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Dr. Danika LeDuc is a Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Cal State East Bay and serves as Associate Dean for the College of Science. Trained as a biochemist, her work has expanded into toxicology and the bioremediation of metals, reflecting a deep commitment to addressing environmental challenges through science.

Her path into chemistry was not linear. Initially interested in genetics and environmental engineering, she ultimately found her place in chemistry through coursework that challenged and inspired her. Along the way, mentorship and unexpected opportunities played a critical role in shaping her career—including a postdoctoral experience that led her into environmental research.

Beyond her research, Dr. LeDuc is deeply invested in teaching and faculty development. She has led STEM faculty learning programs that encourage educators to rethink how students experience science, emphasizing active learning, sensemaking, and engagement. Her work centers on creating more equitable and accessible pathways for students to participate in research and succeed in STEM.

At the heart of her approach is a belief that science education is not just about training future scientists—it’s about empowering people to think critically, stay curious, and engage thoughtfully with the world.

Learn more about Danika

Resources & Opportunities

Looking to explore science beyond the classroom? Check out these organizations and spaces around the Bay Area:

Research & Campus Resources

• HOST Lab (CSU East Bay): /hostlab

Outdoor & Environmental Learning

• Peninsula Open Space Trust:

• East Bay Regional Park District:

• California State Parks:

• Fitzgerald Marine Reserve:

Science Centers & Museums

• Exploratorium:

• Chabot Space & Science Center:

• Lawrence Hall of Science:

• The Tech Interactive:

• Computer History Museum:

Rethinking How We Learn Science: Teaching, access, and the future of STEM education

[00:00:00] Carmen: This is Science Stories from Cal State East Bay, a podcast where scientists come together in human conversation. In each episode, we share what sparks our guests’ interest in science and what they're doing now at Cal State Bay through research, classroom experiences, industry, and culture, from students to faculty to alumni.

These are the voices shaping science in the Bay Area and at Cal State East Bay.

Welcome to Science Stories from Cal State East Bay. I'm your host, Carmen Bustos-Works, and today's guest is Dr. Danika LeDuc, a scientist, educator, and academic leader. Dr. LeDuc is a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at ºÚÁϸ£ÀûÍø East Bay, where she also serves as Associate Dean for the College of Science.

Over her career. She has also served as an associate dean for the Institute for STEM Education and as a principal investigator and co-principal investigator on numerous externally funded projects here at East Bay. She earned her bachelor's degree in chemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her PhD in biochemistry from UC Berkeley, where she also served as a postdoctoral fellow.

Danika is a trained biochemist and has expanded her research into toxicology and bioremediation of metals. She has brought her expertise into the classroom and into faculty development. Danika has led STEM faculty learning program designed to help professors get back into the seat of the learner.

These programs invite faculty to rethink how students experience science, emphasizing active learning. Sensemaking and engagement rather than passive absorbance. At the core of all of this is a genuine care for people, students, local teachers, and faculty alike. Danika combines intellectual rigor with humility, curiosity, and a deep commitment to improving how science is taught and learned.

She understands that strong science education isn't just about producing future scientists. It's about empowering people to think critically. Ask better questions and engage thoughtfully with the world. I'm excited for my conversation today with Danika LeDuc, and for a chance to hear her science story, how she came to this work, and why it continues to matter to her.

Thank you and welcome, Danika. So I wanna start by going back a bit. Before your titles or your degrees or your career ambitions, and I was wondering if you could share a childhood memory or an early experience with science that shaped how you think or feel about science today.

[00:03:05] Danika: Thank you Carmen. Actually, I think one thing that stands out to me about my childhood from a science perspective is that I spent a lot of time outdoors, and I was very lucky to have some woods and some fields behind my house and a creek, and we were just, me and all the neighborhood kids would just be playing in them all the time. And of course, that gives you lots of questions like, why are these trees bark this color? And why are these leaves this color? And why are these animals here? We would capture animals. Yes. And we released them. Don't worry, and I think that was for me, where it all started. It also happened to be, our house was actually on what used to be a dump, which was a great thing because you could do archeological digs when you did your vegetable garden.

So that's what I remember a lot. I also really loved reading. And I was also very fortunate to be able to go to a summer camp starting when I was eight, that actually let you go to a college and work in an actual chemistry lab. And I think that's what got me really excited because, chemistry, which I became a chemist, lets you play safely with fire and liquid nitrogen and make things change color, and that just sounded really cool.

[00:04:34] Carmen: Oh, that's amazing. When you think about those memories now, and you think about where we're at in the East Bay, do you see some of those opportunities for kids in these bigger urban cities to really. Look at some of these natural phenomena and think, why is that leaf turning a different color?

[00:04:55] Danika: Yeah, I do.

I think that, you know, it's a different time, so people aren't playing unsupervised like I used to back in the eighties. But there are amazing nature places, and we have so many different micro ecosystems just in the Bay Area. And when I think about it, you can go to the tide pools, you can go to the redwood forest.

You can go to grasslands, you can see different geological formations. And we're really fortunate, I think, in the state of California that so much of this land has been set aside and is publicly accessible. But you do have to do a little research to know where it is and perhaps get transportation there.

On the other hand, the fact that there are so many different types of ecosystems so close is actually a really rich opportunity to ask those kinds of questions.

[00:05:56] Carmen: I also think with kids being able to directly touch things is a really good entry point for science. I know sometimes as chemists and physicists, we might struggle a little bit to, when we have college students to really get them to think about things that are more abstract, where biology sometimes.

It's a little bit easier because you can touch and feel things and I think taking those things that you can touch and feel and then kind of pulling on the abstract will be a nice way to get students to think more abstractly as well.

[00:06:31] Danika: Oh, definitely. And, I think that kids should touch more things and maybe get dirty a little bit more.

I just, that's, that's how you learn when you're a young child and that is your entry point into science, I think for sure.

[00:06:47] Carmen: And I'm really hopeful with the Green Biome Center that we have on our campus, and for our listeners, we'll probably explain that in future episodes, but we're gonna have a botanical garden out in front of our science building.

And, I think back to the arboretum in Golden Gate Park and different ways you can walk around and look at plants. And we're hoping to expand that into an edible garden as well. And I think all the things you're saying really makes me think about different ways our students can dig in the dirt and think about pH, think about soil, think about water.

Yeah, it'll be really amazing to have those living, learning opportunities and then be able to have the community come and tour it as well.

[00:07:29] Danika: Definitely. I mean, I think anytime you get to grow something, it's a great experiment, so.

[00:07:36] Carmen: Well, when, when did you realize that science might be something that you wanted to study seriously?

And what led you to the field that you chose? So was it this one isolated opportunity when you got to go to this camp and study chemistry? Where you locked in at that point? Or were there other, um, lived experiences that maybe you had along the way?

[00:07:59] Danika: Yeah. It's interesting that you asked that because I didn't actually start college as a chemistry major, so that was an experience I had, but it wasn't a straight path. Actually, I don't know, I probably was about seven when I started getting really into genetics.

[00:08:18] Carmen: Oh, wow.

[00:08:19] Danika: I know my mom taught me about Punnett squares, and I just thought that was really cool that, you know, how some, because my sister and brother have blue eyes and I have brown eyes, and they're fraternal twins. And that whole genetics thing was super interesting to me, and I thought that's what I was gonna do.

But when I was in high school, I got really involved in being very concerned about our environment and the planet, and I thought, this is where I want to go. This is what I wanna do. I want to not be a, a net negative to the planet. And so I actually started as an environmental engineering major, which was an interesting choice.

But I was advised by one of my professors, he actually wrote a letter to me, a handwritten letter to me that I received over the summer, encouraging me to study either chemistry or biology because he felt like I was a person that needed to go deep into problems. And engineering is, at least at the undergrad level, you study lots of different things, but you don't deeply study one thing. I think I appreciated that insight into myself.

And so in my sophomore year, I took genetics and also organic and physical chemistry. And I'm gonna be honest, I don't like my genetics class. In fact, the poor guy, he killed a bunch of fruit flies in the middle of class. I don't know, it just, the way they taught biology classes didn't work for me, but I loved how they taught organic chemistry and physical chemistry. Like it, it wasn't easy, but it somehow made sense to me.

And I started putting those pieces together, and that's when I decided to go into chemistry because from a chemistry major, I felt like that was a place that I could contribute to the environment.

[00:10:19] Carmen: That's a really interesting story. It's, it reminds me when I was an undergrad, and I loved biology, and I started taking chemistry, and I loved chemistry, and then I took biochemistry, and I didn't like it, and I thought, how weird I would think, I would love those two things put together. So it's funny how you have these con concepts of what a course will be like, and if it doesn't quite play out that way, it can really turn your whole trajectory in a different direction.

[00:10:53] Danika: Yeah, no, I definitely, and I tried sitting, like taking other biology classes, and I sat in on some, even when I was in grad school, and it was just like the delivery of it just didn't work for me, but I felt like I needed that knowledge and those skills. So I tried to, and I did work in labs where I gained skills that were important in biology, in the study of biology.

And so, I think that was a good mix for me. I liked working in the biology labs. I just didn't like the biology classes.

[00:11:28] Carmen: Well, it's interesting 'cause I've noticed that genetics is one of these classes. That students struggle in.

[00:11:34] Danika: Yeah. Yeah. Mm mm

[00:11:36] Carmen: And when I was at Humboldt, it was something we talked a lot about that one particular genetics class, and I know since I've gotten to East Bay, there's also been conversations about genetics.

And so it's so important. I wonder, later on, we'll have conversations about maybe how those courses might be redesigned to really reach more people so that everybody can be successful in that course, and it ends up being a bottleneck at an upper division level if we're not careful, because we're requiring it now for most biology majors.

[00:12:13] Danika: Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm-hmm. That's true.

[00:12:15] Carmen: Mm-hmm. So, um, so going back to your lived experiences, can you share thoughts on your career path that you're, that you took off on, and thinking about those lived experiences, things that influenced that pathway, and it sounds like you've had these, um teachers that really took an interest in you and reached out to you, that probably shaped where you were going.

And in reflecting on that, what else do you hope to accomplish?

[00:12:47] Danika: That's a lot of questions, but they're good questions. I guess for me, yeah, I wish that I was a person that had like a five-year a 10-year, and a 15-year plan, but that's never been me. I kind of see when opportunities come up, and they seem like they fit.

I tend to try them out, and that's actually worked for me pretty well. The reason I went to Berkeley was I wanted to leave the East Coast. I had grown up there, and I wanted to have a different experience. And the other reason was Berkeley for grad school is the biggest chemistry program in the world.

So I figured since I don't know what I wanna do, I should be able to find something I wanna do there. And I did, I worked on biophysical chemistry. I worked on proteins actually, that have to do with how the flu virus infects us, which was, I realized, very far from the environment. But it was something that was really interesting to me at that time, which was protein structure and dynamics.

But things didn't quite work out the way I wanted. My advisor didn't get tenure. He left, and I was kind of at a point where I could finish if I wrote really fast, which I did, but I didn't land on my feet for my postdoc the way I thought I would. And that was because someone didn't get a grant to fund me.

So long story short, I had worked, or sorry, volunteered for a program for special needs kids in an aquatics program teaching them how to swim. And this was something I did outside of my lab and teaching work. And someone there was like, oh, we're hiring in my lab and we work on phytoremediation and we could use a chemist and a biochemist.

And I was like, wow. That's a total departure from what I've done, but okay, I'm gonna give it a shot. And I did. And so that is what I did for my postdoc, and that's the research I brought with me to East Bay, looking at mainly metal and metalloid accumulation in plants and how that affects the environment.

So in terms of teaching, that's something I've always wanted to do. So I'm really happy that I was able to find a faculty position and work at a place that values teaching as much as Cal State East Bay does. I love working with the students and the faculty and the staff. It's a really welcoming and warm place.

My goals for the future are really to make that experience a reality for as many students as possible. So I feel that I had a lot of lucky opportunities, and I'd like to make those opportunities more structured for more people. So it's not just a matter of circumstance if you happen to get to know a professor and they happen to help you, but that's just the norm for most of our students.

That's what I would like to do and the rest of my time here at East Bay.

[00:16:04] Carmen: I love that. I think that's so important. And I'll just call it that equity piece, right? Because there's, for a long time, if you wanted undergraduate experiences or you had research experiences, you had to really find the professor, go and talk to them, hopefully get into the lab.

I can remember at San Francisco State getting turned down. Which might be another reason I didn't like biochemistry, biochemist. My labs all filled up, and the inorganic chemist took me in, and I was very appreciative of that. So I think that's really admirable and, I think we need to really switch that dynamic, so everybody can have those opportunities if we're, especially if we want to continue to have the best scientists and access to science. People need to get into the labs and be able to do that type of research. I'm curious, since you said you al always wanted to be a teacher, when you were, you had, I don't know if, are your brother and sister younger?

[00:17:14] Danika: Yes.

[00:17:15] Carmen: Did you ever? I have a younger cousin, and I can remember making her play school.

[00:17:21] Danika: Oh, they played a lot of school. They had no choice. Most definitely when we weren't allowed outside 'cause I grew up in Massachusetts, so there were days where you didn't wanna play outside. Inside time was school.

School time for them.

[00:17:37] Carmen: And I can remember as a child loving, you know, we didn't have as much stuff when I was a kid, but like the sticky notes, we didn't have those, you know, but any office supply. I could get my hands on. I would try and set things up, and then my cousin, I would make her play school. I don't think she loved it as much as I did.

[00:17:57] Danika: Well, my sister became a teacher so, and my brother did teach for a while, so I guess we all did a little bit of it.

[00:18:03] Carmen: Oh, how fun. Well, okay. I got a couple more questions here for you. When you talk with students, and you and I have talked about this too, when you talk to your kids, and we talk to students, you know, things are changing, the landscape is changing, and this always happens, right?

I'm sure I probably sound like the old fogey now, like when I was a kid, but I find myself giving advice at least to my own children, especially, but I also feel obligated to give advice to our students. Do you think about that when you're talking to our students these days? What kind of advice you want to give them? What kind of advice do you give them about college? About studying science, about careers or just about, I feel like right now in college, our students don't have the privilege and the luxury to just have fun. We're putting a lot of pressure on them. To be finished and get a job.

[00:19:11] Danika: Yeah. I, I totally agree with you, Carmen.

And it's challenging to have those conversations because I can understand why people feel that pressure and why they wanna just plug in and know that everything's gonna be safe if they just do this and get this job. But I feel by sharing my story, like there were times where I didn't know what I was doing and I was kind of lost.

And what has always helped me is just being open to trying something new and taking a chance. And I think when I was younger, I mean, I was definitely nervous about that, but as I've gotten older, I keep gaining those experiences is like, well, you didn't know what you were doing, you went out, you gave it your best, and it turned out well.

So it's okay to not be good at something right off the bat. It's okay. I mean, in full transparency, I got like a C on my first organic chemistry test 'cause I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know what the guy was doing on the board, but. I was like, well, let's keep trying. Let's figure it out.

And I did, and so I just guess don't give up on yourself, and also the kinds of jobs you're gonna do in 30 years from when you graduate. And this isn't just me, this is the world. There's very little connection between what you major in and anything after your first or second job. The skills that you need are skills that you develop as you mature as an adult, as you learn more problem-solving and team building, and these things. So I guess my advice is study what you love and take those opportunities to challenge yourself when they're there.

[00:21:10] Carmen: Yeah, I agree. It's, it's interesting. The pressure that the students put on themselves these days, and that we're putting on them as a society.

But I love that study what you love, and things will work out, and I think we've seen that regardless of your approach, if it's the liberal arts or the sciences, by doing that, you end up getting to the place where you're the happiest, hopefully.

[00:21:40] Danika: Yeah, I think so. And I do really believe in the concept of lifelong learning.

I mean, we all have these amazing brains in our heads that have the capacity to do so many things so to limit ourselves to just a single occupation or a single discipline, I'm not, I don't think that's the right fit for most people. And I would hope that they have a life that has many aspects to it and that they, that they take the opportunities to learn different things while they're in college, but also beyond.

[00:22:17] Carmen: So when students ask you about that, 'cause we have a couple ways we structure our curriculum, right? We have general education, and then we have the major piece of it. And it's been my experience that sometimes our science students will push back on that general education part. What advice do you give students when they do that?

Knowing that you're dedicated to lifelong learning and that exposure to the other topics is probably a good thing?

[00:22:49] Danika: Yeah, I can think back to some of the conversations I had, and some students fully still value their love of art, their love of music, I think, and they continue to pursue that.

But I do think that some people feel, well, if I'm gonna be a science major or an engineering major, that has to be my life, and I have to dedicate myself solely to that. I just try to give them examples where that's totally not true, and that actually spending time with your brain doing something totally different is actually better for your career and for learning.

You shouldn't always be just studying science, because you need to develop in different ways. By sharing with students like my interest in art, my interest in music, that I studied Latin, I mean like, all the random things in politics and all the random things that I studied in college, and since then, my interests have continued.

They're like, oh yeah, I used to like art when I was a kid, and I'm like well you still can do art even though you're like, even though you're a biology major. And they're like, yeah, maybe I can. And so I think that's partially our fault as a discipline or a career that we make people think that being a scientist or an engineer means you're like up at the crack of dawn just working on problems, um, the whole day.

And that's really no one's reality. Even Einstein was a musician, so.

[00:24:36] Carmen: Yeah, and it makes me, you know, people too have told me, oh, you're, you're a chemist, you're so smart, but I am creative.

[00:24:44] Danika: Yeah. That also is an odd, odd sentence to say because I think scientists are also creative people.

[00:24:52] Carmen: Yeah.

[00:24:54] Danika: And other people are smart too.

[00:24:55] Carmen: Like exactly, exactly right. This whole right brain versus left brain, and you're not a math person or you are a math person. Instead of that growth mindset really limiting or chunking out different pathways, it's interesting. And when you go back to the curriculum, oh, I just wanna get that GE out of the way.

Yeah, I'll just take that one over the summer or push that one aside as if they're putting a value on it.

[00:25:29] Danika: No, they definitely, definitely, I do try to, I try to push back on that because one of the beautiful things about going to college is that you can experience different ways of thought, hopefully, and be able to look at things from perspectives that you hadn't before.

And so for me, like an example is. I was very, and I mean I still am, I guess, very anti-war that like when I entered college, I was a very environmental pacifist type of person, and I think I still am, but I took the causes and prevention of war, which I thought was an amazing class because it forced me to think about what are the structural dynamics that lead us to these conflicts and these situations and I had just had a totally different view of how of, of the world based on taking that class. And I would never have taken that class if I didn't have to, you know, meet some GE bucket requirement.

[00:26:36] Carmen: Oh, that's interesting. So after you took that class, were you more anti-war or was it?

[00:26:44] Danika: I dunno that it changed me in that way, but what it did was it helped me understand more like how the capitalist industrialism leads to a situation that continues to foment more. So, even though we see our society as being more technologically progressive, at the same time we are not eliminating the very basic causes that cause conflict between human populations.

So, that I think is a tension for people because we see people becoming more hopefully empathetic, and understanding, and culturally diverse but at the same time, we're causing these huge, resource differentials, and that always leads to war.

[00:27:34] Carmen: Yeah, that's amazing. And I. I know college has lately been having to really justify their bottom line, what's the return on investment?

And I think some of the pieces missing from that conversation, especially with the return on investment, is that part of the growth of the lifelong learning, of being exposed to different ways of thinking and developing different ways of thinking. And I don't know how to put a bottom line on that, but I think we could get better as educators.

With that messaging, you're going to have an experience here that's hopefully changes your life and helps you think critically and not necessarily in one way or the other, but that we really want people to think in a variety, have a exposure to a variety of different ways of thought as they develop their trajectory for life.

And sure, you can do all that stuff without a college education. Me personally, I love the structure. Right? Like you said, if that hadn't happened, maybe you wouldn't have thought of take picking up that book or studying that on the internet or finding that pathway. And it's great to see someone like Goodwill Hunting, you know, who picked up every library book.

But in reality, to have those structured pieces, I think are still at a lot of value.

[00:28:53] Danika: Yeah, I totally agree with you, Carmen. I mean, I think I'm constantly amazed how lucky I am to work in a university setting, and that concept of bringing a passion and excitement for all different fields of learning is something unique to a higher education environment.

So yes, there's lots of ways to learn things on the internet, but it's really amazing to have those people right next to you who are having those conversations and thinking those thoughts and reading those books and willing to talk to you about it.

[00:29:27] Carmen: Yeah, I totally agree.

[00:29:31] Carmen: Well, thinking about challenges here, especially for higher education, but also, you know, each generation has its own challenge. I'm sure if we went back to when we were in college, there were challenges that we had. But when you think about five years ahead of now, and so let's take our typical college student, and I know at East Bay we don't have typical college students necessarily, but we'll just take that as a hypothetical.

They usually have a four to five, maybe four to six-year trajectory when they enter college. And so if you look ahead at five years the first year students that are finishing their spring semester right now, they'll be graduating. What challenges do you see for education and for science in that time?

[00:30:23] Danika: Yeah, I think. I think right now it's kind of what it is is more that things are changing really quickly, and maybe people feel that all the time, I don't know, but I do think with the advent of AI there's a lot of positives happening, but there's a lot of unknown, and I think that the employment landscape is, is going to be different by the time these students graduate and by different, I mean, they're gonna be asked to maybe adapt faster, to a changing environment work environments. I think I would expect the work environment to be even more global, and so being an adaptable person and being able to work in diverse environments is actually going to be really important.

Maybe even more so than it is now, and then I guess for science, I'm hoping that the pendulum will swing back. What I mean by that is that there'll be more, federal interest in particular with supporting through grant mechanisms, through postdoctoral fellowships, through graduate fellowships, for instance, for students to really dig into the problems.

I think that climate change in particular, is going to become, and water scarcity and water quality, those are all things that aren't being solved, at least not as a rate that's going to make those problems go away in five years. So the more students we can get that are interested in that and willing to work in multidisciplinary teams on those problems and having the support of the state and federal government, and maybe even internationally, I think is gonna make a big difference.

[00:32:33] Carmen: I agree. I think those interdisciplinary teams, Danika, are especially going to be important for our students, and I think that'll be a really good challenge for us as educators and leaders in education to think about how to encourage those interdisciplinary teams. 'Cause part of that will be the scientific solutions, or even just understanding the science, but then the policies that need to be put in place are gonna come from a different area. And since we live in a capitalist society, the business solutions as well, and the climate pieces as we've seen already with more hurricanes and more tornadoes. Those, like you said, in the next five years are probably gonna get worse. And I worried about diseases.

[00:33:31] Danika: And that was the next thing I was gonna go to. Yes. Outbreaks. Yeah.

[00:33:36] Carmen: Different outbreaks. We're already seeing a lot of measles outbreaks, and I don't know if you remember this. God, this must have been eight years ago when we had Ebola come to the United States.

I was so scared.

[00:33:51] Danika: Yeah.

[00:33:52] Carmen: I, uh, of course I've read all these books like biohazard level four, you know, and virus books, and sometimes maybe we're too educated 'cause we've read a lot about how viruses work. And so when Ebola came, I was really worried, but luckily we were able to contain it. And if we don't have structures in place based on sound policy, which is based on science, that could have gone a different direction.

[00:34:20] Danika: Oh, most definitely. And I mean, even more recently, I mean, it wasn't so much of a human disease, but bird flu, I mean, that's why your eggs were so expensive, right? Like it affects everybody, I mean, we are a global society now, and I'm not sure that without interdisciplinary teams we'll be able to make any progress on any of these types of problems.

[00:34:48] Carmen: Yeah, and I think we hopefully we'll have that conversation with the faculty at East Bay about how can we do better there.

[00:34:58] Danika: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:58] Carmen: Okay. Well. I wanna switch a little bit and go a little bit more into hope and optimism.

Danika: Okay, great. Because there's a lot of really great things going on. There's great things going on in the Bay Area. There's great things going on in East Bay, and so I wonder what gives you hope and optimism about the future, about coming to work every day. What keeps you going?

[00:35:25] Danika: Yeah, those are good questions.

Also, I'm glad we're going to positive things. You know, as somebody who's always loved learning, I mean, it is amazing to me to see how easy it is to access information for younger people if they want it. So when they get inspired, when they love something, when they're passionate about something, they're able to throw themselves into it in a way that I don't think was possible when we were that age, because they can just look it up on YouTube. Like there aren't these barriers to information in the same way that there used to be, so that is very exciting and I see when people are inspired, they can take something and run with it, and that's just amazing.

Also just the connect easily to connect with other people that have similar interests to you, I think is really important because you don't feel necessarily as alone in your interests. I love coming to East Bay because I see people with passion, students, faculty, and staff, um, that really want to do something good for the world. And I, something that I've been saying to myself a lot lately is there's a lot of chaos right now. There's a lot of negativity. So when we have the opportunity to do something that legitimately helps people, we should do it. And I think that at East Bay I've never had a shortage of opportunities to help people, from, you know, finding them a fork and some food to helping write a grant proposal, whatever it is. That's the culture around here that I've had since I started, and I don't see that dissipating, even amidst, you know, the turmoil outside I feel here it's generally a space where people genuinely want to make an authentic difference in other people’s lives and feel a community. I feel that's true a lot, I mean even more broadly in the Bay Area, but this is where I spent a lot of my time. So, that's the community I feel I can support.

[00:37:58] Carmen: That's wonderful and I do wanna say that you do help people every day. I see that, and you work so hard, and it's such important work, and I am so appreciative of all the things you do, and I'm so glad you got to come on my podcast, and we got to talk about science and I'm really glad to hear your science story at Cal State East Bay.

[00:38:17] Danika: Thank you, Carmen. This was a lot of fun and one of those situations where I don't think I normally would've done this, but I'm glad you asked me. Thank you.

[00:38:32] Carmen: Thank you.

Science stories from Cal State East Bay. Discover, Learn, and Belong.

00:00:00 — Intro + Podcast overview
00:00:35 — Guest introduction: Dr. Danika LeDuc
00:03:05 — Childhood experiences with science (nature, curiosity, early lab exposure)
00:04:34 — Access to nature in urban environments
00:05:56 — Hands-on learning and early science engagement
00:06:47 — Green Biome Center + experiential learning at East Bay
00:07:36 — Choosing a path in science (early interests → chemistry)
00:10:19 — Course experiences shaping academic direction
00:11:28 — Challenges with teaching/learning styles (biology vs chemistry)
00:12:15 — Genetics as a bottleneck course discussion
00:12:47 — Career path, mentorship, and opportunities
00:16:04 — Equity in research opportunities for students
00:17:14 — Early interest in teaching (childhood “playing school”)
00:19:11 — Advice to students: uncertainty, resilience, and exploration
00:21:10 — Studying what you love + lifelong learning
00:22:17 — Value of general education (GE) courses
00:25:29 — Broader perspectives gained through GE (example: war studies class)
00:28:53 — Value of higher education beyond ROI
00:29:31 — Future challenges: AI, workforce changes, adaptability
00:32:33 — Climate change, water issues, and interdisciplinary science
00:33:31 — Disease outbreaks and public health concerns
00:34:48 — Importance of interdisciplinary collaboration
00:34:58 — Shift to optimism and hope
00:35:25 — Access to information + student opportunity today
00:36:30 — Community and purpose at Cal State East Bay
00:37:58 — Closing reflections and appreciation
00:38:32 — Outro: “Discover, Learn, and Belong”