Inspiration Dissemination

Rachel Kaplan is a 4th year PhD student who studies both ends of marine food chains: the prey (krill) and the predator (baleen whales). Rachel conducts research in Oregon and along the Western Antarctic Peninsula. As a last-minute, life-saver of the show, this episode is a little different from our usual shows as we take a trip with Rachel to Antarctica and learn about what it means to be a resear...

Elliot Icarus Laurence is a first year Master of Fine Arts student who draws on his own experience of growing up in poverty and continued financial precarity as a source of inspiration for writing fiction. Elliot says he is most inspired by people who “make it work,” such as single parents managing to make rent from paycheck to paycheck and overworked social services providers. Hosted by Joseph Va...

Jose Aguilar is not here to help robots take over the world. In fact, the first year PhD student studying artificial intelligence says he’s actually working on the opposite–to ensure that AI systems are safe, and raise alarm when they’re not. Hosted by Jenna Fryer and Selene Ross

Today's guest is Lauren Diaz, a fourth year PhD student in the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences. Lauren focuses on the population dynamics of freshwater organisms. We speak with Lauren about how she came to love stream ecosystems and her research on modeling the behavior of rainbow trout populations in California's Central Valley. Hosted by Joseph Valencia and Lisa Hild...

For those of us who consume dairy products, we often don’t give much thought to the trials and tribulations that had to be faced to get that product on the grocery shelves. It’s probably a fair assumption to say that most of us have never considered that cheese could explode, but that is the center of Madeleine Enriquez’s graduate research. Join us this week as we learn about this phenomenon and M...

Join our conversation with Natalie Van Gelder, a first year graduate student writing creative nonfiction in OSU's MFA program. Natalie's work contributes to the emerging fields of medical humanities and narrative medicine, and she's passionate about bringing writing as a tool for discovery to those who many not be familiar with the practice. Hosted by Matt Vaughan and Selene Ross.

This episode features Matt Vaughan, a third year PhD student in Integrative Biology working with Prof. Sarah Henkel in the Benthic Ecology Lab. Matt originally hails from Melbourne, Australia and recently joined the ID team as a host. Join us to learn about the fascinating ghost shrimp, their impact on marine systems, and how “disturbance and change" drives Matthew's research! Hosted by Jenna Frye...

Join us this week as we talk with Ellison Rose, a first year MFA student of creative non-fiction about what a memoir is and how they are writing theirs. Our conversation touches on what rurality means, what it feels like coming back to graduate school after an 8-year gap since college, as well as features a stunning writing sample read by El. If you're interested in learning more about the convers...

This week's guest is Selene Ross, an MFA student specializing in literary fiction through short stories. We go in depth on how Selene seeks creative inspiration from people and places and the makings of a captivating story. Our conversation touches on her interests in women, belief, and the environmental symbolism of her home state of California. Hosted by Jenna Fryer and Joseph Valencia.

Per and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS, are widely used, long lasting chemicals, components of which break down very slowly over time. This is why you may have heard these substances called “forever chemicals.” However, the toxicity of these substances are not fully understood. Join us on this episode with E Hernandez to discuss these ubiquitous substances and his work to better be...

In the small town of Maxville in eastern Oregon there's a story that often goes overlooked. Like many Oregon towns, Maxville was a timber town, but unique to Maxville is the community of Black loggers that lived and worked there after the Great Migration of the 1920s. Lonni Ivey is a logger’s daughter. While in her MA program in History, she learned about the community of Black loggers in Maxville...

This episode is an exit interview of sorts for Dr. Grace Deitzler, who you may know as one of our hosts the past few years. Grace recently graduate with a PhD in Microbiology and is moving on from ID and Oregon State. We chat about her dissertation research into the effects of probiotics on the honeybee microbiome, the "double hit hypothesis", and science communication. Congrats Grace! Hosted by J...

Getting to the bottom of what top predators in an ecosystem are eating is critical to understand how they may be influencing dynamics in the entire system and food web. But how do you figure out what a predator is eating if it’s hard to catch and collar or watch continuously? Easy, you use their poop! Our guest this week, Ellen Dymit, does exactly this with wolves in Alaska and a whole host of car...

This week our guest is Alexander Butcher, a second year MS and soon-to-be PhD student in the Department of Crop and Soil Science. We speak with Alexander about protecting potato crops in Oregon and elsewhere from a hungry pest -- the Colorado potato beetle. Alexander works with a class of chemicals called elicitors which act to stimulate plants' natural defenses as an alternative to conventional p...

There’s a big difference between human time and Earth–or soil–time. It’s what makes climate impacts so difficult to imagine, and climate solutions so challenging to fully realize. Take it from someone who knows: our guest this week has spent the last decade studying the very idea of “permanence.” Join us this week as we delve a bit into the world beneath our feel and chat with recent graduate, and...

We have a little bit of a different format this week. Joseph Valencia and Lisa Hildebrand host an informal discussion on a timely topic -- artificial intelligence! We cover our personal experiences using ChatGPT for research and for fun, how chatbots work, and the uncertainties surrounding future deployment of AI.

This week we have Andrea Domen, a MS student in Food Science and Technology co-advised by Dr. Joy Waite-Cusic and Dr. Jovana Kovacevic, joining us to discuss her research investigating some mischievous pathogenic microbes. Much like an unwelcome dinner guest, food-bourne pathogens can stick around for far longer than you think. Andrea seeks to uncover the mechanisms that allow for Listeria monocyt...

“Structure informs function” says Hannah Stuwe, a second year PhD student in Biochemistry and Biophysics (BB), summing up the big picture of her discipline. Hannah works in the lab of Prof. Elisar Barbar, using biophysical techniques to study essential proteins encoded by the SARS-Cov2 virus. Tune in to learn more about this fascinating, and very relevant work! Hosted by Joseph Valencia and Jenna...

Scott Mitchell is a 4th year PhD student in the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences advised by Dr. Sandy DeBano. His overarching research goal is to understand how different land management practices may impact beneficial invertebrate communities in a variety of managed landscapes. Yes, you read that right: beneficial invertebrates. Because while many invertebrates have a...

There are many adjectives used to describe the taste of different kinds of cheese: mild, tangy, buttery, nutty, sharp, smoky. Our preferences between these different characteristics will then drive what cheese we look for in stores and buy. But I would wager that most people (or dare I say anyone?) are rarely looking for a bitter cheese. Paige Benson is a first year Master’s student advised by Dr....

When you think of a coral reef, what do you picture? Perhaps you imagine colorful branching structures jutting out of rock and the sea floor, with flourishing communities of fish swimming about. Or if you’ve been paying attention to news about global warming for the past decade or two, maybe you picture desolate expanses of bleached corals, their bone-like structures eerily reminiscent of a mass g...

Janelle Layton is a second-year master's student continuing on for a PhD in Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences. Janelle studies grouper fish, traveling to a large spawning site in the Cayman Islands to collect larvae of the Nassau grouper. In the lab, she investigates the relationship between heat-shock proteins and larvae survival for clues as to the adaptability of this species to warming waters. W...

This week we have a Fisheries and Wildlife Master’s student and ODFW employee, Gabriella Brill, joining us to discuss her research investigating the impact of dams on the movement and reproduction habits of the White Sturgeon here in Oregon. Despite being able to lay millions of eggs at a time, the White Sturgeon will only do so if the conditions are right. This fish Goldilocks’ its way through th...

Everardo Gonzalez joins the show this week to talk about his research on multi-agent robotic systems, or swarms. Swarms of robots can be used to accomplish tasks that it would be difficult for one robot to complete alone, but swarming robots also come with other challenges: directing individual members of the swarm, and how to assess which members accomplished the swarm so that future feedback can...

We are pleased to introduce our upcoming guest, Christopher Cousins, a fourth-year PhD student in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, advised by Prof. Tiffany Garcia. Cousins is researching torrent salamanders, a family of small amphibians endemic to the Pacific Northwest. Tune in to hear more about his journey, what it is like to explore the Mt. St. Helens eruption zone, and what motivates...