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Pop Culture
She’s Such a Geek Photo Contest
14 February 2007
119 Comments
In honor of all girl-geeks everywhere, as gloriously encapsulated by Annalee Newitz and Charlie Anders’ She’s Such a Geek! (SSAG), Inkling’s decided to host a girl-geek photo competition.
We recieved over 70 submissions of girls decked out as geeks. Every single one of them couldn’t make us happier or prouder. We sure don’t envy Charlie and Annalee’s jobs as judges one bit. The winner will be announced Wednesday March 7th.
And just to put everyone at ease over outing their nerdiness, here are Anne and Anna kicking things off in their geeky best during an impromptu love-fest with cateye glasses.
ANNA GOSLINE rocks cateyes (PHOTO: ANNE CASSELMAN)
ANNE CASSELMAN dreams of java (PHOTO: ANNA GOSLINE)
LOUISA POSKITT hearts “Rganic Mistry.” (SELF PORTRAIT WITH A MACBOOK)
“Me, boogying my butt off right after buying my totally fantastic Lt. Uhurah costume,” writes dancetastic entrant LEAH GRASSO. “I can’t wait to wear it to the Farpoint Science Fiction Convention this weekend.”
KAREN, MELANIE, and SHAYNA take a break from the 2003 American Society of Plant Biologists conference in Honolulu to worship the almighty coffee
bean. Java lords we worship thine dna that created ye magic geeke fuel of ages olde.
VALORY THATCHER “‘scopes out” lymphocytes, tape worms and bacteria from her office at Mount Hood Community College in Gresham, Oregon where she spreads the geek gospel as an instructor of anatomy, microbiology, and physiology.
LISA AMBLER engrossed by Sci Am’s cover story on Neuromorphic Chips (PHOTO: CHRISTOPHER AMBLER)
Luck be a lady: CHRISTY REED worked as the Science Coordinator for Aliens of the Deep, 3D Imax expedition. As proof, we’ve got a pic of her inside one of the Deep Rover submersibles that they later took on dive of under 1,000 meters.
Medicinal chemist KIRA MCGINTY spent $10 at the MIT swap meet for her “Computer Date” hallowe’en costume. “I had to keep a pair of wire cutters in the costume to cut myself out at the end of the night, since i was wired into it,” she writes us.
Like any astronomer worth her salt, AMARA GRAPS, checks out last year’s solar eclipse in Turkey.
Exhibit A (LEFT): LAURIE E. MILLER hard at work building the University of Minnesota’s solar-powered race car entry for the World Solar Rally in Japan in 1998. Exhibit B (RIGHT): Laurie holding the shiny gold trophy which, she boasts, “we won when we creamed our division.”
MELISSA SNYDER, who works at Apple, loves her 12” powerbook so much she refers it as her “baby” and takes it to bars (as evidenced by the Coors lamp in the background). She also dressed up like Elastigirl for hallowe’en in a costume she sewed herself, and looked so darn hot she made Vice‘s DO list.
RAQUEL CASTRO sports vegan shoes and her new cybershot in this geekette self portrait.
At 15 months, ELORA JOHNSON, flaunts her precocious geek skills according to proud (and out-geeked) mom Adri.
Photographer THORSTEN WULFF snapped this shot of “an unknown beauty from Luebeck, Germany, Home of the Marzipan, Thomas Mann, Willy Brandt and Guenter Grass.” Before he could ask her name, she and her barcode tattoo were gone.
In this candid, KATIE KOVACH shows off some mean soldering skillz while salvaging circuit boards for goods.
Fur hat and googles? A geek girl’s protective gear, according to ANI THOMPKINS.
According to her mother, KIMBERLY WILL “loves all things science and has always said she will be an Astronaut-Artist, travelling to outer space and sending back her drawings of the way earth looks from there.” Here’s she is at age five, working on an important Egyptian treasure dig.
One loverly lady geeks out at Cafe Trieste in San Francisco. Lucky for us, CHRISTOPHER P. MICHEL was there with his good eye to snap a shot.
For the “I was a geek girl before geek girls were cool” category: DANA J. PARKER started her geek girl career as one of the first 50 female typewriter technicians for IBM in 1974. “In those days, some people would actually refuse to allow me to work on their machines just because I was a woman,” she writes us.
Here she is installing a parabolic satellite data dish on the roof of a building at Scripp’s Institute of Oceanography in May of 1985, aged 31. In order to prove that she was technically capable of doing this job, she tells us, her company bought her a Heathkit microprocessor and told her to assemble and program it: “I taught myself to solder on my kitchen table; I assembled the kit and learned to program it in hexadecimal.” We stand humbled.
MONICA MULNEIX-CARLINO with She’s Such a Geek!
MEGHAN ENGSTROM holds her trophy as victor of the the Spaz Dance competition at the 2006 Geek Prom, held each year at the Science Museum of Minnesota.
Skepchick editor REBECCA WATSON sent us her photo from the 2007 Skepchick Calendar.
JANET STEMWEDEL mans the desk of her 5th grade project in her school “curriculum fair” circa May 1979. Janet’s project was inspired by the King Tut exhibit that had come through the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York the year before - this explains the mummufied Cornish game hens that are on display in those mason. Years on, she defends her methods: “They stunk to high heaven, but it was for the glory of Science!”
ALONDRA KOHLER clutches her rocket as she strides along the train platform on her way back from the Maker Faire 2006.
MIRIAM KLENKE (age 3) falls asleep reading her favorite geek cred books. Her sister GWENDOLYN (age 7) at a science museum in Bloomington, Indiana playing with an electro-magnet.
CYAN BANISTER ditched her “traditional” geeky career in the anti-spam industry to pursue a life long dream of starting up her own online pin-up community site but she still counts herself as “pretty darn geeky.”
BECKY CHAMBERS fights beasties in the Arathi Highlands whilst on my way to meet some of her guildies.
JENNA KOZEL (Google) and her roommate REBECCA (YouTube) rocked halowe’en last year. “[It] was around the time that Google bought You Tube so I felt it was a timely costume. You can’t see it but I made Rebecca wear my ipod around her neck so she had “streaming video,” she explains.
Shake those tail feathers: ARIEL ALLISON dressed up as a 2-tailed T-test for hallowe’en.
Here we find PAULA GROSS commanding her 1500pt Tau army to victory against the lowly Necrons. Please note: the Xbox games on the floor in the background; the dangerously over-plugged extension cord; and the copies of Powergrid and Battlelore on the couch.
Evolutionary psychology makes ATHENA TAN blush (PHOTO: JAMILA R. NEDJADI)
MIRANDA VEY: cyber goth meets tank girl.
JESSICA CHEN solders and smolders.
Paleoceanographer MEA COOK stars as the queen angelfish in an adaptation of a story by 5 year old Emma Powell (PHOTO: UNCLE HUGH).
LAURA ARPIAINEN outs her inner geek and outer love for the opera.
MEGAN BYRD went to the 2005 Chicago Comic Con as Dark Pheonix, aka Jean Grey.
AMY HOY couldn’t decide how to best communicate her geekiness but figured the “vogueing” with the glowstix glasses might just stand well enough on its own.
AMBER BEAVIS poses with a funnel web spider (which are all called Esmerelda - the two exceptions being one called Shakira and a second called Hitler), the subject of her PhD at the Australian National University.
LIZET TIRRES sent in a photo from her grad school days (March of ‘87 to be exact) when she studied rocket science.
KAIJSA CALKINS and her colleage CASS KVENILD challenged each other to “get and wear as much flair as possible on our conference badges” at the American Library Association’s Midwinter Meeting this past January. As a bonus, they got the robot to pose too.
MEGAN HANDLEY considers herself a “mega art geek.” What makes her one? Well she loves sharpies, Dreamweaver and Steve Jobs… And sp34k1Ng l33t.
MARIBEL CASTELLANOS maintains servers for a cancer non-profit.
WILMA JANDOC + light saber = says it all.
GAIA VINCE, Deputy Editor of NewScientist.com, caught in her natural habitat. “Not often you find a book on the Death of Languages, one-tenth of a cinnamon roll, a tub of milk ‘n’ egg protein and a mini lava lamp all in one place,” her colleague and online sub-editor SEAN O’NEILL writes.
PAULA GAETOS, another She’s Such a Geek essayist, captures her “typical geeked out night at 5am” complete with video games, books, japanese snacks and her laptop.
When the Asimo folks came to the University of Minnesota then Computer Science major and ACM officer LEAH CULVER was invited to help out (above). She now lives in San Francisco and hosts a internet video show for Webshots called Wink! and is developing her own web application in Python (no doubt on her infamously corporate sponsored laser-etched laptop).
AMELIA TOMLINSON caught out in a pair of sweet sweet rhinestone studded glasses presenting her award winning microbio poster.
LAURA PREBLE, author of The Queen Geek Social Club, positively earned her right to write on girl geekdom. As should any girl who sported hexagonal framed glasses in highschool.
Paradise by the dashboard light: ADRIANNA TAN, perfectly illuminated by her beloved powerbook in her Harry Potter jersey in the early a.m.
LISA ROTH explains her circa 1988 geek-girl-meets-professional glory: “The Zenith 386 computer and Laserfilm video player were state-of-the-art
equipment and this was when C had no ++.”
SUZANNE FRANKS (AKA Zuska, the rocking feminist science blogger) sends us a photo from her glory days as a postdoc at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, an important locale in her tale in She’s Such A Geek!. “So while I am not holding the book itself, I am living it in the picture (I’m in the tissue culture lab),” she writes.
L. ASHLEY SUSONG poses with “The 1337 Meter” in downtown Knoxville. That’s old skool hacker coolspeak for elite or simply “leet.”
When chemist CYNTHIA GONSALVES isn’t bouncing x-rays off of shiny things, she likes to multitask: knitting and blogging.
EMILY REEVE in a very compromising position with Monsieur Voltaire’s bust.
CHRISTIE ST. MARTIN has been banned by both friends and family from bringing a computing device with her on vacations.
DAGNY LEININGER, DVM, gets ready to do surgery on the cow standing in the back ground.
ADORA, the hax0r behind www.techslut.net sends in a picture of herself browsing available access points at the local business park with my trusty 24dbi yagi antenna.
CATHY TOLLET only enjoys life through the window of her monitor. She is a real life goddess who likes to role play as a lifeguard in Second Life.
ANASTASIA BECKER sports one of her many science fiction/fantasy costumes.
LINDA CARPENTER eats the pickle she previously electrocuted in order to make it glow.
ZOE CORBYN, science policy journalist, wears her loudly labelled protective headgear. God forbid some other geek getting their bgrubby paws on her helmet!
JULENE HARRISON, AGNETA CEDERSTROM, AND SARAH FERBER (from left to right) snap a shot of their weekly and geekly go at Settlers of Catan.
JILLIAN HARDEE drills holes in plexiglass to use as a stimulus-presentation background for a neuroimaging experiment with impeccably manicured hands.
JANE BERRY, blatently maintaining perfect communication channels.
KATIE LAW plays on her Nintento DS Lite and hearts Mario Kart and Hello Kitty.
NICOLE WILKINS, sporting her Dr Who fan shirt, seated in front of her home entertainment center.
KRISTEN DORSEY (far right), and fellow MIT gals RYAN and SYLVIE, get primped geekstyle for a physics lecture. As in, highlighters and screw drivers for curlers, and reflective DVD’s instead of compact mirrors.
Paleontologist PHOEBE COHEN as viewed through the compound eye of a trilobite.
TOYOKO ORIMOTO, particle physicists, was there to see the 2000 tonne “Yoke Barrel 0” get installed at CERN’s Compact Muon Solenoid.
The Rules went like this…
1. E-mail your submissions before midnight, February 28th, 2007.
2. We’ll post photos here as they roll in.
3. If you readers comment on what y’all like, the otherwise immutable judges just might be swayed.
4. The photo which best suits the caption “OMG she’s such a geek!” wins a gorgeous 20” by 30” poster (ahem, that’s 38.7 billion billion square Angstroms or to those of you who operate in light years, it’s barely more than 4 x 10 to the minus 34th square Parsecs) of Lady Lovelace Ada Byron, dubbed by her dad Lord Byron as “The Princess of Parallelograms,” delivered straight to their hallowed doorstep.
5. Now, this is important: bonus points go to submissions that include the book SSAG itself.
6. Winner’s announced the following Wednesday March 7th. Giddyap!
7. Oh, and also go and read fellow-SSAG essayist Suzanne Frank’s article for Inkling about Pope-approved birth control My Persona. It’s great. And geeky. Or are the two synonymous? We forget.
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Comments
... Still hoping that the award's eponym will be corrected to "Ada, Lady Lovelace" before it's issued.
The reason that I scrolled down at such a rapid rate was to simply state the following:
It is Friday night. A big ten minutes before 2a. Midterms for a lot of dumb writing, talking, and computer things. I will enter rooms filled to the brim with jittery, bleary-eyed, and potentially crying geeks today. After that, I can look forward to my Spring Break ([...]of writing help files for customers and getting my tooth pulled - MTV will be there).
The point I'm getting at here is that I sincerely appreciate stumbling into this (I'm studying, not trudging through BoingBoing archives - promise), thusly starting off my assuredly memorable Spring Break.
I'd buy a calendar of this. Doesn't even have to be swimsuit. Just- "oh, I see you have a riser board there... oh, and some RAMBus... and is that your call sign? Really. Wanna talk ranty about the implementation of Tilt-Bits in Vista? Rockin' like a Geologist."
1) trekkies can't be geeks (many are)
2) geeks can't be trekkies (see above)
3) geeks can't be sexy or photogenic
4) people who dress in costume aren't serious geeks
I think my comments have been taken out of context and misconstrued, and I am quite sorry for any misunderstandings that may have arisen.
It may very well be that I had misunderstood the purpose of this photo contest. In my understanding (largely borne out by the presence of young girls as well as women being portrayed) the object was to submit photos depicting one's own geekness, and the judging criteria were to be largely based upon the level of geekiness depicted (with extra points for adding the book).
With this thought in mind I wondered why various pictures were even added, since (to plagiarize a cliche'd phrase) geek is as geek does. Dressing up as well-known characters in well-recognized costumes isn't on its own geeky behavior. Dressing up in mentally creative but obtuse to the general public outfits (like the 2-tailed T-test!) is. Wearing pop culture t-shirts and sporting commonly-found and "cool" current technology isn't necessarily geeky. Sporting technology you've Dr. Frankensteined is.
As for erotic shots -- this contest is a site obviously being visited by girls of all ages. I think, in the cause of encouraging our budding and future girl geeks, we can keep this site clean of censorable content.
Personally, I quite like the calendar photo that was submitted (periodic table shower curtain). The photo is a bit more erotic than I'd prefer seeing here, but the geek content is clear and the photo is quite good. However, many of the other photos have no such redeeming artistry and no more geek content than Sadie Hawkins.
What I really like are the pictures of girls/women really getting into their science, really showing some originality or innovation. I especially like Pheobe's trilobite-eye view, and the oceanographer acting out a character from her child's own science-based story. I am simultaneously grossed out and drawn to the cow surgery prep photo. And Becky Chambers has a great shot -- though hers may actually be more along the lines of techno-mage.
Largely, though, it's hard to tell from many of the photos what the person is doing or what geek qualities they have at all. That's where the descriptions come in handy. Original Trek with a communicator would get more of a vote from me if it talked about her mocking up her own communicator from household materials, or if she researched the costume and made it herself from totally authentic materials. The 1337 meter photo definitely deserves to be in the running -- that's enough of an in-joke to need the description.
Do you get my gist? Show and tell us what makes you a geek, how you are beyond the ordinary and mundane, your uncommon qualities.
As for Leah Grasso -- her picture is definitely geeky. But the costume is only the final touch. Without the setting it wouldn't have worked. Check it out -- Japanime, Trek stuff, dinosaurs, overstuffed closet in obviously small quarters, low-budget furniture and phone, books and other intelliclutter everywhere -- decidedly real-life geek decor. Clearly her geekhood shines.
I'd vote for Anastasia Becker. Sci-fi geekery meets costuming and sewing geekery? Not bad on the eyes, either!Hats off to all of the geeky girls who submitted photos.
Geek Snobbery = No
Anyway, for what it's worth, my money is on Monica. What can I say? I'm a sucker for Cthulhu and plaid skirts.
Anyway, I don't understand the point of all these people leaving negative comments about some of the people in these photos. Frankly, the desire to be called a geek is pretty geeky in itself. I don't know why people have to put down others just because they don't belong to the same type of geek-dom.
As for myself, there happen to be many facets to my geekiness, but I felt that this particular picture of me as Lt. Uhurah from Star Trek embodied me as a whole. I enjoy hard core science fiction. The fact that I die for stories that use uber cool futuristic technology and take place in outer space (omigosh, way cool) isn't geeky enough for you? Geez, lighten up.
Please though, stop putting down other people's pictures. If they think they're a geek, that should be good enough for you. It doesn't matter if you hate macs or whatever. I applaud all of the pictures up here, many of which I think are wayyy better than mine. Kudos especially to all the little geek girls up on this page. Keep it real, girlies.
All of the girls here are awesome!
Being a Trekkie doesn't make you a geek. That makes you a TV-show groupie, abut the same level as my grandmother was with her "stories" (soap operas). Many geeks happen to be trekkies, but many others are not.
Taking your computer out to public locations doesn't make you a geek. That makes you either someone bidding for attention, or a recluse trying to masquerade as someone cool.
Flashing erotic pictures of yourself is, quite frankly, boring, and leaves nothing to the imagination. Flashing tantalizing aspects of your mind and persona are intriguing and enticing.
Mentioning Mensa membership won't win you points with everyone -- many of us who qualify don't join because of the snobbish aspect exibited by the members we have met (at a membership campaign, yet). Just like all societies and religions, Mensa has its good and lousy representatives. Just be aware that many of them have been giving Mensa a bad name.
And high intelligence doesn't make you a geek.
What makes a geek is being so involved in a science (yes, even a social science) that it permeates your everyday lifestyle (by choice). You can't separate it from the rest of your life -- you live, eat, and breathe your topics.
But the true, lifelong, fullfilled geeks are also more than geeks. They have lives outside of their science, they interact with non-geeks. They are not hermits or recluses. They are fully-rounded people who inspire the inner geek in everyone.
You've got some shining examples of women and girl geeks here -- gals of all ages that epitomize what it is to be a geek. I for one would like to see a list of finalists, the ones you feel are the true representation of female geekness.
On Laurie Miller -- my top choice. You also need to know she's pursuing her PhD in Electrical Engineering, to do some incomprehensible stuff with major power grids (if I even understood part of her explaination correctly a while back), understands her strange sister's compulsive anal retentiveness and fixation with Ganesha, and recently rejoiced to get her dream Valentine's Day present (from her geek bro-in-law) -- rare earth magnets, so she can make little motors. Personally I think she should have posted a pic of her in her duct tape ('scuse me, "race tape")-modified gown at her Master's Graduation. Or at least decked out in the rare earth magnets when she wore them as jewelry to class the other day.
because she wears glasses and enjoys computers and works at a computer store. she also sent this link out to her friends, and we all know that promoting one's geekdom is a fairly geeky thing to do!
Also, I promise, I'm not at all a model or non-geek in nerds clothing. I'm a video game designer, I'm a member of MENSA, I run a Call of Cthulhu RPG campaign, and my house is a museum of Transformers toys. My pedigree is pure geek! Honest!
Julia
Right now I'm going to have to say my top three picks for the real geek girls here are(in no particular order);
Dana J. Parker - working for IBM before computers were really mainstream is such a 'geek' thing, but it still shows her awesomeness as a person
Paula Gross - I have been humbled by such a perfect representation or a nerd in her natural environment.
Laurie E. Miller - Building a solar powered car and creaming the competition in Japan, you own.
Also, there's two of them. Twice the girly geeky goodness!
I want to send in my submission, but Anne's mailbox is full!
And I still nominate Morgan Webb.
She's simply a fellow geeks' dream come true. I Apple Logo(tm), you Melissa!!!
i am humbled.
However... a bar going, powerbook toting, elastigirl is the geek girl of my dreams. Melissa Snyder gets my vote.
And People say science is boring
Keep up the wonderful geekyness
So, for completely obliterating the geek-comfort bubble by saying "fuck cafe's, I wanna geek it up in a bar". I must go with MELISSA SNYDER, no question.
She is a true Geekette from a short line of True Geeks.
i love it. It will be so tough to decide on a winner but Valory Thatcher gets my vote. I think I might transfer to Mt. Hood.Great photos, keep 'em comin'!
Why?
Elastigirl + Mac User + Bar-goer. What else could you want?
go geek girls!!