Delving In with Stuart Kelter

Sophie Pavelle is a U.S. born and UK-based science writer and communicator, whose debut book,  Forget Me Not: Finding The Forgotten Species of Climate-Change Britain , won The People’s Book Prize for Non-Fiction (2023) and was long-listed for the 2023 James Cropper Wainwright Prize for Conservation Writing. She worked for conservation charity Beaver Trust for four years, presenting their awar...

Amin Saikal is an emeritus Professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies at the Australian National University, where he was also the Founding Director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies. He has won several academic awards and is a member of many national and international academic organizations. In addition to numerous articles in international journals, he has also...

  Henry ("Hank") Greenspan is an emeritus psychologist and oral historian in Holocaust studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, award-winning playwright and actor, lyricist, essayist, and poet, and social activist in the area of healthcare rights. During the interview he’ll be performing one of the monologues from his remarkable play,  REMNANTS , in which he channels the perso...

Psychologists  Diane Ehrensaft  and  Michelle Jurkiewicz are the co-authors of the recently published book,  Gender Explained: A New Understanding of Identity in a Gender Creative World.  Diane is cofounder and director of mental health at the Child and Adolescent Gender Center at the University of California, San Francisco, where she is also a researcher and professor of...

Remi Adekoya is a political science lecturer at the University of York in the UK, focusing on national and sub-national identities and their role in international relations, especially as they affect Africa. Before joining academia, Remi was a journalist, whose writing appeared in major mainstream publications in Europe, the U.S. and Africa. He has also provided analysis and commentary f...

Maggie Mertens is a journalist in Seattle, who covers gender, culture, and sports. She has written essays and stories for such major publications as  The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic,  and  The Guardian  and has also been interviewed on NPR affiliates, as well as national and regional television and numerous podcasts. In 2021, she was nominated for the Dan Jenkins Med...

Iñigo García-Bryce is a history professor at New Mexico State University and the director of NMSU’s Center for Latin American and Border Studies from 2011-2016. His research focuses on Latin American social and political history. He is the author of Crafting the Republic: Lima’s Artisans and Nation-Building in Peru, 1821-1879, published in 2004 and Haya de la Torre and the Pursuit of Power in Peru...

Aziz Huq  is a professor of comparative and constitutional law at the University of Chicago, focusing recently on democratic backsliding and the regulation of Artificial Intelligence. He has written articles for  Politico , the  Washington Post , the  New York Times , and other mainstream publications, in addition to many scholarly articles, and award-winning books, includ...

Rachel Laryea is a Ghanaian-American entrepreneur and author of the recently published book,  Black Capitalists: A Blueprint for What Is Possible.  She secured a summer an internship at Goldman-Sachs while still in college at NYU and upon graduation was offered a high-paying job there, thereby introducing her to the cutthroat, hyper-competitive world of high finance. She left that world...

Shoumita Dasgupta is a Professor of Medicine at Boston University, where she has held many leadership positions. She is Assistant Dean of Diversity and Inclusion, formerly Assistant Dean of Admissions, Founding Director of Graduate Studies in Genetics and Genomics; Past President of the Association of Professors of Human and Medical Genetics, and Fulbright Specialist, serving as a U.S. State Depar...

Meg Kissinger  is an investigative journalist for the  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,  who spent more than two decades reporting on the failures of the American mental health system. She has won more than a dozen national honors, including two George Polk Awards and the Robert F. Kennedy National Journalism Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She had her first big break a...

David Pengelley is a retired math professor from New Mexico State University (NMSU). We'll be talking about math education, math history, and learning math from primary source material. Dr. Pengelley, who also does original theoretical as well as historical mathematical research, rediscovered the work of the first known female research mathematician, Sophie Germain. Recorded 7/21/20.

Mariah Blake is an investigative journalist whose work has appeared in  The New York Times, The Atlantic, Mother Jones,  and  The New Republic . She was a Murrey Marder Nieman Fellow in Watchdog Journalism at Harvard University. Blake is the author of the recently published,  They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals. The book investigates the...

Jessy Randall  is curator of special collections at Colorado College and the author of several poetry collections, including:  Suicide Hotline Hold Music , (which includes her own accompanying comics),  There Was an Old Woman ,  Injecting Dreams into Cows,  and  A Day in Boyland,  which was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. She has also written a young...

Kelly Clancy is a neuroscientist who has held research positions at M.I.T., Berkeley, the University College London, and the A.I. company, DeepMind, focusing on biological information processing and agency. In 2014 she was awarded the Regeneron Prize for creative innovation in biomedicine. Her writing has appeared in several major publications, including the  Wall Str...

Jaz Brisack is a experienced union organizer, starting with the United Autoworkers campaign at the Nissan factory in Canton, MS and volunteering as a Pinkhouse Defender at the state’s last abortion clinic. After spending one year at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, they got a job as a barista at the Elmwood Starbucks in Buffalo, NY, becoming a founding member of Starbucks Workers United and helping to...

James Danckert is a cognitive scientist at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, focusing on the neuroscience of attention and the consequences of strokes. He has written numerous journal articles on the psychology of boredom and is the co-author, with John Eastwood, of  Out of My Skull: The Psychology of Boredom , published in 2020, which is the subject of today’s interview. Recorde...

Jeff Hobbs  is the author of five books, including a novel,  The Tourists,  and four books that apply a novelist writing style to the struggles of individuals striving to overcome racial, class, and social disadvantages. These include  The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man who Left Newark for the Ivy League , which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize...

Samina Ali  teaches fiction writing at Stanford University and is an award-winning author, whose debut novel,  Madras on Rainy Days , published in  2004, won several literary awards, including  Poets & Writers Magazine ’s Top Debut of the Year. She has been a columnist for the  New York Times Book Review  and other publications and has been interviewed by national...

Charles Piller is an award-winning investigative journalist for  Science  magazine, reporting on such topics as public health, biological warfare, and infectious disease outbreaks. In addition to articles in major newspapers, he is the co-author, with Keith Yamamoto, of  Gene Wars: Military Control over the New Genetic Technologies , published in 1988, which examines the U.S. milita...

Omar Mohammed  was the previously anonymous blogger who courageously reported on the atrocities he witnessed that were perpetrated by the Islamic State, also called ISIS, when in 2014 it took over Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city. Currently, he teaches Middle East History, Cultural Heritage Diplomacy, and Counter Terrorism at the Paris Institute of Political Studies and is also the head...

Jonathan Tarleton is a writer, urban planner, and oral historian. He previously served as the chief researcher for  Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas, as editor in chief of the online magazine  Urban Omnibus, and as a real estate project manager with  Urban Edge, a Boston-based community development corporation. Currently, he teaches writing and argumentation at MICA (Maryla...

Gerald Easter  and  Mara Vorhees are co-authors of two books,  The Tsarina's Lost Treasure: Catherine the Great, a Golden Age Masterpiece, and a Legendary Shipwreck,  published in 2020 and  The Last Stand of the Raven Clan: A Story of Imperial Ambition, Native Resistance, and How the Tlingit-Russian War Shaped a Continent,  which was just published a few months ago an...

Erik Baker is a historian, writer, and teacher based in Boston, a lecturer in the History of Science department at Harvard University and associate editor of  The Drift , a magazine about culture and politics. In addition to articles about labor, politics, and American history, he recently published his first book,  Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America...

Derek W. Black  is a  Professor of Law at the University of South Carolina , where he directs the  Constitutional Law Center. He is o ne of the nation’s foremost experts in education law and policy, on such topics as school funding and ensuring equal opportunities for disadvantaged students. His research is often cited in court opinions and briefs, including in t...