Inspiration Dissemination

Sofiya Yusova is a microbiology graduate student focusing on the impact of climate change on C. shasta, a parasite that infects salmonids in the Pacific Northwest. We talk with Sofiya about the lifecycle of C. shasta, and how knowledge of the lifecycle can give state and tribal organizations tools to help ensure the survival of salmon as they travel from alpine rivers to the Pacific ocean. Please...

Our guest is Winston Kennedy, a 3rd year PhD student in the Kinesiology program and Adaptive Physical Activity option, has been a practicing Physical Therapist since 2015. Over time, he noticed his patients with mobility limitations were trying to perform their rehabilitation exercises at home but they received inadequate support or guidance from other medical personnel because the gym or their pe...

Amine Gaizi is a masters student working on a degree in Electronics and Embedded systems. As an exchange student from France, Amine is studying in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering within the College of Engineering here at OSU. In this episode, we talk about about Amine’s journey to OSU, including his work with robots in Germany, how the French school system is organized, and a...

Nathan Justus studies the robotics of biological motion. He is part of a team that is using robotics as a creative tool to tackle an issue relevant to the grape industry - that more than 700 black widow spiders end up in consumer's grapes every year. For his Master’s project Nathan worked on developing a new method of measuring the frequency of the web vibrations when two black widows speak to eac...

Meredith Jacobson is a Master’s student in the Forest, Ecosystems and Society Department of OSU’s College of Forestry who studies collaborative partnerships in forest management. She describes her thesis work here at Oregon State as a qualitative case study on the concept of “Anchor Forests”, an idea developed by the Intertribal Timber Council that would involve creating large regions of forest ma...

A lot of the concepts that scientists use to justify why things are the way they are, are devised solely based on theory. Some theoretical concepts have been established for so long that they are simply accepted without being scrutinized very often. The umbrella species concept is one such example as it is a theoretical approach to doing conservation and although in theory it is thought to be an e...

What do we know about cooperation? Can we quantify the tipping point? This week’s guest, Bryan Lynn, a second-year PhD student co-advised by Dr. Patrick De Leenheer in the Department of Integrative Biology and Martin Schuster in Microbiology studies the evolution of cooperation. To do this, Bryan scales his work way down to microorganism level. Evolutionary theory has been largely based on the Dar...

Allison Swartz, a PhD student in the Forest Ecosystems and Society program in the College of Forestry at Oregon State, is in the midst of a multi-year study on forest stream ecosystems. “My work focuses on canopy structure—how the forest age and structure influences life in streams,” says Allison. “People are always shocked at how many organisms live in such a small section of stream. So much life...

When tsunamis occur they cause significant damage to coastal infrastructure and the surrounding natural environment. Sam Harry’s research in Civil Engineering is filled with bizarre scientific instruments and massive contraptions in an effort to bring large natural events into the laboratory setting. “There’s only a couple like it in the world, so it’s pretty unique”. Unique may be an understateme...

One kilometer. Or roughly ten football fields. That’s the extent of the area over which Karla Jarecke can feasibly navigate her way through the trailless HJ Andrews Experimental forest to collect the data she needs in a typical day of field work. Experimental watersheds like the HJ Andrews forest (link here) were established initially to understand how clear-cutting influenced forest drainage. Thi...

In vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment is a procedure in which a woman’s mature eggs are removed via surgery, combined with sperm in a petri dish in a lab, and then the fertilized egg is placed in the uterus to continue growing into an embryo. Unfortunately, IVF is not covered by all insurance companies and is successful less than 50 percent of the time. Consequently, undergoing IVF can be a signi...

The use of chemotherapy to fight various forms of cancer in the human body has been a successful method for decades, but what happens when it fails? This question strikes a personal note for Martin Pearce, a Ph. D. candidate in Dr. Siva Kolluri’s Cancer Biology lab group at Oregon State University researching new strategies that target the cancer cells that continue to grow after treatment with ch...

Have you ever wondered why you see birds in some places and not in others? Or why you see a certain species in one place and not in a different one? Birds have wings enabling them to fly so surely we should see them everywhere and anywhere because their destination options are technically limitless. However, this isn’t actually the case. Different bird species are in fact limited to where they can...

Your eye lenses host one of the highest concentration of crystallin protein in your entire body and Heather Forsythe, a 4th year PhD candidate working with Dr. Elisar Barbar in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, uses incredibly detailed spectroscopic techniques to identify what happens to this protein as we age and why cataracts may develop later in life. Heather's specialty is Nuclear...

Grace Deitzler is a second year PhD student in microbiology working on the gut-microbiome and its relation to autism spectrum disorder. When the gut communicates with the brain, we call this, the “gut-brain axis”. Grace’s work narrows in on the gut-brain axis and more specifically, how one bacterial species in particular impacts autism spectrum disorder. We talk about the gut microbiome, mice, bee...

What happens to plastics when we put them in the recycling container? Some may go to be reused, but due to the ubiquity of plastics in our consumer and food products they are making their way into the ocean as fragments and as they break down further they are also taken up by fish. As plastics degrade they shrink into smaller and smaller pieces, but they don't magically disappear. Our guest is Kat...

This week we have a special episode where the script is flipped. One of our hosts will be interviewed by a graduate student as part of her research into people’s perceptions of nature. Adrian Gallo, a regular host, is interviewed by Betsy Emery in the same format she will conduct her MS research. Betsy is a MS student in the Forest Ecosystems and Society Department within the College of Forestry w...

Our guest is Shauna Otto, a PhD student in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics in the lab of Dr. Colin Johnson who broads focuses on protein research. Shauna studies dysferlin, a subgroup of the ferlin protein, which helps mend membrane tears in muscle cells. Mutations in the dysferlin gene lead to Muscular Dystrophy II. Through her work, Shauna has characterized portions or "domains" of...

Vaclav Kuna, a doctoral candidate in seismology in the College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences working with Dr. John Nabelek, is studying the Blanco Transform fault - how it slips and how it moves, and whether its motion is seismic (involving an earthquake) or aseismic (slow movement without an earthquake). A collection of movements is called a seismic swarm. Through his research, Vaclav...

Hankyu Kim PhD student in the Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society, is using long term ecological data from HJ Andrews Experimental Forest to study the Hermit Warbler and other bird species. Hankyu is interested in how and why bird communities are changing over time. With 11 years of bird observations and extensive temperature data, he is attempting to estimate how population of birds persi...

A.J. Fillo is in the final year of his PhD in Mechanical Engineering working to better understand how the microscopic motion of molecules impacts the type of combustion that we use in jet engines. In addtion to his research, A.J. is passionate about outreach, and magic. Hosted by Heather Forsythe and Adrian Gallo. Please find us on social media! Twitter: twitter.com/kbvrID facebook: www.facebook.c...

This week’s guest, Hoda Tahami, is a third year PhD student in Dr. Jihye Park’s geomatics research group in the Department of Civil and Construction Engineering. Using geomatics - the science of gathering, storing, processing, and delivering spatially referenced information – Hoda is working to improve weather models for hurricane prediction. Please find us on social media! Twitter: twitter.com/kb...

Ward Shalash, a first-year PhD student studying bioengineering with Dr. Morgan Giers, is working to find a better way to treat back-pain-causing deteriorated intervertebral disks using STEM cells and MRI. Hosted by Heather Forsythe and Daniel Watkins Please find us on social media! Twitter: twitter.com/kbvrID facebook: www.facebook.com/InspirationDissemination/ Blog: blogs.oregonstate.edu/inspirat...

Jackie Delie is a 2nd year Masters student in the Fisheries and Wildlife Department who is examining how humans interact with black bears in Oregon. Her work is using the human ecology mapping technique, where researchers look at both the spatial land management factors and how social factors overlay on those same areas to better make management decisions. Jackie is pioneering this research in Ore...

Delia Shelton, a National Science Foundation post-doctoral fellow in the Dept. of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology, uses zebrafish to investigate how cadmium exposure in an individual affects the behavior of the group. How does a zebrafish become a leader, how do sick zebrafish influence group behavior, and what are the traits of individuals occupying different social roles? These specific q...