ORISE Featurecast

Educators who are selected for the Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship say the program changes their lives and their classrooms for the better. In this episode of the ORISE Featurecast, Michael Holtz talks to four current and former AEF Fellows about how the program has impacted their lives and the lives of their students. Gretel von Bargen, Kelly Day, Amy Szczepanski and Dr. Pascale...

Elizanette Lopez is an ORISE Fellow at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where she is studying how to develop plans for preparing and responding to public health emergencies. In this conversation with host Michael Holtz, Lopez discusses the evolution of her career since her earliest interest in becoming a scientist at the age of seven and deciding she wanted to work for the CDC as ea...

The Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship provides a unique opportunity for accomplished K-12 educators in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to serve in the national education arena. Fellows spend eleven months working in Federal agencies or in U.S. Congressional offices, applying their extensive knowledge and classroom experiences to national educa...

Dr. Elizabeth Armstrong-Mensah, a former ORISE Fellow at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is the undergraduate program director for Health Policy and and Behavioral Sciences at the Georgia State University School of Public Health. She was honored with the 2023 Early Career Teaching Excellence Award from the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health for her passion fo...

Mariah Guevara, who holds a biomedical engineering degree from Brown University, has a full plate and she loves it! At the time she and host Michael Holtz had this conversation, Guevara had recently been named a Fulbright Scholar. She was teaching students to prepare for the American College Testing (ACT) Test part time, conducting research at a local university and studying for the Medical Colleg...

This is a special edition of the ORISE Featurecast, wherein host Michael Holtz interviewed the winners of the Ignite Off! competition during the ORISE National Postdoc Appreciation Week Symposium, held Wednesday, September 20. Amanda Fanelli de Souza, Madeline Addis and Samaria Estrella discuss their Ignite Off! presentations, the trajectories of their academic and research careers, obstacles they...

Sara Howard, an epidemiologist at ORISE, is working with a researcher at Vanderbilt University to study how factors that change over time impact the models assessing exposure and health risks from radiation exposures. Their ORAU-Directed Research and Development project is still in its early stages, but Howard explains the science behind assessing multiple factors, why the research is important, a...

Jennifer Childress, a high school science teacher in Alaska, recently completed the Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship. During her fellowship, Childress was part of the Department of Defense STEM program. Her experience as an educator proved valuable to helping shape some of the programming offered through DoD STEM. In this episode, Michael Holtz and Bryan Campbell talk to Childress...

The DOE Scholars Program is designed to create a pipeline of highly qualified talent in disciplinary fields that support mission critical areas of the U.S. Department of Energy. While DOE is focused on science and research, not everyone in the Scholars Program has a background in STEM. Cristina Cordero, program coordinator for the Mickey Leland Energy Fellowship, is a former DOE Scholar with a bac...

Joe Giove is the director of business operations in the Office of Carbon Management for the U.S. Department of Energy. Among his many duties, Giove is a mentor for the Mickey Leland Energy Fellowship, a 10-week summer research fellowship for undergraduate and graduate students in STEM majors. In this episode, Giove and host Michael Holtz discuss his role at DOE, the MLEF program and the important...

Earlier this summer, the Radiation Emergency Assistance Center/Training Site (REAC/TS) hosted the NATO Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear Medical Symposium in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The event brought together experts from around the world to share best practices to prepare for events where large numbers of people could be exposed to chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear elements. Imag...

Asha Dee Celestine is an ORISE Science, Technology and Policy Fellow at the U.S. Department of Energy. She and her team research hydrogen as a critical element of our clean energy infrastructure to reduce our carbon footprint. She is the first faculty appointment in an ORISE research participation program to be interviewed for the ORISE Featurecast. Her portfolio includes research and development...

Jeremy Busby is associate laboratory director for Isotope Science and Engineering at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Before he was named associate lab director, he held other roles throughout ORNL, and is a former ORISE participant as well. In this conversation, Busby and host Michael Holtz discuss the various roles Busby has held, how he honed his interest in science, and how valuable mentorship,...

Katherine Wozniak, Ph. D., a postdoctoral researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory, writes about research being conducted at Los Alamos to ensure her audience, especially policymakers, understands research that includes biotechnological advances in the agricultural sector, and so much more. Wozniak also spent two summers 10 years ago as an ORISE research program participant doing analytical ch...

Cedar Blazek is training program manager for the U.S. Department of Energy's Federal Energy Management Program, which helps other agencies in the federal government meet their energy and water efficiency management goals. The training program offers accredited courses to help anyone, whether in government or not, learn how to manage their environmental impact. In this conversation, Blazek and host...

Seni Adeniji is a project manager at Microsoft and a former ORISE research program participant in the Nuclear Engineering Science Laboratory Synthesis program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Adeniji has a passion for science and for mentoring and lifting others up, which shows in his work and his writing. During this conversation with host Michael Holtz, Adeniji talks about his ORISE experience,...

Cancer patients treated with radiation therapy may be required to make daily trips to their cancer treatment center over the course of five, seven or more weeks to experience the full effects of their treatment. While beneficial, this fractional form of radiation therapy can cause serious side effects like burning, blistering, swelling, pain and other side effects in healthy tissue. This type of t...

Dr. Brian J. Anderson, director of the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) of the Department of Energy (DOE), is the first DOE laboratory director to join host Michael Holtz for the ORISE Featurecast. In his capacity at NETL director, Anderson manages the complete NETL complex, including delivery and execution of the Laboratory’s mission. Anderson leads NETL’s national programs, in fossil...

Dr. Alexandra Hakala, senior fellow for geologic and environmental systems in the Research Innovation Center at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory, discusses the formative nature of her ORISE Research Participation Program experience at NETL, how her interest in STEM developed, and her experience being mentored and mentoring others.

Geneva Gray, doctoral candidate in Atmospheric Sciences at North Carolina State University and a current ORISE participant at the Environmental Protection Agency, was named the ORISE Future of Science Graduate Student and Post-Master's Award winner in 2022. She studies how extreme precipitation events change under future warming conditions using stakeholder-driven case studies and extreme value an...

Crystal Clark, a fourth-grade teacher at Mary Munford Elementary School in Richmond, won the CIA Mission Possible Classroom Transformation competition in 2021, through which she received $25,000 to buy new technology for her classroom. In this episode of the ORISE Featurecast, host Michael Holtz talks to Clark and some of her students about how new technology has transformed her classroom, her sch...

Mentoring is associated with academic and career success across disciplines and career stages in higher education. However, inadequate training can reduce the effectiveness of the mentor-to-mentee learning experience. In this episode of the ORISE Featurecast, host Michael Holtz has a conversation with Melissa McDaniels, Ph. D., associate executive director and scientist at the Center for the Impro...

Brooke Vollmer is an ORISE fellow in the Research Branch at the National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory (NPPTL), which is a division within the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) located in Pittsburgh. In this episode of the ORISE Featurecast, host Michael Holtz talks to Vollmer about her role at NIOSH, how she got interested in a career in STEM, and so much m...

Ryan M. Corey is an ORISE Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Research Fellow working with Professor Andrew Singer in the Coordinated Science Laboratory at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. As a hearing aid user since he was a teenager, Corey’s research focuses on signal processing strategies to help people hear better in noisy environments. In particular, he is developing systems that...