School and the Technion Israel Institute of Technology. Kishony was inspired by a digital billboard advertising the 2011 film Contagion, a grim narrative about a deadly viral pandemic. It involved giant frames filled with agar displayed in a store window, implanted with slowly growing bacteria and fungi that over time spelled out the title of the movie, to gruesome effect.

Struck by the concept of using a giant petri dish as a teaching tool, Kishony and co-investigator Tami Lieberman along with Baym spent six months developing their Microbial Evolution and Growth Arena (MEGA-plate), creating a novel platform for microbial experimentation beyond the classic petri dish. Not only has the MEGA-plate proved a highly effective teaching tool, allowing students to instantly “see” hitherto obscure and abstract concepts in evolution like compensatory mutation and clonal interference, but the visualization tool has yielded key insights about the behavior of bacteria. For example, the fittest, most antibiotic-resistant bacteria aren't always the ones who win the race; sometimes they get "landlocked" behind faster-growing strains. See a fascinating time-lapse video of the experiment, below.

Oregon State and SPARK definitely created a favorable environment for the Baym-Cole, science-and-art serendipity to happen. Cole, whose usual artwork involves abstract landscapes and portraiture in oil, was moved to look outside of her normal sources of inspiration thanks to workshops at OSU last year between microbiologists and artists, including lab art “experiments” where artists cultured their own cells or painted with pigmented bacteria. Ed Yong, who tweeted her artwork, was invited to the “To See the Unseen” microbiology art exhibit as part of the Oregon State Microbiome Initiative (OMBI) last spring, where he gave a public talk about microbiomes and his New York Times bestselling book, I Contain Multitudes.

The SPARK momentum continues on November 15 from 6-8 p.m. at The Corvallis Arts Center, with a public talk, "Superbugs & Antibiotic Resistance: An Interdisciplinary Conversation." The talk will focus on how the giant petri dish experiment has helped scientists visualize the evolution of antibiotic resistance in E. coli and also inspired artists.

Panelists for the free event include Baym, Cole and OSU composer Dana Reason in the School of Arts and Communication. Baym will share his research along with Cole, who will talk about how his research inspired her painting. Reason will share how she is taking the data from Baym’s experiment and transferring it into sound. She hopes to generate a new creative work that both stands alone and prompts insights into the data itself based on how it translates into sonar patterns.

Inspired by SPARK, a group of scientists and artists at OSU will continue to meet monthly to explore other opportunities and lines of mutual investigation.

As for Bet Cole’s “Evolution of a Superbug," it now hangs on the wall just outside Baym's Harvard office in Boston. “I wanted to hang it in my office, but this way, more people can see it.” See it, yes, and then? Who knows what other sparks may fly.

Applications are open for Oregon's top academic and professional fellowship program: The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry's OMSI Science Communication Fellowship. For spring 2018, the fellowship is open to researchers or science professionals including faculty, graduate students, technicians, or other individuals in STEM and health related professions.

The deadline for applications is Wednesday, November 1.

Held primarily in Corvallis, OR on the OSU campus, OMSI Fellows participate in a series of professional development workshops that cover science communication best practices and provide opportunities for participants to practice new skills and techniques. In collaboration with OMSI, each Fellow will develop a unique hands-on educational activity designed to communicate their research to public audiences and will join OMSI in engaging museum visitors with these activities at Meet a Scientist events.

A series of four professional development workshops will focus on building skills to effectively communicate scientific research with broader audiences. Workshops are 3-4 hours each, spaced over the course of three to four months.

Tuition for the program is $1850 per participant. The Science Dean's Office will cover half the tuition for all accepted College of Science applicants.

The OMSI Science Communication Fellowship Program is an excellent way to fulfill broader impact and outreach goals for grant-funded research at OSU. Many of the participants in the Fellowship program secure their tuition through broader impacts or education and outreach components of current research grants.

An online application and further information about the Fellowship program can be found on OMSI's website.

Note: this article is part of a mini-series on how OSU scientists are working to mitigate climate change. Read more here: Overview, Quantifying Risk and Sustaining Resources.

“When the voices of scientists are not heard, there is a price to pay.” ~ Janet Napolitano

Scientists have often been reluctant to step into politics, believing perhaps that it is better to let research speak for itself. But in an era of accelerating climate change combined with “alternative facts,” more and more scientists perceive an urgent need to move beyond their traditional comfort zone and speak out about the public value of research, not to mention the value of science itself.