Observing Without Eyesight with Dr. Mona Minkara

Mai Ling 1  0:00  
Before we start today's episode, I just wanted to take a moment and thank you for being with us. We are about to start our sixth year, I can't even believe it. I began in 2018. And I was committed to 51 consecutive episodes. And I still think those early guests for sticking through it with me. Today's episode is 140/3. And we're reaching 130 countries. And depending on the topic, the guest and the time of the year, we are typically in the 25th to 50th percentile for popularity. So this is our thank you to you. Thank you for listening, sharing and supporting us as we share exceptional leaders literally all over the world. Hope you enjoy the show.

Mona Minkara  0:46  
You know, you can observe in many different ways. And actually, I could argue that you're not experiencing something fully if you only rely on one sense.

James Berges  1:04  
You're listening to the Xceptional Leaders podcast. Each week, we give you a front-row seat to our conversations with new and successful, exceptional entrepreneurs and thought leaders making an impact. They share their intimate experiences so you can start grow and expand your impact. I'm James Berges of SLP transitions.com.

Mai Ling 1  1:23  
And I'm Mai Ling Chan, you could find me at mailing chan.com. Today we're going to be talking with Dr. Mona and Cara, a professor of bioengineering at Northeastern University in Boston, and how her research methods are enhanced by her disability. It's been a very interesting interview James.

James Berges  1:39  
I absolutely love talking to Mona. She's a blind scientist. And you can imagine growing up how that would present difficulties internally within her but also from the outside world saying, Well, how are you going to do science if you're blind, and she actually became blind around seven so she wasn't born with it. But she learned to adapt to these new life scripts of I love science. I'm she's incredibly curious person. And it wasn't until a mentor founder and took a chance and said, Hey, actually, you can quote unquote, see things that other people can't fast forward. And she came up with a whole new way to study. I believe it was ribosomes. It was above my paygrade mailing. She's such a genius. Yes, I have. But basically like feeling she described feeling things in her mouth, rather than using her vision to sense them. And I thought that was amazing.

Mai Ling  2:35  
Oh, it is incredible. And I love the piece about her mentor, being able to see her her strength and her superpower.

James Berges  2:43  
Yeah, sometimes it just takes someone to take a chance on us. And he said, Well, you have something that other people don't. So it's an advantage. And I love that reframe. And it was true. And now she's going to the UN, you can find a whole talk of her online of her advocating for accessible science at the UN. She also has a YouTube channel we talk about called planes, trains and canes, which I love this name. And it's her navigating through five different cities around the world, from London to Istanbul to Tokyo, only using public transit. And this part of the conversation was very interest because you have the internal barriers, your mindset and the scripts you grow up with. But you have the external barriers. And I don't want to spoil it. But there's a very surprising way that she viewed accessibility culturally throughout the world. So it's not always the obvious things like you know, Tokyo has some very accessible features for their trains. But other cultures, the way they treat people with disabilities is sort of infantilizing. So there's the cultural aspect, but also the physical aspect. And we get into that.

Mai Ling  3:56  
You know, I want to talk a little bit about the philosophical piece that you touched on, and how seeing is the major way to see the world, right. But it's not the only way. And that definitely connects with what we're trying to change now, which is ableism. And a lot of people still don't understand, you know, what ableism is because it's so entrenched in our culture. One of the things that I immediately think of is when you are having a conversation and the person is not understanding or not connecting, and you're going well, don't you see? I mean, we use words like this all the time.

James Berges  4:28  
Yes, absolutely. We get into that to of how it's like I was blind, but then I could see exactly we talked about that in context of Mona's religious practice. And she clarifies that seeing means more than vision, it's about understanding and not being ignorant. Seeing in that sense, is about having knowledge. So, so many ways to sense the world, so many ways to have knowledge and inner and outer and navigation. We get into all of it, but the Before we get to that episode mailing, you have something amazing coming up.

Mai Ling  5:04  
Yes, I'm going to be talking about this for the next couple of episodes because I am so excited about the exceptional alliances conference. And we're actually not calling it a conference, we're calling it an epic accessibility event. For our listener, yes, this is for you. In the past, I think that I have definitely been in the space of special education, Speech, Language Pathology, rehab therapy, this all is encompassed in accessibility and how we see the world how we adjust the things that we're doing to make sure that everyone can access. Everything that we're offering, James part of our services are PDFs, our emails, our websites, just an amazing array of things. And, and I think this is part of my offering to the world to add my voice to the cacophony of voices that are out there right now really just trying to educate people on what accessibility is beyond just curbs and ramps. I think that's what a lot of people think of. So for our listener, please go to exceptional alliances.com. and register it is free. And another thing that we're really, really trying to spotlight in our community is online events. I don't know if you've noticed, James, that a lot of the events are going back to in person only. And that is really ostracizing. Yeah. It's ostracizing our presenters and our attendees who might not be able to travel, whether it is a medical or health related reason, or they're a caregiver or a single parent, or, you know, the elephant in the room finances. And so people can't go and people can't present. And so there's, you know, becoming a very big rift, you know, between what is actually being shared. So we need numbers, we definitely need to have data so that we can show other event coordinators that at the very least, there needs to be a hybrid option. And it's expensive, and it's difficult to coordinate. But that needs to be the norm. And that is exactly what accessibility is about. Right that everyone should be had the opportunity to attend without barriers. So please check us out exceptionalalliances.com. And all you have to do is just register and that helps to add your voice.

James Berges  7:09  
Absolutely. And there's gonna be over 40 speakers, potentially, that is just amazing that you've been able, yes, making it accessible for everyone. Thank you mainly,

Mai Ling  7:19  
You know, just to add, it's not like 40 different presentations, there's only eight. But we have conversations. And that's the other thing is that we are just so tired of sitting sitting and watching one presenter with slides and bullet points. And so we've made this roundtable discussions very fast paced, they're 30 minutes, the 10 Minute keynote to kind of set it up. And then we're doing interaction with the audience. And so, you know, James, when you're on those, those webinars, and they're asking questions, and everyone's like, yes, yes, no, no, you know, and getting, you know, excited. That's what I love. And so that's what we've infused into this event. So we want you to participate.

James Berges  7:55  
Yay! All the accessibility of online without all the boring stuff as our marketing clip. Beautiful. So that's exceptional alliances.com. I'm looking forward to that. And dear listener, how you can help us right now and help spread accessibility. The easiest way is to go to Spotify, Apple podcasts, wherever you're listening to this podcast, and just leave a review. Even if it's three stars. That's going to be five, but we want to hear your feedback. And we will be taking screenshots of these reviews and posting them on social media, because this community is made up of you. And we were grateful for you. So you leaving a review. leaving a comment also helps spread the stories, these amazing resources to other people who could really use them. So we appreciate that. And with that, let's get to the interview with Dr. Mona Minka. Excellent. I'm excited to be joined by Dr. Mona Makara. She's a professor of bioengineering at Northeastern University in Boston, has the computational modeling for bio interface engineering lab, aka combine. She's a blind person with superpowers on that's how I'm describing her. A world traveler, Director of Science, Director of Science and Braille global campaign and just a relentlessly curious knowledge catalyst. We're gonna dive into so much Mona but I want to jump right in an ask you, you are at the UN. And you presented an interesting question. You ask them what is the advantage of having blind individuals be scientist? Tell us why were you at the UN and what was the quote unquote, unseen advantage you discovered of being a blind scientist?

Mona Minkara  9:50  
Well, okay, so first I want to say hello everyone, and I'm really happy and honored to be here. And as for the superpowers I just, I'm just another human being. I have I'm going to be blind. But I do have to say I'm very, very curious person. Okay, so back to your question about the advantage of being blind. I mean, this, this is a really deep question. I think a lot of times we view blindness or disabilities as something to have to overcome. And it wasn't like for a long time until I realized that actually, because I am blind, I have to interface with data differently. I give a talk about how, because I can't see data, literally see it, I have to interact with the data in different ways. And that allows me to find patterns that other people missed. And so I think that it's time for us as a community of scientists, to start realizing that eyesight is not the only sense that one can observe from that we can rely on our other senses, and interact with data that way. And I think this is really important for the progress of science. So I talked from the perspective of blindness, but like, you know, this goes hand in hand, from other, you know, we need to be tapping into all of our senses.

James Berges  11:14  
Yeah, and actually, being only over relying on sight can misguide you. I can imagine that. So I want to dig into this a little bit more. So you're talking about, because you work in computational, you know, beyond my paygrade of what exactly you do, but it sounds like almost a vision heavy field by default, where I've heard you and other interviews talking about you're observing videos is the standard way that people are observing a lab. Can you tell, like, tell us about that? And what was the unique approach that you took to pose a competition?

Mona Minkara  11:49  
I don't want to give all my all the students names. I want...

James Berges  11:53  
Spill the beans.

Mona Minkara  11:55  
Yeah, like, the conversation is bigger and beyond this right now. But yeah, like mathematically modeling, you know, there's people who saw Nephi data, people working on haptically, you know, interfacing with data, it's all about the, it really comes down to this. I think a lot of times philosophically, we've been taught, especially in the past 100 200 years, that science to do science is to observe to observe is to see, literally see with your eyes. Well, that's not true. You know, you can observe in many different ways. And actually, I could argue that you're not experiencing something fully if you only rely on one sense. Some of us have certain senses, other people have other senses, I think we need to be using whatever senses we have. I have a YouTube channel called Planes, Trains, and Canes, where I bring you along on the adventures of me as a blind individual traveling the world. But one of the biggest revelations that I had, especially in the more recent episodes that came out, and I really advise you to all go to the episode that took place in Norway, where I was ziplining is to realize that if you just stick to observing something visually, you're not getting the full richness of the experience, you're not going to get the history, the culture, the the many layers of things that there's to explore. And I would say that's the same in science, too.

James Berges  13:22  
As a speech therapist, I think in terms of language of how we label things and how I think Richard Fineman, the Nobel Prize winning physicist talked about, you can label a bird and know the name of it. But that doesn't really tell you much. I mean, you can go into the Latin roots of it. And that can tell you something about its etiology. And you know, something about how it evolves. But like, what are you actually observing about that thing?

Mona Minkara  13:45  
Exactly. Exactly. It was, it was great. One of my favorites is going and wiggling. And I always refer to that.

James Berges  13:54  
Oh, funny. Yeah. And so so you're in you kind of remind me of him in the sense that you're doing this complex science, but you're a great communicator, science can. But we need more people like that. Yeah. Well, can you tell us more? I know, you don't want to give all this secrets away. But how do you observe a protein wiggling and jiggling in a different way?

Mona Minkara  14:17  
So one of the things that I now do, and it's because of a colleague at Baylor University, his name is Brian Shaw. So he came up with this idea of 3d printing proteins from dental resin small enough so you can put them in your mouth. Okay, talk about another sense, right? And so when you put this like little structure in your mouth, you're able to actually then visualize it more holistically. Sometimes when you just rely on your hands to touch things. You know, it takes a while to have to build the image because you only you only have so many touch points with your hands. But Your mouth has a lot more like tactile receptors actually. And is more other Your mouth is more sensitive and So you know, sometimes I just 3d print a tiny protein and stick it in my mouth. I'm not kidding. You know, I have people take my hand and trace the structure. If I really want to understand how it's moving, I will mathematical model certain attributes without requires all a set of like, knowing which questions which patterns to see kind of thing you know. So, there's so many so many things that I do after I mathematically model, for example, the rmsf or the root mean square fluctuation, and then I might print it out on my thermos oil machine, which then you know, postures like, like, it's like, okay, this is something that I like, this is something I've been thinking about because I was such a Sherlock Holmes fan when I was a child and like, like, I really love mysteries. I'm like, I want to trademark this. So I call myself, I'm starting to call myself a molecular detective, right? Like, it's literally like, title work that you have to do. And you're doing it on these tiny little molecules that nobody can see. Anyway, you know?

James Berges  16:04  
Yeah. I love that detective. Molecular detective. Yeah, well, I feel our detective reminds me of the magic school bus. I don't know if you asked yesterday.

Mona Minkara  16:16  
I don't know. I don't know how old you are. James. I don't know if you grew up. Okay, so you're around my age. Okay. Sure. I just had a birthday. I just turned 36. So, like magic was Thank you. Magic School was Bill Nye the Science Guy. That's what I grew up on. That's I think, you know, I bet you there's like some people who are like, how can we get more American kids to become scientists? And then that itself was like, your creative project? Like, I definitely am a product of that vision. That intention? 

James Berges  16:45  
Yeah, you got it. You have to make an interesting to get the kids you know, you have to sell the why before you show the how before the dried textbooks, you got to show the story.

Mona Minkara  16:53  
I don't know if you remember at the end, it was always like, you know, brought to you by the National Science Foundation like that as a little kid, and back then, you know, English was more of my second language like that just like imprinted and it's kind of funny to be so I remember the first time like, reconnecting back to the NSF was when I was an undergrad. And I got an ru like, I was like, Oh my God, this from the NSF like, just like this full circle in my mind, you know? So that's pretty cool.

James Berges  17:20  
Yeah, finally, we could bank Bill Nighy. Now, it's funny. I see. We're in such an age and nostalgia where I see people going I miss Bill and I miss, you know, even Blue's Clues. But side note reading. That's reading Ramza. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so So we're talking about so you grew up watching this stuff? I did, too. I would love to dig in, you know, we started with the UN, let's go back as Miss Frizzle. I imagine this, you know, smokescreen was diddly diddly diddly, and it goes back in time. Young Mona, you're in school? were you always interested in science?

Mona Minkara  17:57  
Yeah, I really was, I was interested in science. Before I was diagnosed, which happened at the age of seven. I just was always watching these shows, and just curious about how the world worked. And just, I mean, the world is marked, it's a marvelous place. You know, it's like this very, it's kind of miraculous. And it's kind of amazing how everything works, and has its own system. And, you know, just cycles through. And I was just always so curious. And that was still the case, even when I was diagnosed, even though other people had, like, they just weren't sure what was going to happen. If it was practical to keep igniting, you know, to allow for that excitement for science to continue. You know, I definitely had teachers that were very, very skeptical of my deep interest in science, because that isn't a practical path for a blind person. But I think I would say that my journey is one of just trying to be myself, always. And honoring kind of my interest in curiosity, even if society didn't agree,

James Berges  19:11  
To honor yourself is a hard thing to do. No matter what. This I feel like in this day and age of so many shiny objects and comparisons we can make and what I should be doing...

Mona Minkara  19:24  
It's so true. So many distractions, like it's just like, I mean, yeah, definitely. society tries to come at us, like a lot of things to distract us from sorry, side note.

James Berges  19:35  
Now, we're... I love side notes. Distractions, but also, yeah, these stories you mentioned, you know, you kind of inherited these stories that science wasn't a practical career for someone visually impaired or blind. And, you know, we talked about navigation as it's this only external thing. I do want to talk about that in your YouTube channel and your tribe. Both because you're well traveled. But first, I want to talk about like, what was your mindset? How did it evolve? Did you have a lot of doubts or? Yeah, how did you navigate that story that, Oh, this isn't practical.

Mona Minkara  20:14  
I don't have a lot of doubts. And I think for a long time, I ignored it because I was living day by day, you know, and my parents were like, whatever you want to do, we'll support you, you know, so I was just like, well, this is interesting. Oh, this is interesting. And then there was a period in which it was just like, well, you're gonna fail, you're gonna fail. And I was so bored that I just didn't even care about failing because something more interesting, like to learn something or to, to follow what made me curious, was more of an interesting existence to me then, to do what was practical. When I was a kid, I didn't think about what would be practical. I thought about what would be interesting. And I think my number one, like, the number one attribute that I have, that keeps me going is definitely curiosity. So for a long time, I think I internalized a lot of this. And then I realized I really, really loved science. And I started to really think thing that I needed to overcome my blindness. And that was definitely an internal narrative that I carried for a long time. You know, I had internalized ableism, for sure. And I think this is very common. Until one day, when after I got my PhD, and I was looking for a job, I got an email from a professor at the University of Minnesota. And his name is Jay Elliott statement, and he was just like, I hear you're looking for a job and you want a job, you have a job with me as a postdoc. He just offered me a job without even interviewing me. And I was like, what, you know, and I then set up a meeting with him. And I was like, Why do you want me in your lab and I had such deep internalized ableism, at that point, that I really did see my blindness as an obstacle, not something that could turn into something positive, because I don't know if that makes any sense. And so it wasn't until he started being like, because you're blind, you're going to solve problems, and nobody else has solved. He said that to me. And it just struck me. Because if your mind thinks differently, or you have to work with data differently, like, why wouldn't I want you in my lab? And as you blew my mind? And I started a path, me working through that. Yeah.

James Berges  22:29  
Thank you, doctor, alias. Elliott. Yes, it only takes one person to like mentor and believe in you that can make all the difference. I really do believe that too.

Mona Minkara  22:41  
I've had other people, but like that interaction, really, I think helped me face my internalized ableism.

James Berges  22:49  
And I've heard on another podcast, you talk about the role of faith in navigating your life. I'm curious if that's played into how you navigated...

Mona Minkara  22:59  
Huge role. People have asked me, so I believe in God, I believe in I believe in a creator. And I was have been asked like, are you mad at God? Are you angry at God? And I remember sitting there thinking, like really like sussing out my internal feelings, and realizing that I've never really been angry at God, because I've always had this. I was given God the benefit of the doubt. And so I've always had a sense that if I try, the things might work out in ways I didn't even consider.

James Berges  23:33  
It's powerful. Yeah, that is powerful.

Mona Minkara  23:37  
I mean I have to do my part. I really believe in that. Yeah.

James Berges  23:40  
It's like, I've gone from oscillating between religious and non religious, secular and whatnot. I'm pretty secular. But I do believe there's different ways of the same thing, not getting overly philosophical in this podcast. But it's interesting of like, you know, you have this internal compass. But I like that you said you have to, it's almost like you have to meet God or the universe, however, you want to call it halfway. You have to try and kind of create more opportunities. For luck to find you, or blessings to find it. You have to try. Yeah. And as a sort of a word nerd, I don't know if this is important taste, but I just found it interesting while thinking about this, that a lot of religious language says, you know, I was lost, but now I can see, or I can see the light sloth a lot of visual language within it. But it but it's, you know, I understand it's symbolic. But then Meanwhile, in the ... 

Mona Minkara  24:37  
... like some of this philosophy is rooted all the way back in the in the Greeks with this idea that, to be blind is to be ignorant, you know, and I do think that's something we need to linguistically stop propagating. Right? Like, I'm blind, literally, that means my eyes don't work. It doesn't mean I am ignorant, or, you know, or unknowledgeable. But a lot of times, you know, that expression like oh, like, aren't you blind? Like, are they? Like, are you blind? Like, I don't know. Like, there's, sometimes we can use those words to indicate like, don't you know,

James Berges  25:12  
Yeah, so interesting. And we put so much weight on the weight of, well, yeah, the weight of words. It holds weight. And what you see is not just with your eyes, that's like the takeaway I'm taking from that. Or vision is not limited to sight. Let's put it that way.

Mona Minkara  25:28  
Also, like what you know, is not just what you use your eyes for.

James Berges  25:33  
Exactly. I love it. Are you looking to go beyond your degree and expand your impact? Whether you're a clinician or educator, you can leverage your skills outside direct services. Maybe you want to break into the exciting world of health and Ed Tech, or maybe you're interested in carving your own path and digital entrepreneurship. Either way, you'll find a supportive community and resources at SLP transitions.com. Inside you'll find my personal Tips for Mastering your mindset in the face of transition. Trust me, I've been there, and inspiring stories of people who've made the leap. You'd be surprised how much your experience translates to other fields to find out how join other movers and shakers and SLP transitions.com. Now let's get back to the amazing interview. So we're talking about internal navigation and navigating the scripts. Let's shift a little to external navigation. You're a world traveler, you have a YouTube channel called planes, trains, and canes. I love that I love that name. And tell us about that. Yeah, tell us about that. And I'm curious, what surprised you most about doing that project?

Mona Minkara 1  26:44  
Alright, so we thought about how I. So one of the things like just to tell you about me is I really value storytelling as a tool to be able to share knowledge, right. And one of the things that I really wanted to do through planning transit gains is bring the public along for the adventures of like, how does a blind person travel the world and navigate and use public transportation, this is a key element of the show. So it started off, like literally, when I was applying to become a faculty, and I was so stressed, and I was like, oh, let's do this for fun, let's just dream. And I had already been a judge for the Holman prize, which is a prize for that with a house of the lighthouse in San Francisco. And so I applied, I just didn't even think I was gonna get it. And I actually got it. And that funded season one, and I traveled the world to five different cities and use public transportation. And I think what was really surprising is, I thought I would really struggle in places where I didn't speak the language. But what it turned out is I really struggled in places that had very strong dogma towards people who are blind and what they can do. And that really happened mostly in London. So like, in London, when I speak the language, there was just a lot of the times people asking me like, where's your caretaker? You know, I got into an argument with the London Underground employee. I mean, he was doing he was doing what he thought was his job, he just wouldn't let me ride the train by myself. Because I was blind, like, you know, it was just like it was, it was very like dogmatic about the abilities of a person. Like they didn't leave it up to me to decide. Like, there's just a lot of assumptions there. But then, like, I went to Istanbul, where I don't speak any Turkish people left me alone, or if I needed help figured out a way to help me, you know, I don't speak any Turkish. And that was really surprising for me.

James Berges  28:45  
Yeah, yeah, language barrier is not the biggest barrier.

Mona Minkara  28:49  
No, language barrier is not the biggest barrier, but I thought it would be. Actually it's the cultural assumptions of my abilities was the biggest behavior that I had to fight against. And that was just mind blowing.

James Berges  29:00  
Wow. And he talked about the caretaker, like they assume you need a caretaker in London, which is sort of wild to me that they just, you know, where's your caretaker and ask that question, flat out. But then on the other side, you have Tokyo, which I would love to go, I haven't been, but it just looks like a city of the future. And everything is so streamlined.

Mona Minkara  29:20  
Yeah, it was so accessible. For public transportation was different for private, like restaurants, you know what I mean? That automized, so much of it, then think about the blindness piece, but the public transportation, so accessible, amazingly.

James Berges  29:38  
It's interesting, I think of public transportation as accessible, even when you're not even talking about disabilities, just, you know, for the world. And I think about how urban planning fits into mental health. You know, if you can see your friends more easily and your family without having I'm in LA, so it's like car culture to the max, you have to be on the 405 the worst traffic to see anyone and you have to drive and there's no public transportation, hardly. If there is it's not great. So, yeah, that's interesting. Like you can have layers of accessibility, if you drill in at different levels. So that's great. They they, they don't just tell you to mine the gap. That's good. That's, that's all that London does.

Mona Minkara  30:25  
Yeah. And I was able to get funding from the Massachusetts Association for the Blind visually impaired for season two. And those videos are being released right now. We're ready Have I went to Peru? Sweden, Norway, Morocco and the Philippines? Yeah. Interesting adventures?

James Berges  30:46  
Yeah. Is there anything like? Well, sounds like Tokyo had the best streamline? How do you feel about like, where's the US stack in terms of accessibility?

Mona Minkara  30:57  
I would have to say one of the things that I really love about the US is actually this. There isn't a societal imposed, like, perception of your abilities. So that's something like, I don't know, I met up with a blind person in London. And he was just like, telling me about how impressed he was when he went to the US for the first time. He's like, in the US, people leave you alone until you ask for help. And then they'll help you he was like, in the UK, he'll be walking down and then you'll find somebody dragging across the street, even if you didn't want to go like, it's just like that. That is a props. For me. Obviously, the United States is a really hard question to answer because it's so diverse, right? You have cities are more accessible than other cities, cities that don't have any public transport losses, other cities that do. We're nowhere near where Tokyo is at and I think we should be we ought to be. That's what I would say right now. But we're better than other places, too. So at least Boston.

James Berges  32:56  
I guess every city is different city. Yeah. The east coast has better public transit in general, you made me think of something interesting to have like, asking for help versus someone proactively giving, asking if you need help. And I would guess that it varies person to person, what they prefer, or

Mona Minkara  32:18  
Nothing wrong with actively asking. It's just assuming you need it and being dragged across the street. That's where I feel like the line is crossed, like, offer help. That's a nice thing to do as humanity right to offer. But then if the person says no, thank you respect the No, thank you. And I feel like there are cultures that just will be like, No, you can't be doing this by yourself. And there's like, Let me treat you like a five year old, you know,

James Berges  32:46  
Yeah. infantilizing? And they actually were talking to a different episode I was talking to this lady named Karen Atkins, the Gerontechnologist talking about how tech will be more proactive. And it's kind of scary. Like there's some ethical issues as we develop. AI and robot robotics get more advanced, like to help anyone? How proactive is it going to be? Is it going to be listening to you all the time? Is it going to, you know, yeah, jump in there. And I'm sure it will have to be culturally dependent. And consider the cultural context as well. So it's gonna be a weird world that we're entering, where it's like, more accessible through technology, but maybe, you know, we lose the humanity. The context, that's so important.

Mona Minkara  33:31  
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Either technology can fully replace that human touch. I think it could work with and I really, like I'm pro like progressing to technology. So it works with, there's something unique about the human touch to that we really need to preserve and enhance.

James Berges  33:50  
Yeah, don't be so cold, like a black mirror episode. Might be too depressing. too real. I mean, I like it's sci fi. But it is very like, like, there's another professor named David Eagleman. This is real life who I admire. He's a neuroscientist. But he's developing this prototype to help people sense. Like, I don't I forget how many senses he says but they basically expanding from five senses to like 22. They guess haptic feedback? It has i Yeah, this is above, again, above my paygrade exactly how this thing works. But basically, like perceiving and observing the world in different ways that we normally can't. So I think that's part of accessibility, but then also, there's urban planning, and then also the cultural context, like you bring up and...

Mona Minkara  34:47  
Also like, don't forget. I mean, you know, we might develop technology, but only the rich rich can offer, you know, access it. So that's also inaccessible, right. Like, that's why we need to, like protect things like public transportation, because it should help level out the playing field for people who, you know, might not be able to afford their own car, or, you know, drive it around. I mean, those are also forms of accessibility like socio economic too.

James Berges  35:15  
Exactly, yes. So talking about accessibility. I know you're working as the director of the science in Braille global campaign. What are your main goals with that? And what steps are you taking to achieve them?

Mona Minkara  35:30  
So um, this is a program under RASIT, which is the Royal Academy Science International Trust. They're the ones who came The established it was through the visioning of Princess Dr. Nisreen El-Hashemite, who was the executive director of RASIT. And so what we're doing is we want to make science more accessible to blind people globally. And we're doing that we have a committee of blind scientists, and we offer our expertise. So anybody listening, who's running some kind of panel, you can reach out to me, science and Braille or one on one car.com. And then, so we're sharing our expertise that way we want to try to change policy, or globally discussing these issues. This is why we spoke at the United Nations, it was actually like invite an organised by Rossett to speak at the United Nations, and have all the nations hear what we had to say.

James Berges  36:26  
Love it, thank you for that. And is there any specific thing that you envision to make science more? Or science education, I should say, more accessible to everyone? I'm sure there's a bunch of things.

Mona Minkara  36:39  
I mean, yeah, there's a bunch of things. But I think it really starts off with philosophy. You know what I mean? I think our our teachers need to believe it's possible. And then you can give access to the students to be able to see that it's possible. There's so many layers to it, right? Some of it is actual pieces of technology. But a lot of it is like this is possible. You can still be a scientist, even if you can't see if that's what you want to do.

James Berges  37:04  
Absolutely. For more. For more resources, you have your website, you which is your name, right. monoamine koco.com. And you I love that you share a section of resources you use to access science share, what are some of those resources?

Mona Minkara  37:20  
Oh my God, everything from screen readers to using playdough to the dental proteins to lit the fans, which we just published. I was interviewed with NPR about the lift veins that we created to visualize data for blind and psychic individuals. So that's pretty cool. To how I navigate a conference just has a whole comprehensive list. It's one of mccarl.com. And if you click on bystanders, and you click on Tools, it's all there.

James Berges  37:50  
Love it. Yeah, everyone, check it out. And check out her YouTube channel planes, trains, and canes.

Mona Minkara  37:55
Oh, I do wanna share one more thing with everybody. Yeah, yeah, um, I have a separate channel, because there's just under my name is Mona Makara, on YouTube. And on that channel, I have a list. Every week, I release a video of a scientist that I feel like we weren't taught about but has really impacted our lives. And the scientists come from diverse backgrounds. And I've had like, an interesting journey or story themselves. So I call it scientists of the week, and their videos that are out there less than two minutes. And they cover all sorts of different people, from people 1000 years ago to women scientists now that we don't know about or African American scientists who didn't get the credit because they were black. Like it just it's a whole diverse slew of individuals that have created science that still help us today. So definitely check that out.

James Berges  38:48  
Amazing. Put scientists of the week bonus you other YouTube channel, we'll put it in the show notes. Everyone can find it. Well, wonderful. I want to wrap up with this. Maybe philosophical question, and maybe you've already answered it. But if you could, if you could put one thing on a billboard or a loudspeaker, just so all of humanity could hear it or see it or observe it. What would that message say?

Mona Minkara  39:16  
Oh, it's too hard, James. It's too hard.

James Berges  39:21  
Yeah, I know. It's pretty grandiose.

Mona Minkara  39:25  
I would say be generous. Be generous with yourself. To allow yourself it's okay to fail. Be generous with others. You know, don't push expectations on them. Be generous. Be generous to the earth you live on. Be generous. That's what I would say.

James Berges  39:41  
Boom. Be generous people. Honestly. Yeah. It's kind of like the, the, you know, the golden rule and just be a good person. I love that.

Mona Minkara  39:54  
You know... Everyone is gonna observe it, you know, gotta keep this.

James Berges  40:00  
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, a little more specific to I mean, I love that. And I want to add drill in even further. If you could change one thing more specifically about science and how its taught or perceived. What would that be?

Mona Minkara  40:16  
Yeah, I would, I would tell them just like my hashtag is vision is more than sight. So you know, I would teach science that you don't need eyesight to observe.

James Berges  40:27  
There you have it. Mona Minkara car. Thank you for your time and for generously sharing your wisdom. I really enjoyed this conversation.

Mona Minkara  40:35  
Thank you. Thank you for your Time. Thank you everyone for listening.

Mai Ling  40:39  
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James Berges  40:55 
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