MN90: Lab Girl

Hope Jahren always felt at home in her father’s science lab in southern Minnesota. Decades on, Britt Aamodt tells us, the geobotanist has distilled the lessons learned from a life in science in a celebrated memoir.

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Producer: Britt Aamodt

Editorial support: Emily Krumberger

Mixing & mastering: Chris Harwood

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Transcript

Welcome to MN90: Minnesota History in 90 Seconds.

Geobiologist Hope Jahren says people are like plants. They turn to the light. In1969, Hope Jahren started life in Austin, Minnesota. Her father was a community college science teacher, and it was in her father's science lab that Jahren began to see the pieces of her life fit together.

The more she handled things and learned their names and uses, she would say, the more she felt her kinship to all life. Plants, animals, rocks, microscopic creatures.

Outside in the natural world, the budding scientists grew entranced by the sound of a cornfield experiencing a summer growth spurt and the phases—infancy, teenage-hood, middle age—of the spruce tree by her house. With degrees from the universities of Minnesota and California - Berkeley, Jahren became an internationally recognized geobiologist, an advocate for women in science and for the overlooked wonders of the world. In 2016, the scientist became an author when Hope Jahren published her memoir Lab Girl.

MN90 is produced by AMPERS, diverse radio for Minnesota's communities, made possible by funding from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Online at MN90.org.