8 Women in STEM on Youtube you need to watch
One of the things we’re passionate about and clearly committed to is highlighting the achievements of women working in STEM fields. We’ve brought you posts about podcasts by women in STEM, scientists running for office, and neuroscience-inspired art in the past. This time, we’ve put together a list of women in STEM on YouTube we’re currently watching.
If we tried to create a list of all the women in STEM YouTubers we think you should be watching, we’d be here for days. And if we tried to compile our list of the top STEM YouTube channels, we’d crack from the pressure and decide to put everyone in spot #1. So instead of putting ourselves (and you) through that, we’re bringing you “8 Women in STEM YouTube Channels We Like Very Much, and We Think You Will, Too.”
Here they are, in no particular order because even that proved to be too much pressure:
BRAINCRAFT
YouTube Channel Description: Talking psychology, neuroscience and why we act the way we do. Subscribe for a new video every Thursday! Created by Vanessa Hill.
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WHAT WE LOVE
Vanessa is masterful at positioning complex topics within frames that are relevant to the general, non-science public. She grapples with important topics that effect us all and provides a scientific explanation for them. In true scientist fashion, she also hunts down the answers to nagging must-research questions that the rest of us never think to ask, such “How many scientific studies mention Arnold Schwarzenegger?” (Spoiler: somewhere in the arena of 15,000.)
MOST POPULAR VIDEO
DON’T MISS
BrainCraft Merch - Cool hats and tee shirts for cool heads and torsos.
How Gaslighting Manipulates Your Mind | Field Guide to Bad Behavior
Can Your Memory Make a Murderer?
DRAW CURIOSITY
YouTube Channel Description: (Excerpt) Draw Curiosity is a science channel, a place to stimulate and entertain your curiosity with interesting science and language facts.
...
I make new content for the channel at least every 2-3 weeks, with a supporting blog post expanding the concepts further on http://drawcuriosity.com!
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WHAT WE LOVE
Host Inés Dawson, a graduate and Ph.D. student studying the biomechanics of insect flight at the University of Oxford, is good fun to both watch and hear. In our own relatively small sample, 100% of polled viewers (so three of us) would like Inés to be our new best friend. We would also like more information about her hair products. It’s not relevant to our enjoyment of her work, but she has covetously thick hair, and we’d like some tips. Her presentation is cheerful and lighthearted, and while she doesn’t shy away from difficult topics, she balances erudite terms with animations and analogy, making them easy to grasp.
Most popular video
DON’T MISS
Draw Curiosity’s Patreon - Ines has several levels of support for patrons with benefits ranging from early access to new videos to a personalized haiku or mailed unbirthday card. You’ll also support her goal of becoming a full-time science communicator, which is as good a way to spend $3 a month as any.
Are Habits Easier to Make or Break?
ECHO RIVERA
YouTube Channel Description: Welcome! I make videos to academics, scientists, researchers, and evaluators become effective visual communicators. Subscribe to this channel for tips on how to storyboard, design, and deliver effective presentations that your students, clients, and colleagues will love. For free resources, visit echorivera.com.
WHAT WE LOVE
If you will ever communicate with another person out loud or in print, you will benefit from these videos and other free resources. Yes, free. While she offers paid courses and coaching, the free resources and advice that she provides on YouTube and her website are more than enough to reform your presentation skills and slides. Her experience in delivering over 100 presentations is enough to give her credibility on the topic, and she also includes Gestalt Psychology and Visual Perception research to inform her best practices.
MOST POPULAR VIDEO
DON’T MISS
Echo’s Ko-Fi Page - Ko-Fi allows you to financially support content creators whose work you appreciate with one time donations.
How to Avoid These Presentation Design Mistakes That Are Wasting Your Time
How to Remove Stress from Your Presentation Design Process with a Workflow
SIMONE GIERTZ
YouTube Channel Description: Maker/robotics enthusiast/non-engineer. Have become somewhat of an expert in shitty robots.
Swedish but sound American just to confuse you.
Scrappy Robots with Simone Giertz (Simone’s Kid-friendly series with GoldieBlox)
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WHAT WE LOVE
We’d be shocked to find anyone not already watching Simone. We’d also run out of space if we tried to list everything we love about her. Is there anything more joyful than watching a hilarious woman build relatively pointless robots? We think not. Simone is hilarious, but there’s more to her appeal than just her humor. In a world full of facetuned selfies and family photos optimized for shares, there’s a realness to Simone that is lacking elsewhere on social media. She’s refreshing in her honesty and in her unabashed enthusiasm for creating, as she calls them, shitty robots.
We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that Simone recently underwent surgery to have a brain tumor (which she has named Brian) removed, and she managed to be funny and sincere and genuine and raw both in telling viewers about the tumor and in sharing her thoughts pre-surgery. If you have managed to miss her channel before today, trust us when we tell you that you should not hesitate to get on board. There is three years’ worth of videos to catch up on, and they will not disappoint.
At the time of this writing, this post-surgery update has been posted to Simone’s Twitter:
CHANNEL TRAILER
DON’T MISS
Simone’s Patreon - Simone posts exclusive content for $3 per month patrons, and there are monthly live streams and raffles, as well, for $5 per month patrons.
I built a Westworld robot and it’s HORRIFIC
I built a hammering machine that destroys everything
STEMININE
YouTube Channel Description: Graduated from McGill University with a BEng in mechanical engineering. Currently conducting my MSc in Switzerland. Showcasing women in STEM. Answering any questions you may have. Suffering through engineering with you. Encouraging you to keep going.
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WHAT WE LOVE
We don’t know of anywhere else you can learn how to balayage your own hair while also learning about entropy, but we know that it’s the only way we want to learn about the laws of thermodynamics. The face of STEMinine is Jessica Droujko, a combustion engineer currently studying in Zurich. She’s all about creating a community for women in STEM fields to support each other, and hosts episodes on YouTube as well as a podcast with chemist Victoria Morad and chemical engineer Elisabeth Nilsson.
MOST POPULAR VIDEO
DON’T MISS
Motivational Thoughts from an Airplane: Overcoming Failure
SISTAS IN STEM
YouTube Channel Description: (Excerpt) Sistas in STEM (SIS) is an online community and resource for women of color to share stories about their experiences, learn about prominent women in the field, and engage in opportunities for STEM outreach. Overall, our goal is to empower women in their daily lives and their passion for STEM.
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WHAT WE LOVE
Sistas in STEM is the brand new YouTube channel of sistasinstem.org, an online community for women of color in STEM fields. While SIS began as a one-time event in 2015 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, it quickly expanded into a permanent organization after the overwhelmingly positive response.
The newly launched YouTube channel only has an introductory video from Founder and Editor-in-Chief Brittani AJ Miriki at the time of this writing. We’re eagerly awaiting future videos, which will highlight the real stories of the women of color whose contributions to STEM fields are entirely overlooked in our cultural narrative. Subscribe now, so you know as soon as they’re released.
CHANNEL TRAILER
DON’T MISS
LAB MUFFIN BEAUTY SCIENCE
YouTube Channel Description: (Excerpt) I’m a 30-something science educator with a Ph.D. in chemistry, based in Sydney, Australia. I started Lab Muffin because I was frustrated that the beauty blogosphere didn’t have enough easy-to-understand explanations of the science behind beauty products.
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I am pro: science, healthy skepticism, honesty, transparency, money well spent, chocolate, bunnies, chocolate bunnies, sunscreen. I am anti: fear-mongering, hype, one-size-fits-all, “detoxing.” https://labmuffin.com/
Lab Muffin Beauty Science on YouTube
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WHAT WE LOVE
Michelle is a science educator with her Ph.D. in Chemistry, and she started Lab Muffin Beauty Science after finding that there was a lack of easy to understand information in the beauty blogosphere about the science behind beauty products. Her Ph.D. is real -- we shouldn’t need to say that, but we live in an age where people on Facebook call themselves Health Consultants and try to convince you to drink eucalyptus oil, so now this is something else women in STEM have to deal with. Michelle is an actual chemist with an actual Ph.D., and she can be trusted.
POPULAR VIDEO
DON’T MISS
Chemical vs. Physical Sunscreens: The Science
Are Natural Beauty Products Better?
UP AND ATOM
YouTube Channel Description: Hi! I'm Jade, an Aussie with a Bachelor's degree in Applied Physics. After three years and over 100 lab sessions, I realized I'm terrible at experiments. So now I make physics, math, and computer science videos on YouTube :)
WHAT WE LOVE
Physics is fascinating...and complicated. Jade is not here to judge when you watch her Double Slit Experiment video 15 times to REALLY get it. She adds fun animations and offers the friendliest voice imaginable to teach you, over and over (and over) again, until you’re ready to move on. And if you can’t move on because you learned something that triggered an existential crisis? Move on to When to Think Less (According to Math).
POPULAR VIDEO
DON’T MISS
Up and Atom’s Patreon - Monthly support levels begin at $2 per month. At $20 per month, you can support Jade’s smart and relatable videos and become a cartoon in one of those videos, which makes this choice seem like a no-brainer.
What is a Singularity, Exactly?
Would Life be The Same in a Mirror Universe?
CONCLUSION
We’re already creating a list of channels to highlight next. We’d love to add your favorites!
Who are you watching, what do they do, and why do you love them? Let us know in the comments so we can subscribe, too, and include them next time!
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