Episode 116 - Nancy Kawalek: "What we do is a little bit quirky."

Professor Nancy Kawalek, from the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, is the Director of STAGE: Scientists, Technologists, and Artists Generating Exploration, a laboratory that creates and develops new theater, film, games, and other artistic endeavors inspired by science and technology. Professor Kawalek's early career as an actor and her interest in science merged at STAGE and continued to grow at the University of Chicago. Tune in to listen to her sharing about her career path and how she became a University of Chicago professor.

Transcript

Lee 00:00
Hello, and welcome to The Course. I'm your host today, Lee, and I'm speaking with Professor Nancy Kawalek from the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. She is the director of STAGE - Scientists, Technologists, and Artists Generating Exploration. It's a full-scale laboratory that focuses on creating and developing new theater, film, games, and other artistic endeavors inspired by science and technology. Professor Kawalek is here to talk to us about her career path and how she became a University of Chicago professor.

Welcome to The Course, Professor Nancy Kawalek. It is a pleasure to have you with us today.

Nancy Kawalek 00:41
Lee. It's great to talk with you. 

Lee 00:44
So, Nancy, let's get started with an overview of your career. Can you take me all the way from your undergraduate years to your current position at the university?

Nancy Kawalek 00:54
I had a rather unusual path to academia. I started out as a professional actor, mostly in New York theater. I did some regional theater, a little bit of film and television and some commercials. And I didn't come to academia until quite late in my career. I was offered a chance to teach at the time I was living in California, and I was offered a chance to teach at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and I really enjoyed that very much unexpectedly and through a series of unusual circumstances, opportunity, luck, timing.

My, I eventually had a position, it grew into another position and another position until I was eventually a studio professor at the University of California, and then was asked to come to University of Chicago.

Lee 01:51
Wonderful. So tell me a little bit about what you do at the university today.

Nancy Kawalek 01:56
Sure, well, our lab is called STAGE and that stands for scientists, technologists and artists generating exploration. And this is a full scale lab. It's embedded within the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at UChicago and our lab is specifically dedicated toward collaborations between scientists and artists and our research focus is on creating theater, film, games, all sorts of artistic endeavors that are inspired by science and technology.

And it's really about emotionally engaging the public at large and entertaining them and trying to capture their imagination and attention and appreciation of science through this very, these very unique and different methods. So that's largely what we do, but of course, we're also very, very interested in all aspects of science communication and creating scientific awareness and also about this very integrated intersection between science and art.

Lee 03:09
Wonderful. So tell me a little bit about what you wanted to become when you were younger. What, were, did you know at that time that acting was for you?

Nancy Kawalek 03:19
Absolutely. I wanted to be an actor ever since I was small for quite some time, and I always loved the theatre. I grew up in New York City, so I had a lot of exposure to theater as a young person. And that is what I planned. I never plans on being an academia and it was just, I think, very good fortune that it turned out that way.

Lee 03:43
Yeah. So when you look back on yourself when you were younger, does it make sense to you that you ended up where you did? Like, are there echoes of, who you'd become back then, you know, in your younger years?

Nancy Kawalek 03:57
In some ways, I think so. I think it was very helpful that I had this professional career outside of the university world. I think there's something about bringing that experience into academia that enriches your position and what you can bring to students. And I think it's very nice to be able to have that a more outward facing experience.

Sometimes not always, of course, but sometimes academia can be an inward facing experience in terms of becoming very immersed in one's research. And I think it's always very important. It's important that the public understand the importance of the work you're doing, and that you make an impact in some way.

Lee 04:44
Yeah, that makes sense. So now that you are in academia, I'm curious about what you were like as a student in high school.

Nancy Kawalek 04:53
I was, I guess what you'd say pretty nerdy. I always, I was an extremely good student and very conscious about doing very well in my studies. And although I gravitated toward the arts, I was always, I always really liked science and math and I was good at them too. So, in that sense, it does make sense. You asked me before if what I did in earlier years corresponds to what I'm doing now. And in that sense, it does.

Lee 05:25
Yeah, so I know you took a circuitous route to your current position today. I'm curious who you leaned on for support along the way?

Nancy Kawalek 05:35
Well, I had an amazing professor in college named Frank Galati and he was himself, unfortunately, he just passed away recently, aside from being absolutely brilliant. He was himself a professional actor and director as well as an academic at Northwestern University, and he was just completely inspiring his brilliance. He concentrated a lot on the adaptation of literature for the stage, and that was always very interesting to me as well. So I think the idea of adapting scientific ideas to stage work, or to film was very heavily inspired by him. 

And I also think I was inspired by my husband, who is an academic and came from an academic family, and I did not, my parents did not go to college. I didn't have that kind of academic environment to grow up in and so being exposed to that and really understanding what that could involve made it very appealing to me.

Lee 06:47
And what about any, like, resistance barriers, challenges, that sort of thing. Did you face those in your path?

Nancy Kawalek 06:55
I think they were mostly internal because I think I grew up in an era where there was a very, very ignorant belief that those who can't do teach and that is probably the most unfair and incorrect assessment of teachers and of teaching and of an educational environment. So I think it was maybe more that I had heard that and that you know, it's very common for scientists to be professionals in a university setting they're considered professional scientists, but often in art, if an artist is in a university setting, they're not considered a professional. That's a very unfair double standard. So I think there was that kind of resistance. And once I realized that that did not have to be the case and that that wasn't true at all. I think that resistance dwindled.

Lee 07:54
Yeah. How did you get over that mental hurdle?

Nancy Kawalek 07:57
I think I realized that I could maybe make more of a difference doing this kind of work and that I would actually have more creative freedom. Some point, obviously, that's not maybe true, quite as true at the beginning of one's career, but that I would have a kind of creative freedom where I could truly be creative and I think interface with other likeminded individuals and use all parts of myself, my brain, my body, everything. Whereas sometimes as an actor, you're a limit, a little bit more limited in your ability to determine your path.

Lee 08:46
So, on that note, why academia? Why, why go into it? What, what prompted that move?

Nancy Kawalek 08:55
I think again, it was a lot of luck. I was asked if I wanted to teach more and then, again, through lots of far too much detail, unfortunately, to go into in this interview, but I think some opportunities came my way and I became very, very interested in the intersection between science and art in particular because I know a lot of scientists.

I have a lot of friends who are scientists. I would hear things like how important failure was in the sciences, and I was fascinated by this, that failure was completely embraced in the sciences, and it was expected that you would fail all the time and that maybe out of failures and accidents and serendipity, you would make a breakthrough.

And in the professional arts world, there really is no time for failure or no chance for it. If you get a bad review, if the show is not successful, and that could be true for performing arts and all other kinds of arts, you basically, that is not a very good thing, but the idea that failure was not an absolutely essential aspect to important work really fascinated me.

And then I kept hearing things like that a lot of Nobel prizes came about as a result of an accident and that just that was mind boggling to me that to have the freedom again, to fail and to experiment and to take maybe a circuitous route to something that just seemed very liberating to me. And, I kept thinking, well, if that's what leads to breakthroughs in science, is that what could lead to breakthroughs in the arts? So there was that. 

And then the idea that I was hearing from all these friends about these amazing things happening in science and then I would hear about the public mistrust of science, or that science was evil, or that science had done this bad, this bad thing, and that bad thing, and I thought, how can we possibly think that way.

There are, first of all, all these, again, great stories that would make for great artwork. And then I just couldn't understand how if science is such an important part of our lives. I mean, the clothes we wear, that's partly material science, the band aid on your finger. What makes that sterile? What makes that stick? What makes that protect your wound? All of these things have their basis in science, your refrigerator, your car. 

And so I just, yeah, started to see how maybe these two things could be put together for a greater result.

Lee 11:51
Yeah, I'm curious how you're able to do that. Because I think traditionally and within a university context, of course, you've got your humanities and you've got your sciences and they're pretty well siloed. So how do you go about breaking down those silos, both the mental ones and the practical ones?

Nancy Kawalek 12:12
Well, again, I think I was very lucky, I think because University of Chicago had this amazing president Bob Zimmer, who was very visionary and realized that University of Chicago could not remain competitive unless it began, an engineering school or department or institute. So that was the creation of the Pritzker school. Well, at that time, it was the Institute for Molecular Engineering, and then thanks to the Pritzker’s, it's now the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. 

But because Bob Zimmer was so visionary and saw that need I came in at the very beginning of the creation of the engineering program at UChicago, and the idea was to create a different kind of engineering department, however, because to create an engineering department, when other schools have had engineering for 50 or 100 years, you can't really do the same thing.

If you want to be competitive, you have to take a different approach and this was going to be an approach that was based around themes. And so, the director knew my work from the University of California and said, well, how would you like to bring this? Because I was already doing arts and science there. And he said, how would you like to bring this to the University of Chicago? 

And at the time I was living in California. So that was a very hard question, but it was such an opportunity to really expand my work in a way that I don't think would have been possible otherwise. But in a brand new program, we could really set our approach and have again that freedom that only comes when at the beginning of something. So that's sort of how that started. 

And going further back when I was at University of California, it really started as a very small program and this combination of art and science, I, I knew that no one was going to really give me any funding for that. Why should they? So, you, STAGE actually started as an international script competition for the best new play about science and technology.

And we had very little seed money. It was part of the California Nanosystems Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara. And it was myself and a part time assistant. We started this international script competition and we were very lucky, the plays that came out of the competition as winners did very, very well. And we were very lucky to, and we worked very hard to get very, very prominent judges. We had Nobel prize winners and Tony award winning and Pulitzer Prize winning playwrights. And as a result, the competition got attention, STAGE got attention. 

And so when this opportunity came up at the University of Chicago, STAGE was already well established and we could then venture off into creating our own work, which was always the original intention.

Lee 15:15
I appreciate all of that context and that history, Nancy.

Nancy Kawalek 15:19
Sure.

Lee15:20
It sounds like there's a ton of joy in your job, but can you talk to me about some of the things that you find most fun?

Nancy Kawalek 15:26
Oh, well, I love working with the students, especially the students here are just remarkably bright and, for the most part, extremely respectful and polite and just lovely to work with and very creative. So I really enjoy that. 

I enjoy interacting a lot with my colleagues. I'm very, very fortunate. I think they're terrific. And I really like the University of Chicago. It turned out to be a very good place for the kind of work that I wanted to do. I think, I think I heard this after I arrived at UChicago that it had a reputation for being kind of quirky, which I hadn't known about. And I think what we do is a little bit quirky.

And so, as it turned out, it was really a perfect fit, perfect environment for the kind of exploratory work that we wanted to do. So it's really, for the most part, just a lot of fun and very creative and a place to take a lot of chances and risks.

Lee 16:29
Well, on the flip side of that, what would you say is your least favorite part of the work that you do?

Nancy Kawalek 16:38 
There is a lot of administration that one has to do to keep a program running and a lot of grant writing. Although I don't mind writing the grants. Just, of course, when you're doing these other activities, it takes you away from the research, the work that you really want to do. So, I think those things are difficult.

I think it's more difficult, navigating, I would say just sort of navigating, how people respond, you know, every generation is different and things are very different from when I went to school. And so, but you can't say, I believe you can't say, oh, why isn't it like the good old days? I think you have to meet the moment. And live in the present and adapt to the present. And so those differences are sometimes challenging to navigate, but it certainly keeps it interesting.

Lee 17:35
And where do you continue to find inspiration? Like, what and who inspires you today?

Nancy Kawalek 17:41
Well, I like to go to see and take part in and go to as much artwork as I can. I like going to museums. I like going to the theatre, to concerts, just to keep inspired. I actually get a lot of ideas in my daily commute, I listen to national public radio all the time and I always learn something and very often something will come up that will be very inspiring or spark an idea. 

So, and I think also sometimes reading the New York Times, I just, I get a lot of ideas from things that tend to also come my way. Again, the newspaper article, or a radio broadcast and from the students as well.

Lee 18:37
And what are your goals for yourself? Your professional goals? I mean, like moving beyond where you currently are.

Nancy Kawalek 18:43
Well, our work is growing. Our lab is growing at a rate that's almost hard for us to keep up with, which is a good problem. And so, we're trying to hire some people to help us and to be able to expand and keep up with the growth of the work and really to disseminate it. perhaps at a more rapid pace and really to have a wider impact, a wider reach on a global front. And that right now we're a pretty small team. So, I think. I would really like for us to grow in the direction so that we could support more work.

Lee 19:26
And Nancy, you have such a unique path, but I'm curious what your advice is, and if you give out advice, if students come to you and ask you, you know, I'm thinking about pursuing a similar path. What would your response be?

Nancy Kawalek 19:42
Well, I would respond, I would say that if you're lucky enough in terms of, let's say, look, if you have six children at home. You have a responsibility, you don't have the freedom to do whatever you'd like, but if you're lucky enough to not have that level of responsibility, and most young people don't, but some do.

But if you're lucky enough, I would say really try to figure out, what will make you happy in your life and don't make choices based on what I like to refer to as the stationary factor. In other words, don't make choices based on the fact that you're going to have a fancy name or title or organization listed at the top of your letterhead because the pleasure that you'll get from that will last you about 15 minutes and then you've got to go and do that job every day.

And there's never a perfect job. There's never a job where you, you will like every aspect of it. But again, if you're lucky enough to find the job where you love most of what you do, or you love the fundamental part of it, that's a better way to make a choice again, then to make a choice because of prestige or because of how elevated it makes you feel. That won't last.

Lee 21:03
It sounds like you're saying that you have to really enjoy what you're doing to make a real successful life out of it.

Nancy Kawalek 21:11
Yes. Again, if again, if you can, if you're lucky enough and to really try to pursue something that really speaks to you and has me, something at least that's very meaningful to you.

Lee 21:23
And I'm curious, Nancy, about, you know, with respect to your particular career path, what have been the most surprising things that you've learned along the way?

Nancy Kawalek 21:32
Well I think if you told me that I would be where I am now, if you had said that to me maybe 25 years ago, I would not believe you so I think just in general, the fact that I'm doing this is surprising. I'm trying to think what else would be surprising. 

I think I'm sometimes surprised by the unfortunate differences between the humanities, the arts and the sciences. First of all, I think they're more alike. I think they're more similar than different. I think they're all fundamentally very, very creative. I’ve learned a lot from the sciences and the scientists. 

I think the skills that you pick up as a scientist are often related to solving problems. That carries over to solving all sorts of challenges and problems in your life. And I think if you're able to do that, it's a, it's a very, very good skill. So I think I've been surprised by really witnessing that in my science colleagues.

Lee 22:36
And how do you think working outside of academia has benefited your work within it?

Nancy Kawalek 22:44
I think it's helped me to interface with the public much more. I think it's made me realize that. There's a big world out there outside of the university, and then it's very important that when we're working on something here our lab, or if any anyone working in a university that we realize that we really need to disseminate what we learn and remember the impact of what we're doing on the public. I think that's critical. 

I don't think it's very easy to get, and this is true probably in any career, it's very easy to get caught up in the minutiae of every day. And I think it's really important to step back and that I think we have an obligation to look at the bigger picture.

Lee 23:38
And that's a really thoughtful answer. So finally, Nancy, what would you say is the most gratifying or fulfilling part of the work that you do?

Nancy Kawalek 23:49
I would say again, working with the students is really, really gratifying and feeling that maybe, even if it's just a small difference, you might make a small difference or one or two people's lives, hopefully more than that. But I don't know if that maybe, one can't be arrogant and think that that's. You know, that you're doing that, and I think you have to kind of remain humble about the work you do. 

And, I think really just working with the students and I also really value the detective work. There's a lot of detective work involved in trying to figure out how to bring scientific ideas to life and how to bring anything to life on stage or on film. That detective work is very, very gratifying, but again, I think it's working with the students and doing it with the students. That really makes it extremely fun.

Lee 24:48
Thank you, Professor Nancy Kawalek for your time today. And Course Takers, If you enjoyed listening to today's interview, please check out the other ones, leave us a comment, subscribe, follow and share this episode with your friends and family.

You can find out more about the University of Chicago through uchicago.edu or the university's campus in Hong Kong through uchicago.hk. Stay tuned for more and thanks for listening.