Life on Other Planets

January 1, 2023

Told by a white male professor that as a young, fashion-loving Black woman she didn't fit into her astrophysics PhD program, Shields left to pursue acting. But a day job working for NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope pulled her back, and after returning to school as the oldest and the only Black student in her PhD cohort, she's now the Clare Boothe Luce Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine.

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April 15, 2023
An astronomer and astrobiologist reveals the winding path that took her from science to acting and back again in a poetic memoir charting how she became "a champion of interdisciplinarity." In her first book, Shields unpacks her experiences as a rare Black woman in the STEM disciplines and how she was inspired to begin widening the opportunities for others. Despite a privileged education at Phillips Exeter Academy, where she traversed snow-covered fields at 4 a.m. to take part in advanced astronomy courses, the author always felt marked out for being one of only a few young women of color. Throughout the book, Shields brings the text alive with telling details and well-connected anecdotes. The author is adept at weaving together surprisingly disparate threads--e.g., Top Gun and Elle and Vogue magazines sit comfortably alongside a description of the Challenger space shuttle disaster as early formative influences for the author. Early on, Shields establishes the significance of her "two loves, astronomy and acting," and she goes on to reveal overlapping identities, where motherhood runs into fighting for tenure and spirituality finds balance within scientific exploration. The author has a gift for rendering unimaginable astrological concepts in vivid prose, pulling readers into her world. The rings of Saturn are "majestic bands circling a planet so tenuous and light that it would float in a bathtub large enough to hold it," and "new knowledge was an emerald jewel I kept inside my body, warm and glowing near my heart, with a thin silk thread connecting it to my mind." While the book's inspirational bent can verge on the saccharine, truly unique comparisons keep the narrative on course. In one passage, Shields explains how we determine the Earth's age by calculating the ages of the chemicals within its most ancient rocks while also analyzing the harsh chemicals used in the hair-straightening process. A lyrical, image-rich investigation of an unconventional blueprint for authentic living.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 24, 2023
Astronomer Shields chronicles her trials and triumphs as a scientist, actor, and Black woman in her luminous debut. Obsessed with the stars as a child in New Hampshire (“I was always looking up. So much so that I often bumped into things”), Shields applied to Phillips Exeter Academy after learning that the school operated its own observatory. Once there, she also fell in love with performing and began the lifelong process of balancing her two passions. “I believed in the beauty of the universe, and in the power of a story well told through its characters. That was the common thread: story,” Shields writes. As she pursued an MFA in acting from UCLA and a PhD in astronomy and astrobiology from the University of Washington, she faced down (mostly white, mostly male) professors who took her love of the arts as a sign that she couldn’t hack it as a serious scientist. Her account of proving them wrong and thriving as the sole Black woman in her PhD cohort before becoming an astronomy professor at UC, Irvine is stirring and inspirational. This will resonate with dreamers of all stripes. Agent: John Maas, Park & Fine.

Starred review from May 1, 2023
There seems to be no shortage of memoirs about Black scientists in the field of astronomy lately, including A Quantum Life (2021), by Hakeem Oluseyi. This iteration drives home the point that it doesn't matter how uneven and uncertain the path is, as long as you ultimately get there. Shields shares her engaging journey, during which she found herself on two trajectories due to her love of celestial bodies and her unexpected passion for acting. She didn't have a shortage of role models. Her mom had a PhD in music theory, and her grandmother majored in math back in the 1930s. Shields attended Phillips Exeter Academy, graduated from MIT, and pursued a doctorate in astronomy. When acting classes became more appealing than doing problem sets, she abandoned the stars to try to become one. A fruitful encounter with Neil deGrasse Tyson realigned her space-designated coordinates and she went back at age 34 to finish her PhD degree in astrophysics and astrobiology. Shields' unusual and inspiring account will appeal to readers who feel stuck in life. Discussing relatable issues like making decisions, financial worries, and imposter syndrome while she shares her approach to achieving lofty goals, Shields' words will reassure readers who question their abilities when success seems elusive.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.