On her way to attend a science fair at her daughter’s elementary school a few years ago, Garland Waller stopped to take a look at some wall art celebrating modern civilization’s great minds of science. The oversized poster, purposely displayed to inspire the school’s young students, featured a number of individuals long since acknowledged as geniuses. And while Einstein, Pasteur, Edison, and the like were all there, there wasn’t one woman included in the group--much to Waller’s chagrin. “They were all men!” she says incredulously. “No women. There wasn’t even a mention of Marie Curie, the usual token one,” she says, still sounding annoyed at the memory of it. “I mean, here we are in the 21st century, and there’s no acknowledgement on this poster hanging in a school of the contributions women have made in the worlds of science and technology. There was something very wrong with this picture-literally! I said to myself, ‘Where are the female role models for young girls interested in math and science? Who’s going to inspire them?”

And while the Boston University professor of Film and Television had long been concerned with what she perceived as a serious decline among the numbers of girls and young women studying math, science, and technology, it was when her own young daughter starting voicing a lack of interest in math that Waller decided it was time for action. “It just killed me to hear my daughter say she didn’t like math,” says Waller. “I looked at what was out there on TV for pre-teen girls and it was pretty stupid. There were no programs for girls that showed them being interesting kids.” For longtime producer Waller, this was clearly a sign to develop the science media project she had been thinking about since the late 90’s.

“About five years ago, I came up with a project that I thought could educate, entertain, and possibly sell-an important criteria when you consider that most of my documentary work in recent years had been funded by my savings account.” So Waller did what she teaches her students to do: Find a market need, and develop an educational and entertaining program to meet that need. An entertaining science program for girls seemed to fit the bill; and so the idea for the LIA Project was born.

LIA, an acronym for “Light in Action” is a techno-savvy 14 year-old Hispanic girl who uses science and light technology to solve problems. With her blue highlighted hair and love of colorful clothes, she’s also someone adolescent girls can identify with, right down to her annoying kid brother. “Her look and persona were very important,” says Waller. “Since so many girls interested in science are stereotyped as nerds, we wanted to make sure LIA was seen as someone teen girls would want to be.

‘During my research for LIA, I learned that the main reason many girls didn’t want to study math and science, was that they were afraid to stand apart from the crowd,” says Waller. “They didn’t want to be different. They wanted to follow the crowd. I want LIA to say to kids, ‘it’s good to be a little bit different.’ I wanted to create a character who’s comfortable in her own skin and who just might be able to make the world a better place through her interest in science and math.”

Leigh Hallisey, marketing and communications director for BU’s Photonics Center and Waller’s co-creator on the project, really helped bring LIA to life. With her background and understanding of the science of photonics combined with her keen understanding of pop culture and marketing, Hallisey’s skills were the perfect complement to Waller’s background as an award-winning writer and producer. “Leigh’s just a firecracker kind of a person,” says Waller. “She and I have really seen this thing through. She’s been just amazing to work with.”

As one can imagine, a project like this is expensive to produce. The seed funding to get LIA off the ground came from several different sources, one of which is right at Boston University. “We met with Terry Brennan of the Community Technology Fund at BU,” says Waller. “It’s an organization within the University that builds businesses around technologies developed by professors.” Brennan told Waller and Hallisey that while he thought the LIA Project was “a long shot, and a wild shot” he thought it was one that could work, so he agreed to give the project some funding. “It really gave us the momentum we needed,” says Waller. “We’re still fundraising like crazy, but that really started us on our way.”

The "Nesting" Bible: A prime-time animated series from New Yorker cartoonists Liza Donnelly and Michael Maslin. Developed for television by Andrew Levinsky, Garland Waller, Mark Drop & Richard Whitley

Reynolds adds, “I truly think the BU-FableVision collaboration is a model for the kind of innovative partnership that can make a huge difference in a world that really needs it. We’ve been involved in a host of wonderful projects that use media, storytelling and technology to help learners navigate their true potential, but the LIA Project is one that’s already in the FableVision “Hall of Fame.” Waller says that as far as she knows, the BU-FableVision partnership is unique in the world of academia. She doesn’t know of any other partnership between a university and a production company that’s working together to produce a media product that’s good for kids.

And the partnership has big plans for launching LIA. They intend to not only produce broadcast programming, but also classroom materials, an educational website, books, and licensed merchandise that would include some of the problem-solving technology LIA uses. “We’re on the precipice of creating some merchandising deals,” says Waller. “We don’t want any throwaway junkie stuff. Everything that comes out connected to LIA has got to make girls stronger, better, wiser people.”

It’s been a real eye-opener for Waller to learn how slow the process of selling the LIA Project can be. “There’s lots of agents to deal with--we’ve got a licensing agent, a book agent, and a television agent. And they all have to talk with each other,” she says. “And because we are moving simultaneously in three different mediums, it’s definitely a slow process, but we are moving on both the book front and the TV front.”

The experience developing the LIA Project has made Waller realize how hard it can be to bridge the business world while staying true to her mission of developing quality programming for children. “As a parent and a programmer, I feel as though it is my responsibility to develop shows that are good for girls, boys, and minorities. But no matter how well intentioned you are, you can’t deny the business world part of all of this. It’s a fine line to walk.”

An exciting new development for the LIA Project team has been the recent announcement that the National Hispanic University, a nationwide alliance that encourages Hispanic students to get interested in science and technology, will support the efforts of the LIA Project. “It’s a great partnership,” says Waller. Since LIA just happens to be Hispanic, it’s terrific that a character we created can be used to help educate other kids. Working with the National Hispanic University will help us develop a bilingual approach to getting girls interested in science and technology. We’re very excited about it,” says Waller.

Never one to rest on her laurels, Waller also has another project called “Nesting” being shopped around. A departure from the LIA project, “Nesting” is an animated comedy series as Waller describes it, “about a crunchy-granola-type mom who’s written a book about and hosts a PBS-type show on relating to your kids. The problem is, this post-hippie mom and her high-tech savvy kids can’t understand each other at all.” Waller and co-creator Andy Levinsky first came up with the idea for the show about five years ago. In addition to writers, Rich Whitley and Mark Droppe, an important part of the “Nesting” team was the inspired choice of inviting husband and wife New Yorker cartoonists, Liza Donnelly and Mark Maslin, to create the look of the characters for the show.

With her current projects utilizing the art of animation, Waller is asked if she’s decided to give up her live action work to concentrate more fully on working in animation. She’s genuinely impassioned in her answer, “It really doesn’t matter what the vehicle is; it could be either live action or animation. What really matters is the quality of the story. It may be about a teen girl using science to solve problems or a quirky family comedy. It’s really the telling of a great story that I love.”

For more information on Garland Waller’s Lia Project, please visit the website www.liaonline.com