Welcome to Science and the World. I’m Rebecca Gianotti: writer, dreamer and environmental scientist. This website is a forum for writing about the ways that science is personal – the people who do science, the people who are inspired by science, and the process of scientific discovery that brings new information into our lives.

Originally from Perth, Western Australia, I lived in Boston, Massachusetts, for several years to complete my MS and PhD degrees. Other work and life opportunities along the way have taken me to Japan, Canada, Singapore, Mexico, Sri Lanka and Niger for extended periods, with a couple of European flings thrown in for good measure. I now live in Columbus, Ohio, with my husband and our rescue dog, Tilda. Leaving full-time academic research behind, I’m working on a career in communication – non-fiction writing and film, science outreach, and hopefully some publishable fiction.

I believe that life often is nasty, brutish and short. But it is also strange, marvellous and delightful. I am interested in almost everything related to science, the natural world, the arts, ancient civilisations, technology and chocolate. People and places are never-ending sources of wonder, amusement and horror. A special place is reserved in my heart for spaceships and interplanetary travel.

I’m particularly interested in how we can collectively use scientific knowledge to better understand our place in the universe, and how we can use science and technology to provide individual meaning and improve the quality of our own lives and the lives of others. As the title of this website suggests, my favourite thing about being human is the telling and sharing of stories. Storytelling is such an innate part of our species – we use it to record our histories, convey warnings, share belief systems, teach our children, and provide entertainment. It seems natural to me that communicating science would also best be achieved through the telling of stories, and hence this site was born.

I hope you find something here to entertain, provoke thought and refresh your own curiosity about the world.

For details about my education and employment history, see my LinkedIn profile. For a more whimsical journey inside my head, check out Dr Bec’s Curiosity Shop. You can read more about my academic endeavours here.

Feel free to contact me with feedback, questions, ideas or fun bits of nonsense. You can leave a comment below or email me at: rlg {at} alum {dot} mit {dot} edu

Thanks for visiting!