Celebrate All Scientists: Dr. André K. Isaacs
June is LGBTQ Pride Month and LSC celebrates Dr. Andre K. Isaacs, organic chemist and TikTok influencer.
If you’re on TikTok, you may have already encountered Dr. André K. Isaacs. He wears an incredible rainbow tie-dyed lab coat, exhibits mutual respect between professor and students, and shows off some serious dance moves in the chemistry lab.
André Isaacs was born in Kingston, Jamaica on December 20, 1981. Young André struggled with science and math in high school. Fortunately, he had an uncle who was a science teacher who helped the future doctor to get on track. “If it wasn’t for his guidance, I would not be a chemist today,” says Isaacs. By the eleventh grade, thanks to his uncle, Isaacs knew he wanted to study chemistry. He moved to the United States to get his bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 2005 from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA. He earned his PhD in chemistry in 2011 from the University of Pennsylvania.
Today, Dr. Isaacs is an associate professor of organic chemistry at the College of the Holy Cross, with almost 500,000 followers on TikTok. When Isaacs isn’t working on choreography or transitions, he is conducting organic chemistry research.
Isaacs doesn’t use his TikToks only for cool transitions and dances; he also devotes TikToks to educational purposes and advocacy. For those unfamiliar with organic chemistry, Isaacs made a video explaining his field. “I’m an organic chemist, which means I’m interested in synthesizing carbon-containing compounds,” he says. “I’m developing new methods for making particular arrangements of atoms that are of interest to the synthetic community.” He also makes videos to explain the chemistry behind pharmaceuticals that affect the Black and queer communities, such as Truvada and Descovy, both used to reduce the viral load of HIV.
As a Black, queer chemist, Isaacs advocates for greater diversity in STEM and academia overall. When the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Morton Meldal, K. Barry Sharpless, and Carolyn R. Bertozzi, he highlighted how important it was that Bertozzi received the prize, noting that she’s only the eighth woman to have won out of 189 recipients. She’s also the first known member of the LGBTQ+ community to have won the Nobel in Chemistry. Isaacs also includes many female students in his lab team, some of whom appear regularly in his ever-popular dance videos.
In an interview with Advanced Science News, Isaacs advises scientists, “You have to be okay with making mistakes.” As a queer person working in STEM, his advice is close to my heart: “We are scientists and individuals, and we bring our own unique contributions to it. If you’re not part of a community that embraces your unique talents and values it as a benefit, then you’re not going to be able to bring your best. It is important to find a community that supports you, who continue to build you up, and you should be happy to fail with that community behind you, to tell you that it’s okay to fail.”
You can follow Dr. André Isaacs on TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram @drdre4000.
This post was written by STEM Educator Madison Couture. They studied Theatre Arts and Creative Writing in college. Their favorite exhibit at Liberty Science Center is The Great Train Set!
