It's hard to find a female Star Wars fan who didn't want to be Princess Leia growing up.
"I loved her feistiness, her ability to go head to head with Grand Moff Tarkin and Darth Vader," said Dr. Voula Saridakis. "She was a princess and she was beautiful, but she was smart and she was feisty, and she knew how to wield the blaster, and all of that was just so super cool."
Saridakis is the head curator at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry.
Growing up with a love for space, she said it was seeing the original Star Wars movies in theaters when she was in elementary school that inspired her to pursue a career in STEM.
"I think what the Star Wars movies, those first three movies, managed to do for me at a very year early age, was cement this interest in the possibilities," she said. "What would it look like to get in a spaceship which would take you to another planet? For me personally, to see that and to see that at a very young age made me think anything is possible."
Griffin Museum of Science and Industry
That love for Star Wars continues into the Museum's collection. Saridakis says the MSI has several artifacts that speak to the pop culture history of Star wars. This includes toys, robots and games from Star Wars marketing campaigns.
Griffin Museum of Science and Industry
"It's a slice of history, a slice of science, a slice of technology, but also helps us understand what that was like for when these toys and fast food toys, or whatever they are, were manufactured."
