So we've talked a lot just over the past, I don't know how awkward it is for you Charity, but over the past 10, 15 minutes about who Charity is, which begs the question then, could anyone do this? And that's something that I've wondered about as I've tried to find a few examples to hold up of science engagement functioning in retail spaces. And in both cases, as it turns out, actually in both cases it's women who also happen to be astrophysicists who also happen to be really interested in fashion accessory work. So I wonder though, I mean Charity you have such a specific thing that you do and it's so unique as you said and it comes from a place that's really about your own unique identity and who you are. How do we try to hold this up as something that other people might want to try? That's a good question. I think, it's not about copying what I'm doing, it's about morphing it to what is already out there. And there's so many bases to cover. When you think about the retail world, you have markets like this, you have craft fairs, you have actual walk-in stores, you can go to conferences. There's all different kinds of conferences, you can go to women conferences, a bunch of people I know from the market do that. There's all these different places and I don't think that one company could go to all those places and do science engagement. I think you have to have different types. Whereas I would put myself in a really crafty, artsy type business, a lot of it's just me and what can I do in that lane. Then you would have people who are still active in academia, formal researchers who have great connections to science conferences, women in STEM conferences. What can they do in those areas. And I think the engagement component is completely different based on where you are and what you're doing.

I do think that there could be some positives in learning what people are interested in. And I don't know how to say this, but giving the people what they want. So by learning what's selling well and having it stay within the science branding, which I already, like I've already expressed, I feel like that's a challenge in itself to determine what is the science brand, what you want to focus on is infinite, I think. But anyway, if you have that opportunity you could actually investigate what gets people excited.

But back to just the weird nuances, it's hard to explain the environment that I'm in and what I'm doing, but it's a lot of making sure that I have a very gentle approach and trying to keep things on a crafty level where I don't look like a museum gift shop, I don't look like a retail store that would be in Harvard Square, trying to get some people, while it's going to be a small number who aren't super excited about the word science to come in jut out of pure curiosity or because they see an interesting drawing or literally just something sparkly.

There was this very brief moment at the beginning of the morning, or just early in the shift where this young woman came into the store. And I have to say she was overcome with joy at all of the items in the store. She got really giddy and excited and said something like, "I love every single thing here." And then Charity was engaging with her about what she was doing and she said she was going to Salem and then was going to come back. And so she didn't want to purchase anything at that moment, but I felt there was some gift that the store gave to this young woman in having objects that really connected with her. I mean, really connected on this emotional level. That I was kind of taken aback by how happy she was and it made me feel happy. It was contagious.

the whole experience from the beginning, middle, and end was positive, but the feeling at the event itself and I contrast that with lots of other public events that I go every week. In a couple days I'll be at the NASCAR race in Phoenix for Friday and Saturday, and I've been to hundreds and hundreds of NASCAR races and big sporting event. And many of those events because they are a little more transactional than the interactions with fans and people, and people selling licensed merchandise and Dale Earnhardt sweatshirts aren't personally invested, so it's much more a retail transaction. You don't get those same feelings. So I think it's important to recognize that it was a positive event and Charity and Laura were positive people

Yeah, I think there's just something about the level of excitement that people have when they're in a place that they know, "Okay, I like science or someone I care about likes science and I'm in a place where the person running the store or shop or whatever is like, I like science too." And so they get really free. And this woman came in and she was talking about her wife who's actually a science teacher or her friend was a science teacher but her wife works in science. And she, I forget what the brooch was, but it was Marie Curie or Annie Jump Cannon, it was one of the female scientists. And she was like, "I'm going to buy this and she is totally going to have an orgasm over this. Can I say that is that okay?" And she was so funny because she was so excited that this small thing was going to be so important to someone that she cared about and being able to share and express their love of science and respect for that. In such a funny and silly way. Yeah it was a Rosalind Franklin. Because she's like, "Oh, who's this?" And Laura's like, "Oh, Rosalind Franklin discovered the double helix structure of DNA." And she was like instantly, "Yes, I want that."

I think that there's another category that could be explored that's just about Charity's identity. We've now spent some time together, like no, we don't know each other, but I feel like she's a really interesting person and I think that bringing out her identities of artist and scientist is another part of the selling of science. Like who is a scientist and not all scientist consider themselves not artists. Many scientists are also artists, and so to have someone who had a biography in the shop or who proudly display information about other scientists who have these dual identities, like maybe someones a scientist and a rock climber, whatever. Scientists have very many, many things, they're multidimensional, so I think that, that's another point of opportunity to have emotional connection that could be explored with The Science Boutique, but in other types of retail environments, is emphasizing the person who is a scientist.

as much as I want to sell and engage with people who don't know science, the shop did start to make females in academia feel more comfortable expressing themselves in fashion. Because it's something that I had gotten criticized for, was wearing heels and make up, by my department head, that's why I left that department. So, there is also the component of not just the general public, but also making people feel more comfortable in a lab setting or when they have to go to campus and most of the people in their class are men and are people that they don't talk to. And they'll be like, "Oh, I like your uterus necklace. Where'd you get that?" And can make friends in academia that way, so there's that component too

There's a lot of nuances to what I do. One of them being... And it's so hard to explain unless you're in the science world, is I'm an artist and I think it's always been a hard thing for me because I'm part of academia, but I'm also an artist and my husband's a professional artist. So I'm in two worlds at once and this is me trying to blend them together. Just as much as I try to engage artists in science, I also try to engage science in art.

I just have to stress this because this is a big part of The Science Boutique, is it's not and nor will... It probably never will be a thing marketing towards kids, by any means. Because in my research I found that once you make something like, "Oh here it's for families and kids," then the older crowd, the young adults, singles, couples avoid it. and that's my audience so I don't want to make it something they'd want to avoid. I by no means alienate kids, but... The science engagement that I have in my mind and plan to do is very much for young adults and adults. And I think my demeanor, and this is something that we were talking about the other day too, is geared well towards those people, like having my personality be out there more when it comes to a science engagement can only do good, which is exciting.

And when we look at marketing and advertising and consumer marketing, there's two main classifications. One involves media impressions, so the metric is impressions. So, big companies, I'll say Ford, so they spend a billion dollars creating impressions which will be TV commercials and print commercials so those are brand informational impressions. But they also spend many, many millions of dollars on interactions. And so in general a human interaction or consumer interaction is much more expensive than an impression, but there's clear research that shows in the right environment with the right targeted audience it's also much, much more cost effective. But when you're doing an interaction you don't need to just convey information, because impressions can do that. The idea is to use an interaction to create emotional connectivity because when you have a live event, it's live. And in the case of The Science Boutique not only were the items for sale, but Charity as a scientist with a background in astrophysics was a live person and so being able to have more live interactions because the contact point is the human interaction.

a general feeling. The experience both that we shared in the preview of the event and the few hours at the event itself was a really positive experience. And when you're at something like the Greenway and it's a beautiful day and people. There was a young gentleman in the booth directly adjacent to The Science Boutique, I have his name written down somewhere. But the long and the short of it is his parents were from Boston, he was living in Florida, he came up with a new start up apparel company and he was selling sweatshirts and athletic pullovers with a specific message, it wasn't life is good, but something equally positive and optimistic. And he was just super exuberant and many of the people at the Greenway exhibit, there's something about a collection of entrepreneurs and artists and people that are passionate about their thing being there. And so one more reason why I think there's a good opportunity for science to be in that mix because in the right environment with all those elements there's already so much positivity. So people are predisposed, they want to be in a happy environment. They want to look at funny, quirky things and talk to people.

when you think about science retail, I guess this is a bit philosophical here, but it does get me thinking about, in terms of what it is of science, so to go back to this conversation I keep on trying to circle around, is that there's another element. When I do engagement with science, I've tried to cultivate engagement activities in which I explore the part of science that's about curiosity and about the unknown. And how the process, the nature of science, that's what I have found to be a thrilling source of engagement is to get people to consider what science is. The mystery of science. And there is a philosophical difference between that and other presentations of science as being like the chemical structure of something or the definition of something or a picture of something from science. It's a different type of what science is, but it gets to, it's very philosophical, but what is science and there are a lot of different ways to consider that and it's not just about the different disciplines, but it's also about what's the process of science. Not just what are the results or the discoveries, the outcomes of science research, but what is it in itself,

my background is pretty clear cut in the world of commerce and selling materials and I know in some areas in both academia and in art, selling and sales has a negative connotation. In many cases it's deserved, but in my mind if one of the goals is to sell science, maybe more figuratively than literally, but to create better engagement or more curiosity. Whether it's getting people to enroll in college programs or recognize the value in science or squash all this crazy no climate change discussion, ff people could just spell isotope, if I thought that would make a difference in the world I'd support it. But selling isn't bad, it's changing behavior, it's making an argument in a nonargumentative way of the value proposition of one thing versus another.

the way I would describe the way my business works is, yeah I'm an artist and a scientist. I guess the flow of my business is that the talent I have as an artist and what I produce as an artist with my science knowledge drives my sales and then my sales allow me to do more science engagement if that makes sense. So, if you're looking at that. Where what I create makes sales and the sales give me more allowance with science engagement, the problem is that the bigger you get with something like this, the less important the science engagement would become. Because when you get to more business minded people it'd be really hard for them to rationalize spending money on the science engagement if that's not necessarily the driving force of sales, but that's something I'm going to experiment more with in the future.