And as a stand-up comic, she must do that every time she steps on stage.
Now, she is combining her two careers, taking the skills she’s learned on stage and bringing them to her fellow researchers. Together with two colleagues — researcher Myeshia Shelby and comic Kelsie Huff — Copeland-Hardin created “Reading and Working the Room,” a free-to-use workshop and curriculum that teaches scientists in similar situations to use on-stage techniques to better engage with the communities they’re researching.
Copeland-Hardin has been drawn to the world of comedy since she was a child — she even listed “stand-up comedian” as her future career of choice in her school yearbook as a 9-year-old. However, it was not until 2019, after nearly 10 years as a researcher, that she indulged that dream.
“I started comedy to cope with a lot of the stress and isolation that I felt in graduate school,” she said.
Though her two careers may seem unrelated, “Reading and Working the Room” shows how they intersect. Much of Copeland-Hardin’s work involves community-engaged research, which brings together researchers and community members and places them on equal footing.
“You work with community instead of on communities,” Copeland-Hardin said. And given that she and her colleagues often work with Chicago communities that have been “historically harmed” by scientists, she said, “the trust-building process is important and required.”
On stage, Copeland-Hardin (who performs under the name LT) is an expert at winning over an audience. In September, she appeared as part of The Lincoln Lodge’s Future of Comedy Festival. Early in her set, she asked the crowd, “Y’all are familiar with Froot Loops, right?” This simple question turned her monologue into a conversation, inviting the audience to be a part of the show.
There was an ease to her performance that belied how intricately the jokes were woven together. She introduced complicated scientific topics, but her audience, once invited into her world, was more than willing to listen to a story about dissecting the brain of a fruit fly. And once she delivered the punchline (which is worth hearing, unspoiled, in person), the crowd was ready to follow her anywhere.
She hopes the curriculum can help her fellow researchers borrow techniques like building audience trust in order to address what she feels is a meaningful gap in scientific training: Researchers know how to communicate with academic audiences, but not necessarily with the general public. The curriculum makes it plain that not every research conversation needs to be funny in and of itself; but by using the stage savoir-faire explained throughout the workshop to personally engage those they address, researchers can repair the trust lost in some of these communities and walk away with better, clearer data.
“Reading and Working the Room” is designed as a workshop curriculum anyone can teach or read on their own.
“Anyone who is interested can go to the link (at zenodo.org) … and they can download the slides,” she said. “They can download the facilitator’s guide.”
She credits Research!America for providing the initial funding, as they were specifically looking for curricula that addressed a gap in scientific training as it relates to public engagement.
“As scientists, it is our responsibility to share our information with the public,” Copeland-Hardin said.
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Which, at her core, is why Copeland-Hardin entered both of her fields.
“I have a strong desire to connect,” she said.
And be it with an audience, her community, or even a fruit fly, Copeland-Hardin always finds ways to do just that.