Further Together the ORAU Podcast

Our health is one of our most important personal assets, and Brenda Blunt, ORAU director of health policy, knows that from her experience as a nurse and her extensive experience working with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. She and host Michael Holtz discuss the importance of healthcare and health policy, during a wide-ranging conversation. One revelation: While ORAU is known for it...

Kourtney Purham, a STEM teacher at Kramer Elementary School in Washington, D.C., was one of three winners of the CIA Mission Possible Classroom Transformation competition in 2021. After 15 years at another school, Purham's win of $25,000 in new technology for her classroom definitely made an impression. During this conversation, she and host Michael Holtz discuss what the last year has been like,...

In this episode, host Michael Holtz talks with Dr. Carol Iddins, director of the Radiation Emergency Assistance Center/Training Site, or REAC/TS. REAC/TS is a world-renowned Department of Energy asset located at ORISE. Dr. Iddins talks about the work of REAC/TS, the importance of their role for both DOE and the National Nuclear Security Agency, and how her team is always ready to respond in the ev...

Although rigid guidelines have been established for animal research, the parameters have not been as clear in the teaching and training of students veterinarians. Marci Savoy, Ph. D., a research associate with ORAU's research services team, co-authored a chapter on "Animal Care and Use in Veterinary Teaching and Clinical Services," for the book Finding Your Place at the Table, published by the Med...

How has the coronavirus pandemic magnified barriers to career development for women in science? That's the question being researched by Dr. Laura Davenport, ORISE evaluation specialist for STEM Workforce Development, and Dr. Firouzeh Sabri, chair of the Department of Physics and Material Science at the University of Memphis. Their research is funded through the ORAU-Directed Research and Developme...

How did so-called lockdown or stay-at-home orders designed to slow the spread of the coronavirus impact air pollutant concentrations, particularly in underserved communities? That's the question Davyda Hammond, Ph. D., ORAU environmental engineer, and researchers at the University of Houston Air Quality Forecasting and Modeling Lab are working to answer. They are investigating and characterizing t...

Around here, Kristy Kistner is ORAU's quality queen. As the director of performance excellence, she, among other duties, oversees maintenance of ORAU’s ISO 9001:2015 registration, compliance with the U.S. Department of Energy quality assurance requirements, and conduct of assessments and process improvement initiatives. Next week, she will be speaking during the American Quality Institute's ISO 90...

This episode of Further Together is an ORISE Featurecast, wherein host Michael Holtz talks with Dr. Jim Vosburg, director of the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education. They talk about the great work ORISE does across five performance areas and plans in progress to mark ORISE's 30 anniversary.

ORAU and the University of Tennessee have partnered on a research project to develop computer simulations for rural disaster preparedness. In this episode we talk to lead researchers Julie Crumly, Ph. D., ORAU research and evaluation specialist and senior scientist, and Tom Berg, Ph. D., from the University of Tennessee, who has a joint appointment to the College of Nursing and the College of Engi...

ORAU assumed management of the $129.7 million NASA Postdoctoral Program at the end of January 2022. In this episode of Further Together, host Michael Holtz talks with Scott Miller, ORAU Program Director for the program. What is the NPP program, why is it important to the NASA enterprise, and how can early and senior career scientists be part of this important research program? Tune in for details,...

Ronnie Bogard has led an effort over the last few years to properly archive, digitize and make available to the public the archives of renowned nuclear physicist Alvin Weinberg. Weinberg, who was administrator of ORNL during and after the Manhattan Project, kept his papers -- letters, commentaries, research projects, photographs, etc. -- in a number of file cabinets and storage boxes. When he came...

The presence and use of technology in the classroom has accelerated rapidly in response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. But what does technology look like in the post-pandemic landscape? ORAU and The MITRE Corporation partnered in 2021 on a long-term project to research and ultimately improve equitable adoption of artificial intelligence in education. In this episode of Further Together, Mich...

ORAU-Directed Research and Development grants is an investment program that provides a path for funding innovative research-based approaches/solutions that fall within the intersection of ORAU's core capabilities and our member universities’ research interests. In this episode of Further Together, we talk with Casey Thomas, ODRD program manager about the program, the priorities for research that j...

Dr. Donna Cragle, senior scientific advisor, has worked at ORAU for nearly 40 years. In the second part of our conversation, she talks about being a woman in science, how ORAU's culture has evolved, her role as corporate ombudsman and more. Her perspective on science and the company will be enlightening, and often humorous.

In this episode of ORAU at 75, a special series of the Further Together podcast, we talk to Dr. Donna Cragle, senior scientific advisor at ORAU. Dr. Cragle is an epidemiologist who has been part of the ORAU scientific enterprise for decades. This is the first of a two-part interview that focuses on how she pursued an education in epidemiology to how she came to work for ORAU and more. A conversati...

Podcast host Michael Holtz considers himself a gratitude evangelist, and Thanksgiving is his favorite holiday of the year. The Gratitude Show episode of Further Together, the ORAU Podcast, has become an annual tradition. We hope hearing from employees across the organization will lift your spirits as much as they've lifted ours.

The National Supplemental Screening Program, or NSSP, is a legacy program for ORAU that began in 1996. The NSSP provides free medical screenings to Department of Energy workers who have have been exposed to hazards in the workplace. The NSSP collects data to help identify if those former workers have developed any health conditions related to workplace exposures, as well as any health conditions t...

In this episode, Michael Holtz talks to Sara Howard, MPH and Ph. D. student, who works in the epidemiology and exposure science group at ORAU and ORISE, recently won a Scholar-in-Training Award for her virtual poster presentation at the 67th Annual Meeting of the Radiation Research Society. Her poster presentation focused on "Tobacco use and its relationship to socioeconomic status in occupational...

Acclaimed Oak Ridge historian Ray Smith, who knows just about everything there is to know about the Manhattan Project that created Oak Ridge and everything that has happened since, sat down with host Michael Holtz to talk about ORAU's place in Oak Ridge's history. From our founding to our early leadership to our impact on nuclear medicine and beyond, Smith is a wealth of knowledge.

With this episode, Further Together begins a monthly series of podcast episodes in which we talk about the research enterprise at ORAU. Ken Tobin, vice president and senior research officer in our Research and University Partnerships Office, gives an overview of ORAU's research enterprise along with a sneak peek at future episodes, which will include interviews with researchers across the organiza...

Like a number of companies, ORAU kicked off its annual giving campaign. We invited Naomi Asher, executive director of the United Way of Anderson County to talk about the importance of the annual giving campaign as a fundraising mechanism and how UWAC and its partner agencies support some of the most basic needs in our communities. Also joining host Michael Holtz for this conversation are Jennifer...

As ORAU kicks off its 75th anniversary celebration, Andy Page, president and CEO, talks about the company he has led for the last 11 years. He shares his journey from national security program manager to CEO, how he and corporate leadership navigated ORAU through the worldwide pandemic, how our corporate culture has changed, and what makes a company like ORAU built to last for 75 years and beyond....

As we close National Preparedness Month, ORAU's team of experts look to the past to help map out the future of preparedness. They discuss Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall in Southeast Louisiana on August 29, 2005. The powerful Category 3 storm left 1,800 people dead, caused $100 billion in damage, and demonstrated that America was ill prepared to respond to a disaster of such magnitude. A lo...

In our fourth conversation about National Postdoc Appreciation Week, host Michael Holtz talk to Erin Burr about her postdoc experience and how that experience developed into the work she does today. We also discuss how she became interested in a STEM career and so much more. We've enjoyed observing National Postdoc Appreciation Week through these conversations. We hope you enjoyed listening to the...

It's National Postdoc Appreciation Week!! We're celebrating at the ORISE Featurecast by talking with folks within our organization who have their own postdoc experiences to share. This week, host Michael Holtz talks with Ann Martin about her experience, what drew her to pursue a career in STEM, and how her experience shaped who she is today