Dr. Katie Wilson is a research scientist with the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies at NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory. After first visiting the United States in 2010 to complete an exchange program at the University of Oklahoma, Katie decided to leave her home country of England and return to the University of Oklahoma to pursue graduate school. Her research interests during both graduate school and now as a research scientist has focused on studying the impact of new weather data and technologies on forecasters’ decision making processes. She has enjoyed conducting interdisciplinary experiments with NOAA National Weather Service forecasters that combine knowledge and methods from meteorology, human factors, and social science disciplines to answer pressing research questions.
Published a profile on Lindsay Ross, a hydrometeorologist. This was the first interview filmed for the new season so I’m glad to finally be able to share it.
Lindsay Ross has a Bachelor of Science degree in Meteorology from the University of Oklahoma, with minors in math and environmental sustainability. She attended graduate school at the University of New Mexico and received a Master of Science degree in Earth and Planetary Science with a focus on Paleoclimatology. She works as a hydrometeorologist at Vieux and Associates, Inc., a company that specializes in rainfall and runoff products/services serving wet weather, stormwater, flood, and water resources applications. Her duties include radar and rain gauge data quality assurance and control to produce Gauge Adjusted Radar Rainfall (GARR).
Prior to working in her current position, Lindsay worked at Weather Decision Technologies as a support meteorologist, and at the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality in database management for Air Quality. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling, painting, and hiking. She is early in her career as a meteorologist, and hopes to continue work in data analysis and research contributing toward improvements in infrastructure and water resource management to help mitigate the impacts of extreme weather events such as flood and/or drought.
I’ve launched season two of Yes! Science! today with a profile on Dr. Jennifer Chain as she celebrates her 20th anniversary as a scientist this week. Funny story. When we were talking about where we lived, we found out that we live on the same street.
Dr. Jennifer Chain is an experimental immunologist with 20 years of scientific and research experience in academia, biotechnology, consulting, and non-profit. She grew up in Amarillo, Texas and graduated in 2000 from Southern Nazarene University (Bethany, OK) with a B.S. in Biology and Chemistry.
Beginning in 1998, Jennifer worked as a research technician at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) and as an undergraduate intern for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She earned her Ph.D. in Immunology in 2005 from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center studying human αβ and γδ thymocyte developmental checkpoints under the mentorship of Linda Thompson, PhD. In early 2006, Dr. Chain began the first of her postdoctoral fellowships at National Jewish Health where she studied γδ T cell activation and function with Rebecca O’Brien, PhD and Willi Born, PhD. Next, Jennifer studied CD4 memory T cell and macrophage function in clinical and autoimmune lung disorders in the laboratory of Andrew Fontenot, MD at the University of Colorado Denver. In 2014 Jennifer followed her postdoctoral fellowships with an industry experience at a CLIA-accredited diagnostic testing company in Oklahoma called Moleculera Labs. There she performed diagnostic testing, secured $300,000 in grant funding, and led a project to discover new biomarkers in autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders.
To apply and expand on the expertise she gained in her early-career research experiences, Dr. Chain started her own R&D consulting firm in 2016 called Experimental Solutions to help scientists advance their research and product development goals. As a consultant, Jennifer has helped academic, biotech, and non-profit clients design, perform, and analyze experiments, train staff, manage projects, and write procedures, publications, grant applications, and marketing documents.
Since 2017, Dr. Chain has served as the Science Officer for Cellular Therapies at the Oklahoma Blood Institute (OBI). Through the organization’s Bio-Development division, Jennifer is starting a stem cell and cell therapy research and development laboratory. The work Dr. Chain is doing through OBI will lead to cutting-edge advancements in anti-cancer immunotherapies and regenerative medicine applications and increase the accessibility of these therapies to more patients.
Stay connected with Yes! Science! by following the series on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube or you can also follow it on my personal blog as well. This series is supported via the Patrons of The Show Starts Now Studios. Became a patron to receive early access and bonus content.
For comfort food on a gigantic scale, Jason McCormack at The Miller Grill serves up massive chicken-fried steaks, Indian tacos as big as your head, pancakes a foot wide, and a burger named The Heart-Attack Burger. Located near Route 66 in Yukon, there’s no shame in bringing a friend to share a meal.
Season two of Yes! Science! is in filming. I’m officially referring to this next batch of videos as season two instead of season one, part two as I’ve gotten some new equipment and the quality is improved. You can get super early access to the first profile on a Hydrometeorologist in Norman, Oklahoma over at Patreon. If all goes well, new videos will be released in May. It depends if I’m able to get enough interviews in April done before I leave in May to film Colorful Escapes. On the subject of Colorful Escapes, except news on that very soon.
It’s now time for my annual End of the Year Reflection. Last year, 2016, was a big year for me. I wrote last year “was, by far, my most productive year.” In 2017, I stepped my game. Before I get into details, here are some numbers covering what I made.
Weekly Videos for Uncovering Oklahoma: 45
Artist Statement Minutes: 19
Music Videos: 1
Feature Films: 2 (Norman Music Festival and Inviting Art)
Quarter Minutes: 9
Yes! Science! Videos: 6
-Uncovering Oklahoma in 2017-
I’m going to review Uncovering Oklahoma first, but starting off with some stats. Keep in mind the for weekly videos, sometimes I would feature multiple places, such as when I did my Coffee of Norman episode. Some of my weekly videos focused on an event rather than a place, which I made more of this year because I had footage from 2016 to do that sort of thing.
At this time, no other video of mine has more views than my Beck’s Garage video. The reason it’s so high is that the marketing company did a paid boost on it. The Poe Bouyz House Sneak Peek Tour video was something that went viral because so many people were curious about what that weird looking building on the highway was going to be. Back in 2009, the very first video I did for Uncovering Oklahoma was about the Underground, which I revisited this year to include as part of my series I was doing about art galleries and for Inviting Art. Downtown OKC was impressed enough with my video on The Underground that they embedded it on their site, which for me, is one of the highest praises.
Now, to mess up those numbers, here’s what was popular on Facebook because this year I started also uploading them directly to my page.
Top 5 Most Viewed on Facebook:
5. An Afternoon in Davis [5.6K]
4. Off The Hook Seafood and More [13.6K]
3. Oklahoma State Fair Food of 2017 [14.8K]
2. Davis Road Trip [17.8K]
1. Poe Bouyz House Sneak Peek Tour [407.3K]
Having the videos on Facebook did affect my YouTube views, however, they were getting watched and that’s what’s important.
The popularity of Uncovering Oklahoma has grown like crazy. On January 2, 2017, the Facebook page likes was at 1,969 and on December 31, 2017, it’s at 10,571! I can attribute a good chunk of that to my Poe Bouyz House coverage. As for Twitter followers, I can’t find out what I started with, but I’m ending the year with 2,959. Over at Uncovering Oklahoma, I wrote a recap there, which includes my top ten pages and videos.
-Books in 2017-
One thing I didn’t do this year – which I also didn’t do last year – was publish any books. Not for the lack of trying. Intertwined by Cracks has been going back-and-forth on the editing process. Granted, the book has been getting better and better with each revision my editor has sent back. I’ve also been working on a sequel to The Crashing of Heaven and Hell, which has an intertwined chapter with Intertwined by Cracks.
-Quarter Minutes in 2017-
This year, I didn’t do as many stories for Quarter Minutes, but on average, they were longer this time around. I’m a little bummed that they didn’t get many views because I felt we did a great job on them. Something for me to work on for next year. Shout out to Daniel Austin, Pallas, Robyn Wheelock, Michael Roberts, Finley, Justan, and Kristy K. Boone for their work this season!
-Yes! Science! in 2017- Yes! Science! is my new series I started this year. The show had a rocky start, which involved some technical errors. I didn’t debut the series until October 3. However, it was well received! I took a mid-season break from it because it was getting harder to schedule interviews with the holidays and their end of the year project/research wrap-ups.
-Travel Adventures in 2017-
The other new thing I started doing was more personal travel videos, which would have me in it or not be related to Oklahoma. I figured, I had a personal channel on YouTube, which I wasn’t using, so I decided to do something with it. The most popular video I made this year on it was about the Oklahoma State Fair Foods of 2017.
Leslie and I didn’t travel out of state until December when we went to Seattle to visit her sister and then to see my parents in Georgia for Christmas. Our schedules and budgets didn’t allow for much travel.
-My Top 18 Most Played Songs in 2017-
These were my most played songs in 2017 according to Spotify, which is how I mostly listen to music. I enjoy sharing what I listened to this year. It’s fun to look back. Nothing from my top 15 this year matched anything from my top 15 of last year. Keep in mind I will often put a song (or playlist) on repeat when writing or for inspiration sessions.
-Now for 2018-
Before I talk about 2018, I feel it’s important to talk about my failures of the year. Despite my growth, I can’t help but feel somewhat forgettable. I’m still figuring out what people are and aren’t interested in watching. Basically, what works and what doesn’t work. More than once I’ve had to tell myself not to compare myself to others – only compare yourself with yourself. I’ve also had some weight gain as I do most of my work in front of a computer. I’m at 220 pounds today and I’ve set a goal to lose weight in 2018.
As a business, I am not financially stable or profitable. I did sponsorships to make three videos: The Food of Lindsey Street, Inviting Art, and Beck’s Garage for American Express. I also did several freelance video projects. However, I had equipment and medical expenses eat up everything. While I am grateful for the paid work, it takes time. Time to court people. Time to work out deals. Time to get paid (for example, on Inviting Art, I was paid half up front and the other half upon completion, six months later). I’m working on building up patron support so I can focus more on making things.
It seemed like overall in 2017, I was doing a lot of learning and getting a grip on everything, which some people may say that’s what every year is like. In the month of October, I had released at least three videos a week – one from each of my shows. I am so proud of that turnout. I’ve had people tell me that they live through me and my adventures. I’ve had tons of people that described themselves to me as “not being good on camera” later tell me how good my video on them turned out. In other positive growth, I’ve done collaborative videos with other professionals, such as in my Davis, Uptown 23rd, and A Solo Day in OKC videos. I plan to do even more collaborations next year. I did get PAID to make videos this year, which is a first.
When I compare the me of today to the me of last year, I’ve progressed.
I think the biggest thing I’ve learned this year is that I can’t do everything by myself, but I can get things started by myself. Collaboration is going to be key for 2018. I just need to keep things rolling.
Now, I’m not keen on talking about future projects when they are in the pre-production stages hence why I’m going to be a little vague below.
I plan to release a new book from my 16th Phoenix Universe series of stories. As I mentioned before, Intertwined by Cracks is in the editing phase. Collecting Cassie’s Soul, which is the sequel I mentioned, I’m still writing it out, but it’s been fun to write. It’s told from the first person perspective and although it is a sequel, I’ve been writing it so that it stands on its own. I’ve also written a little on a third book.
Of course, I will continue making videos for Quarter Minutes and Yes! Science! The Quarter Minutes group had some great ideas we just didn’t get to film. In January, I’m going follow up with those who requested I check back then to be interviewed then for Yes! Science! Scheduling and juggling all of my shows has been a challenge.
I would like to attempt to do a non-documentary feature film this year. I have a few ideas I’m bouncing around, but nothing solid yet. As of I’m writing this post, I’m leaning toward a horror film.
For Uncovering Oklahoma in 2018, I plan to do behind-the-scenes kind of videos to show sides of places the public doesn’t get to see. Heidi and I plan to go more small towns and do similar videos to our Davis ones. On the subject of collaboration, that’s one of my key elements for 2018. I plan to do another pub crawl video and A Solo Day in OKC Summer Edition. If funding allows it, I plan to do more coverage outside of the Oklahoma City Metro.
I have an idea for a public art installation. I’ve been inspired by all of the artists I’ve interviewed. I’ve had the idea for some time now, but I’m just now making time to figure out how to build it because it will be an undertaking. Few people know what it is because I’m keeping it quiet until I’m sure I can actually build it. As Jack Fowler advised in an interview I did with, “you just got to do it.”
On the subject of ambitious, I have three words to share: National Travel Show. My goal is to film the pilot episode in the first quarter of the year. This has been something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.
In 2016, I thought it would be fun to do a show involving a live studio audience. In 2017, I started trying to figure what that entails and how to make it happen. In 2018, I take steps to make it happen!
That’s it for my yearly reflection. I got a little personal this time, talked more than normal, and I’ve shared some rather lofty goals. Again, I’m sorry if for my vagueness on the future as I things can change at this point. In January, I’m going to be meeting with people to make things happen.
I want to thank you for your support and I hope you continue to adventure with me in 2018!
