Natalie Portman, science mentor
Actress lends her star power to initiative encouraging girls to pursue careers in scientific research, technology
Renee Ghert-Zand is the health reporter and a feature writer for The Times of Israel.
It wouldn’t be presuming much to say there are more people who know that actress Natalie Portman has won an Oscar than people who know that she, a Harvard graduate, has also authored several published scientific papers.
“The truth is, I really do love science,” Portman says in a recent video aimed at teenage girls, adding that her role as astrophysicist Jane Foster in Marvel’s “Thor” franchise “gave me the opportunity to explore science and all its amazing opportunities.”
The science enthusiast is lending her star power and support to an initiative encouraging girls in grades 9-12 throughout the United States to pursue careers in STEM, or “science, technology, engineering and mathematics.”
The Ultimate Mentor Adventure, a collaboration of Marvel, the National Academy of Sciences, Dolby Laboratories and Underwriters Laboratories, Inc., helps female high school students find local female mentors to encourage their interests in STEM studies, and give them a glimpse of the kinds of careers they can aspire to.
Once a girl has interviewed her mentor, she takes a cue from Portman and gets in front of the camera to make a short video introducing herself and reporting on her meeting with her mentor. The Ultimate Mentor Adventure is a contest, and a panel of judges consisting of STEM experts will choose the best video submissions to advance to the finalist level. The contest closes on October 20.
Finalists will travel to Los Angeles to meet with a variety of STEM experts and mentors, conduct scientific experiments and explorations, and get behind-the-scenes tours of labs and technology centers. All the while, the girls will be filmed; a documentary short made about their adventure will be shown on November 8, immediately preceding the premiere screening of “Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World.”
While girls all over the US are hard at work on their contest entries, Portman is in Israel working on her directorial debut, a film adaptation of Amos Oz’s “A Tale of Love and Darkness.”
