There’s a conversation that needs to be had about rape culture, the concept of sexual purity and the ways rape or sexual assault victims are treated in society….169 years after Nathaniel Hawthorne’s groundbreaking novel and social commentary, the scarlet letter still brandishes women and girls today.

He jumped right in explaining who he had been in a past life. The chronic lying, explosive temper, sleeping on the streets and shooting up in the McDonald’s bathroom. I wondered aloud what force could possibly be powerful enough to drive not just him but all addicts to engage in such reckless behavior.

If this realm of academia is so amazingly awesome, with so many obvious benefits, how is it that women are so often faced with a much different, and often much more negative, experience? The answer is simple: STEM is a boys' club. 

“Growing up, the only drug problem I had as a child was getting drug to church every time the doors were opened,” he laughs. But at the age of sixteen, a rebellious spirit mixed with the desire to experiment and “be anywhere but Pleasant Grove, Alabama” threw him down a rabbit hole of various addictions and self-destructive habits that would take him decades to recover from.