Dr. Kara Stern (Scientist) - Daily Life

What better place suited for a scientist than a university?

Dr. Kara Stern is a small, pink and black Paralogos who resides on campus of one of Lingua’s largest educational institutions: Sermos University. Bonded to Dr. Aliya Ramirez, professor of cosmology and head of the astronomy department, she lives in the office space of the astronomy building along with four Paralogos colleagues related to the study. Dr. Stern’s focus isn’t on the stars, however; her word, ‘scientist’, provides a broader range of subjects. As a result, much of her days are spent away from her office home.

Dr. Stern spends a considerable amount of time at the university library, a 10 minute walk part way across campus. Although Dr. Ramirez provides several filled bookshelves of her own collection, the campus library dwarfs it entirely. Three whole floors of books and unlimited access to a digital library covering thousands of titles - student or staff ID required, of course. With plenty of seating between library sections or reservable study rooms for a quieter place to read or work, Dr. Stern certainly makes good use of her ID at this library. Although not every piece of literature there interests her, there are many unread tomes available for loan that are on her to-read list. That wealth of knowledge will last her a very, very long time and is one reason why she feels so safe and secure regarding her living situation.

At least once a month, Dr. Stern will attend professional lectures given by other scientists and experts of various fields. These are usually presented at the university, but sometimes she will have to travel downtown to the convention center or a hotel’s conference room to attend the talks. Most often she will go alone, although she is occasionally accompanied by her caretaker or Paralogos colleagues depending on the topic. There is so much to learn from these lectures that Dr. Stern has to transfer notes from her writing tablet to a large-capacity hard drive on a regular basis. She learned that the hard way when her note-taking was abruptly halted one lecture due to a full storage error.

Then there are the conferences - annual meetings of professionals under a specific scientific field coming together to share ideas, data, and novel results from experiments or clinical studies. Dr. Stern feels as though these happen more often than the individual lectures. The conference subjects can get incredibly niche, so much so that dozens may exist within the same discipline. She tries to attend as many as she can, however both money and time are limiting factors. Many conferences require travel outside of Sermos. Multiple plane tickets and hotel stays can rack up expenses quickly, and although Sermos University does sponsor her trips, it does adhere quite rigidly to a limited budget.

When not traveling abroad or deep in the university library’s maze of bookshelves, Dr. Stern will flash her staff ID and attend classes on campus. Any scientific subject is fair game, although she prefers to pop into laboratory sessions as opposed to lecture halls. No offense to the professors teaching them, of course, but the lecture subjects get repetitive in a classroom setting, whereas industry talks constantly evolve as new data emerges. She is also happy to poke her nose in on individual research some students conduct to gain the final credits for their STEM degree. She won’t take over the work, as she understands the students need to earn their credits through their own merit, but she’ll happily act as an extra hand or provide peer review feedback for those who ask.

She doesn’t need to gear up for any of the labs; Dr. Stern provides her own personal protection equipment. If there’s one thing constant in her life, it’s her wardrobe. Dr. Stern will never be seen without her signature blue scrubs, white lab coat, and baby blue disposable shoe covers that cover her clawed feet. Her lab coat pockets are often stuffed with a pair of goggles and nitrile gloves just in case.

Despite all of this, Dr. Stern does spend some time in the office space she and her Paralogos colleagues call home. When not on conference trips, she’ll always spend her evenings here after long days of researching, learning, or experimenting. While she carries a note-taking tablet around with her, back at home she has a much larger desktop computer where she writes the bulk of her work, in addition to a laptop she’ll bring with her on overnight trips.

Most of Dr. Ramirez’s Paralogos are night-owls and Dr. Stern is no different. Fueled by caffeine (or the placebo effects of consuming caffeine), she usually stays up late typing up one of many research papers she works on at once. The science-inclined Paralogos doesn’t sleep much.

All in all, Dr. Kara Stern is an incredibly busy Paralogos, however she can predictably be found in one of the several places described above. The best way to keep up with her activities is to follow the scientific journals!