What’s next for Kate the Chemist?

Kate Biberdorf knew she wanted to be a chemist from the age of 15. She attributes her decision to the passion of a high school teacher who had a knack for engaging students by running around the classroom and lighting things on fire.

But Biberdorf, now popularly known as Kate the Chemist, didn’t know she wanted to become a science entertainer until her first year as a faculty member at the University of Texas at Austin.

“A month or so into the position, I realized that, because I wasn’t running a research group, I had a lot of extra time on my hands, and I was getting bored quickly,” Biberdorf recalls. “So I went to my boss and said, ‘You’ve got to give me another job or I’m gonna quit.’ ”

That’s what prompted the university’s “Fun with Chemistry” outreach program, under which Biberdorf would visit local elementary schools and conduct chemistry demonstrations without any extra compensation. “It was my hustling phase,” she says.

That hustle has paid off for Biberdorf. After 16 years studying and working in Texas, she recently moved to the University of Notre Dame to become the institution’s first-ever professor for the public understanding of science.

The role will be significantly different from what Biberdorf did at UT Austin, where her whole job was to teach chemistry. Alongside that day job, every week she would visit up to four schools, engaging with more than 20,000 students a year. “My best year was 29,000 students, and that was a really good year, but I was very tired,” she says. “When I’m breathing fire, and I often do it in Louboutin heels, people just take notice.”

From there, other opportunities started to come Biberdorf’s way. A university colleague asked her to appear on an episode of We Are Austin , a local morning TV show, where the host was promoting a science lecture.

Before Biberdorf knew it, she was invited to do segments on the show for Halloween, Christmas, and New Year’s. Eventually, she wound up with an unpaid monthly science experiment slot, which she did for 4 years.

Then in 2018, Biberdorf received a call from Glenn Schwartz, the former publicist for the popular science communicator Bill Nye. “You’re the next Bill Nye,” Biberdorf remembers Schwartz telling her. After a week of meetings and sorting out logistics, Biberdorf rebranded herself as Kate the Chemist.

In the years that followed, Biberdorf authored books, became a brand ambassador for several products, and regularly appeared on national television all while still teaching two chemistry classes at UT Austin. After her classes would end on Thursdays, she would head straight to the airport.

She jokes that Transportation Security Administration screeners know her personally because of the huge trunks she carries as luggage. “They go through all my glassware to make sure I don’t have any explosives,” Biberdorf says. “I have to get there early.”

In 2020, she handed over the unpaid school outreach work to someone else at the university. Now Biberdorf has two literary agents, a social media agent, a podcast agent, and a sponsor agent. She is a client of the United Talent Agency, which represents artists, athletes, entertainers, and more. Twenty percent of all the fees she earns for any show usually go to the agency, and 10% to Schwartz, who is still her manager.

Biberdorf declines to share any monetary figures, citing confidentiality agreements, but says her Kate the Chemist gig makes “so much more money” than her professor role at UT Austin did. “It’s an extreme amount of money you can make with these sponsorships.”

When it comes to endorsements and brand ambassadorships, Biberdorf says she declines offers from products she deems unethical. “If something is not up to my standards or it sounds like it’s bogus, I will not do it,” she says. “Part of my rule for endorsement things is I must be able to see your science before I agree.”

For instance, Biberdorf says she recently received an offer from a company that makes products that students use to cheat on exams. “Respectfully, that’s a hard ‘No, I can’t,’ ” she says. “I don’t care that you’re related to chemistry, and I don’t care that you really want me, and I don’t care about that dollar sign.”

As a positive example, Biberdorf cites her recent collaboration with Procter & Gamble’s Olay skin care brand, in which she helped explain the science of two products. Initially Biberdorf was skeptical, so she asked to see the research. “They showed me paper after paper after paper, all confidential obviously,” she notes. “I read every single one of them. I wanted to make sure that their conclusions were my conclusions.”

After she was convinced the Olay products do what they claim, Biberdorf made two TikTok videos, took part in 2 days of media interviews, and attended a company event in New York City. “We invited all of these beauty content creators,” she recalls. “I did four shows, and we talked about how the product worked.”

Spring 2024 was Biberdorf’s final teaching semester in Texas. She has officially moved to Notre Dame, where she says her role will be a more natural fit with her science entertainer work. It will be business as usual under the Kate the Chemist brand. But with more freedom from her institution and no chemistry classes to teach, she says she can focus on her science communication work and ultimately bring more attention to the scientific research taking place at Notre Dame. “It’s a win-win,” she says.

“They’re building me an entire studio,” she says. It’s a camera-friendly laboratory, a makerspace, and it’s going to be open on Feb. 1, Biberdorf notes. “Notre Dame is invested in this.”

In her new position, Biberdorf hopes to launch the university’s first major in science communication, with the aim of creating an “army of science communicators.” For now, she will start off with a science communication minor.

“I can then relax because they’ll do the job,” Biberdorf says of the people who will come out of the program. “On my deathbed, I want people to say, ‘Who’s Kate the Chemist?’ ”

Biberdorf recalls listening to a talk by a scientist colleague who noted that the hardest part of her research during the pandemic was communicating it. “When a scientist is saying that coming up with her part of the vaccine was not hard but actually getting the community to trust her was, that speaks volumes to me.”

As part of her role at Notre Dame, Biberdorf hopes to boost the university’s public engagement profile, which in turn should help it climb institutional rankings. Funding agencies often require scientists to explain in grant applications the broader impact their research is going to have. “Hopefully they can use me in their broader impact sections of all of their grants,” Biberdorf says.

She also plans to launch a YouTube channel focused on showcasing research that’s taking place at Notre Dame. “My plan is to start by working with the faculty that like to be on camera, and then I’ll slowly try to win over my more introverted colleagues,” Biberdorf says.

With the rise of social media and the influencers inhabiting it, Biberdorf thinks it’s critical that the public is able to distinguish between what is true journalism and what is public relations. She hopes to inspire a new generation of science communicators at Notre Dame to bridge the knowledge gaps between scientists and the general public. “Understanding science is essential for national prosperity,” she says.

“What I think is really important is that we need to step outside of our traditional methods of engaging the public,” Biberdorf says. For instance, she notes, lecturing at a white board with no active engagement with the audience is no longer effective when trying to communicate with newer generations.

“It’s my belief that these younger students need more accessible STEM information in much smaller chunks,” Biberdorf says, referring to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. “For example, the average TikTok video is 40 seconds long. If we want to use that platform to engage with the community, we need to figure out how to explain our research without jargon and with flashy visuals.”