Kristan Uhlenbrock - Leading With Science in a Polarized World

[00:00:10] Dominique: Hello. Welcome to Green Champions.

[00:00:12] Adam: Thanks for joining us in a conversation with real people sharing sustainability success stories.

[00:00:16] Dominique: From entrepreneurs to artists, scientists to activists, this podcast is a platform for green champions to share their stories and plant new ideas. I'm Dominique.

[00:00:26] Adam: And I'm Adam.

[00:00:27] Dominique: Today, Adam and I are so glad to be joined by Kristan Uhlenbrock. She leads the Institute for Science and Policy at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. That's already cool. But there, she gets to work and bring thoughtful science into public conversations and decision making. She is a scientist, writer, and a communicator who started in Marine Science and now helps bridge science, policy and community through storytelling and podcasts. I am honestly so, so excited for all of your wisdom, and she's gonna be very nice to us as she listens to us work through this podcast today.

But today we're diving into Kristen's journey into policy making and public discourse for climate change. Thanks for joining us, Kristan. 

[00:01:06] Kristan: Thanks for having me, and that's some pretty high bar that you want my wisdom. Lot to live up to there.

[00:01:13] Dominique: Well, Kristan, what first sparked your love for nature just growing up? 

[00:01:17] Kristan: Yeah. So much. I'm definitely one of those what people would call a free-roaming kid. It's a more modern day sense but, I grew up in southeast Indiana. And for those of you who haven't been to that part of the state, it is very much traditional, stereotypical Indiana with a lot of farmland. Very rural at times but also beautiful hills and trees and lakes and creeks. And I grew up in the middle of the country, and a very small, very poor community. And so that meant I was outside a lot. And that was I was entertaining myself a lot. I was spending time from the time I could barely talk and walk and just, you know, going through the fields and going down to the creeks and going through the forest by myself. And I learned a lot of love and creativity and passion, I would say, for all those little things that you can see when you're, you know, two and a half, three foot tall and you're so much closer down there to the ground than the landscape. And so I would go and spend time down in the creeks and pulling clay out and I would go pick flowers.

And I just would spend hours upon hours by myself often outside, enjoying nature. And my parents kind of come from that generation of the seventies, hippies, sort of living off the grid sort of type of people. And so I had a lot of freedom to just explore and do that. And I think that has just stayed embedded and ingrained with me throughout my life. My, my place, my peace is in nature when I find myself outside. 

[00:02:38] Adam: How did that curiosity lead you from the streams to chemistry, to studying oceans to nutrient runoff? Like how did that all unfold? 

[00:02:45] Kristan: You know, like most of our, our journeys, they are sometimes random. Sometimes we make intentional choices. We have luck that falls in and you, you think you're going down a path and who knows where it takes you sometimes. And I definitely think I was this kid who got really interested in science, going to a pretty small school and finding these niches of things that you started to do good in. And I started to do good in the sciences and math. And I got that positive reinforcement and feedback like, "You're good at this" And so that kind of became a little bit of my identity, you know? And that's often I think what can happen with young kids. And that then leads into, well, "Well, what do you want to do?" You know? And while my parents didn't go to college and folks around me, a lot of folks didn't go to college, I was still encouraged to, to learn and to explore my education.

And I decided, I was like, "Okay, well if I'm gonna go to college, what am I gonna do?" And I was one of those perfectionist little kids, high achievers of like, what do I need to do? And I started out that freshman year pre-med, like many people start out pre-med. 'Cause I didn't know. I'm 18. Okay, I see some finger pointing. We had some potential pre-med folks on here. Is that right? Yeah and I was like my freshman year in the university and all these pre-med classes and I'm like what am I doing? This is, you know, those weed out science classes. And it just wasn't what I think really sparked my interest or my passion.

I was 19, ending my freshman year at IU and just had one of those many moments like I've had in my life. Like, "What am I doing? What do I want to do?" And when you don't have a really clear trajectory laid out for you, I just was making my journey up. And so then I took a couple minutes as a 19-year old and be like, "well, what if I'm not gonna be pre-med, what do I wanna do now?" And I was like, well I remember going to Florida when I was 13 with my grandparents. And, you know, visiting Homosassa Springs State Park and seeing the ocean and seeing manatees for the first time I was like, "Oh well maybe I wanna do ocean science. I can take my sciece background and I can do ocean science."

So, upped and packed my bags. Didn't have a plan of what college to go to and moved to Florida on November 11th, 2021. I remember crossing the Georgia, Florida boundary that morning and my mom calling me on that flip phone cell phone being like, where are you? I'm like, "Oh, I'm on my way to Florida."

 that really marked a moment both for our country but also that personal moment of things that set off a, a new, I was on a new path. So I went to Florida and ended up finding, went to community college for a semester and then finally got in-state tuition and went to school and started to get in the vein that like, "I wanna be a marine scientist but I'm a chemist. And well, I found myself wanting to be a chemist."

so I ended up getting a chemistry degree and trying to figure out how do I get into grad school. So I started working over at the University of South Florida College of Brain Sciences. And before I graduated I was like, this is how you get into grad school. You get a job, working in a lab. And I did, and it led me into the marine sciences. And from there I got to explore a lot of different pathways. I ended up working as, as you all mentioned nutrient runoff and nutrient pollution. Very much ended up being more of a bio geochemist. And so the intersection of what's happening upon our landscapes from point and non-point sources of pollution, how that runs off our landscapes into our watersheds and down into our coastal ecosystems and out into the main ocean.

So I was looking at that large interconnectivity of what we do as humans, and how that impacts our landscapes, where we live and our oceans and our lands farther away. And that is kind of what led me from the small rural community Backwoods of Indiana, down to the beautiful coast of Florida and the oceans which surround so much of our world and planet.

[00:06:36] Dominique: Your willingness to go out there and just try and literally get in the car, I think is, is so admirable. You mentioned you identified kind of with chemistry, like you were like, "I'm a chemist but I wanna do marine science." I'm just curious to understand that better. Like what part of chemistry did you identify with and then what like compelled you to marine science? 

[00:06:58] Kristan: That's a great question. I think the part of chemistry was like more of the inorganic chemistry was what really I found myself excited about. And it was because I was good at it, right? This wasn't necessarily like, this is the thing that I love. I just got this reinforcementAnd so that can kind of stick with you. And then you're like, well, this is the thing that I'm good at. What do I do? And this is great, I think, personal advice that I've reflected on for myself and for others. It was, 'Just because someone tells you that you're really good in something, it doesn't mean that's what you have to do.' Right? It can be a part of you. It can be a "yes, and." And I'm probably not even that great at chemistry anymore.

[00:07:35] Dominique: I love that advice. And I also just love that is just an honest thing. I think that we are so impressionable and people tell us this is your thing. And okay, like that's great to know. It's great to lean into that. We've also heard guests share kind of that Venn Diagram of finding what you're good at, finding where the need is and like finding what you enjoy. Which it sounds like you've navigated yourself there.

[00:07:58] Kristan: Yeah, absolutely. And I love that Venn diagram sort of visual. I'm a very visual person in my head and I'm gonna take that and put that in my pocket for later.

[00:08:06] Adam: Now you've kind of added in this space of storytelling. Was there a moment that kind of pushed you from that realm of being a researcher into being a communicator?

[00:08:15] Kristan: Yeah, I think it, it was in grad school. As you get into these research programs in grad school and you're trying to figure out what your research project was and what's the world and the impact you wanna have and the concept, your experiment and your hypothesis and what you're gonna work on. I actually, it took me a while and I spent a lot of time actually out in the field, right? Out in the ocean, out in our coast. And as I started to put together my ideas of the things I cared about scientifically, often the questions I was asking were more social and political questions. Why? Why was this pollution and runoff causing these harmful algal blooms in the coast of Florida? How was this impacting people and health and tourism? What were the root causes of this? Right? And so while these were science questions, these are actually much more public policy questions and other sort of social behavioral science questions. Yet I was in a more traditional like research based organization that was focused more on that sort of research side of the house.

And so I got permission to actually take classes over in like the environmental science and public policy programs. And so I was going outside of my degree program to take classes outside in these other spaces that I found of interest. I also started to get engaged in more of that public policy, community building, community engagement space. I remember, you know, 2005 and 2006, and, you know, I'm like, we should create a blog for all these in our community to just answer questions they have about science. Right? And so, I was coming at this through the things that I got excited about. I started to get engaged a little bit in, I wrote my first op-ed for what was at the time the St. Pete Times, which is now, I think Tampa Bay Times. I can't remember what the newspaper transitioned to, but, you know, I had the chance to learn how to write an op-ed and I wrote my first op-ed in 2007 about the state of our ocean health and the report card and how bad we were doing. And so I started to dip my toes into that public policy space, into that community space. I started to meet with local mayors. I started to go to the state capitol, and so I started to feel myself getting really energized about that type of work.

[00:10:28] Adam: Yeah. So I, I just wanna dive into this 'cause I think some people get very hesitant of, of stepping outside that comfort zone, and really finding their own voice. Like what helped you find your voice as you were kind of going into these new areas? Like that sound really scary, going up and talking to mayors and politicians. Like, how'd you do that?

[00:10:46] Kristan: Yeah, that's a great question. And I think it's probably everyone's strengths and comfort zone are just so unique and different. Right? And I myself, am one of those very social creatures. I could talk to a rock. And I know that about myself. I know I can talk to a stranger. I'm pretty chatty, I'm pretty outgoing and social.

So for me, having a social connection was just something that felt really comfortable for me. I think for people who find that maybe intimidating of how do I start to engage someone that is maybe in a position of power or authority or influence, where do I even start? You know, all I like to think about this is like we are all humans. We're all trying to do our best. And as much as that person may be influential in whatever realm that they have, they're still human. And we're often really focused on ourselves and our own sort of shortcomings as humans. And to just understand that we all have weaknesses as humans and we're all just trying to our best. And the minute you start to just understand that we all are coming from this, that to me makes everyone, it starts to level the playing field a little bit.

[00:11:55] Dominique: And so, it doesn't matter for me who it is and what sort of title they have or what authority they have. Like, I just approach them as being a human. And if you start with a sense of wanting to understand someone or understand someone's position or come in with questions, that is the best way to open a door to build a relationship, to start getting comfortable talking with people that you may be uncomfortable talking or having a meeting with.I think what you're sharing is so interesting and also I also do really admire your confidence 'cause I think that's something that I think I'm like extroverted but I think I struggle with some of those spaces that you seem comfortable to approach others with. But you're coming at it as a scientist and I wanna talk about that of like how has that shaped some of your conversations when you do talk to mayors or folks, maybe in the whole government or state government. Were you met with a little more respect and that made the conversation maybe a little bit more seamless? Or what is it like as a scientist bridging the conversations around policy?

[00:12:54] Kristan: It absolutely depends on the moment of time that you're in the politics of the moment. This is not to undermine the politicization that science has been facing for a long time. And you're absolutely right, scientists and that expertise that actually brought you some credibility, right, when you walked into a room. That is not always the case anymore. 

the very first thing I always try to think about is what is the goal of why? And so I'm trying to meet with someone, what is their self-interest? What is their priorities? What do they care about? A lot of us try to go into many meetings 'cause we're wanting to change something, we wanna fix something, we wanna have our voices heard. Absolutely. We should always continue to do that and to kind of build that into what our, if you see yourself as an advocate or if you see yourself as a voice and a leader and someone who wants to speak up, we should do that.

A lot of my work has often bent on trying to understand something. And then identify where I could add value or where I could bring a new perspective or where I could contribute to a conversation. instead of coming in to be like, "I have the answer," you come in with a little bit of a different approach of like, "I'm interested in X or Y." I'm interested in, you know, this coastal environment, or I'm interested in this community, or I'm interested in climate change, or I'm interested in the economic wellbeing of this neighborhood.

And you start framing a conversation, and then you use that time to explore and learn where your folks, you're meeting where they're coming from and where their value sit. And that you sometimes may have different values and different perspectives. And I think if you start to build those relationships of trust and respect from the beginning, you can then move into conversations of like, well, what do we do? And then as a scientist, you'll often be like, well, you know, "I have these, these data and these evidence that we could use," understanding that this is sometimes just a part of equation and a decision.

And so there's a lot of this humility that needs to go into these public policy conversations and these sort of social impact and social engagement conversations as well because sometimes it isn't about the science at all. And that's a very deep philosophy that I've obviously carried over to the Institute and it's really fundamental to our work is, is sometimes we're not actually disagreeing or debating about science or evidence. It's many other things. It's our values as a society.

[00:15:14] Dominique: Can you share one of your first policy topics that you started to have conversations around?

[00:15:20] Kristan: Yes. So this was what got me interested in national policy, even though it was very much down here in the state of Florida. Our governor at the time was Charlie Crist, at the time President Bush was in office. And under his administration there was a really big initiative called the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative, JOCI. And a number of us grad students were very actively involved in learning and paying attention to this process. Fast forward like most big government projects that are interagency and lots of actors, they released a report in that administration towards the tail end of it. I think it's probably 300 and some pages long, 400 and some pages long about the role of oceans in our economy and our society and in our country here in the US and what's our US engagement on it.

And so that was kind of the first thing that I started to really get engaged with was what are we doing down here in our little area piece of the state Florida, also as a state of Florida. So both within that local county area, which is st. Petersburg, Florida is very reliant on their coastal and ocean economy. How does that impact the whole state of Florida? And you start thinking about the role of that and how that then feeds up, obviously internationally. And so that's kind of where I first started to dip my toes into some of those conversations, both meeting locally with our mayor, meeting with folks across the state and then trying to figure out how do you even understand, you know, as a 20-year-old grad student who really doesn't know what's happening nationally, how do you start to wrap your hands around what is happening nationally. And then the short of that was then, you know, I graduated grad school. Didn't have a plan and put all my chips in a basket for a fellowship in DC I did not get and did not have a plan B. And so then I spent a year working on boats, traveling around.

[00:17:03] Dominique: That sounds like an amazing plan B. You were working on yachts?

[00:17:09] Kristan: Yes. 

[00:17:09] Dominique: Oh my gosh. 

[00:17:10] Kristan: Because they paid good money.

[00:17:13] Dominique: What were you doing on the yacht? I'm taking notes.

[00:17:16] Kristan: Crewing. So I think everyone's probably familiar with that very popular, TV reality show called 'Below Deck.'

[00:17:21] Dominique: Is it accurate?

[00:17:23] Kristan: I've only seen a few episodes of it and the few episodes I saw I was like, that's not actually that far off. 

[00:17:29] Dominique: Okay. That's good to know.

[00:17:30] Kristan: So there's a whole world, right, of those of folks who go work as crew on these really big yachts. And it was just, I had some friends who were in that. I had a captain friend of mine, and I called him up. I was like, "I don't know what I'm doing. I'm graduating and I didn't get this fellowship. I need a job. I need money." And so it was something nice to do in your twenties.

But in that time of working on this yacht for a year of my life, President Obama got elected. And I was like, you know what? In my head, this is the story I told myself was like, all of that work under the Bush administration around this Joint Ocean Commission Initiative, like there's gonna be some even greater action under this administration. And lo and behold, there was. And so then I just started to like cold email, like the White House. I was like, Hey, can I come intern? How do I get, how do I get on this, this bandwagon? I have a feeling you're gonna do something in Ocean Policy. What's happening here? And that's kind of how I made my way to DC.

[00:18:23] Adam: I love that. Well, and I know we're gonna dive into the work that you've done in DC in our next episode, but, I know you said in the past that you like the messiness of science and people. I'm just curious, like, what does that mean to you?

[00:18:33] Kristan: I would think I would frame this as I think people are messy and people do science. And so while science is this beautiful way of thinking, of understanding our world, of deepening and enriching and testing hypotheses and debating and disagreeing and trying to disprove things so we understand how our world works, science is done by humans, and humans are actually very messy, very complicated beings.

And I love, over time, learning about what has, like you guys are asking me these questions. I love to ask what drew people to science themselves? Why do they do what they do? It doesn't have to be science. And I think you find these layers and layers of people and that were really complicated human beings.

We're often walking contradictions at times, all of us. And that's okay. That's just our human nature. And the minute I started to kind of throughout my life start to embrace that more, it brings a little bit of levity to what I think are really hard problems and really hard challenges that we're all trying to work on. And it makes us treat others as humans who are complicated and who are flawed and many people are trying to do their best. And it's not to diminish, folks who can or or could be bad actors or you know, understand who people who sometimes have different intents. But a lot of the folks I come across and no matter how much we maybe disagree about an issue or an outcome, there's often a lot of common ground. There's a lot of human nature in everyone and that some people are really, we're just trying to do our best. And that's what I often think I mean by the messiness of humans and how that often then influences whether it is science or whether it's public policy or, or whatever thing that we're trying to work on.

[00:20:16] Adam: How does that messiness change how you talk about sustainability?

[00:20:21] Dominique: I think if I were to think about how does messiness influence how I think about sustainability in our world, and our society is that there are a lot of pathways, ideas, options on the table and that there is no one silver bullet, right? There's no one single answer. We're gonna fail in a lot of ways, and the more we don't diminish, undermine, ignore our failures the more we learn from them, the more progress we're gonna make. And so I think the minute we realize that we're gonna mess up, that these are human created problems and human systems and systems that don't have humans in 'em, and humans are in them. And the minute we just realize that these are really complicated and that it's messy in and of itself, the world is messy. It's chaos, right? This is chaos. That means if you keep just focusing on learning and learning from past mistakes and failures, that's okay. That's the best we can do. And that to me is what's sustainable. That feels like such a wise approach, and a very like human-centric approach. I'm curious because you've been at this bridge of science and policy and so many conversations around how does change really happen. What's the biggest misconception that you run into around sustainability? To phrase that differently, what is the most common thing you find yourself explaining?

[00:21:43] Kristan: I find myself spending a lot of time talking about uncertainty and how much uncertainty does exist.

 Talking about how much uncertainty exists in our world, in our knowledge systems, in the goals that we have and that that is actually a great place for our curiosity. It's how we can continue to learn. And the more we can start to destigmatize it, the more we can start to unpack what we say when we mean that there's uncertainty in something, it feels much more honest and truthful.

And I think that to me is an often where I'm finding myself in conversations as people are looking for answers, they're looking for 'the' answer at times. And sometimes there's not 'the' answer. There's thirty potential answers and with various bounds of uncertainty and degrees of confidence and pathways to do it. And I think you have to take a pathway and you have to understand there's uncertainty in that pathway. And you try to reduce that as much as you can, particularly if you have something that is requiring investment of people's time and resources and dollars and all that great stuff. But to know that you have to budge it in and think about uncertainty along the way. 

[00:22:53] Dominique: that's awesome. I think our last big question for you really is what advice would you give your younger self? I mean, the amount of wisdom and experience you have is so so clear in the way that you address, you know, all these topics with complexity. What advice would you give that younger version of yourself beginning this journey?

[00:23:10] Adam: I would say, be kind to yourself. I think many folks were some of our harshest critics. And wether this is my 10-year old self, my 22 year-old self, my 30-year old self, I'm in my 40's now. You know, and I'm just learning to really be kind to myself. And when I start treating myself with kindness, that really opens me up for oppurtunity. And it opens me up to learn more, it opens me up to change, it opens me up to new oppurtunities. And those are things that I personally find exciting or what keep me motivated and keep me going. But it sometimes starts with being kind to yourself, in addtion to being kind to others. I love that. If we wanna be kind to our planet like I've heard that often change that we wanna see outside in the world begins within. It's been fun. It's been really fun hearing your journey from growing up in the farms in Indiana to chemistry to marine biology to policy. I'm very excited in our next episode to get into the work that you've done at the Institute for Science and Policy. But also to be able to talk about your podcast, Laws of Notion. I'm curious, how can people connect with you? Maybe tune in to your podcast or support the work that you're doing.

[00:24:24] Kristan: Absolutely. Thank you for that. So the podcast is available wherever you listen to your podcasts It's called, 'Laws of Notion.' It's a play on the idea of laws of motion. But how do we rethink our ideas? So Laws of Notion. lawsofnotion.org. You can find that work there. The Institute is available at institute.dmns.org. You can find the links to email myself through the website. Our folks on the team, we're a pretty small team, but we have a lot great resources to learn more about our work there and how to connect with us. Personally, I'm on LinkedIn. And so people can find me on LinkedIn if they're interested in connecting.

[00:24:56] Adam: Thanks again, Kristan.

Thank you both so much for having me. As always, our guest has found a unique way to champion sustainability. We're here to put real names and stories behind the idea that no matter your background, career or interests, you really can contribute in the fight against climate change.

[00:25:10] Dominique: You can find our episodes or reach us at thegreenchampions.com. If you wanna stay in the loop, give us a review and follow us on your favorite podcast platform. If you wanna support the podcast, you can donate on our website as well. Our music is by Zayn Dweik. Thanks for listening to Green Champions. We'll be digging into the second half of Kristan's success story in our next episode. 

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