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On an early spring day in 2024, people from across North America flocked outside to witness a rare celestial occurrence—a total solar eclipse. Maybe YOU even joined your class, your family, or your friends to watch it, too!

Many people used special glasses to safely observe the eclipse. Others used household items like colanders to project the moon’s eclipse of the sun onto the ground. However it was done, millions of people across the United States, Mexico, and Canada gathered to watch a marvel of nature together. People even as far away as Australia and New Zealand tuned in online to share in the excitement.

But watching it wasn’t the only way people experienced the total solar eclipse. Some people actually listened to the eclipse! And one of those people was astrophysicist Dr. Wanda Diaz-Merced. Wanda used a device that she invented called LightSound to hear the moon passing directly between the sun and the Earth. Before and after the eclipse, when the sun is brightest, LightSound emits frequent ticking sounds and high sounding tones. And as the moon crosses over and briefly covers the sun, Lightsound emits lower, less frequent tones and ticking sounds.

Wanda wanted to help other people like herself who were Blind or living with low vision experience the eclipse. So more than 750 of these devices were sent out across North America for this event. Wanda proved that she could be an astronomer and paved the way for others with disabilities to do the same. And because of her work, people of all abilities around the world are able to experience the wonders of science too.

SHOW INTRO

I’m Gabriella Ortiz. And this is Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls.

A fairy tale podcast about the real-life rebel women who inspire us.

On this episode, Wanda Díaz-Merced—Blind astrophysicist and disabilities advocate.

Wanda was born in the town of Gurabo on the island of Puerto Rico. When she was young, Wanda was diagnosed with diabetes, a condition that prevents the body from turning food into energy. Her younger sister had a developmental disability. But the two sisters never felt alone because of their differences—they had each other!

From a young age, Wanda dreamt of other, far away worlds. She was inspired by a huge world atlas that her family found. Her sister couldn’t leave her bed due to her disability, but together their imaginations took them inside the pages of the world atlas and beyond! Wanda would sit on her sister’s bed, and, together, they would pretend they were on a spaceship! Their imaginations helped fly them through space, exploring planets and make-believe galaxies.

One night, Wanda and her dad went to a nearby river to catch fish for dinner. As she helped her dad cast a net out into the water, she caught a shimmer out of the corner of her eye. She looked up, and saw several glowing streaks that sparkled against the dark night sky. Her dad looked at her and saw Wanda’s face light up with wonder and awe. Wanda’s dad told her that those were meteors, rocks that heat up and glow as they enter Earth’s atmosphere. For Wanda, watching the meteors flash across the sky was breathtaking. She wanted to learn all she could about them and other natural phenomena. She knew then that she wanted to grow up to be a woman of science.

Her parents were very supportive of her goal to study science. Wanda knew it would be hard work, and that she would need to master both science AND math to be a great scientist. So she studied hard through middle and high school so that she could attend college and achieve her dream.

After high school, Wanda attended college at the University of Puerto Rico, starting her studies in the General Program for Natural Sciences. But once she got to university, something strange started to happen.

One day, Wanda started to see spots in her vision. She noticed that it was getting more and more difficult for her to see what the professors were writing on the chalkboard, even at the front of the classroom. Then, in her early 20s, she was diagnosed with a complication caused by the diabetes she had lived with since childhood. The complication was causing her vision to slowly worsen. Wanda hoped that her loss of sight was temporary, but she would eventually become permanently blind.

Wanda tried her best to continue her studies, but every day was getting more challenging. She started to use a cane to guide her around campus. Sometimes, she would stay in one place all day because she was afraid to get lost or disoriented. Still, Wanda refused to give up her dream of studying science.

She struggled with her classes, even taking some of them more than once. One of her professors noticed how committed she was to science, and encouraged her to change the focus of her studies to physics. Wanda knew that her determination was stronger than any setback or obstacle. Soon enough, that resolve would pay off.

One day, Wanda’s friend Emilio saw her in the hallway between classes at university. “Hey!” he said, “you need to come hear this!” Wanda was curious, so Emilio took her back to his house and led her to his backyard.

There, Emilio had a small radio telescope. This wasn’t the kind of telescope you use to look at stars. It looked like a box that had thin, copper wires sticking out. The wires worked as antennae. The antennae picked up radio waves. But they weren’t listening to music like you would on a car radio—these radio waves were from SPACE. Emilio was using the radio telescope as part of a project at NASA, the agency in charge of space exploration in the United States.

Emilio told Wanda that his radio telescope could detect radio waves, or invisible waves of energy, from objects in space that naturally emitted them, like planets, stars, and the sun. He turned a dial on the outside of the box, and told her to listen. Pops and crackles emitted from the radio telescope. The swooshing noises of static reminded Wanda of an AM radio. Then, suddenly, there was a whoosh of loud static and crackles. Her eyes got BIG, and her face filled with wonder. They were listening to the live audio of a huge burst of heat coming from the sun, which was being picked up by the radio telescope!

Wanda was in awe. Up until that moment, she thought she couldn’t study astronomy because it required the use of sight to make observations and discoveries. She was happy to be proven wrong. Wanda decided then and there to devote her life to the study of astronomy and astrophysics. Even though she had never had the chance to look at space through a telescope, now, Wanda could hear the universe.

Wanda’s experience with the radio telescope opened up a world of possibilities. After she graduated from university, she applied for an internship with NASA at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. There, she worked with a scientist named Robert Candey, who served as her mentor. She had never forgotten how hearing radio waves from the sun had captivated her. So Wanda wondered if other types of phenomena in space could be experienced through sound, too.

Together with her mentor, Wanda began creating a computer program that could turn the data points astronomers collected from space into sound. The technique was called sonification. In the same way that music notes written on a page can be read and played by a musician, sonification turns numbers collected by scientists into sounds. Data points showed up as different pitches… volumes… and tones…!

Using this method, Wanda translated the information she got from satellites into sound. She felt empowered! She could do this! Would this be how she made her mark in the world of science?

Sound gave Wanda a way to study astronomy. But she wondered if sound might be able to help sighted astronomers, too. So she designed an experiment. She gave experienced astrophysicists three sets of data about a black hole—visual data only, sound data only, and sound and visual data put together. The results were promising—and Wanda’s hunch was right! Including sound data helped scientists detect the black hole more easily.

Hearing the data gave them a more complete picture. The black hole would have been nearly impossible to identify with sight alone. But while Wanda was overjoyed that her experiment was successful, a part of her was also sad. She realized that until that point, Blind scientists like herself had been left out of astronomy because no one had thought to include sound as part of their data sets. But now that she knew sonification worked, Wanda made it her mission to make sure that people like her would never be left out of scientific discovery again.

Wanda enrolled in a PhD program so she could continue turning data into sound for other astronomical events, like supernovas and solar flares. And in 2013, she graduated as DOCTOR Wanda Diaz-Merced from the University of Glasgow in Scotland with her PhD in computer science.

And she kept on going! After graduating, she continued her sonification research all around the world, focusing on making science accessible for everyone. She has worked in labs and observatories at Harvard in Massachusetts and in countries such as South Africa, Italy, and Japan, just to name a few. Along the way, she has also published many research papers, cementing sonification’s importance in understanding space for all scientists, regardless of their ability to see.

In 2016, she gave a TED Talk emphasizing inclusivity in science. And in 2017, she developed the LightSound device for use in hearing eclipses, making it easier than ever for people around the world to observe celestial events.

Through hard work and determination, Wanda made room for herself in a field that did not easily accommodate folks with disabilities. And true to her word, she has mentored many Blind young scientists around the world, opening up astronomy for everyone to study. And her dream? Wanda puts it this way: “I daydream about not being underestimated. I wish for people to regard those with disabilities (or other learning styles, as I prefer to call it) as capable of contributing to my field (any field!) at the same level as their sighted peers.” And by making room for more people of all abilities in science, Wanda has paved the way for a new generation of people to make discoveries never before thought possible.

This podcast is a production of Rebel Girls. It’s based on the book series Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls.

The story of Wanda Diaz-Merced was made possible by the Royal Australian Chemical Institute, celebrating women with disabilities in STEM, along with our principal partners, the Australian Government Department of Industry, Science and Resources, and Swinburne University of Technology and our supporting partners: The University of Melbourne, The University of New South Wales, Deakin University, and the Royal Society of Chemistry.

This episode was narrated by Gabriella Ortiz. It was produced and directed by Sam Gebauer, with sound design and mixing by Carter Wogahn.

The story was written by Sam Gebauer and edited by Deborah Goldstein. Fact checking by Danielle Roth. Production coordination by Natalie Hara. Haley Dapkus was our senior producer. Our executive producers were Anjelika Temple and Jes Wolfe.

Original theme music was composed and performed by Elettra Bargiacchi.

A special thanks to the whole Rebel Girls team, who make this podcast possible! Until next time, stay rebel!

If you like this story, you can read more about ground-breaking women with disabilities in STEM by downloading your free Ebook at www.raci.org.au