Facetime with Scientists

Emma has always dreamed of designing rockets. What she didn't expect was that she wouldn't design their shape, but the materials they are made of (and the materials they will take on their missions to the Moon and beyond)! Through her education and research in mechanical engineering, she's become an expert in extreme materials processing and characterization. Learn more about materials...

Manuela Guzmán, is a visual Artist and illustrator born in Bogotá, Colombia. She recently completed her MFA program of the Rhode Island School of Design. Her subject of choice? Insects! Manuela is fascinated by all the ways insects influence the world around us, and our views on the world, and hopes to inspire people to get curious about insects and nature through her art. As she writes in her the...

Stephanie Morphet is a biomedical scientist turned circus artist and hair hanger. She studied tuberculosis in the lab, working to develop point-of-care diagnostic tools, before deciding to pursue a full-time circus career. But she has brought her scientific mindset with her into circus, especially pertaining to her pursuit of a Guinness World Record for the most amount of weight held while hanging...

Malaika Mahmood is an expert on pain. She studies not just how pain is registered by our nerves at the site of injury, but how it is processed in the brain. Pain perception is complex and involves multiple brain regions working together, including those that process emotion and control movement and action. It's no wonder that chronic pain can make us depressed - in fact, it can even rewire our...

Cassandra is a research associate at Seattle Children’s Center for Global Infectious Disease Research. She's been known to dissect hundreds of mosquito salivary glands in a day to isolate malaria parasites in the hunt for a better understanding of this disease's dynamics of transmission from mosquito to human (or mosquito to animal) and back again. Cassandra and her colleagues are studying...

Isabelle Neylan studies copepods - think the little green Plankton from SpongeBob! - and how they deal with stressors like excessive heat in the splash pools where they live. Understanding the mechanisms of stress resilience and plasticity in copepods can help us better understand how ocean food webs may respond to future environmental conditions. We may even be able to learn a thing or two about...

Shelby Prindaville is an interdisciplinary artist who works across painting, drawing, mixed media, ceramics, sculpture, and installation to create artwork depicting animals, plants, and ecosystems within a human-altered world. Her studio practice combines science and art to encourage a more conservation-focused relationship with nature. In this inaugural episode of the Facetime with Scientists pod...