Further Together the ORAU Podcast

National Postdoc Appreciation Week is September 21-25. In preparation for the observance, ORISE Featurecast host Michael Holtz sat down with four members of our team who shared about their own postdoc experiences. In this episode, he talked to Rachel Creager, who discusses her postdoc experience, how she got interested in a career in the STEM fields and what she does today. Give a listen!

National Postdoc Appreciation Week is September 21-25. In preparation for the observance, ORISE Featurecast host Michael Holtz sat down with four members of our team who shared about their own postdoc experiences. First up is Rachel Hill, who discusses her postdoc experience, how she got interested in a career in the STEM fields and what she does today. Give a listen!

September is National Preparedness Month, an observance to raise awareness about the importance of preparing for disasters and emergencies that could happen at any time. Disaster and pandemic preparedness have been among ORAU’s capabilities for decades. In this episode of Further Together, a team of preparedness experts gather to discuss preparedness in the pre-9/11 era, post-9/11 work, pandemic p...

If Lauren Shaffer's 10-year-old brother had not been required to interview someone who lived through the period of history depicted in the book, "Number the Stars," she and the rest of her family may never have heard the story of her great-grandfather's flight from Nazi Germany, or of her grandmother living in hiding for over a year before visas could be secured to get out of the country, or of Un...

Keri Cagle, ORAU director of science and technology and ORISE director of scientific technical resource integration, is willing to bet she has the best team in the entire ORAU enterprise. They're close knit, they work hard, and they have experienced loads of successes over the past year and beyond. Leading a team like hers bring her joy, as does the optimism she feels about the anticipated growth...

Isaac Clark, an ORAU program specialist, leaned into his creative side to write a children's book called Batchy's Busy Day. Batchy spends one very busy day attempting to help his friends with basic chores but ends up causing more problems than he solved. Clark is donating a portion of proceeds from the book to the International OCD Foundation, which helps people with OCD access mental health servi...

Jason Black, Ph. D., an associate professor of information systems at Florida A&M University, is the apple who didn't fall far from the tree. His mother was a computer scientist for IBM Watson in the 1960s who later taught at FAMU. Because of her work, Dr. Black was around and worked with computers for much of his life, including coding games that he would charge his friends a quarter to play....

In this episode of the ORISE Featurecast, host Michael Holtz talks about the National Science Foundation Mathematical Sciences Graduate Internship, which is managed by ORISE. The conversation includes Ryleigh Moore, a doctoral candidate and program participant; Marissa Torres, Ryleigh's mentor; and Jennifer Burnette, the program manager. Ryleigh talks about the many avenues she has open to her bec...

Kristy Kistner, ORAU's Director of Performance Excellence, knows a thing or two million about quality standards and assurance practices. So much so, in fact, that she was one of three United States experts invited to join an international ad hoc group established to examine the feasibility of converting International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9004 into a quality assurance standard wit...

  When the coronavirus pandemic struck more than a year ago, ORAU Workforce Solutions was poised to help their customers manage the transition from work-from-work to work-from-home. Amanda Hurley, Workforce Solutions section manager, reflects on how the technology her team uses every day set them up for success during a time of incredible change. Virtual career fairs, video interviews and more hav...

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused all of us to adapt and adjust in some way at the organizational level, the individual level and beyond. How organizations adapt and cope with COVID will impact our organizational culture for five years and perhaps longer. Jeff Miller, Ph. D., ORAU Senior Vice President and Director of ORAU Government Services, presents the evidence for how the stressors of the last...

Workplaces across the country shifted to remote work to protect people from the fast-spreading coronavirus a year ago, including national laboratories and other federal research agencies. At one point, 80% of ORISE research participation program participants were working remotely. The task to make that shift was enormous, considering RPPs are not designed for remote work. With expert guidance from...

Dr. Phil Bourne, Stephenson Dean of the School of Data Science at the University of Virginia, didn't set out to be a data scientist. Rather, Bourne, who hails from Australia, began his career as a physical chemist. He got interested in the computational part of physical chemistry, which led him to become an expert in compiling huge data sets. Among his many accomplishments, Bourne served as associ...

The Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program was established in 2000 to support unclassified basic research in areas of interest to the intelligence community. Funded primarily by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the program annually supports several Postdoctoral Fellows from U.S. accredited colleges, universities, and U.S. Government laboratories across...

Dr. Adayabalam Balajee, director of the Radiation Emergency Assistance Center/Training Site Cytogenetic Biodosimetry Laboratory, is a busy and prolific researcher. Most recently, he co-authored a manuscript in partnership with colleagues at the University of Tennessee that was recently published in Nature Communications. He has also developed the Chromosome Challenge, which gamifies the identifica...

In this episode of Further Together, the ORAU Podcast, host Michael Holtz talks with Renee Cummings, data activist in residence and criminologist at the University of Virginia School of Data Science. In this wide-ranging, important and hopeful conversation, Cummings discusses data science ethics including the ethics of Artificial Intelligence; diversity, equity and inclusion in AI development; alg...

ORAU's 127-member University Consortium enables us to leverage the research capabilities of members and those of our subject matter experts to collaborate on research projects that meet the needs of our federal and industry partners. Through ORAU-Directed Research and Development (ODRD) funding, future research projects will be focused around public health, data science and analytics, and diversit...

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sara Alert™ was developed to automate the monitoring of individuals exposed to or infected with COVID-19. In partnership with MITRE, ORAU’s goal is to leverage existing Sara Alert™ technology to protect the health of students and faculty on campus by creating a tool customized to university needs, Sara Alert™ Academic. Sara Alert™ Academic enables students and...

Those of us who work here say it frequently: ORAU is a family. Few of us, though, can say that with 50 years of company experience under their belts. Betty Bowling retired at the end of November from her role as a program specialist working with the ORISE EPA Research Participation Program, just one of the many positions she's held in the company over the years. Jenna Harpenau and Michael Holtz ta...

Talking about how rough 2020 has been borders on cliche at this point, but makes it no less true. From a global pandemic seemingly raging out of control to the economic fallout of decisions made to protect people to personal challenges that have occurred for many of us on top of all of that, 2020 has been difficult. But, as you'll hear in this special episode of Further Together, the ORAU podcast,...

Dr. Mark Ervin has experienced a lot of firsts in his career, but joining REAC/TS as the new associate director in the middle of a pandemic certainly stands out. In this episode, you'll learn about Dr. Ervin's background, work experience, hopes for the future of this ORISE crown jewel, and even hear about the Zen of fishing without bait. Jenna and Michael had a great conversation with Dr. Ervin fo...

The National Supplemental Screening Program (NSSP) provides free medical screenings to Department of Energy workers from any DOE site around the country who may have been exposed to hazards in the workplace. The NSSP collects data to help identify if these former workers have developed any health conditions related to exposures that they had in the workplace, as well as identify any health conditi...

Every summer for the last 31 years, ORAU has managed a High School Summer Math-Science-Technology Institute and a Middle School Science Academy for the Appalachian Regional Commission. In ordinary times, both of these programs are residential in nature, with students and teachers traveling to Oak Ridge, Tenn., to work alongside researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, tour the area and more....

This episode of the ORISE Featurecast is a conversation with Chic Thompson, founder of WAGI Labs, and Kayla Canario, ORISE K-12 program manager. ORISE and WAGI Labs are working together to help students learn the concepts of design thinking, entrepreneur and empathy so they can solve problems in their communities. Together, ORISE and WAGI Labs have created a free game that helps students learn the...

The coronavirus pandemic has upended so much of how we live, learn, work and play. It has also impacted how we give. In this episode, Michael Holtz and Jenna Harpenau talk to Naomi Asher, executive director of the United Way of Anderson County, and representatives from three agencies supported by UWAC -- Michael Yates from Ridgeview Behavioral Health Services, Annie Cachiero from Aid to Distressed...