Name: Amy Freitag
Age: 23
Location: Beaufort, NC
Occupation: PhD student in marine science and conservation

Amy Freitag grew up the daughter of a nuclear physicist in Washington DC. Being around her scientist dad inspired her, and led her to have an adoration of science fairs. Throughout her childhood she changed her mind about her dream career often, but whether it was to be an endocrinologist or a restoration ecologist, it always stayed grounded in science.

Today Amy is a PhD student in marine science and conservation at Duke University. At this point in her career she considers marine biology a “midpoint stop.” She works at a marine lab and interacts with people who have riveting jobs that enlighten and motivate her. “I work with colleagues in environmental justice that have field sites in the coal towns of Appalachia, inner city Baltimore, and the strawberry fields of the San Joaquin Valley. I consider myself a political ecologist, which largely questions community access to – and power over – natural resources they depend on,” she says. “The frame of analysis is ubiquitous across cultures, ecosystems, and time. That’s what has really won my love.” She also finds the idea of incorporating academia into her future appealing, as she believes it can help her to simultaneously spread knowledge about the environment while helping communities to preserve their resources.

Amy on an adventure at Point of Arches.

Amy’s PhD work is largely split between the office and the field. When she’s in the office, she’s reading, transcribing research results, or preparing for her class on sustainability. Out in the field, she’s studying the water quality of the Albermale-Pamlico sound, which is a body of water that supports much of North Carolina’s fishing industry. “Lots of my time in the summer involves going out fishing with commercial fishermen, hanging out at fish houses, and otherwise getting to know both the ins and outs of fishing and the guys who work in the industry,” she says. “It’s almost all guys. Over time, they learn to trust me and will sit down for a formal interview about water quality concerns and how changing water quality directly affects their livelihoods. This summer, I’m also collecting all sorts of samples of local fish – blue crabs, shrimp, mullet, oysters, clams, and spot – for mercury and PCB testing after a couple of local fishers came to us asking if the national data on contamination was also true for our Sound. The verdict’s still out.”

Her data and analysis contributes to more than just the environment, it assists building bridges between the ecosystem and the people who interact with it, allowing her to contribute to its preservation in a meaningful way. Away from the lab, Amy is adding some bluegrass to her blue crabs, as her online moniker proclaims. She plays the fiddle and is trying her hand at learning the banjo. At night she can be found jamming at pubs in town and at sessions in people’s houses. She hopes to continue her research in the southeast or mid-Atlantic, and to further her academic endeavors along with research in the field. “My dream job would be to work for the Smithsonian, which has both a Chesapeake Research Center and a Center for Folklife so I can continue my love of walking the line between nature and culture, and maybe even get it displayed for the public. That’s way more exciting than an academic paper to me.”

For protecting North Carolina’s waters and committing herself to crabs and their kin, Amy Freitag is a really Cool Girl! You can check out the incredible marine biology blog that Amy contributes to by clicking on www.southernfriedscience.com

Name: Bee Chelse
Age: 29
Location: Chicago
Occupation:  Medical Student

Bee Chelse is probably where the saying “busy like a bee” comes from. She wakes up at 4AM and works all day as a medical student, doing everything from assisting doctors with surgeries to shuttling specimens to the lab. Her days don’t end until nearly 8PM, when she returns home to sleep. Not only is she buzzing around trying to treat people who need medical help, but in her limited spare time she likes to strap on her sneakers and run! It’s hard to keep pace with this Chicago resident, but to achieve her goals requires the same things a marathon runner needs for victory: speed and dedication.

After moving to Las Vegas from Brazil as a child, Bee spent her formative years with an assortment of relatives. Although she doesn’t look back fondly on her time in that sweltering Nevada city, she’s grateful that she met her three closest friends there. They all moved to Chicago and are still extremely close to this day. Bee’s interest in medicine didn’t begin in Vegas, or even while she was in school. It was only after high-school, when she began working with the organization Families For Early Autism Treatment, that she became intrigued with child neurology.

“For over two years, I provided two autistic children, Hope and Marley, with fifty hours of weekly direct behavioral therapy, working in a one-on-one environment. I was involved in all aspects of the children’s health: shaping behavior through discreet trials, aiding with social interaction, decreasing self-injurious behavior, and dispensing medication,” she says.
She began to assiduously researching autism and recommending different courses of treatment for the children. “I suggested allowing Marley to perform minor non-violent self-stimulatory behavior to raise his compliance in therapy and treating his aggressive outbursts with medication. Marley started improving: his self-abuse decreased and his vocabulary quadrupled; he also started using language rather than gestures when he required assistance, food, or play.”

Marley’s success, and the fulfillment Bee received from working with the children, was inspiring. “Aiding Marley in sounding out new words, patiently guiding him in learning new tasks, and seeing his eating habits and overall health improve kept my heart lifted and my brain racing,” she says. At the age of twenty-three, Bee went back to school in order to fully study child and adolescent neurology and brain disorders, with a focus on autism and epilepsy.

Be describes medical school as “a vampire with big fangs that chases you around trying to bring you down,” but she tries to maintain a positive outlook. Her surgical rotation is a challenge for her to conquer so that she can continue on her path towards neurology. Currently her waking hours are filled with handling organs and assisting with diagnoses. “I put my hands inside people and hold their guts back while surgeons create crazy anastomoses. Then I talk to people about their various diseases and try to figure out how to help them feel better. I like that part a great deal.”

Bee sites the runner Steve Prefontaine as one of her biggest influences. “He wasn’t physically gifted by any means. He was just a kid from Coos Bay with one leg longer than the other, flat feet, short legs, who still won the race because he had the most guts. I think what sums up Prefontaine best is his quote “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.”

When she’s not going for a run on her rare days off, she’s creating a hilarious podcast with her two best friends. Called Dinobrain, it’s a comedic interlude that she describes as “High Grade Nonsense.” It’s a welcome break in Bee’s busy schedule, and it’s guaranteed to spread some cheer no matter how hectic your day is.

For applying her brains to healing brains, Bee Chelse is a really Cool Girl!

To check out more of what Bee is up to, you can read her blog on Tumblr http://beeborg.tumblr.com/ or follow her on Twitter http://twitter.com/beeborg. And be sure to check out the Dinobrain podcast if you’re in the mood for some laughs http://dinobrain.com.

Catherine Qualtrough remembers looking up at the Milky Way when she was a child walking to her grandparents’ house. The rural area where she grew up, near Hamilton, New Zealand, was untouched by light pollution at the time, so scoping a celestial view while on a stroll wasn’t an impossibility.

Catherine remembers the particular moment in her childhood where her love affair with astronomy and astrophysics began. There was a school project where she studied Halley’s Comet and its return to the skies. “I was so amazed that this giant glowing snowball was speeding through our solar system and had been for hundreds of years and that by merely looking up I could see this happening,” she recalls. For weeks she dragged her parents out of the house at 3AM to stare at the sky with binoculars. Her parents could tell that their daughter had found something she was passionate about, so they contacted a member of the local astronomical society. He invited ten-year-old Catherine to look through his homemade reflecting telescope. “Again, my parents were there shivering through the night while I stood on a box and got my first look at Saturn’s rings, Mars and Jupiter’s moons. I was sold. From then on I read Astronomy magazine every month and begged my parents incessantly for a telescope,” she says.

Catherine decided to move across the country to attend Canterbury University following high-school. She majored in Physics and Math, and took courses in Astronomy and Astrophysics. Ernest Rutherford, an epic figure in New Zealand and a hero to Physics, attended Canterbury as well, and he provided Catherine with a bottomless well of inspiration. Following Canterbury, Catherine won a scholarship to attend the University of Cambridge in England. ”I began my Ph.D work in the “Rutherford” building of the Cavendish Laboratory at the university. Every day I was reminded of my New Zealand roots, and that if you have enough passion and enthusiasm for something, you can achieve your dreams, regardless of your background,” she says.

Her work eventually exported her to the United States, where she lives today. Catherine looks back on her path to the skies and is proud to have overcome the challenge of finding an occupation that is united with her love of space. “New Zealand’s economy just cannot support a lot of research in the areas I love,” she says. Her job in the U.S. exposes her to some amazing things, like traveling to see the world’s most innovative new telescopes and peering into the heart of the universe from the observatory. Her day-to-day work combines research and teaching with data processing, presenting results, research fund applications, and writing papers.

She also looks to inspire other scientists, as well as the public. “It’s the best feeling when you can explain something to someone and see that spark of understanding and interest in their eyes,” she says. It’s also important to Catherine that she helps to reach out to young people who are interested in science. She remembers how it was difficult to find other women to look up to. “I’d be lying if I said walking past walls full of portraits all of successful male figures in Physics and Astrophysics at Cambridge wasn’t sometimes disheartening. Female role models were scarce. One of my major goals in life is to help change this and to support women in the sciences,” she says.

Catherine spends her time outside of the observatory playing piano, rowing, and volunteering at charity and outreach groups. “I aim to one day write a non-fiction book about astrophysics aimed at the non-expert. I’d also love to become more involved in scientific policy making,” she says.

For staying star struck and inspiring others to become interested in astronomy, Catherine Qualtrough is a very Cool Girl!

You can follow Catherine on Twitter @CatherineQ, and you can read her blog about astrophysics, space, outreach, and science in development at www.CatherineQ.com

Name: Danielle Stolzenberg, PhD
Age: 28
Location: Charlottesville, VA
Occupation: Postdoctoral Fellow

Having a Ph.D. isn’t enough to secure a job these days, especially if you’re a scientist. That’s why Danielle Stolzenberg is dedicating nearly four years of her life to an academic residency known as a postdoctoral position. Danielle studies the neurobiology of maternal behavior, which is a fancy way of saying that she tries to figure out how and why mothers respond to their infants’ stimuli. Last year she graduated with a Ph.D. in behavioral neuroscience from Boston College, but it’s not as if this Cool Girl was a scientist from birth.

Growing up in Pembroke Pines, Florida, Danielle wasn’t sure what she wanted to be when she grew up, but she knew she hated the science fair and lima beans. “I wasn’t particularly good at science, and I definitely wasn’t a fan of it,” she says. This is a huge difference from the girl who, during the first week of her “Physiological Psychology” class in college, went to the registrar and changed her major and degree from a BA to a BS in order to pursue a degree in Behavioral Neuroscience. “Physiological Psychology was rumored to be the most difficult of all the psychology classes, and even though I had never been a straight A student up till that point, from the day I stepped foot in that class everything changed. I got it on a level that seemed to make everything else make sense,” she remembers. She was hooked. As Danielle puts it, “Neuroscience was like the “gateway drug” for me.”

Average days for Danielle consist of conducting various stages of scientific experiments or compiling data, with the ultimate goal being to publish a manuscript. It’s a lengthy, arduous process. Her days might be filled with tests at the lab, but that doesn’t mean Danielle’s academic life has always been simply blinded by science. “Even though I decided to professionally pursue neuroscience, for the past five years I have still been desperately holding onto my original childhood aspiration of being an artist,” she says. Graduate school in Boston allowed Danielle to pursue playing electric guitar more than she had in her previous years. After teaming up with bass player Amanda Dellevigne, who was one of the undergraduate research assistants in her lab, Hot Box was formed. The two girls sought out other band mates, and found a drummer in Boston newbie and marketing maven Eric Kogelschatz as well as aspiring neuroscientist Jon Gill. Of course, with a band made up of this many brilliant people, simple rock ‘n roll wasn’t the only thing that went down. “Eric and I had several discussions about neuroscience,” Danielle remembers. “When Eric became interested in the new field which uses neuroscience methods to understand consumer behavior, known as neuromarketing, he asked if I would be part of the panel “Big Brother in Your Brain: Neuroscience and Marketing,” which he had proposed for SXSW 2010.” Danielle went on to be a panel member at the festival, and found herself at the heart of the perfect union between neuroscience and music. “It was ironic that neuroscience, rather than music, had actually brought me there,” she says.

A career in neuroscience is hard, as there’s rarely enough time for Dr. Stolzenberg to get to everything she’d like to take on. But all and all, it’s worth it. “When it seems impossible, I try not to let myself forget that I have an opportunity here to be the one on the frontier of human knowledge. The research that I publish might just be the next chapter in a textbook. That’s a pretty exciting feeling,” she says. When she left Boston and Hot Box behind in order to take on her postdoctoral work, Danielle feared that she gave up on her passion for music in order to foster her career in science. “I realize now that one will never win out over the other,” she says. “Instead, I see my future-self striving to keep both loves in her life.”

From the science lab to guitar tabs, Dr. Danielle Stolzenberg is experimenting in redefining what it means to be a “Cool Girl!”

You can check out what Danielle’s up to in the lab at her website, www.daniellestolzenberg.com, or follow her on Twitter, twitter/drstolzenberg.
To listen to the music that Hot Box made when they were together, click on myspace.com/hotboxboston

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When a child declares that they want to be an astronaut when they grow up, rarely do they stick with that idea all the way through adulthood. Holly Griffith is an exception to the rule. Growing up in Lake Charles, Louisiana, she always wanted to be an astronaut, and today she’s one of the people behind the scenes when space shuttles hit the sky.

Holly was greatly influenced by her father, who was a huge fan of science fiction, Star Wars, and Star Trek. Her family also had a telescope, which allowed this young Princess Leia wannabe to gaze at the stars. Holly’s dad helped her to build a rich fantasy life, which she needed to combat the very real medical emergencies that occurred all too regularly at her house.

“My dad had COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). He would have to be rushed to the emergency room at random times of the day or night because he wouldn’t be able to breathe. When I was younger, my mom wouldn’t want to leave me alone in the house, so I would go along. Lots of times it would be at two or three in the morning, and we would stay there for several hours. Because of this, I’d miss part of school the next morning, so I was continuously having to catch up on my work,” Holly recalls.

Even though she played catch-up in school, and faced health crises at home, Holly never felt that she was limited. Her parents always told her that she could achieve anything she desired, and they stressed the importance of education. She was pushed to get a degree, and was supported by her parents as she decided to study engineering, with the hope that one day she could work for NASA. Using her engineering degree and applying her passion for space allowed Holly to become a Flight Controller for the Space Shuttle Electrical Power System after applying for a job at Johnson Space Center.

Although the work varies tremendously depending on their schedule, a typical, non-flying day for Holly consists of training simulations, ranging from four to eight hours, and then a Flight Controller Training Session for two hours. There’s also paperwork and meetings, just like any other job. When there’s a shuttle flying, three teams work in Mission Control non-stop. “On the last Shuttle mission, STS-131, I was coming in at 1AM and getting off at 10AM,” Holly says. “We also work weekends and holidays. Orbital mechanics don’t change for our calendars!”

Holly’s first certified flight was STS-117. She remembers that all did not go as planned. “Some of the computers on the International Space Station stopped working, these computers controlled altitude adjustments for the Station. We were docked and having to use the Shuttle to control the altitude for the Station, since it couldn’t do it on its own. We had to power down and conserve fuel so that we could stay docked longer and give engineers on the ground more time to troubleshoot the problem. If we didn’t, then we’d have to abandon the Station,” she says. “Luckily, we figured out what was causing the problem and we were able to fix it, but when it was all going on it was very stressful.” Talk about a hard day at work!

Fortunately for Holly, most missions aren’t fraught with faulty computers, and she’s still wowed by what she does. “It’s very cool to think that there is a spaceship orbiting our planet with people on it, and in some way you’re responsible for keeping it working correctly.” Her hard work, certification, training, and education all led to her place working on those very flights, and they really are a boost to the rest of her life on earth. “It gives you a lot of self-confidence and makes you think that after this, other, smaller things aren’t so difficult. And when the mission is over and we touch down, it’s a feeling of great accomplishment.”

Even though there are far fewer women than men in her workplace, Holly believes that the bonds between her fellow workers are much better than in most other jobs. The vast amounts of training and the struggle to get certified are universal regardless of gender, and that equality allows for there to be mutual respect across the board. “I’ve been told that in Flight Control, women may actually be better suited for the job, because in addition to engineering, there’s a lot of communication involved, and some studies suggest that women are naturally better at that,” she says.

These days, Holly finds that her biggest challenge at work is simply the future of the space program. The President and Congress have to see eye-to-eye in order for any continuation to be assured. In the meantime, the situation is somewhat bleak. “We’ve been told that there will be a lot of layoffs in the coming months,” she says. “My job is in jeopardy, along with many of my friends and coworkers once the last Space Shuttle flies later this year.”

Despite the uncertainty, Holly is still dedicated to the space program. “I can’t remember a time in my life that I either wasn’t trying to work at NASA or that I was actually working at NASA. I couldn’t see myself in another field of engineering and still getting the same sense of satisfaction,” she says. Although her experience will certainly provide her with a perfect springboard to move onto the next program, the impending loss of the current one is profound. Times have changed, and Holly wishes there were a way to draw attention to the continuing need for the program to progress.

“People were naturally psyched about space in the 1960′s, we didn’t need to do anything else but our jobs,” she says. “Today space has become common, and people don’t understand why it’s important, or how it benefits their lives here on Earth. Walking on the moon is something that my generation and every other generation since has grown up with, they don’t know anything else. Big things like that are needed to excite people and capture their imaginations. It was our human spaceflight program that made me go into engineering; what’s inspiring kids now?”

Holly believes that the formula to fix this comes in two parts. First, people are needed to spread the word and their love of space to the younger generation. Putting people back on the moon, or even going to Mars, would help to generate passion, enthusiasm, and daydreaming about shuttle flight, thereby increasing the visibility and relevance of a space program. Then, perhaps more importantly, the general public needs to be made aware of why they need to continue to fund a space program. “Show people where their money is going, the new technologies that are here today as a direct result of people going into space,” she says. “When people see the cost versus the rewards, they usually decide it’s worth doing.”

Holly continues to use space as her muse, and hopes one day to be one of those astronauts in orbit, perhaps as one of the inaugural space explorers during the program’s next iteration. But as the final Shuttle Mission takes off a few months from now, remember that behind the scenes, there is a seriously Cool Girl!

Photo note: The group picture is from the STS-120 mission. “It’s the first and only time there was a female Space Shuttle Commander and a female International Space Station Commander at the same time,” Holly explains. “The group is all of the female Flight Controllers from STS-120, with the female astronauts from that mission on the screen behind us.”

So much for the notion that girls aren’t good with numbers. Melanie Matchett Wood is a groundbreaking mathematician, Math Olympian, and the first woman to win the Morgan Prize in mathematics. Growing up in Indianapolis, Indiana, Melanie thought of being a physicist, cognitive scientist, and even an Educational Testing Service test writer (a writer for the SATs.) But in 7th grade she became involved in a program known as MathCounts (www.mathcounts.org), and suddenly the problem of what to be when she grew up was solved.

“One key thing about MathCounts that really drew me into mathematics were that the problems were so much more interesting than the math I learned in school. A lot of the math in school was just memorizing and repeating certain steps over and over to do computations, but in MathCounts I worked on problems that required me to use math creatively to solve problems that I hadn’t been taught how to solve,” she says. To this day Melanie’s specialty is solving seemingly impossible problems creatively. Working as a research mathematician, she’s assigned problems that no one else has been able to solve, and she approaches them with a willingness to fail and a whole lot of patience. “Ideally you learn from all the approaches you try, whether they work or not,” she says.

MathCounts also introduced Melanie to a community of fellow students who were equally excited about math. Working with other enthusiastic burgeoning mathematicians taught her that her favorite part of math is working on it with other people, a discovery that is easily reflected in her career as an assistant professor at Stanford University.

At age sixteen, Melanie became the first female American to make the United States International Math Olympiad Team. She medaled silver twice, in 1998 and 1999. After graduation, Melanie attended Duke University, and while studying there she racked up the prizes: a Gates Cambridge Scholarship, a Fulbright fellowship, and a National Science Foundation graduate fellowship. It was there that she also became the first American woman, and the second woman overall, who was awarded a much-coveted Putnam Fellow. After studying at Cambridge she won the Morgan Prize in 2004. Her work on Belyi-extending maps and P-orderings made her the first woman to win that award. Then, one year later, she was named the Deputy Leader of the U.S. team for the International Math Olympiad. That team finished second overall.

When thinking of a Math Olympiad, it’s hard not to conjure an image of skinny students, wearing sweatbands and numbered jerseys, hunched over pieces of paper, swilling Gatorade as they feverishly finish a record number of math tests in a single hour. In fact, it’s much more intense than that. Melanie compares the training to being on a cross country team, as the preparation requires a mix of teamwork and individual competition. “A typical test is three to four-and-a-half hours long and has three problems. You are working by yourself on these problems, though the preparation for the exam has involved a lot of training with other people,” she explains. “It might seem like a lot of time for three problems, but it flies by, and it’s never enough time, because the problems are really challenging and you might try different ideas and approaches to solve them.”

Typically, there has been a notion in the U.S. that girls shy away from math. The all-too-accepted stereotype is that men are stronger in mathematics, while women excel in languages or the arts. “Women in mathematics are definitely treated differently than men, not all the time or by everyone, but often enough that it creates a different experience,” Melanie elaborates. “Much of the time, it isn’t because someone is outwardly sexist, but just because when they are looking at a man and a woman, they naturally feel like the man is more interested or knowledgeable about math. And women do this as well as men!”

Melanie has an idea of how to squelch this idea. “We need to see lots of examples of girls and women who love math and excel at it,” she says. A good example of is this message board http://www.msri.org/specials/gmo/2009 from last year, when the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute sent seven girls to compete in the China Girls Math Olympiad. The board posts photos and details their experiences competing for a medal in mathematics, and gives the subject itself a very personal feel. It makes an international trip to take an extremely hard math test seem like the fun-filled adventure that it is.

Her daily life is filled with research, which could be conducted at any time, in theory. “I tend to usually work regular “business hours” to help keep a balance between work and family life,” she says. “My work will involve me at my desk, filling pages and pages with ideas and attempts to solve problems, meeting with collaborators, and sharing our ideas around the blackboard, and at my computer writing up some of my better thoughts in a somewhat polished form for my own records or to send to collaborators or eventually off for publication.” (Melanie has been published in the illustrious Journal of Number Theory.) It’s a pleasantly busy workday. “I love my work, but it is a challenge to create a full and balanced life that includes not only my work, but also room for everything else that fulfills me,” she says. She’s hoping that her family and her work are able to strike the ultimate balance, as both she and her husband are studying to become mathematics professors. In the coming years, be prepared to see Melanie turn the misconception that girls aren’t good at math on its head. “We need to make girls feel welcome in mathematics and make them feel like it is a fun thing for them to do, and they can belong in a community of people who love mathematics,” she says.

Among her influences in the community who helped to get her to where she is today, Melanie cites her teachers and coaches, including those from MathCounts in middle school. Nowadays, Melanie is being a role model to young girls everywhere, and for that we calculate that she is one very Cool Girl!

Check out Melanie’s homepage at Stanford  http://math.stanford.edu/~mwood/ to see what numeric magic she’s been cooking up, and check out artofproblemsolving.com to become an addition to the mathematic community.

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Even though Carly Bogen played guitar in her bedroom for years, she never got the guts to join a band. You’d think that someone who was too shy to rock out on stage wouldn’t become a trash-talking, bruise-giving, point-snatching roller derby icon, but that’s exactly what happened.

Originally from Long Island, New York, Carly’s daytime persona is the quality services manager of a language services company in Manhattan. She spends her working hours typing at lightening speed and relaying the latest tales of her other life at the roller derby as Straight Razor, which is Carly’s nickname on skates. Growing up, she wasn’t the athletic type, though she dabbled in various sports, she never got involved on any deep level. “I ended up as a pretty sedentary teenager. It wasn’t until my college years that I became physically active and discovered how awesome it feels to be athletic and competitive,” she says. These days, one of her biggest challenges is making up for that lost time. Many women in roller derby grew up playing sports and being physically active, so Carly struggles to attain the same level of athleticism and endurance.

“I have two main challenges these days,” she says. “Finding enough time in my life to run a non-profit business, practice three times a week, hold a full-time job and still manage not to lose my mind. My other main challenge is to continue to improve at the sport despite the injuries and the constant physical and mental challenges it presents.”

Carly didn’t grow up on skates, or have a starry-eyed relationship with the sport before competing. In fact, she didn’t know a thing about roller derby before she saw it with her own eyes. “I met Lemony Kickit, a now retired Gotham Girl, at a party about a month before her first bout in early 2007. She suggested I come check it out. I didn’t have any idea what she was talking about, but it sounded cool, so I went. I feel immediately in love, bought skates, and started training my ass off!”

She isn’t the only one to have been in the dark about the sport. In fact, most people only have only heard about it through pop-culture, or their older relatives’ memories of its earlier notoriety. [Note: The author of this profile only had heard about it because her late aunt had competed in a league back in the '70s, much to her family's chagrin.] Even though Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page recently brought attention to roller derby with their film Whip It, the sport has been around for years. Back in 1922, the Chicago Tribune coined the term roller derby in an article about multi-day, flat-track roller skating competitions. The thing is, this article was citing the banked-track roller skating marathons written about in The New York Times back in 1885 an 1914. The roots of the derby run deep.

Over the years, promoters began to highlight the physical contact that came with the sport, as well as the element of teamwork. Although they were known as being endurance competitions, the sport of roller derby went through cycles of popularity throughout the twentieth century, even being broadcast on the radio and television during the 1960s. Towards the end of the last century, the attention and enthusiasm for roller derby waned, until a bunch of women came together to start a grassroots, non-profit league in California around the year 2000. Suddenly the sport began to catch on, its emphasis on campy humor, brutal physicality, and a do-it-yourself spirit it attracted a host of new players and veterans alike. All across the country non-profit leagues started, practicing together and competing against one another. The bouts had rules and refs, the players had outfits and protective gear, and the teams and personalities had names that combined some wicked wordplay. When Carly Bogen began skating, a transformation took place.

“I was at Nationals in Austin in 2007, asking everyone around me what I should be called,” she remembers. “I wanted something that wasn’t your standard pun. Someone suggested Straight Razor and I went with it. Robin Drugstores from the Philly Roller girls has one of my favorite names. In fact, the entire Liberty Belles team has some pretty incredible derby names.”

Although the names are hilarious and the outfits (at times) scandalous, there’s much more to roller derby than simply girl-power and ferocity. Many people don’t realize that it is a non-profit, which means that scraping together pennies for practice areas, transportation, and, yes, those very outfits, requires ingenuity and hard work. Straight Razor knows about this all too well.

“We practice at a warehouse which we pay a huge amount of rent for,” she says. “There are no roller rinks in New York City, so it’s a fight for us to find a place to skate. We practice four times a week, from February through November.” That’s nine months of rent to find a way to afford.

The Gotham Girls league was founded back in 2003 and consists of four teams: the Bronx Gridlock, Brooklyn Bombshells, Manhattan Mayhem, and Queens of Pain. The league is part of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association, and not only do they play one another, but they play out of state WFTDA teams as well. The Gotham Girls also consist of two inter-league teams, the Wall Street Traitors and the Gotham Girls All-Stars. The Gotham Girls All-Stars compete in the sanctioned WFTDA inter-league matches, and points from those bouts count towards national rankings. The Gotham Girls league even has a team of rookies, known as the Meatpacking District.

As a 501c3 non-profit organization, the Girls rely on ticket sales, donations, merchandise, and sponsorship to keep the machine of their league running. The players are unpaid when it comes to money, but get rich with their rough-n-tumble reputations and near rock-star status among roller derby groupies. In fact, the Gotham Girls are one of the country’s top-ranked teams.

Of course, roller derby is known for being a contact sport, and contact can easily lead to injuries. “I broke my front tooth at my very first scrimmage,” Straight Razor recalls. “With my mouth-guard in! I also had to sit about four months early last year due to tendonitis in my hip flexor. There was also a minor separated shoulder last November, but that healed up quick. Injuries are part of the game, but I consider myself lucky – I still have two good knees…knock on wood!”
Her passion for roller derby is what helps the bruises to hurt less, and running the Gotham Girls has helped every bump and scrape feel like a badge of honor. “I don’t keep it a secret,” Carly says about her roller derby fervor. “I’m proud of it. I love it. I spend more time playing roller derby and running the non-profit beast that is Gotham Girls more than I do anything else.”

For reviving the sport of roller derby, and helping the Wall Street Traitors and Manhattan Mayhem skate to victory in 2010, Straight Razor is one Cool Girl!

If you’d like to witness some derby madness in your area, look online and see who your local teams are, the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association site (http://wftda.com/) is a great resource. For those of you in the New York metropolitan area, the Gotham Girls Roller Derby website (www.gothamgirlsrollerderby.com) is the place to find out where the next match up is taking place, and to donate. Remember if you go, to cheer on Straight Razor!

Name: Leslie Yeargers
Age: 47
Location: Portland, Oregon
Occupation: Domestic Engineer (“It sounds better than “homemaker” or “house wife,” she jokes,) Astrologer, and Volunteer for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls, Emerson School, and Jackson Middle School

These days, Leslie draws her strength not only from music, but from her family. Living with her two daughters and loving husband, she has also created an extended family circle with her friends and co-volunteers. “Through the experience of parenting I’ve learned a great deal from my kids. My two girls constantly push me to grow and be a better person. My husband and friends are there as a source of support and advice when I need it most. Through volunteering at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls, I’ve met some outstanding women and girls that consistently inspire me with their creativity, courage, and dedication.” When she’s not reading Astrological charts or lending a hand, she’s playing with her husband. The two of them are trying to start a band, and she cites music as being one of the biggest influences in her life.

Leslie is available for Astrology chart readings in her own business, Astrology With Heart. She can be reached for readings at leslie@yeargers.net. She can do charts long-distance through an emailed written report, followed-up by a phone consultation to provide clarification and answer questions. Chart readings are $50.00 each.

Name: Jen Scheer
Age: 35
Location: Merritt Island, Florida
Occupation: Space Shuttle technician

Jen Scheer has always had her head in the clouds. Growing up in Tallahassee, Florida, she wanted to be an ornithologist , or bird researcher, when she grew up. Her interest in winged things didn’t end there, Jen was always fascinated with airplanes. This passion led to flying lessons with the Florida State University Aviation Club, where she began learning about aircraft maintenance. “When I was flying, I enjoyed being around planes and spent time at the hangar. I wasn’t allowed to do any maintenance then, of course. I was interested in how they worked, but I was an art major at the time. I was very interested in learning how to restore warbirds, specifically those with “nose art,” the neat designs that used to be painted on war planes,” she says. Once she got a taste of repairing planes she was hooked. She hit the books at Lively Aviation School in order to get her Airframe and Powerplant Mechanic’s license. Later she learned about how to fix larger flying objects, namely those in the field of aerospace.

As a Space Shuttle Technician, Jen’s career began out of a different sort of love. Her husband was working at the space center at the time and he urged Jen to apply. These days Jen doesn’t exactly have your typical nine-to-five. “Currently, my job consists of maintenance of shuttle Orbital Maneuvering System Pods, Forward Reaction Control System modules, and associated ground support equipment,” she says. Before your eyes glaze over, Jen explains what that actually means.

“The orbiter is the black and white airplane-like part of the shuttle. A lot of people call it the shuttle, but generally the name shuttle refers to the orbiter plus the solid rocket boosters and orange external tank,” she says. “The Orbital Maneuvering System Pods are called OMS (pronounced like ‘ohms’) Pods for short, and they are the two large bumps you see on the orbiter on either side of the tail. They each contain a large engine and small thrusters that are used to move the orbiter around once it is in space, for things such as docking to the International Space Station, or performing the de-orbit burn that allows the astronauts to return to earth at the end of their mission.

The Forward Reaction Control System known as the FRCS, is a piece of the orbiter that sits just forward of the crew module, almost like it’s across the nose of the orbiter. It also houses thrusters for maneuvering in space. The OMS pods and FRCS have several tanks inside to fuel the engines and thrusters, and a network of tubing and valves, electrical wiring and sensors, and silvery looking ‘blankets’ to control the temperature inside. The OMS pods and FRCS are removed from the orbiter and transported to my work area for processing. We process the pods in one of two ways and ship them back.

One way is to check out the entire pod system including all thrusters, fuel and oxidizer tanks and their related systems, and complete a structural inspection. This is scheduled maintenance, and occurs once every five flights. The second way is called a “drop-in” which happens when there was damage from a mission. The problem is diagnosed and the system is repaired or replaced.  The pod is then shipped back to the Orbiter Processing Facility to be attached to the orbiter.”

Which means that Jen spends her days doing diagnostic tests with a meter, performing a variety of inspections, cleaning the equipment, and occasionally replacing parts that have conked out, like cutting out a valve and welding in a new one. She’s like a very well-informed mechanic, only instead of cars and trucks, she’s working under the hoods of stargazing shuttles that can weigh up to 165,000 pounds when empty.

Although many people make up the space program, Jen admits that there’s a bit of a gender gap. Out of her initial group of twenty-five co-workers, Jen was the only girl, these days she’s one of two women. Though this provides a bit of a challenge, she’s proven herself and feels comfortable among her fellow space cadets.

Jen aspires to lure more men and women into space. “I’m really into space outreach. I think it is very important to get people interested in space exploration so that it will continue,” she says. She’s even launched an online group called the Space Tweep Society. Consisting of a bunch of space enthusiasts, these like-minded cosmos-connoisseurs use Twitter as a medium to promote their passion. “Our ranks include NASA and other space program employees, astronomers, journalists, astrophysicists, scientists, educators, and space geeks,” she says. “Our mission is to promote enthusiasm for all things space and to unite those inside the space industry with those who are on the outside looking in.”

For shooting for the stars and keeping the space shuttles running, we think that Jen Scheer is one very Cool Girl!

Check out the Space Tweep Society Blog at http://spacetweepsociety.org, or just follow Jen on Twitter, @flyingjenny

About her:

Name: Talia Fromm
Age: 25
Location: New York, New York
Occupation: Physical Education Teacher & Coach/President, Brooklyn Women’s Rugby

As a little girl in Bayside, Queens, Talia Fromm wanted to be a police officer. Her older brother, Daniel, was able to persuade her to pursue a different career path, but even the her mother’s disapproval couldn’t keep her away from the rough-and-tumble game of rugby. As an adult, Talia is a rugby player and team president, heading the Brooklyn Women’s Rugby Team.

At 16, Talia was diagnosed with Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy, which plagued her with tiny jerks in her extremities and shoulders. This variety of epilepsy occasionally leads to a seizure, but Talia was lucky enough to only have two seizures prior to being medicated. Fortunately medication has allowed her to manage the symptoms as an adult, but she remembers that the uncontrollable twitches and shakes that she experienced as a teenager in school were scary and humiliating. “The fact that the doctor told me I had to be on medication for the rest of my life didn’t sit very well either,” she remembers. “My mind and body had to get used to it all; going to the hospital regularly, taking medicine twice a day, accepting what was happening, and finding how to balance my love for sports with this new challenge I was facing.” After more than eight years, Talia has proven that Epilepsy has no control over her athletic ability or career.

Handling her Epilepsy has caused Talia to have a different perspective than most people. She cites her biggest influences as athletes who have triumphed in spite of physical disabilities, those who have become active and competitive despite whatever struggles their bodies may endure. “We are all guilty of having lazy days and not wanting to move a muscle, but many of us take advantage of the fact that we are healthy and have a working body to do whatever we would like,” she says. “When I find myself mentally defeated or falling into lazy tendencies, I think about those who aren’t as lucky and don’t get to walk or run whenever they would like. When I see an athlete who has to overcome an obstacle like a physical disability, whether it is temporary or permanent, it pushes me to go harder and not take advantage of what I’ve got.”

Further proof of Talia’s success was her Division I softball career in college. Following graduation, she didn’t want to simply settle into a sedentary lifestyle. Having athletic friends allowed her to be connected to other options, including women’s pro football, which she played for a year. Around the same time, Talia’s friend Emily had started to play for Brooklyn Women’s Rugby. The team was short several players one weekend, and Talia was called upon to help out. It was from that short stint volunteering that Talia became one of the most involved players in the league. “I was hooked,” she says. These days Talia and the team practice two times a week and once every weekend.

The game itself is as rough as you’d imagine, but that isn’t necessarily the most invigorating part of playing. “At first I thought the best experiences on the field would be hitting someone really hard and tackling them to the ground,” Talia says. “As good as it feels to get a great tackle, I’ve come to realize that the most amazing feeling on the rugby pitch [Note: The term pitch in rugby refers to the field] for me is being able to avoid one. When you receive the ball and an opponent is coming straight toward you, the rush you get is indescribable. On top of that, when you are able to give them a stiff arm, avoid the tackle, and run the whole field to score, that’s the ultimate rush.”

All of that pushing and shoving does occasionally have the kind of consequences you’d expect, however. Talia has even experienced the pain of a concussion. “I didn’t think it was that bad at first, but I had to be hospitalized for the remainder of the day until I regained my memory and self-awareness. As frightening as that might sound, it only made me appreciate the sport more. I’m well aware that serious injuries are inherent with rugby, but with proper technique and strategy, a lot of it can — and should — be avoided. I definitely learned that and a lot more in the time that I have been playing and practicing since then.” It’s that kind of courageous and sensible approach that has helped to make her not only a player in the league, but the president of a team.

Women’s rugby has been gaining in popularity, in part because of Talia and other players, coaches, and team leaders like her. Although public opinion may be improving, the same can’t be said about everyone. “To be completely honest, the only person I get flack from is my mother. She didn’t like me playing pro football because of the contact and roughness, so rugby makes her even more concerned and upset.” At least Talia’s mother can rest assured, knowing that her daughter is a capable player, who also lends her mind and body to passing on the legacy of sportsmanship as a P.E. teacher and coach.

After majoring in Sports Management at Townson University in Maryland, Talia spent a year behind a desk in New York, working a corporate gig. The job drained her energy for all the wrong reasons. “I was really unhappy because I was losing touch with my passion for sports and I had to sit behind a desk and in front of a computer all day, every day. It wasn’t for me.” It was then that she was inspired to pursue her graduate degree in Physical Education at Brooklyn College. She researched private schools in the city that were in need of  Phys Ed teachers, and after months of searching and studying, Talia was both enrolled in school and starting her new job as a teacher and coach. Reflecting on how her career path had turned, she says, “I am so lucky and happy with the degree I’m pursuing and the job that I have. The kids make me laugh, and I get to run around and be active all day.”

Every morning she gets up and works out before heading into school. She teaches until mid-afternoon, and then coaches until the evening. After that, she either goes to rugby practice, graduate school, or she shoots hoops competitively for the recreational basketball team that she’s on. Talk about an active schedule!

She’s not stopping there, either. Talia’s love of administration united with athleticism has led her to set her sights on becoming the athletic director of a competitive high-school or college athletics program. “I like the idea of managing everything that encompasses an athletics program to make sure it is in order and growing, all while being able to surround myself in the physical and sporty environment that I love.” Combined with her love of children, and her inquisitive nature that regards everyone as capable of achieving their athletic goals, Talia’s on the fast track to a victorious future.

“The children I teach love that I play rugby. It’s unfamiliar to them, so the fact that they’re learning about a new, exciting, physically tough sport AND that I’m a female playing it is cool,” she says.

If you’re interested in women’s rugby, and happen to be in the New York metro area, here’s a little more information on Brooklyn Women’s Rugby:

As an independent women’s team, they’re trailblazers, as most women’s teams are born from an existing men’s team or club. Brooklyn Women’s Rugby welcomes any women who want to learn or compete on the pitch, all while being a part of an energetic, fun, and dynamic team. A Division II member of the Metropolitan New York Rugby Football Union, Brooklyn Women’s Rugby play have a fall season that starts at the beginning of September and goes until the end of November. The division is made up of six teams, and they play each team once. In the spring there is a season where matches are set up between teams within the division as well as local teams. There are also summer tournaments that they’re a part of.

If you’d rather spectate, all of their home matches are held at the Red Hook Playground in Red Hook, Brooklyn, at the corner of Hicks Street and Bay Street. They practice two days a week: Mondays in Prospect Park at 6:30PM , that practice is held between the baseball diamonds on the right hand side of the path at 9th Street and Prospect Park West.  On Thursdays the team is at the Red Hook Playround at 6:30, and their pitch is in the center of the track, the one with bleachers for all the fans. If you’re thinking of waiting until it warms up, pre-season spring practices start in February at their indoor facility at PS 282 (for more information on the location, visit www.ps282.org.)

For more information on player dues, officers, captains, and a full schedule, visit the team website,  www.brooklynwomensrugby.org.  Any women interested in joining or who would like to contact Talia and her other team members with questions or concerns can email them at brooklywomensrugby@gmail.com.