Iqbal Ahmad, Ph.D., enjoys sharing his love of science

Science? That’s kids’ stuff.

At least, it is for Iqbal Ahmad, Ph.D. The UNMC neuroscientist’s research on how stem cells might be used to restore sight was featured in the April 10 issue of Science News for Kids.

Don’t let the name fool you – Science News for Kids was launched in 2003 by the Society for Science and the Public, the same nonprofit organization that’s been publishing Science News since 1922. Science News for Kids is a youth edition and companion to the older journal.

“It is very gratifying – no less than being published in a prestigious journal – to know that the kids would get to know the mystery and promises of stem cells,” Dr. Ahmad said. “It may excite and inspire them to give science their unbridled curiosity – the oxygen for science. Therefore, the impact factor of being featured in Science News for Kids is infinite.”

The article, written by Alison Pearce Stevens, features the work of Dr. Ahmad and other researchers and teams, including scientists at Harvard University and the University of Cambridge in England.

Read the Science News for Kids feature here.

For Dr. Ahmad, the chance to engage young minds is always exciting.

“The solutions to most of our problems – disease, poverty, unpredictable climate, and even social ills – lie in science,” he said. “The more we are able to harness the curiosity and interest of the young minds, the more successful we will be in solving our future problems.”

Of course, Dr. Ahmad isn’t relying totally on the journal. He enjoys speaking to young students and still cherishes the thank-you notes he received after speaking several years ago to a particular class of fifth-graders about the brain. Several sent drawings showing how they would study the brain when they grew up.

Dr. Ahmad speaks at an elementary school.

“Taking science to kids is not a one-way street,” he said. “I have always been inspired by their genuine interests and bowled over by their simple questions that speak to the core of a phenomenon you are trying to explain.”

And when the explanations take root? That’s the payoff – as was the message Dr. Ahmad received last year from a first-year medical student.

“After my lecture, she sent me an email asking if I was the same person who brought ‘the brain’ to her elementary school and let her touch it,” Dr. Ahmad recalled.

A moment of revelation, of inspiration.

That’s science.

For kids.