My Mission

My personal mission is to introduce scientists, engineers, and other quantitative individuals to the benefits of applied improvisation.

In early 2017 I heard a podcast interview with actor Alan Alda. Alda improvised early in his career, and as host of the television show Scientific American Frontiers from 1993 to 2005, he realized that scientists could benefit from training in improvisation to improve their ability to communicate with non-scientists. I was fascinated. Having been a fan of improvisation since the early days of the British Whose Line is it Anyway?, I never would have imagined that improvisation offered such useful training in interpersonal skill development. Sadly, scientists do not have many opportunities to develop these skills during their education and training, so we often struggle sharing our ideas and expertise with others. 

I found a six-week class, Fundamentals of Improv Comedy for Scientists, in Chapel Hill and have been hooked ever since. That was several years ago and many classes and performances since! While I do perform locally for the benefit of making myself and others laugh, improvisation has had numerous benefits to my career as a statistical scientist. Improvisation has allowed me to be confident in my own knowledge and abilities, granting me control of my imposter syndrome and freeing me from the need to overprepare to get things perfect. It is the ideal reinforcement to my leadership style, which seeks collaboration, stresses openness to new ideas, encourages others to actively contribute, and serves and supports others when things do not go as planned. As a long time student and practitioner of STEM, improvisation helped me see myself and the world in an entirely new way.