Inquisitive music opens up over a science illustration of a glowing blue and white orb, that fades into a starry background, and then transitions into walking down an academic hallway with abstract-looking paintings on the walls.
Feminine voiceover beings, “To be successful in science you have to follow your passion. It might not be easy but it is important that you have a light that always drives you.”
Professor Gabriella Sciolla is seated in an empty laboratory speaking to the camera, “I am Gabriella Sciolla and I'm a professor in the physics department.”
Scene shifts to Gabriella’s lecture hall where she gestures at large ring in front of a projector screen while students sit in stadium seating along desks with their notepads and laptops.
She continues speaking, “I've been at Brandeis for the past 10 years. I am teaching mainly undergraduate classes. Usually I like to teach first-year students. They have a lot of questions when they come in. How do I start doing research? What classes should I take? I like to help them discover how to get on the career path of becoming a researcher. I get the opportunity to hopefully make a difference in their life.”
Gabriella gestures at things on her desk that are out of the frame while text appears on the screen that says “Gabriella Sciolla: Training the Next Generation of Scientists.”
Music transitions to quick paced synthesizer while the camera pans down a laboratory classroom with pairs of students working over their desks. Gabriella speaks off-camera, “In my lab classes I try to teach my students the basic ingredients of experimental research, how to apply computing to any sort of scientific research and how to apply statistics to scientific research.”
A student (implied to be Iria) in a mask writes in red on a white board. Gabriella’s voiceover continues, “Iria was obviously a very interested student. She worked very hard in her class but it was also clear that she was extremely talented.”
Iria ‘22 speaks to camera in front of large indoor trees and a green wall, “Professor Sciolla is my professor. She is my PI [principal investigator]. She is also the professor of the lab I am a TA for, but she is also so much more than that because she is the person who encouraged me to believe that I can do what I'm doing.”
Iria works on computer.
Gabriella speaks, “She was happy to hear that there were research opportunities in my lab.”
Iria works with peers in a lab classroom, arranging wires on the table. Gabriella continues off-camera, “She started working in my lab in the summer of her freshman year. She continued to work with me during the semester, both doing research and helping me teach the class that she took just the previous year. She focused on the simulation of the detector that we were building the previous summer at Brookhaven National Lab and finally in her third year she started the work for her thesis.”
Music shifts to a more down-tempo, retrospective instrumental piece. Gabriella holds a large ring and gestures in a circle around it in front of a classroom, before shifting to her speaking directly to the camera in an empty lab. She says, “I fell in love with particle physics when I was just a young teenager.”
The voiceover continues, but a computer animated representation of the Z boson with lots of moving pieces appears on screen.
“At that time one of the particles that we're using now in our research, the Z boson, was discovered by one of my compatriots, Professor Carlo Rubbia. I got really fascinated with particle physics. I decided that I would grow up to be a particle physicist and work at CERN and this is what I'm doing right now. The ultimate goal of our research is to discover some new particles that are probably related to some of the biggest mysteries that we have in the universe. Brandeis gave me the opportunity to not only teach but also go back to doing research at CERN.”
The Brandeis Science Complex, with a focus on the observatory, transitions on-screen.
Iria speaks off camera, as the scene transitions to Iria in the classroom and eventually speaking directly to the camera, “Because Brandeis has a lot of good research in a lot of different areas of science, I thought those would be great opportunities for me to explore what I wanted to study. It was really quite a surprise to me how much I really enjoyed physics so I guess the ability to explore different scientific fields really paid off for me.”
Gabriella speaks directly to the camera, “Helping young people grow is really probably the best part of my job.”
Iria speaks directly to the camera, “My favorite thing about taking classes with Professor Sciolla is how much she cares about her students and how much they learn.”
Gabriella assists a student with formulas on a black board. Students walk out of classroom before scene transitions to Gabriella speaking directly to the camera, “These days many of my students have moved on to a very promising career. Most of them went into graduate school, others got very prestigious fellowships and postdoc positions.
Follow the advice of people who have gone through the same path before you and have a say in what your future is going to be. By putting together these two ingredients and a lot of very hard work, you will succeed.”
Music fades out and Brandeis logo appears.