Sarah Habibi
@science.bae
Dr. Sarah Habibi, Ph.D. in molecular biology, originally started her Science Bae platform to give insight into her day-to-day work as a graduate student at Ontario Tech University in Oshawa. In sharing her work, alongside the honest highs and lows of grad school, Sarah has earned an impressive and ever-growing following
Now, as a full-time science communicator and digital content creator with more than 23,000 and 133,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok respectively, Sarah represents household brands like Vicks and Olay and continues to be a highly sought-after public speaker.
As an Ontario Certified Teacher (OCT) with years of teaching and curriculum development experience, her family-friendly experiments and teachings are effectively designed to be both educational and engaging. And as an advocate for STEAM (which incorporates the arts into STEM), Sarah says “I’ve always liked to incorporate art into my work, and art sparks creativity, imagination and thinking outside of the box, and all of those things are really important for all of the disciplines in STEM. I think art is the discipline that ties everything together.”
As a new mom, Sarah’s looking forward to exciting new content and being able to share science and sensory experiments with her young son, all while releasing a new merch line and writing for her recently signed book deal.
As she says, “You just really have to take the plunge sometimes. Don’t shut out an opportunity just because you’re scared, try it first!”
Favourite message for kids?
A quote that I use all the time is, “Never close a door that you haven’t tried walking through.”
Who was your biggest influence growing up? My dad (a retired high school biology teacher!).
Favourite hobby?
Yoga.
Favourite local restaurant?
Avanti’s in Oshawa.
Favourite outdoor activity in the region?
I love camping.
Stereotype that needs to end?
That you can’t be girly in science.
What do you love about science?
Creativity.
Favourite speech you’ve given?
My first — a TEDx talk in my final year of university.
Favourite part about social media? How you’re able to connect with people all over the world.
Least favourite part?
The negativity that comes along with it.
Your proudest moment?
Giving birth to my son in January 2022.
Favourite season?
Spring.
Something on your bucket list? My husband and I want to travel Asia.
Who do you admire?
An inspiration for me is Emily Calandrelli (@thespacegal).
Epic experiment gone wrong?
I was going to be on a morning show and I quickly tried the experiment before I was going to go on and it didn’t work. I had to quickly change some stuff up!
Best way to de-stress?
I love my reality TV.
Connect with Spark
Twitter: @spark_centre
Instagram: @spark_centre
LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/company/spark-centre
sparkcentre.org
