“The Science Babe”
Deborah Berebichez, beyond any shadow of a doubt, is the most attractive scientist on the face of the earth.
Photo from www.sciencewithdebbie.com
This portrayal, despite what it may seem, has little to do with any bitter machismo, quite the opposite. It pretends to unveil the final act of liberation of a woman with a binational history of learning, and a determined resistance to those stereotypes that undermine the efforts of women to affirm their presence in all kinds of spaces, especially those most vital to society—like science.
As a teenager, Debbie entertained herself by taking apart the blender and the radio to see if she could figure out how they worked. Her curiosity as a young girl went way beyond that of her childhood friends. "When we would go to a restaurant, she would always wander off to other tables to start up a conversation. She would ask thousands of questions and everyone would be amazed," her mother once said.
But there was a distance between the life of a tender cheerful girl and a woman interested in physics, mathematics and science who donned glasses, read scientific books and was not very sociable.
"Science is for men," her mother made clear to her and suggested that if she ever decided to go in that direction, she should never tell her classmates because they would go their own way and leave her behind.
"From the time I was a little girl I dreamed of becoming an astronomer. I would cut images from boxes of Corn Pops and go up to the roof to observe the constellations of the northern hemisphere. I was fascinated by the stars. I told my dad. He was a civil engineer. He took me camping so I could see Haley's comet,” she says.
“But my classmates kept telling me that physics was for men, and there was no way I would ever get a job. So, I started to hide my love for physics. When I got to high school my mom insisted that I never should to tell men that I liked science, because they would feel intimidated and I would never find a husband. It turned out to be a close call.”
Then she began reading what she refers to as "dark science.” Her weaknesses in math were nuanced by devouring biographies of physicists from the past. The story of Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe left her breathless. She remembers the story of his nose being lost in a duel and replaced by one made of copper, one that oversaw his thousands of notes—prior to Kepler and Copernicus—writings of the most extraordinary observer of the heavens before the age of the telescope. The man without a nose who chased stars, and lived in a tower, isolated from people.
Tycho Brahe's story was not enough to convince Debbie’s parents of her predilection for mathematics, astronomy and physics as the way to go. They talked her into studying philosophy at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. "I thought this career would be able to satisfy my curiosity."
In her second year, an internal revolution began to tear her apart. She had no doubts about the biases that had led her away from science, but was convinced that philosophy was not the way to take care of her concerns. She then made a bold decision; by means of a three-year scholarship she was able to transfer her studies to Brandeis, a private university in Massachusetts focused on liberal arts. Her objective was to merge careers, and eventually study physics.
Two concerns motivated her move to the United States: the absence of a supportive family and social environment; and the possibility of experimenting with lasers. She enrolled in a basic astronomy course and became acquainted with Roopesh, an assistant professor who assured her that she not only had talent, but perseverance, something even more important. One day, in Harvard Square, she confided in him that she did not want to die without first studying physics. Her professor contacted the head of the physics department to let him know about the philosophy student who wanted to become a physicist.
When they met, the professor placed in Deborah's hands the book "Div, Grad. Curl and All That," a text about vector calculus in three dimensions. If she were able to solve it in two months, he told her, he would accept her in the third year of the degree program. "Have you heard of Edward Witten?" he asked her. "He was able to do exactly what you would like to do."
Witten, the son of a physicist, graduated from Brandeis with a degree in history, got a diploma in linguistics and became a journalist. He published in The New Republic and The Nation and worked for George McGovern's campaign before resigning to resume his studies. He put history aside, embraced physics and earned a doctorate from Princeton University.
Summer turned into a crash course with help from Roopesh. On Saturdays they studied derivatives, on Sundays integrals, and on Mondays they went through classical mechanics. She took the exam, passed, and entered third year physics.
She tried to pay Roopesh for his mentoring, but he would not accept. He told her that when he was a young child, an old man from a distant community would show up in Darjeeling, his village in India, to give the children lessons in mathematics and trigonometric tables, with homemade aids. His father tried to pay him, but the old man refused. The only way to repay him, he told them, would be for their family to do the same for someone else.
"Roopesh passed me the torch of knowledge," says Debora Berebichez. She graduated in physics and later decided to do a postgraduate degree at one of the most prestigious universities in the United States. In 2004, she made history by becoming the first Mexican woman to earn a doctorate in physics from Stanford University.
Deborah Berebichez married Neer Asherie, a professor of physics and biology in which she found the connection she had so long desired. They often dance, laugh and enjoy discussing deep problems.
"A few months ago, we woke up arguing about physics. I'm so happy!," she said in a video for The New York Times. "And we were still in the nude," she added.
After her doctorate, she completed two post-doctoral degrees in mathematics and applied physics at Columbia University and New York University, where she conducts research in electromagnetic waves and nanotechnology. She has since taken up roots in the Big Apple.
This moment in the life of Deborah Berebichez—granddaughter of Lithuanian immigrants—reflects interesting similarities to renowned pianist and daughter of Chinese parents, Yuja Wang, whom the chronicler Janet Malcolm described in The New Yorker as a slim 29-year-old woman who showed up for her recitals at Carnegie Hall in New York, her city of residence, wrapped in tiny, tight fitting dresses, sometimes with feathers and bare in the back “that made her look like a dominatrix or lion tamer.”
Debbie, of medium height, girlish face, and tangled blonde hair, was disturbed that she could not be a woman and study science, or dress the way she had liked to when she was a child. Then she started modelling professionally. "Modeling was a fun way to feel feminine again."
As ambassador for Technovation Challenge, a nonprofit company that works in 24 U.S. states and 29 countries, she set out on a mission to bring girls closer to science by providing training, in impoverished areas, for programming mobile phone applications, to make science practical for creating or supporting business models and solving everyday business problems.
"Instead of solving cryptic problems that only a few people are able to deal with, I set out to solve practical problems in the domains of retail, health care or finance,” she says.
That is how she ended up in Discovery/Science Channel's "Outrageous Acts of Science" television series. Each episode features the most intelligent, funny, bizarre, daring and outrageous videos, commented on by a team of renowned scientists, who explain them one at a time.
She also took part in the TV series "Humanly Impossible," produced by National Geographic, and appears regularly as an expert guest on CNN, MSNBC and Travel Channel.
As was to be expected, the time came for her to pass on the torch of knowledge, as Roopesh had done with her. Graciela Garcia was a shy 16-year-old Mexican-born undocumented immigrant when she won the Technovation Challenge in 2013. Physics was her ally in designing an application to launch a company which, six years later, the immigrant Garcia manages long with with other women of Hispanic origin.
"I don't think the domain of science is exclusive to men, it's for everyone, women have a lot of potential, we can do the same and more," said Graciela Garcia in a video, accompanied by her mentor.
"I have worked all my life to acquire the knowledge and skills to communicate science in a fun and relevant way," says Deborah Berebichez. Her passion, expressed energetically, is to encourage young people to learn more about science and math through fun topics that mix entertainment with the science behind everyday life.
"I want to become the new Carl Sagan of science," she declared with a smile on television.
For now, it will have to be "The Science Babe," as she is popularly known by the children and young people who view her on American television.