Photography by: Vanessa Leroy
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Shannon

Shannon is currently pursuing her PhD at MIT within the Media Arts and Sciences program. In the Synthetic Neurobiology team, she makes tiny tools to help us learn more about how cells work. This helps us find better ways to treat different diseases and injuries. When she’s not working, Shannon dedicates her spare time to developing educational tools for enhancing classroom learning.

Poetry of Science Collection, 2021. Digital Photograph. ©Poetry of Science. All rights reserved.

Nature

@PoetryofSci

Nature
Curiosity.

Spring and nature unfolds mysteriously before me - and I can’t help but stare.

Look! Under our sensitive necks, a thin cord of potential energy

runs down our backs

birthing a Grand Canyon –

neurons yelling at each other across a chasm imprinted by trauma.

Dad...I want to fix your back!

Nature.

A rolling cacophony – bursting, bubbling, fighting, wrapping its energy around,

leaving only a trail of shredded flowers to follow.

What makes it tick?

I will make sure that others have an opportunity to look closer.

It drips like a surrealist painting.

It melts - a completely different picture up close than when squinting from far away.

The right question matters more than finding the right answer.

I will make sure that others have an opportunity to look closer.

- Luisa Fernanda Apolaya Torres

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The Poetry of Science

The Project: Scientists of color and local poets of color are collaborating to create poetry based on the work, motivations, and history of the scientists. We are working with fine art photographer Vanessa Leroy, to create portraits of each scientist for public display alongside their associated poetry. Selected poets and scientists will be published in a dedicated issue of an award-winning literary journal. Our Mission: The Poetry of Science counters the negative associations handed down by systemic racism by creating new and positive associations between people of color (POC), the arts, the sciences, how nature is perceived, and what it means to generate knowledge. In this context, POC offer new ways to understand and create novel realities to resist systems of oppression.

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