New Zealand International Science Festival guest Dr Michelle Thaller recently retired as the assistant director of science at Nasa’s largest base at Goddard Space Flight Centre in Washington, DC.
She will be giving the keynote address at the New Discoveries, New Connections science festival today at 6pm.
She was hopeful the festival would help break down the barriers for regular people to understand science.
"These things are accessible to us and everybody needs to take part in them.
"I mean, science will stop being relevant in our culture if it's done by just a few people kind of hidden away in a lab."
She had a terrible time learning science in school, but she loved it.
She found the way science was formally taught was very intimidating but enjoyed learning about it when she was able to attach a narrative to the concepts.
Yesterday evening she told a story about how people are made out of stars in an effort to help people understand they were not a distant thing that were difficult to connect with.
"That’s my favourite story ever.
"It’s really an honour for me to tell it."
The story considered the meaning far away objects in astronomy had on the daily lives of human beings.
"We are made up of stars, that’s not a metaphor."
Dr Thaller said the building blocks of human DNA and RNA fell out of space because people consumed different elements through their diet.
Science festival director Jerome Cousins said there was plenty on offer for all demographics at the festival.
The festival begins today and will end on July 6.
