Creating “She blinded me with science”
image © Roeland Verhallen www.roelandverhallen.com
I am pleased to announce the release of ScienceGrrl’s latest creative collaboration – a cover version of Thomas Dolby’s 1982 hit ‘She Blinded Me With Science’ performed by Violet Transmissions. To listen, watch and download, click here.
Tim Bussey, the lead singer of Violet Transmissions, is Professor of Behavioural Neuroscience and a Fellow and Director of Studies in Natural Sciences at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge.
Tim says: “In my field, neuroscience – and certainly in my lab – many of the best scientists are women, including my wife Lisa Saksida, with whom I run the lab. And as Director of Studies, I consistently find that many of top candidates for admission at undergraduate level are women. So it’s shocking that most of the faces at my level of career progression are male. Clearly women are being put off science somewhere along the way. We’ve released this cover of Thomas Dolby’s hit as way of celebrating women in science and helping raise awareness of some of the issues they face.”
Thomas Dolby has offered his support, providing samples from his original hit of British scientist and TV presenter Magnus Pyke, including the off-the-cuff remark “Yes, but as a known scientist, it would be surprising if a girl blinded me with science”… which first provoked Tim to consider re-issuing the song to highlight that women can, and do.
ScienceGrrl has worked closely with Tim and Ben Roper Films in producing the music video to accompany the song and I am really pleased with the result. It features five ScienceGrrls and over the next few days each of them will be blogging here at Sciencegrrl about their work and the making of She Blinded Me With Science”:
- Roma Agrawal (structural engineer),
- Suze Kundu (materials scientist),
- Lia Ling Yi (laser phsicist),
- Ceri Brenner (laser physicist), and
- Suzi Gage (epidemiologist).
Still from “She blinded me with science” featuring Orphan Black
The video also features fictional scientists from the female-led BBC series Orphan Black. Its co-creator, writer, and executive producer, Graeme Manson says: “Orphan Black celebrates diversity through the unlikely lens of human cloning. So we really welcomed the opportunity to collaborate on this project with Tim and ScienceGrrl.
“ScienceGrrl is about showcasing diverse role models and the different faces of success. We want to show that science and engineering is for everyone and support those who already have a foot in the door. This anthemic track and the accompanying video are a great opportunity to do that, and there’ll be a series of vodcast interviews and accompanying blogs coming soon from the ScienceGrrls in the video too, which we hope aspiring and current scientists will find encouraging.
And all the proceeds from the video go to ScienceGrrl…thank you very much to Tim and Violet Transmissions for that!