Atomic Hands

How We Became Atomic Hands

Atomic Hands was founded by Dr. Alicia Wooten and Dr. Barbara Spiecker who are themselves scientists and members of the deaf community. Alicia and Barbara met at Rochester Institute of Technology while taking classes together and doing research in the same lab. They bonded over science, traveling, camping, and cats. Both went on to pursue doctoral degrees on the opposite coasts of the United States. As they worked on their Ph.D., they shared some of their experiences and struggles with each other and noticed some similarities. Their similarities included challenges of English-centric learning, lack of networking with deaf STEMists, and frustration of not being able to access science videos in a spoken language. After attending a Deaf Academics Conference together in 2017, they decided they could not sit around anymore and wanted to make a change, and thus Atomic Hands was created.

Why We Chose the Name, Atomic Hands

For over a year, we debated the name for our vision. We both knew that we wanted the word ‘atom’ in the English name because atoms are the building blocks of life. At the same time, we felt it was important to incorporate elements of our deaf community, the heart of our organization, so we chose ‘hands’ for the name as well. So, with a little bit of science and a little bit of deaf community, the name ‘Atomic Hands’ was born. With an English name set in stone, we brainstormed a name in American Sign Language. We wanted our name to capture the essence of our organization, which is to bring forth an explosion of STEM ideas in our minds and channel them into our hands to communicate and exchange these ideas. Thus, the sign ‘Atomic Hands’ was created! *Jazz fingers*