My name is Amanda Pascali; singer/songwriter, activist, and science communicator. I have always believed that being an artist has made me a better communicator. Through music, videos, writing, and hands-on experiments, I have been able to translate complex scientific topics to be understood by non-scientists in various communities.
BIO
A recent graduate of the University of Houston, Amanda Pascali has a B.S. in Geology and a minor in Italian Studies. She is a certified Geoscientist in Training by the Texas Board of Professional Geoscientists. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in the high Arctic as well as in the deserts of West Texas, and on a research vessel in the South Atlantic. She's an aspiring science communicator who has led outreach events with the Houston Geological Society and the Society of Women Engineers at Houston area elementary schools for children from low-income families.
In 2021, she was selected by the Geological Society of America and the US National Park Service to be the official visiting Geoscientist in the Park at Joshua Tree National Park in California. As part of this opportunity, she created multimedia content such as info-graphics, written pieces, and videos to teach park geology to children and non-science audiences. In addition, she is an unmanned aerial vehicle pilot who has used drone videos and photos for teaching geology and is CPR and BLS certified.
As of June 2020, she is the publicity director for the Women’s Network of the AAPG (American Association of Petroleum Geoscientists) and has launched the #FemaleGeologist initiative on social media in an effort to bring to light the stories of inspiring women in geoscience/STEM. As the initiative continues to spark worldwide interest, Amanda hopes that increasing the visibility of women in STEM fields will help inspire the next generation of scientists. She is also an internationally touring, award-winning, bilingual singer/songwriter who has worked with the City of Houston, Mayor Sylvester Turner, and Paul Stookey from the 1960s band Peter, Paul, and Mary to provide basic resources to the immigrant community in Houston.
Photos
Conducting outreach at local Title I schools in Houston for children from low income families.
Conducting geophysical research off the coast of Namibia in the South Atlantic Ocean. As a scientist aboard this NSF-funded marine geophysics expedition, I monitored and processed incoming gravity and magnetic data for seafloor mapping of the Walvis Ridge: a geologic feature in the frontier of international waters that has never been mapped before.
During this expedition, I was the only woman from my university among an all-male crew and all-male science party. It is my passion to encourage girls and young women to pursue STEM.
PRESS
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VIdeos
My name is Amanda. I’m an artist, a geologist, and the daughter of two immigrants.
Learn geology through music: Amanda sings about the different rock types with her former professor, Dr. Peter Copeland.
This is the reason why we can use a compass to navigate; compasses have a magnetic needle that is calibrated according to Earth’s poles. Let’s make our own compass. You will need a sewing needle, a bar or refrigerator magnet, a leaf, and a shallow bowl of water.
Equipment used for filming/editing: Filmed with Sony Alpha 6000 camera, and DJI Mavic Air 2 Drone by Amanda Pascali. Edited with Adobe Premiere Pro and Media Encoder by Amanda Pascali
While I was working on a research vessel off the coast of Southwest Africa, I took a minute to record this cover video as a journal entry to chronicle my life at sea.
Writing
#FemaleGeologist: A Social Media Movement Encouraging Girls to Pursue STEM
So why don’t we see more women pursuing careers in STEM, and specifically petroleum-related geology?
Read this article published in the AAPG Explorer about the #FemaleGeologist movement that Amanda spearheaded in partnership with the Women’s Network of the AAPG (American Association of Petroleum Geoscientists).
This is at least partly due to the lack of visibility of role models and problems in workforce retention. In order to create awareness and highlight women role models to address these issues, AAPGWN Publicity Director Amanda Pascali has created an AAPGWN social media campaign to highlight the #FEMALEGEOLOGIST movement and to increase the visibility and achievements of women geoscientists. The goal of this initiative is to directly encourage and boost female geologists’ career profiles and therefore increase the percentage of women staying in geosciences. Our hope is that the increased exposure and visibility will grant them more opportunities to be seen by their peers and superiors as competent and capable technical leaders to whom future generations can aspire.
“As the daughter of two immigrants from two different continents, I was born with a desire to study the isolated corners of the Earth in the only way I knew possible: to become a geologist. While I fawned over Indiana Jones as a kid, growing older I became disappointed with the fact that it was almost impossible to find explorers and scientists in films and pop culture who looked like me. It wasn’t until college that I realized female geologists of every nationality and background did exist, they were just never given a mainstream platform to share their stories. When I became the publicity director for the AAPGWN, I learned that many of the women in the organization shared similar sentiments. We were inspired by the recent #FEMALEGEOLOGIST initiative on social media to highlight the stories of women in geoscience that would otherwise largely be buried or unheard. Every couple of weeks, we feature an extraordinary woman in geoscience to inspire the next generation of geologists. In doing so, we aim to change the outdated archetype of what a ‘geologist looks like.’”
– Amanda Pascali
more photos
Geological field work in Svalbard (above photos), an archipelago north of Norway, just a few miles from the North Pole, and in the desert of West Texas (below photos).