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Making Microbiology More Accessible
Meet the scientist who is sharing the joy of microscopic life with everyone.
What started as a blog for a PhD to write about her passion for microbiology has quickly become one of the best online resources for anyone wanting to explore the wonders of the microscopic world.
Meet Dr. Justine Dees, your friendly neighborhood microbiologist. Justine is currently a professional science writer who first discovered a love for sharing her research with the public while working in the field of microbiology. By tossing the complicated jargon and introducing everyday people to cool experiments, Justine found a way to make microbiology more accessible. Along the way, she’s created a path for kids and adults to have fun with science at home.
Welcome to Joyful Microbe, Justine’s heart project, “where you can learn about the microbial world through fun and simple online resources.” With Justine’s guidance, you can go looking for lichens, open a window into the microbial world with a Winogradsky column, discover a wiggly water bear in your backyard, and (a pandemic favorite) — make sourdough starter from scratch. And that’s just the beginning.
It’s all about keeping these kinds of activities as accessible as possible. “If you can make science simple and easy to relate to, anyone can get into it because it impacts all of us,” says Justine. “I’ve had homeschooling moms email me and thank me for the science activities that I have on the blog and how excited they are to share that with their kids. A non-microbiologist scientist told me about how they bought a microscope for their kid and found a tardigrade. They even sent pictures to me when they found different cool microbes under the microscope. I loved that.”
A lot of people don’t realize that we are constantly cohabitating with microorganisms. They are all around us, an integrated part of our world and ourselves. You just need to know where to look — or what to eat.
“It’s rare for someone not to consume some sort of fermented food at some point in their life and likely on a daily basis, and that’s just one small thing non-scientists can connect with,” says Justine. “I want them to think about how microbes helped make the cheese they eat, that yeast…
