Facetime with Scientists

Is fear of snakes innate or learned? How do scientists discover and describe new species, including snake species? What IS a species, anyway? Why did Sara name a snake after one of her favorite rock stars (and who is it!)? Why are museum snake specimens so valuable? These are just some of the questions herpetologist Dr. Sara Ruane answers in this episode of Facetime with Scientists! Dr. Sara Ruane...

In this FaceTime With Scientists podcast episode, I interview Seraya Jones, a PhD student in a structural biology lab, about her research and daily lab work! Seraya is a structural biologist. She's interested in the structure of proteins. Why does protein shape matter? Because structure dictates function! Seraya is working to understand how a particular protein involved in endocytosis works. E...

Art and engineering are more similar than you'd think. Exploring one improves your skills and accelerates innovations in the other! On this episode of the FaceTime With Scientists podcast, I interview Mandy (Amanda), a medical device engineer in orthodontics by day and an artist who draws on anatomy and engineering tools to make her art. Mandy describes learning 3D modeling and printing (Rhino...

For Min Khant Han, a PhD student at the University of Georgia studying symbiosis, none of us are individuals. We are all living amalgamations of various organisms working together. Take our essential gut microbes, for example! But Min is particularly interested in symbioses—close, long-term biological interactions between two different species—that enable life in the most extreme environments, inc...

Why is the night sky dark? How and where do stars form in galaxies? What other planets may hold life? These are some of the questions that keep an astrophysicist up at night. On this episode of FaceTime With Scientists, explore star birth, galaxy formation, and space telescope technology with Oxford astrophysics PhD student Andrea Henderson de la Fuente! In her own research, Andrea uses H-alpha li...

On this episode of FaceTime with Scientists, I go into the field with coastal ecogeomorphologist Kendall Valentine! (Yes, ecogeomorphologist is a mouthful! It’s someone who studies how living organisms and physical earth features shape and change each other over time) Kendall has studied river deltas and coastal regions all over the country, starting in Louisiana. But right now she is examining th...

This FaceTime With Scientists episode covers everything you might not know about how drug molecules are formulated into the final products you get from your local pharmacy. You'll learn why formulation is critical to how well a drug works. Dive into a fascinating discussion about how pharmaceutical drugs are formulated into dissolvable tablets, time-release pills, inhalers, and more, with rese...

In this episode of Facetime with Scientists, I interview Dr. Alexandra Noel, an inhalation toxicologist at LSU’s vet school. Dr. Noel studies how inhaled pollutants—air pollution, wildfire smoke, cigarette smoke, vaping aerosols, workplace nanoparticles, and microplastics—affect lung health.  Smoke, whether it is cigarette smoke or wildfire smoke, contains particulate matter as well as gases. Noel...

Haley Glasmann is an acoustician. If it sounds a bit like a superhero label, well, maybe it is. Haley is a PhD student studying the power of sound to "see" to the darkest depths of the ocean! She recently joined deep-sea biologists on an expedition to an area off the coast of the Grand Cayman Islands where hydrothermal vents on the seafloor are home to some very interesting shrimp. Resea...

Reres Fota is a theoretical physicist who also goes by another name: Professor Diva! The Diva was born when Reres started combining his two loves, in the classroom and on social media: physics and heels dancing! Reres is a PhD researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he also teaches a wildly popular class on quantum mechanics. His mission is to make physics accessible to an...

Taylor Hailstock recently defended her PhD at Emory. Her study organism? The fruit fly! Her study target? Microcephaly and brain development! You'd be amazed what we can learn about human diseases from studying the brains of flies. In fact, Taylor recently connected a gene called Orb2 for the first time to microcephaly. Learn more in this podcast episode with Dr. Hailstock!

For Zee, turning the body's own immune system into a more efficient killer of cancer cells isn't science fiction; it's what she works on daily! Zainab Hakeem is a PhD candidate in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology department at the University of Georgia. She is working with the immune cells with the most bad-a** name—Natural Killer cells—to help them kill cancer cells more efficie...

Caterra Leavens in a cell and molecular biologist who is studying type 1 diabetes. Specifically, she is creating gene-edited insulin-producing beta cells from stem cells in the lab. One day, these cells may be transplanted into humans to treat this disease! Oh yes, Caterra also has type 1 diabetes herself, which is why she has a particular passion for developing a cure. Learn more about her PhD re...

Nuri Smith is a researcher working to better understand ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease)... by growing tiny spinal cords in a dish! By studying balls of neurons, motor neurons, and muscle cells, Nuri is learning more about how ALS progresses and produces symptoms -- and eventually how we might treat this disease in a targeted way. Listen to Nuri talk abou...

Jane Waters leads the ant lab at Providence College. Her lab studies ants and other insects, exploring their natural history, collective behavior, and metabolic physiology. It turns out that ants can teach us a lot about broader rules of social interaction, the energy use of growing organisms (or even cities!), and even the human brain! Learn more about ants and get a glimpse at some fascinating a...

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...