Sciographies is a radio show and podcast about the people who make science happen, presented by The Faculty of Science and campus-community radio station CKDU 88.1 FM. This is the seventh article in a series that features excerpts from each new episode released this fall.
On this week’s episode of Sciographies, we talk to Dr. Alex Veinot, a chemist and assistant professor with the Department of Chemistry at Dalhousie University.
Dr. Veinot reflects on growing up in Middleton, Nova Scotia, where a hands-on curiosity about how and why things are made first took root. Though he initially faced challenges in school, a conversation with his uncle—about the specialized materials used in law enforcement vests—ignited a passion for chemistry that would shape his future.
This early interest guided him toward a career marked by curiosity and resilience, eventually earning him recognition as a Vanier Scholar, a prestigious honor that solidified his professional path.
As a member of the Glooscap First Nation, Dr. Veinot is committed to increasing Indigenous representation in the field of chemistry. He shares his vision for a more inclusive future, where Indigenous perspectives and voices contribute to scientific discovery and innovation.
Listen to the episode now
Here are some excerpts from the podcast episode, edited for clarity and length.
Barclay: Tell me about growing up in Middleton, Nova Scotia?
Veinot: There's not a lot to do. We didn't have shopping malls or places to hang out, so I spent time in my dad's workshop. Early on, I would take apart motors and I got very good with my hands. I was really interested in how things worked.
Barclay: How did this influence your career?
Veinot: Growing up, I really appreciated how stuff worked. Even now in my professional career, I look at products that I'm using around the house and I say, “what's this made out of? What goes into this? Can I come up with something similar?” This is the chemist perspective on everyday life.
Barclay: What were you like growing up?
Veinot: I didn't really like school. I was the sort of student that would always be in trouble and getting sent to the office and detention.
Barclay: How did you choose chemistry?
Veinot: I was met with a lot of resistance from my school when I switched from trades to science. And then, I took my first chemistry course, and we were talking about the quantification of matter. It was a lot of math, which I was quite good at. I enjoyed math because it’s numbers and everything made sense.
Barclay: Tell me about your undergraduate degree?
Veinot: First year was fine but second year was hard. First year, you get kind of one or two lab sections. I remember during my second year, I really struggled with inorganic chemistry.
Barclay: In your master's degree, was it looking at the structures of different crystals and reporting them?
Veinot: It was a lot more synthetic work. It was not so different from my time at Acadia, but we had more techniques at our disposal to kind of prove things.
Barclay: You mentioned you're an Indigenous scholar and a member of the Glooscap First Nation. How has this played a role in your scientific area of study?
Veinot: Yeah, it's one of those things I always struggle with. I've been to communities, I've spoken to people, and a lot of our youth who are studying arts and culture but there's hardly any science. I think there's just generally there is an under-representation of science within Indigenous communities. I think it’s hard to be interested in studying science when there's so little Indigenous representation.
Listen to the entire episode of Sciographies at 4:30 PM today on CKDU 88.1 FM in Halifax or find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other popular podcasting platforms. You can also listen to previous Sciographies episodes on the same platforms and at dal.ca/sciographies.