Hello. Hello. So I just wanted to introduce myself. So my name is Alexis Armstrong and I'm the host of the Smoker Podcast. So who, who the freaking heck am I? It's a good question. I asked myself that all of the time. Okay. Who am I? Who the heck is running this circus? You know? And who is the brain vine? The head, this VO podcast. I thought I would introduce myself because, I have not done so yet. I haven't done so at all. So my name is Alexis. The host of the Smoko podcast, the host and the creator of the MoCo podcast. Honestly, the only employee at the MoCo podcast. I'm a geologist. I've been a geologist for a long time. I started working as a geologist when I was around 19. I did my undergraduate at Acadia University. I did a double major in biology and geology. I started out in mining, working both as a expiration geologist, so that's in the middle of the woods walking around, carrying a. Sand and soil and rocks on your back. Up in Northern Canada, in northern BC and then in Northern Ontario. And then I also worked as a production geologist, for a very short period of time. I wasn't production geologist for long, but just I got to go, underground, which is really, really lucky. So that was really cool that I got to see underground to go work underground and I was obsessed with it. If I had stayed within mining, I think I would've gone production cuz it was just so freaking cool. I worked in mining for years before I moved into academia where I went back to school, got my master's in carbonate, sedimentology and paleontology. And then from there I went into government work, and working in research. So I went and I worked for the US government. For a program called I O D P or the International Ocean Discovery Program, which is run out of College Station, Texas. It is unfortunately, about to end in September, 2024. So it's the last year at the program, which is a very, very sad thing for the scientific community because the I O D P is the world leader. And oceanography and climate change research. And it is an organization that has a flagship called the Jodi's Resolution, which is where I worked, as a marine technician. And this is a deep sea drilling vessel that can drill and 3000 meters of water, and drill. I think our deepest hole was like around. Two K. It was insane. So it's one of the only oceanographic research vessel that can drill. In the conditions that we can drill, but also the length, like the, the penetration depth that we can get to. So because of that, that ship is the b l end all in oceanography and climate change. And it can go all around the world, which is what it does. And it collects marine sediment and hard rock. So I was very lucky to be part of that organization for over five years, in which I think I did 10 plus marine expeditions. I spent around 2.5 years of my life, accumulatively at sea. And I was able to travel around studying climate change and running two labs, both the x-ray lab and then the core description lab. And so my job as a technical staff was to create the programs that were used on board, create equipment to process core material. Creating the software that's running. That we're using within the lab, creating the instruments, creating the track systems, managing them, helping them, fixing them when they break, which I had no background in engineering, so that was really scary when I first started. It is just the first time my instrument died. I think I cried. I was just in the middle of the ocean being like, I have no idea how the fuck I'm supposed to fix this. So that was, that's the role of the job. To help our scientists that come on for one expedition and are subject matter experts for that one expedition. It was a wonderful experience. I did that for a very long time. I talk a lot about it on the podcast just because a lot of my friends and colleagues are from the I O D P. That's how I've met a lot of people that I've worked with and a lot of women and mentors. Along the way have come from I O D P. But I worked for years for I O D P and I sailed around the world and I worked as a marine technician in charge of the X-ray lab and then the core description lab. And I was just so thankful and gracious that I could go on those expeditions and sail around the world and, and get to be part of the program. And through the program I was able to go to Antarctica twice. Was able to see places that I never thought I would see. I was able to travel all around, got to go down to New Zealand and Australia and Hong Kong. We were based outta Hong Kong for a long time. South Africa, Chile. Europe. It was crazy. I never thought I'd be able to see any of those things. I got to see Papua New Guinea, who gets to see Papua New Guinea. It was so cool. It was so different. Got to live in Fiji for a little bit. That was super sick. I loved it. Got into geology because I like to go outside. Really, honestly, that's, that's how I first, got into this science was I found out that you could be in the woods and you could. Not bathe and hang out and just collect rocks all day and live out of like a campaign bag and live in a tent. And you got paid to do so. You just got paid to walk around in the woods. And I was like, this is the best gig that has ever existed. And that's my initial like, Push to go into into that field. And then when I was in university and I started discovering natural sciences, so biology and geology, I just fell in love with it. I thought it was the coolest thing that I'd ever learned. I was just obsessed with it. I was obsessed that it was basically like a puzzle piece of trying to figure out past environment and past climate. I really love the idea of past climate and paleo climate and trying to reconstruct past environments. I just think it's really fricking cool. And that's why I fell in love with science in general. And then I fell in love with the field of carbonate sedimentology just because they're the only rocks that are born, not made, and they're created by olds. Ancient now. Well if you're not talking about in modern day carbonates, but I looked at past carbonates, but you're talking about old species and old reef ecosystems and trying to understand that environment and. By looking at those rocks, you can get a sense of like the geochemistry of the water column and you can get nutrient levels and productivity and you can get speciation and different changes in their morphology. You can mean different things in terms of currents and and wave conditions, and it's just, it's insane. It's absolutely so crazy the amount of information that's within that rock and within those spaces. And from that you can. And for environment, it was just so interesting and so cool. And so that's how I fell in love with the science aspects. But I first got into it just because I wanted to walk in the woods and I was getting paid to go put soil in a bag and carry it around on my back. And I was like, this is. Easy, easy money. I got this. And then I fell in love with academia because it was basically, understanding puzzles for your job. And then I got the ability to travel around the world and live like Jack Cau, who has always been an idol since I was like seven years old. Don't get me wrong, it was wonderful, but those expeditions are two months straight, seven days a week, 12 hour days, no breaks. It was just a lot of work a lot of times spent away. And then I started getting older and I was like, well, maybe I would like to have a family of my own. And I can't do that if I'm constantly gone and I'm constantly in the middle of the ocean. So I decided to come back I wanted to not be gone every two months to live, life at sea like a sailor. And it was time to come home and then why I decided to do this is because, I think that women who work within these fields are like the coolest people to have ever existed. That is absolutely ridiculous. Like it's such a crazy statement to say, but I genuinely, wholeheartedly believe that because I have met the coolest people through my job and through sailing and just through grad school. All of it. Every single woman that I've met who's worked within science or trades, they're just these like badass rebel wild women that as soon as you meet them, you're like, that's what I would like to be. I would be like, I want to be like them. They admire me to be like them. And I just thought they're so freaking cool. But what I was seeing was. I didn't think that they were actively being represented in terms of storytelling. When we think about science or when we think about trades, I don't think we necessarily go instantly to someone who looks like me or someone who looks like my younger sister who, who looks like my friend, who looks like my mentor. Like we don't go to women. I think when we think of these roles traditionally, I think when we envision them, we envision men. And so we don't really have adequate representation or storytelling from the women who work within these industries and within these roles. And that's something that I wanted to hopefully help change. I mean, I, I don't know if we are gonna change it. Who knows? Maybe my mom is gonna be the only person that ever watches these podcasts or this video that I'm creating right now. But I thought potentially we could maybe do something to help and move it forward and, and create a platform. Where we could have representation of these women. Because these are non-traditional roles that I think are hard to come by. They're hard to find. And I think if you're young women just starting, you have no idea that a career as a carpenter or as a career as a geoscientist or as a physicist or as, in just as an aerospace welder. Exists, right. You have no idea that that's even a thing that a pipe fitter is a thing. Like you, you don't know that those careers exist unless you have family within that industry. People barely know that we exist and we barely exist. I mean, we only represent 3% of the population. When in terms of trades, when you look at all trades, I think women represent 3% of the workforce. And I think science is not much better. I think we're at like 14%, so there's not many of us. Most women in science and trades we're used to being the only girl in the room. I mean, I've been the only girl in the room so many times. I've been one of four and like a 500 person in mining camp or. I think when I started I D P out of the staff, permanent staff of 90, again, I think there was only four women, myself being one of them. There was only three other women when I first started. Luckily, it changed by the end. There was a fair bit of women's staff, which was a wonderful thing, but I think we're so used to it that we're. We're barely there. We represent 50% of the student population in terms of universities. But as soon as you graduate within the workforce, and especially as you move up in your career and you become higher in middle management, there's not many women that work within these positions or are there with you. And I think that's. A huge problem in our industry. And I think these industries have huge known problems of culture, that need to be changed. And I think they're so homogenous and they have been so homogenous for so long. So we just need to increase the amount of women that work within these fields. But how do you do that and what's important to try to move the needle in the right direction? And I think one thing that. Is within our power. And I think that is important to, to help us is representation and giving a voice and a platform for women who work within these roles. And so that's our, that's our goal really. Atmo o is to try to increase representation of women within non-traditional roles another part of why I started this podcast and what I wanted it to be a little bit different is I found when we do think of women working within STEM and trade occupations, I think for the most part we go to a negative. And I know when people ask me questions, they're asking from a good place. They're not asking from like a malicious intent or anything like that. They're asking from a good place, but it instantly will be like, how hard is it? How many women are there? Are you the only one? How many other people are there? Are you okay? Are you in danger? Are you being harassed? Have you ever been harassed? Have you been assaulted? How do you deal with being in this area of men? And. I just think that that's been kind of the norm in storytelling when we think of women within these, these roles. A lot of it has been really like centered on our problems and the problems of culture, which I think are important conversations to have. But my, my issue with it is that I think that that's the only conversation that we have had, and I think that's the most common conversation is. Please describe to me how difficult it has been being within this industry, and I only wanna understand how difficult it has been. That's it. And so what I thought that this podcast could do is, Highlight who the women actually are and give them the space that they could talk about whatever the hell they wanted to talk about. If they wanna talk about problems or talk about culture or issues that they've had within this field, they are rightfully allowed to do so because it's really, really important conversations. But it's only important conversations if it's coming from them directly. And if they would like to tell that story, I don't think it should be forced on them. So, We thought that we could give a platform where women can talk about that if they would like, but the focus of our conversations will be on, on the positives, on who they are on. What they've done, what they've accomplished, what they're proud of, what they're working on, their technical ability, their research, because some of it is so cool and so nuanced and so insane. And I think that that's a really important change of the narrative that we need to make is, viewing these women. As full nuanced people other than like single dimension really as flat surface characters with the old day thing to really talk about is how hard it's been. I think we need to give them opportunity to talk about everything, the good and the bad of this industry, and to tell their story how, again, however they would like to tell it. And I think to center themselves in the narrative and into the story. So that is a big goal of Spco is Allow women to tell their story however they would like to tell it, and to really focus on who they are, what they've done, what they hope to do, what they're struggling with, what they're excelling at. And to have better representation of what it means to be a woman in STEM or a women in traits. I think another aspect of this conversation is a lot of the time women in, in science and in trades, We're expected to act a certain way. I mean, I think in sciences we're expected to act like robotic geniuses and I might be a geologist. That's okay. A carbon and sedimentology. But like that doesn't mean that I know anything about anything really, or just am a normal person. So I think also a lot of these conversations, another aspect of it is I just hope that they're accessible and. Showcases women who they, how and how they are. And maybe as sometimes how dumb I can be. Cause yeah, that's, that's, that's the reality of, of my life. So, That's what we hope to do. thank you for listening. I appreciate it a bunch. Yeah. Bye-bye. XL xl, gossip girl. See you later. Bye-Bye.