🔍 MEET ANDREW SAINTSING, DEEP LOOK’S NEW INTERN!🔍 (Patreon)

Andrew Saintsing being interviewed and filmed in KQED’s Digital Production Studio by Mimi Schiffman, one of Deep Look’s producers. Apple box employed to compensate for height differences 🙃   (Photo Credit: Sevda Eris)

How did you end up interning for Deep Look? 

I ended up here after finishing my PhD in biology at UC Berkeley. I was doing graduate work with Bob Full at the Department of Integrative Biology. I was studying how cockroaches run on a treadmill. I was also studying how cockroaches behaved before and after they had lost legs and how energetically costly it was for them to keep going once they lost a leg or when there were hurdles in their path. Deep Look is such a great place to be an intern because it can help you build on information you’ve learned as a graduate student and a great place to explore ideas that are active in the research community. And, no, you don't need a doctoral degree to be an intern!

Have you always loved insects?

I grew up on the East Coast. So I've always been used to seeing insects inside the home which you don’t have that much out here on the West Coast except for maybe ants. I used to see camelback crickets a lot which are really creepy things. But insects weren’t as fascinating to me until I started studying them more seriously in graduate school and found out how weird they are, and how everything about them is so alien to vertebrates, like how they breathe and how they eat. I'm super fascinated by all of the different ways they interact with their environment—like how they grow inside the bodies of other insects. And social insects like ants and bees have these complex reproductive caste systems. So, yeah, I think actually learning about how weird insects are has really made me see how interesting they are.

What have you discovered about how Deep Look works with researchers?

Deep Look really puts the research first in all its videos. Every video Deep Look puts out on YouTube has a research consultant behind it who helps shape the story the producer is putting together based on the research in the scientists’ labs. It’s been really helpful to know how Deep Look works with researchers and how the research is showcased for the general public so everyone can understand it. It’s also been helpful to identify researchers that have good ideas that can help make good Deep Look stories.

Why is it important that we listen to scientists and what they're learning?

If we don't ask scientists what they're doing and learn from them, then we're kind of limiting what we know about our world. It's really important to talk to scientists and continue to grow as a society and as individuals. Science really gives us a window into the natural world, into phenomena that we don’t really know about until we start exploring it.