Sciographies is a radio show and podcast about the people who make science happen, presented by The Faculty of Science and campus-community radio station CKDU 88.1 FM. This is the seventh article in a series that features excerpts from each new episode released this fall.
On this week鈥檚 episode of Sciographies, we talk to Dr. Alex Veinot, a chemist and assistant professor with the Department of Chemistry at 蘑菇AV.
Dr. Veinot reflects on growing up in Middleton, Nova Scotia, where a hands-on curiosity about how and why things are made first took root. Though he initially faced challenges in school, a conversation with his uncle鈥攁bout the specialized materials used in law enforcement vests鈥攊gnited a passion for chemistry that would shape his future.
This early interest guided him toward a career marked by curiosity and resilience, eventually earning him recognition as a Vanier Scholar, a prestigious honor that solidified his professional path.
As a member of the Glooscap First Nation, Dr. Veinot is committed to increasing Indigenous representation in the field of chemistry. He shares his vision for a more inclusive future, where Indigenous perspectives and voices contribute to scientific discovery and innovation.
Here are some excerpts from the podcast episode, edited for clarity and length.
Barclay: Tell me about growing up in Middleton, Nova Scotia?
Veinot: There's not a lot to do. We didn't have shopping malls or places to hang out, so I spent time in my dad's workshop. Early on, I would take apart motors and I got very good with my hands. I was really interested in how things worked.
Barclay: How did this influence your career?
Veinot: Growing up, I really appreciated how stuff worked. Even now in my professional career, I look at products that I'm using around the house and I say, 鈥渨hat's this made out of? What goes into this? Can I come up with something similar?鈥� This is the chemist perspective on everyday life.
Barclay: What were you like growing up?
Veinot: I didn't really like school. I was the sort of student that would always be in trouble and getting sent to the office and detention.
Barclay: How did you choose chemistry?
Veinot: I was met with a lot of resistance from my school when I switched from trades to science. And then, I took my first chemistry course, and we were talking about the quantification of matter. It was a lot of math, which I was quite good at. I enjoyed math because it鈥檚 numbers and everything made sense.
Barclay: Tell me about your undergraduate degree?
Veinot: First year was fine but second year was hard. First year, you get kind of one or two lab sections. I remember during my second year, I really struggled with inorganic chemistry.
Barclay: In your master's degree, was it looking at the structures of different crystals and reporting them?
Veinot: It was a lot more synthetic work. It was not so different from my time at Acadia, but we had more techniques at our disposal to kind of prove things.
Barclay: You mentioned you're an Indigenous scholar and a member of the Glooscap First Nation. How has this played a role in your scientific area of study?
Veinot: Yeah, it's one of those things I always struggle with. I've been to communities, I've spoken to people, and a lot of our youth who are studying arts and culture but there's hardly any science. I think there's just generally there is an under-representation of science within Indigenous communities. I think it鈥檚 hard to be interested in studying science when there's so little Indigenous representation.
Listen to the entire episode of Sciographies at 4:30 PM today on in Halifax or find it on , ,听and other popular podcasting platforms. You can also listen to previous Sciographies episodes on the same platforms and at dal.ca/sciographies.