Janet Painter ’97 takes science to a whole new stage

Story by Marc Glass, photos courtesy of Arizona State University (Spring 2007 issue)

With students ranging in age from 5 to 65 and beyond, Janet Painter ’97, adjunct professor of biology at Arizona State University’s New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, teaches science anytime, anyplace and to just about anyone.

At ASU, her “Dr. Janet’s Science Saturdays” lab-based programs for children ages 5 to 11 include a workshop titled “Freeloaders,” focusing on parasites and symbiotic creatures. (“Not for the squeamish,” Painter notes in her online registration form, thus ensuring a throng of keen, eager and diminutive scholars.) She also delivers educational programming on the science behind stem-cell research for the retirement set at the many Sun City “active adult communities” near Phoenix. Back on campus, she teaches mostly traditional-age undergraduate students “Biology Behind the Crime Scene,” focusing on DNA fingerprinting and genetics-related forensic science recently made famous by CSI and its many television spin-offs.

And, speaking of TV, Painter has even taken to the small screen to spread her message that science is for everyone, not just scientists. In the final throes of earning her Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she created Dr. Janet’s Science Planet, a science education program for children that airs on WILL, the campus-based Public Broadcasting Service television station.

When asked why she hasn’t stayed safely ensconced in the ivory tower of academia, Painter poured out a rationale that reveals, above all, she’s an educator—a deliberative campaigner who believes that science, taught properly for the masses, can truly be for everyone.

“I’ve always had it in my head to find ways to make science fun,” Painter said. “You have to catch learners when they’re really young, before they’ve already made up their minds about whether or not they can do science. There’s roughly 50-50 gender parity in many sciences at the undergraduate level, but that goes downhill at each level afterwards, from women who earn master’s and doctorate degrees to women who are assistant professors, associate professors and full professors. My goal is to get children interested and stay interested, girls especially, but really everyone. This is how you build a scientifically literate public.”

Rearing a scientifically literate society is critical, according to Painter, if we are to reconcile the benefits of technological innovation with related moral and ethical issues, for instance, those surrounding genetically modified food and stem-cell research.

“You can love science and enjoy science without being a scientist. Too many people feel removed from science. The degree of knowledge and understanding you have determines whether you have more or less opportunity to fear or see potential good in these issues,” she said. “Regardless of your stance on these issues, it helps to fully understand them.”

According to Painter, UMF was as integral to her career development as DNA is to instructing cells how to take shape and function. The biology major credits UMF’s heterogeneous mix of traditional- and non-traditional-age students with her current interest in teaching across the generations. Science skills honed with faculty in the UMF Department of Natural Sciences led Painter to win a Howard Hughes Undergraduate Research Fellowship to work as a research assistant at Dartmouth College the summer between her junior and senior year. Painter, who received authorship on the paper that resulted from the summer of research, was invited to continue working as a research technician at Dartmouth for three years before she began her doctoral studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“Being at UMF was incredibly valuable. I thrived on the small classes and personal interaction, but didn’t realize how important it was until I took an undergraduate course at the University of Illinois with 300 students. I was in a sea of people where my professor didn’t know my name. Here [at UMF] I was a science major, yet I was welcomed into the theater group. At larger universities, theater stuff is closed to anyone but theater majors,” said Painter, who was only one course shy of earning a minor in theater. She acted in and directed numerous Theatre UMF productions and was an onstage regular in Young People’s Theatre Touring Company productions.

Despite having developed strong stage craft at UMF, Painter knew her lack of television experience was a skill gap that needed closing if she were to realize the goal of televising science education programming for children. To that end, she volunteered at WILL while finishing her dissertation research on what she calls “worm-spit genes.” At WILL, she learned how to run a teleprompter, operate a camera, edit broadcasts with industry-specific software and develop computer graphics for television programming. One day, the station’s production manager overheard Painter telling a fellow volunteer about her desire to develop science programming for children and said, “You could do that here.”

Given a staff of a paid production manager, a crew of interns and many generous volunteers, Painter wrote, directed and co-edited 11 episodes of Dr. Janet’s Science Planet. Her next objective? The big time—a half-hour program alongside Animal Planet on The Learning Channel.

“My goal is to do something different in science programming. I want to get away from the lone scientist myth—that picture of a scientist working at the bench, doing research into the wee hours of the morning. Science is done as a team,” said Painter, who hopes her connections within the Phoenix area acting community and proximity to Los Angeles will help green light the project. “I want to show as many team members in the research process as possible.”

Stay tuned.