Emily Calandrelli will be the keynote speaker for Illinois State University’s 2023 Science and Technology Week. She is scheduled to talk at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 28, in the Brown Ballroom of the Bone Student Center. The event is free and open to the public.
Emily Calandrelli is the host and co-executive producer of the hit Netflix series Emily’s Wonder Lab. Each episode features Calandrelli and a group of kid scientists as they learn about STEM through experiments and fun activities. She is also an executive producer and Emmy-nominated host of FOX’s Xploration Outer Space and was a correspondent on Netflix’s, Bill Nye Saves The World.
Calandrelli, who was named to Adweek’s “11 Celebrities and Influencers Raising the Bar for Creativity in 2017,” is also an accomplished writer and speaker on the topics of space exploration, scientific literacy, and equality. Her chapter book series, The Ada Lace Adventures, centers around an eight-year-old girl with a knack for science, math, and solving mysteries with technology, the second book in the series, Ada Lace: Sees Red, was included in the National Science Teachers Association’s list of best STEM books for 2018. The third book, Ada Lace: Take Me To Your Leader, was part of the initiative from NASA and CASIS, Story Time from Space where the book was launched into space and read by an astronaut aboard the ISS to an audience of kids. The fifth and most recent book in the series, Ada Lace: and the Suspicious Artist, was released in February 2019. All five books in the series are available at Barnes and Noble as well as Amazon. Earlier this year Calandrelli released a children’s book, Reach For The Stars, an uplifting book about love and shared discovery.
Calandrelli frequently gives talks about the importance of science literacy, the benefits of space exploration, and the challenges for women in STEM careers for clients like Google, Pixar, MIT, and Texas Instruments as well as dozens of K-12 schools across the nation. Her first two TEDx talks, “I Don’t Do Math” and “Space Exploration Is The Worst,” have garnered over one million views on YouTube.
Prior to her work in science communication, Calandrelli attended West Virginia University, where she received Bachelor of Science degrees in mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering, and MIT where she received two Master of Science degrees, one in aeronautics and astronautics and the other in technology and policy. Through her work, she wants to make science relatable, easy to understand, and more exciting today than ever before in history.
To learn more about Science and Technology Week, please visit the event website.
Or check CAST.IllinoisState.edu for more information about each event. Contact Kara Snyder at kepool@IllinoisState.edu with any questions or requests for accommodations.
