Driven to Discover

Diana Aga decided to become an environmental chemist after witnessing the dire effects of industrialization and population growth on the idyllic village where she grew up. Today, she is a worldwide authority on everything from industrial pollution and wastewater treatment to PFAS chemicals—the subject of this episode. Aga, SUNY Distinguished Professor, Henry M. Woodburn Professor of Chemistry and...

Nicholas Rajkovich , associate professor of architecture and director of the Resilient Buildings Lab at UB, studies how we can adapt our built environment to withstand extreme weather and other impacts of a changing climate. In this episode, Rajkovich tells host David Hill about his early passion for building (resulting, among other things, in the construction of a wastewater plant in his parents’...

Stephanie Poindexter , a biological anthropologist in UB's College of Arts and Sciences, specializes in how primates utilize and navigate their habitats. For the past 10 years, she has focused her research on the slow loris, an adorable yet venomous primate that inhabits Southeast Asia and surrounding areas. In this episode, Poindexter tells host Vicky Santos how she first became interested i...

John Crassidis , SUNY Distinguished Professor and Moog Professor of Innovation at UB’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, works with NASA, the U.S. Air Force and other agencies to monitor space debris, also known as space junk.  In this episode, Cory Nealon talks to Crassidis about his journey from aspiring astronaut to academia, why space junk poses a threat to the future of satellites a...