Isree's Interview With Eriksong

I had the pleasure of interviewing Isaree Pitaktong on Wednesday, February 20th at a Starbucks in Austin, Texas for about fifty minutes. Throughout our conversation, she struck me as a passionate and quirky young woman who is authentically interested in the sciences, particularly biology. When I asked what drives her, Isaree told me that she like to “nerd out” and her curiosity is what allows her to expand beyond herself, get to know people, and get involved in activities that bring her the most joy and she thrives in environments that allow for it.

When I first sat down with Isaree, she mentioned to me at school that day she measured student’s tongue dexterity for her statistics course. I was taken aback by what I thought was complete randomness
Isaree’s involvement in Girl Scout’s also fosters her curiosity outside of the classroom and the lab. It provided her the opportunity to explore her love of making things as well as learn the humor that comes out of imperfection. She told me of a bench she helped build for a community garden and she realized after putting it together that there was a small hole in the the bench. She joked that the hole could be used to drain water during heavy rain (which is a must in central Texas). In traditional Chinese dance that she’s participated in since a youth, Isaree told me that the presentations brought her around dances and people representing different cultures and gave her a nuanced sense of the world outside her Thai-Taiwanese family. This cultural immersion followed her to her high school where she enjoys that it brings all types of cultural communities and orientations and socioeconomic levels to embrace her weirdness and the weirdness of others. This environment has given her the courage to tell people when they are being insensitive about hard topics because in her words, “…school is where we all come together to learn and respect one