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Meanwhile, Natalia’s artistic identity was developing alongside her scientific career. As a teenager, she volunteered for a nonprofit directed by her mother called Women in the Arts. She helped design curricula for drawing and painting education for kids, but thought of her work as just another skill. It wasn’t until college that she found her on-ramp to her artistic career — a playwriting class. The class, Natalia says, was one of the hardest she took at MIT. She followed the thread of writing for performance and co-hosted a radio show for MIT’s station, WMBR. “We were writing sketch comedy and weird experimental music poetry stuff, and really pushing the limits of what you can do on the radio and what’s technically feasible. That was when I think I started to be like, okay, maybe this is art? Because I was working with composers, I was working with musicians and starting to find out about sound art and experimental electronic music.” As she stretched herself into new art forms, Natalia realized that she wanted to pursue something multi-dimensional that combined writing, performance and sound. As graduate school approached, Natalia refused to separate herself into two pieces. “The ultimate goal was staying in academia to be a research scientist and professor. But I also wanted to do something where I could be doing art at a really high level, and have a rigorous understanding of my work as an artist and the broader field.” That led her to her unique graduate education, a path she is forging now, and not without its challenges. She doesn’t often meet peers who straddle two different worlds as she does. In these arenas, interdisciplinary often means two branches of science or two artistic media. To Natalia, interdisciplinarity means using as many tools as she can to work out meaning and solve problems. Occupying so many spaces can be exciting, but Natalia also spends her time translating between ways of knowing that are often viewed as disparate. “There’s a fatigue that comes with knowing that you can’t fully be understood in any of the spaces that you’re in.” Belonging and identity are concepts we came back to again and again during our conversation. “I feel like identifying myself as an artist to other people is scary. Because you’re labeling that you’re somebody who regularly is vulnerable and regularly puts what is inside their mind out in the world.” Natalia has clearly made this a practice. She loved growing up in Orlando, a “majority minority city” that shaped her worldview, but shared that she did not feel belonging while studying physics at MIT. She often felt imposter syndrome and self-doubt. This is not unique to Natalia, who says that she frequently hears both artists and scientists claim that they could never do the work of the other. “I keep hearing from both sides, ‘I could never do that’ and I just want to challenge that. Why? Thinking about how we’re setting people up for believing that they belong in these spaces, not just internally but externally. How are these spaces being constructed in such a way that everybody feels like they can belong?” Perhaps the answer is in focusing on our commonalities as humans on this planet. Natalia and I agreed that the storytelling around scientists is often that we’re supposed to be logical and know how to set emotions aside. Leave the feelings to the artists! Natalia disagrees with that sentiment. “I feel like science is actually highly emotional. I think grad school is an opportune site for exploring that because there is so much self-doubt, angst, curiosity, anger, competition that happens when you’re doing research.” Her artistic work is about exploring her identity as a scientist, her scientific intuition, and her scientific work from the inside out. For her, the two are inseparable. Studying space leads to existential questions about our place in the universe, but can also bring the heartbreak of knowing that some far off places may be unknowable in our lifetimes. “I think that place is where the art starts. I don’t think a lot of people know that’s a thing that happens to scientists. Sometimes you get sad when you realize your result is hard to demonstrate. You get sad sometimes when you’re like, oh this planet doesn’t have an atmosphere.” Natalia’s art points inward to ask what it is to be a scientist and do this kind of research. As much as the stars and their exoplanets provide inspiration, so do other scientists and artists. Natalia turns to the avant-garde for artistic inspiration. One of her favorites is Laurie Anderson, best known for her song “O Superman,” who she discovered while working on her radio show. “She’s a classically trained violinist but she was one of these pioneers of early electronic music and synthesizers. Doing these multimedia performances with movement and sensors and projection and video and her violin and amplifiers and modifying her voice. Just a really incredible artist working in the service of an idea, rather than focusing on one medium.” The intersection of music, performance, introspection, and experimentation seems to be Natalia’s sweet spot. She also loves Pauline Oliveros, the pioneer of “deep listening,” and Meredith Monk, a composer and performance artist. As for contemporaries, she draws inspiration from others at disciplinary crossroads. One example is Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, a theoretical physicist and Black feminist theorist who writes about science and society. “She introduced this idea of white empiricism, which calls attention to how scientists, often white, often male, are willing to believe in the possibility of something unproveable, like string theory, and yet, won't believe that racism is real, even when shown empirical evidence. She’s so cool, she’s an icon. Social science faculty, astrophysics faculty, living the dream.” Prescod-Weinstein was a mentor for Natalia during her time at MIT, helping to shape her career goals. Nia Imara, a fellow artist and astronomer, is also a role model for how Natalia can have a career in this space. Natalia eagerly told me that she’s always looking for new inspiration and peers. Part of her time is spent online searching for parts of university culture that speak to her interests. “I’ll go to talks in fields completely different from mine. That’s, I think, the first place to start. If you’re interested in art, go to art shows. If you’re interested in social sciences, go to social science talks. If you’re interested in social justice and activism, find that part of your university and go to talks and go to teach-ins and literally insert yourself in that community.” She stresses that a support system is also crucial. Peers in her scientific research group go to her shows, take photos of her at events, and help look over her talks. “You don’t have to do it all yourself. That’s really crucial to making this happen, working with other people.” Natalia and I didn’t realize that we had known each other in years past until the day of our conversation. But as we spoke, Natalia’s candor made me feel like I was talking to an old friend. Fifteen years ago, we were teenage girls who hadn’t given much thought to the careers we’re currently pursuing. But we share a common yearning to understand our place in the universe and to understand ourselves in the process. It’s brought us both to graduate school where we’re striving to answer big questions. Science often claims to bring us the answers. For Natalia, it’s not that simple. “That process of refining an idea and getting to the core of what you’re trying to understand to me is identical to the artistic process.” She’s free to explore truths with all the tools in her belt, ushering in a bright future for humanity’s exploration into the stars and ourselves. SEE MORE BY NATALIA GUERRERO: NATALIAGUERREROART.COM & ASTRO.UFL.EDU/DIRECTORY/NATALIA-GUERRERO DANI BUCHHEISTER IS A PHD STUDENT IN GEOSCIENCES AND ASTROBIOLOGY AT PENN STATE UNIVERSITY, MACALADY LAB. SEE MORE: LINKEDIN.COM/IN/DANI-BUCHHEISTER 9

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