Biodiversity > Meet the OLogist: Ana Luz Porzecanski

Meet the OLogist: Ana Luz Porzecanski

Title slide: blue background with silhouettes of animals.

KID'S VOICE: What does a conservation biologist do?

Woman sitting in museum room begins to speak.

ANA LUZ PORZECANSKI: Conservation biologists are biologists. So we work with animals and plants. But because we care about conservation, we also work with people. And we work with people in many different places and settings. So it could be people in remote areas, who are living inside forests, or right next to coral reefs, or people in cities where there's also some biodiversity. And then we bring it all together to make sure that nature and people can coexist and thrive.

Meet the OLogist: Ana Luz Porzecanski

Title slide: blue background with silhouettes of animals.

KID'S VOICE: What do you like most about being a scientist? 

Woman sitting in museum room begins to speak.

ANA LUZ PORZECANSKI: One of my favorite things about being a scientist is that I am surrounded by really curious people-- people who love questions as much as answers.

Images of three people around a table with scientific equipment on it, in a forested area.

ANA LUZ PORZECANKI: And so that's a really exciting community of people to be with.

Meet the OLogist: Ana Luz Porzecanski

Title slide: blue background with silhouettes of animals.

KID'S VOICE: What is your favorite place or object in the museum?

Woman sitting in museum room begins to speak.

ANA LUZ PORZECANSKI: My favorite place in the museum-- even though it's hard to pick a favorite-- is the Spectrum of Life wall in the Hall of Biodiversity, where you can see all the different forms of life on the planet. I just think it's beautiful and it fills me with wonder.

Image of Spectrum of Life museum display showing hundreds of different kinds of organisms.

Meet the OLogist: Ana Luz Porzecanski

Title slide: blue background with silhouettes of animals.

KID'S VOICE: How did you figure out what you wanted to be when you grew up? 

Woman sitting in museum room begins to speak.

ANA LUZ PORZECANSKI: When I was growing up I spent a lot of time outside-- climbing trees, running into big snakes at times. I grew up in Brazil, so-- in a very rural area. In addition, my father is a scientist, and my mom is an architect and an amateur paleontologist. So we did a lot of exploring, and a lot of scientific questions came up in my house.

Meet the OLogist: Ana Luz Porzecansk

Title slide: blue background with silhouettes of animals.

KID'S VOICE: If you weren't a scientist, what would you be? 

Woman sitting in museum room begins to speak.

ANA LUZ PORZECANSKI: If I weren't a scientist, I would love to be an artist. I have artists in my family, and I get a lot of ideas for art projects-- but I'm busy doing other work right now. However, since I work in the museum-- I get to interact with art all the time. For instance, working with exhibitions.

Image of museum display showing coral reef and animals.

Meet the OLogist: Ana Luz Porzecansk

Title slide: blue background with silhouettes of animals.
KID'S VOICE: What is your advice to kids who want to be scientists? 

Woman sitting in museum room begins to speak.

ANA LUZ PORZECANSKI: For kids who are interested in science, I would say, keep asking questions. Listen to your questions, don't waive them away. And make sure that you explore them with the adults in your life.

Title slide: blue background with silhouettes of animals.

Meet the OLogist: Ana Luz Porzecanski

KID'S VOICE: What is your advice to kids who think that science is boring? 

Woman sitting in museum room begins to speak.

ANA LUZ PORZECANSKI: So if anybody out there thinks that science is boring, I would say go out, wherever you are-- it could be your schoolyard, it can be the park-- with a magnifying glass, and start looking at things up close. I'm sure you'll find it fascinating.

Meet the OLogist: Ana Luz Porzecanski

Title slide: blue background with silhouettes of animals.

KID'S VOICE: What is your favorite kids book? 

Woman sitting in museum room begins to speak.

ANA LUZ PORZECANSKI: My favorite books for kids are books by a British author called, Enid Blyton-- who wrote in the '50s-- about kids going off on these incredible adventures and solving these incredible mysteries. In particular, the adventure series-- that follows a group of kids and their pet parrot. It's really great.

Meet the OLogist: Ana Luz Porzecanski

Title slide: blue background with silhouettes of animals.

KID'S VOICE: What is your favorite ice cream flavor? 

Woman sitting in museum room begins to speak.

ANA LUZ PORZECANSKI: My favorite ice cream flavor is dulce de leche. I grew up in Uruguay, and we eat a lot of dulce de leche there-- as much as people eat peanut butter in the United States, for example. So it's a flavor that I love.