Queer Science held their second successful event at Georgia Tech on April 27th, 2024! Queer Science is an outreach program dedicated to bringing high school students into research labs to build community alongside LGBTQ+ scientists and find their passion in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). High school students across the Atlanta area are able to come to Tech’s campus, participate in hands-on science demonstrations, and have in-depth discussions alongside LGBTQ+ scientists. The first Queer Science event at Georgia Tech was on October 22nd 2023. Both events hosted about 15 participants, with several returning to the second event to explore every possible field and build deeper connections with STEM students and researchers at Georgia Tech.

Queer Science events are set up as a full days worth of discussions, networking, community building, and demonstrations. Students arrived to a warm welcome with coffee, bagels, and several games to break the ice. Afterward, students were given several options to pick between 75-minute demonstrations led by LGBTQ+ scientists from a variety of fields. This year’s event included structural biology where students investigated the formation of protein crystals, exploring bioinformatics to prevent a radioactive zombie apocalypse, making paper planes to learn the concepts of algorithms driving machine learning, and investigating how electrical grids are setup. There were seven scientific sessions offered in total with an additional campus tour to visit research labs and instrumentation. The sessions offered are constantly changing as the large team of “volunqueer” scientists expand to offer new STEM opportunities highlighting their niche fields and research.

Queer Science originated in 2016 at the University of Minnesota with Juliet Johnston (currently a Georgia Tech postdoctoral researcher). Johnston was the facilitator of an LGBTQ+ teen support group whose participants wanted to tour her and her colleagues research labs. The idea took off and Queer Science events became formalized at several institutions from the University of Minnesota, the University of Connecticut, and now Georgia Tech. Andrew McShan (Assistant Professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry) is the faculty advisor, and a network of undergraduate students, graduate students, and research scientists across different departments spearhead the creation of hands-on demonstration for high school students to participate in.

Outreach programs like Queer Science provides open access to STEM for high school students regardless of their backgrounds. About the event, one high school student commented “I’ve never seen anyone like me in science before…It’s really cool to see, and it makes me want to be a scientist even more!” Another student said “I’ve felt really alone. This is the first time I’ve ever felt some kind of community, and it’s refreshing. Oh, and the science is cool.”

The events have been supported by the LGBTQIA Resource Center, the Center for Promoting Inclusion and Equity in the Sciences, and GaTech Grad Pride.

You can read more about Queer Science events at their website: https://queerscience.lgbtqia.gatech.edu/.