As many of you know, Tuesday is Ada Lovelace Day where science bloggers are encouraged to "write a blog post about your STEM heroine". (I'll leave the rant about the use of heroine vs hero for another time). So last week I was thinking about who to write about and Danielle Lee came to mind. Danielle is awesome- she is, as she says, "A hip hop maven [who] blogs on urban ecology, evolutionary biology & diversity in the science." She is also a researcher who studies animal behavior from multiple perspectives and has made even me interested in rat behavior, which is no easy task (middle school flashback- the rat scene in Orwell's 1984 eiiiiiiiiiiiiiii).

So if she can get me interested in rat research- imagine what she is doing for kids. Or better yet find out -follow her at The Urban Scientist.

So that was supposed to be the end of my post but then Friday, Danielle did something that made me admire her even more. She was asked if she would be interested in being a guest blogger, for free, at biology-online.org. She politely refused. The response she got was "Because we don't pay for blog entries? Are you an urban scientist or an urban whore?"

Yup he asked her if she was a whore. Her response, bless her. was to call him out publicly both on You Tube and in her blog which is one of the Scientific American blogs. Right there is no link there- want to know why? The editor-in-chief (first woman in Scientific American history- big big sigh) took the post down. Luckily the web has a long memory and you can read her post here.

Her story and the responses continue. You can find some interesting commentary here or here or heck just search on #StandingwithDNLee

Thank you Danielle for everything. You are my hero.