School of Cinema

Alie Ward was unhappy with her career until her love for the sometimes grubby natural world opened new doors

Science communicator Alie Ward (B.A., ’99) has unique advice for anyone starting a new career: “Get in like a cockroach.”

“Don’t wait to be invited in like a vampire,” said Ward, the host of “Ologies,” an award-winning popular science podcast, and a Daytime Emmy Award-winning science correspondent for CBS’s “The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation with Mo Rocca.” “Get under cracks and doors.”

Ward says that can include repeatedly sending cold emails, volunteering, asking questions, being authentic and weird, and generally being persistent.

While emulating roaches might not be common career advice, it’s paid off for Ward, who followed a winding road in her journey to science podcasting. (She also points out that despite their bad rep, cockroaches are fastidious, resourceful and humble.)

“It took me until my late thirties to really find science communication as a goal. I didn’t even know that you could do it,” she explained. Instead, she spent many of her early years debating whether she should follow her passion for science or her love of arts and entertainment.

Initially, she leaned into science by becoming a Biology student at the University of California, Santa Barbara. After a year, she transferred to a community college, largely due to affordability, and then transferred to San Francisco State University to finish her undergraduate career as a Cinema major.

“I loved science, but I was also really missing the arts aspect. I thought maybe I would go into science illustration, but I was missing performance and writing and humor,” Ward said. She hoped she’d eventually find a way to combine science with film. “I wasn’t quite sure how it was going to pan out but I did it anyway.”

After participating in dozens of student films and building an entertainment-focused network, Ward got an agent, relocated to Los Angeles and moved further away from science. After acting for a few years, she worked as an illustrator for LA Weekly, a writer/editor for The Los Angeles Times and even a culinary TV personality with the Cooking Channel. She’d sprinkle in science when she could, but she no longer felt authentic, and she became increasingly dissatisfied with her career path.

Yet through all of this, one thing remained consistent: Ward’s lifelong fascination with bugs. She began posting about them on social media simply for the joy of it and caught the eye of Lila Higgins, an entomologist at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Higgins invited Ward to the museum for a behind-the-scenes tour and encouraged Ward to volunteer. Ward listened. Volunteering — something she did purely for fun — helped Ward feel like herself and led to her becoming a science correspondent for CBS.

“I love science. Yes, I also love TV and film. Yes, I also love being on [‘The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation with Mo Rocca’]. You know what’d be a little bit better? If they had to do less with tech and more with biology,” Ward said. “You just start to whittle down what’s really at the root of what you love and who you are.”

In 2017, nearly 20 years after she pursued science at school, she launched her podcast “Ologies.” It now ranks consistently among the top science podcasts on Apple Podcasts. Each week, Ward chats with an expert about their field and their passions, unafraid to ask seemingly silly questions she knows she and her listeners have.

The conversations are led by her guest’s passion and Ward’s curiosity. She didn’t want expert sound bites that lacked any personal depth. She adds “asides” in her voice to provide necessary explanations or context. She realized she could also provide little “brain breaks” in the form of tangents, like one about wicker furniture in the middle of a conversation about molecular biology.

She also keeps in the occasional expletive — though she agonized over whether she wanted her podcast marked by a little “E” for explicit. None of the other top science podcasts had an “E.” But eventually she decided to opt for personal authenticity over phony decorum.

“If everyone’s shaving off parts of themselves to make this smooth surface, then the smooth surfaces look identical to each other. Then where’s your impact? Where’s your voice?” she asked. “Being gravely weird can sometimes be the most comforting thing. I would rather have a hundred people like my authentic self than a thousand people like a façade.”

Learn more about SF State’s School of Cinema.

‘Stranger at the Gate’ is screening in San Rafael Feb. 28

San Francisco State University alumnus Conall Jones (B.A., ’05) was floored when he learned the short documentary film he produced with the production company Smartypants was nominated for an Oscar. “Stranger at the Gate” is his proudest accomplishment to date, but the film wasn’t getting critical recognition at first. It wasn’t accepted into the Sundance, Telluride or SXSW film festivals, he says. But Jones wasn’t looking for recognition — what he wanted was people to see the film because of its powerful message.

“Stranger at the Gate,” a 2022 film executive produced by Nobel laureate and education activist Malala Yousafzai and released by The New Yorker, isn’t what it seems. It starts off like a true crime story, with hints about a terrorist plot and a possible suspect. “This was intentional so we would have the widest appeal as far of viewers. We wanted to draw people into the story,” Jones said. But the story is so much more than that. “It ends with positivity and love,” he added.

­­­The film is about former Marine Richard “Mac” McKinney, who returned home from service in Afghanistan to Muncie, Indiana. He suffered from PTSD and saw Muslims as targets, something he learned in combat. Fueled by fear and hatred, he began making plans to bomb the local mosque. When he went to the Islamic Center of Muncie to gather proof that they were dangerous people, he was welcomed with kindness. Not only did McKinney drop his terror plot, he ended up joining the community and converting to Islam.

“The message of the film is so great, especially with so much division and hatred out there,” Jones said. “This film is a lesson in expanding your horizons as far as people you interact with.”

Eventually, the film had a successful film festival run, winning major awards at Tribeca Film Festival, Indy Shorts and others, which qualified it for the Oscars, Jones says. And now he's promoting the film at theaters across the country in the lead-up to the Oscars.

He isn’t typically involved in the promotion of films. As a producer, his role is mostly behind the scenes helping to plan and strategize shoots abd build out stories with directors and production executives. For “Stranger at the Gate” he mapped out all the logistics for the shoot, did pre-interviews with sources and even did on-camera interviews. After filming wrapped, he stayed on to help director Joshua Seftel edit the film and craft the narrative.

The School of Cinema alumnus says he learned how to be deliberate about his shoots while at San Francisco State. “Because we were limited in the film supplies we had ... you had to plan everything out,” he said. “Every shot had to be storyboarded and there had to be a reason for taking that shot. Every shot was $5 because film processing wasn't cheap.”

He admits he was a mediocre student until he took an introductory course on documentary film with Professor Greta Snider during his sophomore year. “My grades went from B’s and C’s to straight A’s my final year because I kept doing as many documentary-related classes as I could,” he said. “Academically, I got much stronger because I found my passion.”

After college, it took Jones a few years to find his footing in the documentary film and TV world. Once he moved to New York City he started freelancing. Now, he has producing credits on several major projects, including Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 11/9,” Morgan Spurlock’s “Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!” and Netflix's “Worn Stories.”

“I’ve worked on tons of documentaries that, if you include all of the TV episodes I’ve worked on, it’s probably 60 to 70 pieces,” he said. “But this film is my favorite because of its message. I feel like the message can transcend audiences like no other film can. ... I would like everyone in the U.S. to see this film.”

Learn more about SF State’s School of Cinema.