“When I think about really what's motivating me as a scientist, it's so much overlap with what's motivating me as a mom,” Holloway said.
A lot of Holloway's work focuses on air quality and trying to link advanced science with information people need to make decisions. She leads a team for NASA that is trying to make satellite data more useful to public health experts and air quality managers.
The UW-Madison professor has linked climate science and motherhood into a new group of eight other renown climate scientists in the country.
The group's name? Science Moms.
“It's a nonpartisan group of scientists who are also mothers with the mission of just educating the public and getting the conversation going around climate,” Holloway said.
The group formed in 2020. Holloway said there are a lot of initiatives to speak to different communities, but they realized there wasn't really an initiative focused on speaking to moms.
“Really what motivates me to be a scientist and a professor is doing good for the planet, doing good for the students, answering questions that people care about, making the world a better place,” Holloway said. “And that's exactly what motivates me as a mom as well.”
Holloway said the group is focused on conversation and education, giving easily digestible information to parents about climate change, how to address it, and how to talk to kids about it.
“This seemed like a group that we know cares about climate, but may not have time to sit down and read a textbook, so the science moms program is trying to put together a group of different resources to help moms engage in climate, learn about climate, and make it fun,” Holloway said.
The group's website has videos and reading materials with the audience of busy parents in mind.
The group wants to put a personal face on climate science.
“We often hear the scientific community says this, or scientists say that, and that can be kind of hard to connect with because who are these mysterious scientists,” Holloway said.
Holloway said the passage of the Clean Air Act and creation of the EPA in 1970 was a turning point for air quality — It has improved in the U.S. Every year since then.
“The 1970s we turned a corner and things started getting better,” Holloway said. “I would love it if my kids looked back on the 2020's and said this was the time when we turned the corner.”
Holloway said solutions are ready to go, it just takes public will to sign on and improve the climate.
Which is why the nonpartisan group Science Moms just wants to have those conversations. Whether you are a parent or not.
“We all have moms, we all care about the climate, we all are in a position to take action on this issue,” Holloway said. “The number one action that the science moms program wants to advocate for is just talking about climate.”
And of course, leave the world a better place for today's kids.
“I feel like why should we leave this for our kids, we're the moms, we're the parents, we can solve this now,” Holloway said.