Naturally Speaking

In this episode Dr. Dave Bailey and undergraduate students Youssra Bennadji and Lauren Wilson speak with Naturally Speaking’s John Smout and Caroline Sharp about some of the aspects of the Tropical Marine Biology field course. This is a final year option offered as part of the School of Biodiversity, One Health & Veterinary Medicine (SBOHVM)’s Zoology […]

Join Hollie French and Holly Niven in this episode as they sit down with Jessie McCarthy and Euan Bennet to discuss how different stakeholders perceive risks to horses in racing. How do these risks arise on race day? Where may public perceptions differ from those within the racing industry? And how did Jessie and Euan […]

In this episode Dr. Oskar Brattstrom and undergraduate students Bridget Nielsen and Katie Mulholland speak with Naturally Speaking’s Anders Erlandson, Caroline Sharp and Taya Forde about some of the aspects of the Ecology and Conservation of African Ecosystems field course. This is a final year option offered as part of the School of Biodiversity, One […]

Parenting can be a full-time job, and so can pursuing a PhD. For those wearing both hats, how do you manage them effectively? If you are navigating this path or simply curious, jump right into this very interesting and insightful podcast. The conservation continues from Episode 97 with Anna Formstone – a PhD student at […]

In this episode, Holly Niven and Taya Forde speak with Euan Bennet, Lecturer in Research and Numerical Skills at the University of Glasgow and expert in risk factor analysis in Equine Sports. He introduces us to common fatal horse racing injuries and talks about his most recent paper https://doi.org/10.1111/evj.14503 where he uncovered novel risk factors […]

Balancing Parenthood and a PhD: when your research proposal isn’t the only thing keeping you up at night! What happens when two major life challenges collide: undertaking a PhD and raising a child? In the UK, women now outnumber men in doctoral research positions, making the issue of balancing a PhD with caring responsibilities more […]

In this episode, Taya Forde speaks with Jos Bongers – a veterinary clinician specializing in neurology. She tells us all about the University of Glasgow’s Small Animal Hospital Seizure Clinic – the first of its kind in Scotland. This podcast was edited by Shennice Deandrea Knight. Feature image AI generated through WordPress. Intro and outro […]

In this episode of Naturally Speaking, PhD students Mar Pineda and Nic Strowbridge interview our 2024 Darwin Day speaker, Professor Rebecca Kilner FRS, an evolutionary biologist as well as the Head of Zoology and Director of the Museum of Zoology at the University of Cambridge. Professor Kilner shares her journey into the field of evolutionary […]

Are we using the right statistics? It is a contentious question in science. Statistics may seem like a hard, objective discipline, but there are in fact many different opinions and methods when it comes to analyzing our data. Today on Naturally Speaking we are discussing the two main schools of statistics; frequentist and Bayesian statistics. […]

The International Day of Women and Girls in STEM is on February 11th and celebrates the fantastic work of women and girls in STEM. Our University is full of many amazing women doing incredible work in the field of STEM, providing countless role models for young women aspiring to be scientists. However, this wasn’t always […]

In this episode, Paddy McCleave is joined by three amazing guests, Raheema Chunara, Maarya Omar, and Abimbola Abodunrin, to discuss racial inequality in academia. PART 1:  PART 2: Racial inequality has been present in science throughout history and continues to be a widespread issue today. The belief that this is a thing of the past […]

Conferences are a major part of life in academia: they allow us to share our work, build collaborations, and find out more about the interesting work in our field. However, conferences aren’t always easy to navigate and can involve public speaking nerves and awkward interactions. A panel of ‘Conference Survivors’, including Professor Shaun Killen and […]

Most of us will be familiar with the concept of ‘rewilding’, but what about ‘seawilding’? In this episode of Naturally Speaking, we are joined by SBOHVM’s very own Dr Anna McGregor to discuss her very exciting, important and interdisciplinary Scottish native oyster (Ostrea edulis) restoration project. She tells us about how Gaelic place names are […]

In this episode, Mar Pineda and Nic Strowbridge are joined by Professor Matthew Cobb from the University of Manchester. Professor Cobb is a researcher, author, and scientific communicator. He was voted as our postgraduate students’ number 1 choice for our 2023 Darwin Day speaker. He kindly accepted our invitation and presented a fantastic talk on […]

Science communication is a vitally important component of research. It encourages community engagement and sharing of new discoveries, making exciting science accessible to the wider public. However, it is also a skill that can be difficult to master – how do we make science approachable to everyone? In this episode, we have a conversation with […]

In this episode, Taya Forde and Paddy McCleave are joined by Thierry Boulinier, a director of research at CNRS Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive at the Université Montpellier. Thierry’s research focuses on the dispersal and dynamics of seabirds and their parasites, where he works with a range of collaborators, such as the French Polar Institute and, […]

As consumers, we hope that the animals that provide our meat, milk, eggs, etc. are well cared-for and are kept in good welfare conditions. But what does this really mean in practice? This is the second of a pair of episodes that explore different aspects of farm animal welfare. In this episode, Naturally Speaking’s Taya […]

Have you ever wondered what animal internet would look like? In this episode, Naturally Speaking’s Mohammad Saiful Islam Sajib and Taya Forde interview Dr. Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas, a Lecturer in the School of Computing Science, and an associate at IBAHCM. Here, they talk about Ilyena’s work on Animal Connected Interfaces and how technology can play an […]

Feature image courtesy of Eleanor Duncan, 2022 Don’t forget you can subscribe to automatically receive all our latest content, or just our podcasts. We are also available on iTunes and other podcast catchers. Intro and outro music sampled from: “The Curtain Rises” and “Early Riser” Kevin MacLeod[CC BY 3.0]

Ever wondered what it’s like inside a dead whale? In this podcast Masters student Sreedevi Gummuluri and Senior Research Fellow, Lucy Gilbert talk to Dr. Andrew Brownlow, a Senior Lecturer in Veterinary Epidemiology at IBAHCM. To celebrate Andrew’s 1st Anniversary at IBAHCM, he entertains us with tales from his lead role in the Scottish Marine Animal […]

In this podcast, recent Masters graduate Emma Plant interviews Jeanne Robinson, the Hunterian Museum’s curator of entomology. Tune in to hear about this fascinating collection and its origins, what it involves to take care of thousands of unique specimens, and how Jeanne came to find herself in this interesting role. Jeanne Robinson disguised as a […]

Leading up to the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference, which will be held in Glasgow between October 31 and November 12, 2021, the Naturally Speaking team felt it was only fitting to highlight some of the brilliant climate change-related research going on within the Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine. In this podcast, […]

In our latest interview, Joey Humble and Taya Forde chat with Paul Baker – a Lecturer in Biological and Biomedical Sciences from Glasgow Caledonian University and self-described ‘twitcher’ (or ‘birdwatcher’ for those who don’t know the lingo!). In fact, Paul now works on several bird monitoring projects connected with the University of Glasgow. Tune in […]

Ever wondered who plants the wildflowers on campus? Or how many species you might spot on a walk around Glasgow? In this episode, Naturally Speaking’s Emma Plant and Alexa Roditi interview not one, but three guests in a roundtable discussion about wildlife on campus. Agnes Berner, the biodiversity coordinator of Glasgow University’s Environmental Sustainability Team...

Efforts to return Scotland’s land to a more natural state could be spurred on by an unlikely helper: an independent, hardy and terribly cute breed of horse, the Exmoor pony. In this podcast, Naturally Speaking’s Joey Humble interviews PhD student Debbie Davy, a guardian and advocate for the Exmoor pony, who has recently introduced a […]