Agnes Pockels and the Kitchen Sink Myth

This episode is a co-production with Lost Women of Science.

Agnes Pockels did pioneering work in surface science. Her invention, the Pockels Trough, became the basis for an instrument that helped Katherine Burr Blodgett and Irving Langmuir make discoveries in material science that quietly shape our everyday world.

But the way we talk about Agnes's life and work often falls back on familiar tropes about women's domestic roles, assumptions about how science gets done, and what it looked like to do science as a woman in the 19th century.

Agnes's story invites us to rethink how we define success for scientists. Is our definition too narrow? And what might we gain if we crack it open a bit wider?

Credits

Host: Alexis Pedrick

Executive Producer: Mariel Carr

Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez

Additional Reporting: Sophia Levin

Art Design: Lily Whear

Fact-Checking: Alexandria Attia

Sound Design: Ana Tuirán