Lucía Ballesteros

We like to think of science as a mirror—an objective, edge-to-edge reflection of the world as it truly is. But mirrors are built by human hands, and the frames we put around them determine what stays in the reflection and what falls into the margins. For decades, we’ve treated the gaps in that reflection as isolated and tragic accidents. A few missing names. A few “historical oversights.” The Matilda Effect. Sounds a bit like a secret code, doesn’t it? The kind of term exchanged in small...

In this conversation, Banu Subramaniam and Connor Butler explore how colonialism, scientific classification, and rigid social binaries have shaped the way we understand life on Earth.

Lucia Ballesteros spoke with Sam Illingworth, whose work sits at the intersection of science, poetry, and public engagement. In this interview, Illingworth reflects on his path through science and poetry and what this, at first unlikely, pairing can offer to science communication.