There are lots of different forms of knowledge, from place-based, community knowledge to science in laboratories. When this wide diversity of understanding isn’t listened to or valued, we all lose out. Here, Science Moab speaks with Dr. Sabah Ul-Hasan, who grew up near the Great Salt Lake, about their experience as a scientist studying bioinformatics and how bringing inclusive understandings into science is essential to understanding the world and making it a better place.
Meet the Scientist: Sabah Ul-Hasan
Sabah Ul-Hasan, Ph.D. [they/them/theirs] @sabahzero on Twitter and Github
Sabah Ul-Hasan was born and raised in Salt Lake City, attending the University of Utah and completing B.Sc. degrees in Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences in 2012. Sabah has a Biochemistry M.Sc. degree with an emphasis in marine science from the University of New Hampshire, and a Ph.D. in Quantitative & Systems Biology from the University of California, Merced. Since 2019, Sabah has been employed as a Bioinformatics Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer at the Scripps Research Institute (San Diego) under Dr. Andrew Su and Dr. Dawn Eastmond. Sabah’s long-term goal is to be a kinder person than the day before, and perhaps enjoy some outdoors along the journey.
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Interview Transcript - The Necessity of Diversity
Knowledge comes in various forms, from laboratory science to place-based community knowledge and everything in between. This week, we speak about science media and multiple ways of knowing with Dr. Sabah Ul-Hasan. After growing up in Salt Lake City, Sabah became a bioinformatician, combining biology and computer science. They are currently a postdoctoral scholar at Scripps Research Institute in San Diego and a co-founder of the Biota Project, a science communication and empowerment organization that bridges research with community leaders and grassroots activists.
Science Moab: How did you realize that connecting community and science was important to you?
Ul-Hasan: I love science, but I didn’t really care for school. I was in this PhD program, and I just hated it for a lot of reasons.
At the same time, I was talking to one of my best friends, who’s a filmmaker, about our experiences being a person of color in the film community and the science community. We both were kind of fed up, and we didn’t see a lot of ourselves in educational media. That’s how the Biota Project formed. Our concept was to bring together science and art through this multimedia approach.
We were trying to create something where people could be excited and feel empowered about the communities they’re from. That’s where the community aspect came in: feeling unfulfilled, out of place, “othered,” and at the same time, being nerdy and curious about a lot of things, but not really seeing ourselves as part of that.
Science Moab: What’s one aspect of the Biota Project that’s been particularly meaningful?
Ul-Hasan: I really enjoy seeing that people on the team are really authentic. There’s great support, there’s no judgment and really no hierarchy. We’re trying to create a space where anybody can feel comfortable sharing and trying out their ideas, and learning things they want to learn. There’s been really cool stuff, like spoken word mixed with music, and things I would personally never think about. That makes me really happy.
Science Moab: Can you talk about the value in incorporating different ways of knowing?
Ul-Hasan: I’m South Asian. In the US, I’ve seen things like golden lattes, coconut oil, and raw turmeric pop up recently. There’s a lot of cognitive dissonance in which people are telling me or telling the world their discoveries around these things, when these are things my family has been using and doing for a long time.
Everyone should be able to enjoy and benefit from things; it’s about including the people that have historically known these things. It’s about merging all these oral histories and scientific techniques together to be this strengthened, unified form of science.
There is this pushback of, “Well, this is how it should be done.” According to whom? Asking those questions is really important. There can be multiple right ways of doing things, and it’s even better, even stronger, if we can consider all options and have that sense of greater community. Our science benefits when we include people. It’s a core part of being a good scientist.
Science Moab: How is your work in bioinformatics related to addressing these environmental and social inequities?
Ul-Hasan: Part of my PhD involved data that was over 100 years old. There were so many questions I had, so many other metrics that would have been great to have been collected. So I really wanted to contribute something to the long-term. I wondered, how can I make the work we do as scientists more sustainable? How can I make sure these studies will be useful five, ten, 50 years from now?
Science Moab: Do you have a vision for ensuring these different ways of knowing, these different data, are utilized to create a better world?
Ul-Hasan: I think the way we respond to change is very important. Doing internal work, setting an example of ways to be; I think that’s the best thing. We can really only control ourselves. We can make sure we are good stewards, that we lead by example.
Whatever your personal opinion is of the right thing, we’re all messing up something. We all have something to learn from other people. Trying to maintain that mindset is key.
