Stanford’s Alex Dainis has been named a YouTube Superstar Teacher because of her series Bite Sci-zed.
Every year, YouTube honors those who are in line to be the next superstars in education and this year one of the winners was Stanford University’s Alex Dainis.
Dainis, who hails from Mansfield, Mass. and received her undergraduate degree from Brandeis University in 2011, recently began a Ph.D. program in genetics at Stanford. San Bruno-based YouTube also recently named her one of its superstar teachers because of her weekly Bite Sci-zed videos.
“It’s really exciting,” she said. “It was kind of a surprise to me. I had no idea they were going to do that.”
Before deciding to go back and get another degree, she worked as an associate producer for Richard Lewis Media Group.
“I missed talking to people about science on day-to-day basis, so I started Bite Sci-zed,” said Dainis, 24.
Her YouTube channel used to include weekly videos, but she hasn’t had as much time to post them since beginning her Ph.D. program this fall.
“My videos revolve around questions like why do we get motion sickness?” she said. “There are daily questions about the world that pop up in my life.”
Some other ideas for her YouTube videos often come from conversations she’s having with her friends, like “why do we get brain freezes when we eat ice cream too fast and why do we sneeze?”
Dainis said she is settling into life at grad school.
“I fell in love with the Bay Area when I flew out here for interviews,” she said. “The weather is gorgeous. Science is not so much a career, but a lifestyle. I’m in the lab a lot; that’s fine by me, it’s fun.”
What does Dainis see in her future? Could she be the next Bill Nye the Science Guy?
“I would like to go into public science for education media,” she said. “I love research, and want to make science videos on a broader scale.”
Dainis also offers advice to girls looking to get into the science and engineering fields.
“My advice to girls who want to get into science is to pursue what you love and follow it no matter what other people say,” she said. “If you really, really love it, you can make anything work for you. Seek out good scientific mentors, be they women or men.”
Along with her win this year, Dainis was named a YouTube EDU Guru last year for her video series.
Visit Dainis’ YouTube channel at youtube.com/user/Lexie527.
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