Hey there, hope everyone’s doing alright?
Spring is finally here and days are getting longer, which is my absolute favourite thing in the world. Besides houseplants. Anyway, here’s Episode #2.
This time, I’m joined by the first African-American woman to help discover a new chemical element. (Let that sink in.) We talk all things nuclear, science as a team effort, eureka moments and fitting in in academia. She’s a nuclear chemist, her name is Clarice Phelps and - trust me - you will love meeting her.
Thanks everyone for your super warm response to Episode #1. You’re all a gem. If you’re enjoying this series so far, it’s really important that you’re loud about it please (why not tell your friends?)
Have a great weekend/holidays and huge thanks for being there :)
Pablo
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Episode transcript
People, places and things are built with chemical elements. We humans have about 20 different ones only in our body. 99% of who you are is made up with carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus. There are the exact same amounts inside to you as there are in your favorite - or least favorite - fellow humans. There's a bunch more on your smartphone, like gold and silver in the wires or lithium in the battery. But we haven't always known all of these elements. French chemist Antoine Lavoisier didn't just leave through the French Revolution back in the 18th century, but also through the chemical revolution. He published the first list of chemical elements. That one had just 33 substances in it - they were slowly classified as we learned more and more about their properties. And that table, the periodic table, just kept growing as we discovered more elements as well.
But the periodic table is also full of people, places and things. The word Helium is derived from the Greek word for the Sun (Helios). There’s Einstenium after Albert Einstein or Meitnerium after Austrian physicist Lise Meitner. And there’s also some that are named after places. Polonium, named after Poland or a handful of states in the US, including Berkelium, Californium, and element 117 also known as Tennessine. Some of these elements have been discovered pretty recently, and so chances are that the periodic table that you used to have at school didn’t even have them yet. Because we just keep adding elements to the table. And we’re not just finding them, we’re making them. Elements that did not exist on Earth. But other than to annoy high school students though, why bother making new elements?
I can sum it up by saying we're trying to figure out what elements existed at the beginning of the universe. We're kind of trying to retrace our steps back to the beginning.
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Welcome to How to make a scientist! My name is Pablo Izquierdo, I am a neuroscientist and science communicator and I doubt I’ll ever make history but today I’m joined by someone who has. Clarice Phelps, a nuclear chemist from Tennessee in the US who, in 2014, claimed her seat in the history of science as she chipped in to discover element 117.
Enjoy!
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So you're the first African American woman to be involved in discovering a new chemical element. Like… ever. How cool is that?
It's really cool. I didn't know that at first. But now that I know it, I think it's pretty cool, something I can, you know, share with my daughter and my sons. So that's pretty neat.
But how do you make it, how do you make an element?
So um, it's, it's not like you have somebody sitting in the lab with like a beaker and, you know, have an voila moment. At Oak Ridge National Lab where I work, our unique capability is that we have the highest flux thermonuclear reactor in the world. And so we're able to make these very unique isotopes that are not able to be made anywhere else in the quantities that we can make them in the world. And so, we were responsible for producing the berkelium 249. And the berkelium 249 was used as the target material. They took the berkelium 249 that we purified, and they made a very thin film with it. And what they used is a calcium beam and shot the calcium beam at the berkelium target material in order to produce the element 117, Tennessine. So basically what they're doing is just smashing atoms together, and hoping for the end result to be the element that they're looking for.
So basically, after about a year of shooting this target with this calcium beam, they got six atoms of element 117. And so that's, you know, six atoms isn't really like a big, big thing in the grand scheme of things, but for new element discovery, that's actually a really, really good result.
But how do you know that you've made it, how do you know it's that element and not a slightly different one? Because you know, from what I remember from high school chemistry right - bear with me - you know, different elements are just different because they have slightly different number of protons. How do you identify one from another?
Well, like you said they have different number of protons but the way that new elements are, you know, confirmed, is that - well because they have such very short half lives, you know, the further up you get, they have very, very short half lives on the matter of like pico and femtoseconds. And so what you do is that you look at the decay chain. And so the decay chain is indicative of where, you know, if you look at the decay daughters, you can tell, or you can postulate or backtrack or however you want to say it, where they came from. The daughters that came from element 117 were obviously from element 117, they couldn't have come from anywhere else.
So what's special about element 117?
Well, it's new, obviously. And people always ask like, well, what's the whole point? What does it do? And, you know, why are you all trying to find all these new elements, and I can sum it up by saying, we're trying to figure out what elements existed at the beginning of the universe. And so you know, the Big Bang happened, and they were all of these elements were very short half lives. And so we're kind of trying to retrace our steps back to the beginning. And a part of that is trying to figure out like, you know, what elements may have existed back then, with these very short half lives. And so Tennessine is also, you know, what we call one of the super heavy elements, but there still work and research being done on its chemical properties. And because the half life is so short, most of that is not where you're actually physically manipulating the element, obviously, because it doesn't exist for very long. And so a lot of that is being done with you know, very high power computers and a lot of, you know, modeling and simulation to try to figure out what the the chemical properties of Tennessine actually are. But once you get into higher neutron and proton numbers, the amount of stable elements decreases. So trying to get to higher and higher neutron and proton numbers, we're trying to get to that next stable isotope. This proposed isotope is, you know, in this island of stability, where you have a magic number of protons and neutrons that make it exceptionally stable.
Okay. And there any way to make them live longer, or is it just intrinsic to each element? And you just need to find another one that fills into that?
Yeah, it is intrinsic to the elements, their half live. And the reason why they decay so fast is because there is so unstable. And so that's why they don't exist for very long is because there are too many neutrons or too many protons. So as soon as they're formed together, they're just kind of fall apart.
How long does element 117 live for?
Um, actually know what, I wanna look that up… I think it's like 112 milliseconds.
That’s not very long at all, is it?
No, not at all. So it's not very long at all. It's like, faster than a blink. So it's gone that quickly.
Now, in another life, you were part of the US Navy. That was before your PhD. I read you were aboard an aircraft carrier for how long?
Yes, I was on the aircraft carrier for about two and a half years. We went on our first maiden deployment in 2006. And then we went on another deployment, it was a little shorter about three, three or four months in 2007.
Okay, and what was your job there? Was there anything related to science?
Yes, yes, I was, I was in the nuclear power program in the Navy. And I was what they call the Engineering Laboratory Technician. And so I was responsible for maintaining the reactor and steam plant chemistry.
Right. So the ship, the aircraft carrier was powered by nuclear power.
Yes, two nuclear reactors.
And what’s the overall link between, I guess, nuclear chemistry and nuclear power?
Yes, they're intrinsically linked. So, in order to maintain optimal reactor power conditions, you have to maintain the chemistry of the cooling water, in this particular case, it was a pressurized water reactor. So to maintain the water you have to maintain the chemistry, like the nitrogen content, the oxygen, oxygen 16, that's in there and then the nitrate… so you have to like maintain and be aware of the state of the total chemistry of the plant. So it's actually you know, very vital that the chemistry stays within certain parameters for the reactor to operate safely.
I was gonna ask you, you know, was always that we hear of uranium when we talk about nuclear fuels, but actually you didn't mention your uranium at all - is there other things we can use for nuclear?
Yes, uranium is is an important, you know, it's probably the most widely heard of and used fuel for reactors. But you can also use there's thorian type of reactors. So, using thorium… but mostly it is uranium, mix of uranium 235 and 238. And it varies from reactor the reactor or type of reactor as to the amount of enrichment that you have other uranium, there's, there's also like pebble bed reactors where instead of having the uranium in rods, they will have them in little pebbles. And they're cooled through, you know, a continuous replenishment of coolant, whereas some reactors just recycle the same amount of water. And throughout, you know, it's recharged, refueled every x amount of years.
And that was all about nuclear fission. Right. So you take a huge element like uranium and you smash it like you said, to sort of get small elements and energy?
Yeah, I'm sorry, fission actually happens on its own. So yeah, I mean, you can put a neutron in there and then it fissions, but then some elements just naturally fission on their own. But yeah, yeah, you're right.
That's really cool. I didn’t know that. I was gonna say, so that's the opposite to something as you can also do that also somehow gives you energy. And that's taking a small element, hydrogen, and then pulling it to other hydrogen element, and that gives you helium. So that's slightly larger. And again, energy. So there was a lot of hope about fusion as an alternative source of power. But I don't know where we’re at with that because I know, there's a few sort of experimental reactors in Europe, I have no idea about America, and so on.
I actually don't know a lot about where we are, as far as in the United States with fusion power, I know that there are a lot of people that are working towards making fusion reactors a reality. But fusion reactors take a lot of energy in order to force these reactions to happen, because basically, they're trying to mimic what happens in the sun. Because the sun is a huge fusion reactor. And so obviously, the sun releases a lot of energy. And, you know, it takes a lot of energy to do those reactions. And so the facilities that are needed to build those kinds of reactors would be relatively large. And I know at the lab, there's, you know, some some fusion research that goes on there, but I'm not familiar with it.
Okay, that's fair enough. Let's flip back to element 117. Did you expect to, you know, coming into the lab or into this project, that you, yourself, or as a team, were going to discover a new element would like was that the plan at all? Or did it just sort of come out of nowhere?
Well, for me, it kind of just, you know, kind of happened, I'm sure. Like, you know, I joined the lab in 2009. And they had been working on element 117 for some time before I actually came to the lab. And I started as a technician. And so at the time, when we were doing the berkelium 249 purification, it was myself and two other colleagues of mine, Shelley Vancleave, and our mentor Rose Bowl, who are actually working on the purification for the berkelium. And that was like our part of it, and then we kind of moved on to our next project. And so, at the time, I don't think, you know, at least for me, I don't think it kind of registered, like, wow, they're gonna be using this for the potential, you know, because sometimes, you know, scientific progress doesn't always go like how you expect it to your experiments don't always like turn out like, oh, an epiphany, and you have this eureka moment. Sometimes they don't work. And so you don't always like place all your eggs in one basket, like, this is gonna work, you know, so we purify the berkelium and we sent it off. It made several trips back and forth across the the ocean before it finally got to where we're supposed to go. I mean, in the back of my mind, I was like, okay, yeah, we did this for this element 117 project. And then I didn't like hear anything about it until we heard that they confirmed that element 117 had been produced. And so at that time, we got the email notification, like, oh, that's really cool. So next we're thinking okay, so they're going to name it and I didn't have any part naming it although Tennessine's great because I live in Tennessee, but, you know, at the time of the confirmation in 2016, but then it was a big deal because I was like, Oh, I had a part in that. You know, ORNL had a, you know, celebration and and we kind of just like moved on. And then, you know, 2019 there was, you know, some someone was trying to get in contact with me. One of my friends sent me a text message saying, you know, a lady is trying to reach out to you, her name is Jessica Wade and, and she said that she thinks that you're the first African-American woman involved in element discovery. And at the time, I was like, what? You know, I didn't have Twitter and apparently it was on Twitter and I didn’t have Twitter and so I couldn't, I honestly couldn't believe it. Because I was like, surely there has been somebody like, there's no way this is like 2019? Surely there's been somebody, you know? And so eventually, our IUPAC did, you know, confirm that… I guess I was!
I mean, if there was another, you know, African-American woman out there that was involved in some element discovery, you know, I'm, I will be more than happy to, you know, give them their flowers while they're due. But so far, yes. So it was, it was kind of, you know, a circuitous route to that, it definitely wasn't in my, you know, professional plan. But to be able to be a part of that, and to have had my hands, like physically have my hands on a part of history is is really, really cool. It's like a once in a lifetime type of thing, you know, you get to look at the periodic table and say, Hey, I, like had my hands on that kind of stuff, and was able to contribute to, you know, expanding, you know, expanding STEM and science, and I think that's just really an honor. You know, obviously, I'm just thankful that I'm able to, you know, at least share my story and how I got there with with everybody.
How amazing is that? How did you celebrate?
Um, well, there was a special barrel of jack daniels whiskey that was made for element 117. And me and my husband, we bought two bottles that there was only one barrel, a single barrel. And so we bought two bottles. And my intention was to drink one and save the other. But it was really good.
It did not happen.
So I still have the bottle. But the whiskey is, is gone. But there was… the lab had a huge recognition for all the scientists at the lab who were involved. The governor at the time had distributed brand new periodic tables to all of the schools in Tennessee with the new elements on it. There's a huge placard for lack of a better word in the visitor center at the lab that has all of our names on it. And so for the discovery, and it's it was, it was a pretty, you know, special moment for everyone that was involved. Obviously, there were people who were a little bit more involved than I was, but I think, you know, just being able to be a part of that team is something that was really special.
Tell us a little bit about, about the rest of the team actually cause you stressed that it's very much a team effort. But if you were a first, I'm assuming that you were the only African-American woman in the team. Like, who are the rest of them?
Well, there's obviously, there's hundreds of people, you've got the health physics folks, you've got the physics people, you've got the material science folks. So there's like, there's plenty of working parts that go into this. It's not like, you know, how they show in the movies like Tony Stark is in the lab by himself. And he's created a new element all by himself like that. That's not what happens. I mean, it's, it makes for a great movie, but it's not, it's not really, you know, it's not reality. There are a lot of people, you know, hundreds of people who have had their hands on it, and have contributed in some way to, you know, the discovery of this element. And that goes for the other other elements on the periodic table. In recent history, there's, there's lots of people that are involved and they don't get the recognition that, you know, some of the more recognized names do but without their, their help, they're, you know, some of these things would not happen. You know, everybody plays a part in everyone's role is equally as important. I think the reason why, you know, some of the attention that I'm getting is because, you know, the first of anything is actually, oh, you know, it's a good thing, and something that's notable and should should be recognized, and so but I don't want to detract from everyone else's efforts that were a part of that, and obviously had a huge impact on the success for this element.
And it’s not just the lab, right? So you said there was a sort of international team involved as well.
Mm hmm. So we had people from Germany and Russia, we also had, you know, other entities in the United States, other universities and national labs that participated. Because like, Oak Ridge National Lab has unique facilities where we can process those irradiated elements, but we don't have a huge accelerator facility, or we don't have, you know, some other aspects of element discovery, or element making, that are needed. And so that's why, you know, collaboration is very important. Because there's no one facility that has everything. You can't, you just can't do it all by yourself.
What do you think is most challenging about a career in science - or has been for you?
Um, it depends on like, what thing might bother you more. Like some, some people don't like criticism let’s say, but if you're a scientist, that's basically what you open yourself up to. Because no matter what kind of research you do, the whole point is to try to prove someone wrong, sometimes, you know, or try to do it better, or try to find, you know, something about what they did, that you can improve upon. And so, you know, being a scientist means that you're subject to constant, not necessarily criticism, but critique. And so, if you are not open minded about that, it can be a hard profession for you.
I guess one of the hardest things about, you know, being a scientist is accepting failure. So, because like I said, things don't work out, like, hey, like, you know, in the movies all the time. You know, there's, for every success, there's probably hundreds of failures behind it. And lots and lots of research in, you know, trying to make sure that, you know, whenever you do do your experiment, it goes right. But even if you do, if you think you did everything right, sometimes it still doesn't turn out how you want it. So you have to learn how to accept those failures, and learn from them. And, I mean, if you just, if you're just always winning, you know, you're not going to learn anything, you're not going to learn how to, how to dig deeper, how to think critically. Because if everything is just going to work for you, you know, there's no need to like really do any critical thinking or trying to figure out how to make something work, that doesn't work, or that should work. And so I think failure is a good thing, but it's it's hard to accept, sometimes, especially if you've tried really hard and spent a lot of time on it.
You talked about criticism. You know, critique is one thing, but do you think there's a problem with people criticizing just for the sake of it, between colleagues?
Yeah, yeah. And I, you know, speaking personally, sometimes people want to criticize, just so that they can be heard as well, because they feel like maybe someone else's is giving too much attention or whatnot. And so they use their criticism as a means of elevating themselves at the cost of someone else. And I think critique is not as bad. I think there's a difference, I think critique is more like a positive, like, it's meant to build you up, you know.
I think critique is is important, but I think criticism is not because I think criticism is more about tearing that person down either their research or professionally, personally. And I think people who choose to criticize instead of you know, critique in a professional manner, just may not be confident in their own skills. And so, they use that as a means of making themselves seemingly more important.
And, you know, the whole thing is, you know, science doesn't care what you look like or it does care about the facts, and whether you are able to present your case in a way that is, you know, that is plausible to others and that you can prove it, you know, and so it shouldn't matter how you look or your educational background, if you are knowledgeable in your specific field, then you should be open to critique. And criticism will come because human human nature is just going to naturally, you know, have people to criticize you. But the people who I think really are looking to, to build you up will be able to provide that critique for you instead of criticizing.
Sure. But that's not to say that science isn't political, right?
Yeah, it's very.
Have you ever felt that, you know, you didn't fit in?
All the time, almost, I'd say 90 to 95% of the time, because, I mean, the percentage of black women in this field is very low, I think, something like an order of 2 to 3%. And so, you know, obviously, with numbers or percentages that low, I have found over my, let's see, how long have I been in the field… my 17 years in nuclear power and, you know, nuclear industry, in general, that I've found myself, nine times out of 10, being the only either woman, or black person, or a combination of the both black woman. And so I've always found myself in a situation where I am by myself. And so I've always had to, like, validate my existence, in certain places, explain why I was there or give a running history of my resumé or my background to kind of make people feel okay that I was there. And so, I mean, it still happens. I just think now in the era that we are now, people are more aware of the fact that they are doing that. That's kind of assuage the feeling a little bit of feeling by myself, but now I've been focusing on, you know, using the fact that I've always been the only, you know, black woman, or I'm always finding myself, like, the only one of whatever it is, at the, at the moment in these kind of spaces. And I started to wonder why.
So I pivoted, instead of feeling like, I'm always the only one, like, why can't I get more black women involved and interested in STEM careers, nuclear, or chemistry. And so that's why I really love doing outreach for, you know, young students into disenfranchised communities, poor communities, and that could be, you know, that could be a poor white communities, it could be, you know, communities that are not really supported with STEM programs. And so it could look like anybody, it could look like me, it could look like, you know, it could look like a lot next person, it could look like, you know, a transgender person. And so it whoever is disenfranchised, and not, you know, supported in a stem curriculum, that's who I want to focus on. Because no matter what kind of situation I've been in, I know how it feels to be that only one. And to feel like, I have to validate myself. And so I don't want you know, another person who's interested in science or interested in nuclear, you know, or really loves their microscope set or their calculator, I don't want them to feel like that’s something odd or feel like they are the odd person out in whatever setting they're in. And so I think it's important now to let people know that it's okay. And people like me, who looked like me do exist, and are doing things in science that, you know, people wouldn't think or, you know, think that we would normally do. And so just kind of just breaking that stigma of what a scientist looks like is, is really important, because they're not just all old white guys. They're, they're young, you know, like, like you and me. They come from different backgrounds, and they have different interests. And you know, everybody is not cookie cutter, and they shouldn't be because no science, there's so many different different things to look at, and different things to discover. And that, you know, that should be for everybody.
And they're not just their baby long, right?
Yes, they belong. Yes. They they deserve to be there. Without any, like, extra explanation like to everybody every time you walk into the room.
Yeah, exactly. Anyway, you've been working on nuclear chemistry for did you say 17 years…
Mm hmm.
But you know, you're nowhere near retiring yet. So you are now in the middle of your PhD I understand like I am. I've been saying this is my final year for over a year now. So if my supervisor’s listening to this, I promise I'm working on my thesis. But is it important for you to having you know, achieved things in science already and having you know, tried science in a way, to get a graduate degree?
Um, you know, initially, I didn't think it was that important, because I felt like, you know, well, if your level of education, however smart you are - I can't think of the word - if you have a degree of intelligence that suits, whatever field you're in, and you're excelling at it. At the time, I didn't think that you needed an advanced degree. And so I had been, you know, working off of my bachelor's degree for a while, and I just recently received my Master's in mechanical engineering. And I guess the added element of more education never hurts. And it allows you that level of technical expertise and training that you may not get elsewhere.
And then, you know, being able to get an advanced degree allows you to make more connections with your professional, you know, your peers. And it allows you the distinguishment of ‘you are the experts in this particular field’. Now, that does not mean to say that someone who does not have a PhD or master's degree is not as smart because there are some people who I've worked with, who do not have a PhD, but they are the smartest - actually one person I know has an associate's degree, and they are the smartest person that I have worked with so far. And then there's some people who, you know, may have a PhD, but, you know, you might know more than them and you don't have a PhD and so like you're even though you have those letters behind your name, it doesn't mean that you're smarter than someone else. It just means that you have that level of expertise and training that someone else might not have, but it doesn't mean that they don't know what you know.
Amen. Are you the first scientist your family?
You know what? I don't know. I know, amongst my sisters. Um, I'm trying to think like, okay, grandpa, no, my dad, no, um, well, my dad was an engineer. And then, yeah, no one else my sisters are in like, you know… one of my sisters is an esthetician and my other sister she's in, like, health diplomatics and the other one’s, you know, into veterinary. So other than that, no one's really into like, you know, nuclear or physics. Unless somebody corrects me and somebody in my family corrects me (which they will, they have no problem doing that). But I guess I am.
Alright, well, there you go. Clarice, what makes you smile?
Um, my kids, my family, my husband, just knowing that I'm making my dad proud. He passed away a couple months ago, and so from cancer, and he just told me how proud he was of me. And my bonus mom, she just tells me just how proud he would he would be of me, just from all of my accomplishments and continuing on that path to making my dad proud. And making my family proud is something that, you know, gives me inward joy, and, you know, helps me to smile outwardly.
That's beautiful. That's beautiful. Clarice Phelps, thank you so much. Thank you. So nice talking to you half the way across the world.
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Well, hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. If you did, please do share it with your friends. And you know, like and follow this wherever it is that you're listening. You can also get on the newsletter at howtosci.substack.com or follow on Twitter at @HowToSci. The music for this episode was by Borrtex and Vasily Novikov, my name is Pablo Izquierdo, and this is How to make a scientist.