People Behind the Science Podcast Stories from Scientists about Science, Life, Research, and Science Careers

Dr. Natalia Vergara is an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at the Sue Anschutz-Rodgers Eye Center, University of Colorado School of Medicine on the Anschutz Medical Campus. Natalia uses stem cells to understand how the retina forms during development and how it degenerates during disease with the goal of developing therapies to help patients who suffer from vision loss. For her research, Natal...

Dr. Randy Blakely is a Professor of Biomedical Science at Florida Atlantic University and Executive Director of the Florida Atlantic University Brain Institute. Randy is examining how neurons control neurotransmitter signaling, as well as how medicinal drugs and drugs of abuse impact neurotransmitters. He is interested in how normal neurotransmitter regulation and changes in neurotransmission due...

Dr. Nirosha J. Murugan is a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Tissue Biophysics as well as Distinguished Research Chair and Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Sciences at Wilfrid Laurier University. Her research focuses on how our bodies, cells, and tissues communicate with each other from the molecular scale all the way up to our organs, physiology, and consciousness. She is intereste...

Dr. Sonia Contera is an Associate Professor of Biological Physics at the University of Oxford Physics Department, and a Research Fellow of Green Templeton College. She is also the author of the recently released book Nano comes to Life. Sonia is a physicist who is interested in biology and the mechanics of biology across different space and time scales. She develops experiments and techniques to u...

Dr. Donovan German is Associate Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. Donovan aims to better understand how materials move through the gut, which enzymes are secreted during digestion, what microbes are present, and what role these microbes play. In particular, Donovan focuses his research on animals with unusual d...

Dr. Trudy G. Oliver is a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology & Cancer Biology as well as a Duke Science and Technology Scholar at Duke University. Trudy's research focuses on small cell lung cancer, a disease known for its remarkable ability to "shape-shift" or undergo cellular plasticity. This adaptability allows cancer cells to change types and develop different therapeutic vulnerabiliti...

Dr. Ian Winship is an Associate Professor and a former Alberta Innovates Health Solutions Scholar in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Alberta. He is also Director of the Neurochemical Research Unit there. Ian is interested in understanding how we can reduce the damage early after a stroke and ways we can improve recovery in people who had a stroke a long time ago. His research als...

Dr. Ana Spalding is Assistant Professor of Marine and Coastal Policy and Affiliate Faculty at the Pacific Marine Energy Center at Oregon State University. She is also a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama as well as at the Coiba Research Station in Panama. As a social scientist who works in marine and coastal policy, Ana's research is focused on the i...

Dr. Chin-Cheng "Scotty" Yang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Entomology at Virginia Tech. Scotty's research focuses on ants. He's interested in understanding their fascinating biology and how they respond to pathogens, as well as finding better ways to control ant infestations and invasive ant populations. When he's not working, Scotty spends most of his free time with his two kids,...

Dr. Jonathan Payne is a Professor and Chair of Geological Sciences at Stanford University. He also holds a courtesy appointment in Biology, is a Member of Stanford's interdisciplinary biosciences institute Bio-X, and is an Affiliate of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Jonathan studies the history of life on Earth. He is interested in the interactions between the changes in earth's...

Dr. Kathryn (Katie) Whitehead is an Assistant Professor in Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University where she also holds a courtesy appointment in Biomedical Engineering. Katie received her bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Delaware and her PhD in chemical engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Afterwards, she conducted postdoctoral r...

Dr. Heather Lench is Professor in Psychological and Brain Sciences and Senior Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs at Texas A&M University. Heather's research focuses on emotions, and how emotions affect people, their thinking, and their behavior. She is particularly interested in anger and boredom. In her free time, Heather enjoys exploring a variety of hobbies, and her favorite pastimes continu...

Dr. Uri Tabori is a Staff Physician in the Division of Haematology/Oncology, Senior Scientist in the Genetics & Genome Biology program, and Principal Investigator of The Arthur and Sonia Labatt Brain Tumour Research Centre at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids). Uri is also a Professor in Paediatrics and Associate Professor in the Institute of Medical Sciences at the University of Toronto. U...

Dr. Elaine Guevara is a Lecturer in Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke University. She teaches biology and conducts research on the evolution of primates using molecular approaches. One area of Elaine's research examines the evolution of brain aging and how brain aging differs between humans and our primate relatives, including certain species of lemurs. When it's time to relax, Elaine loves to rea...

Dr. Kristen Lynch is a Professor and Chair of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania. Kristen's research focuses on alternative splicing. Her lab is investigating how cells decide when to use an entire portion of the DNA instruction manual versus when to exclude parts of the instructions that are not useful or would be harmful. In particular, Kristen is interested in alterna...

Dr. Nick Haddad is a Professor in Integrative Biology at Michigan State University and a Senior Terrestrial Ecologist at the W.K. Kellogg Biological Station. In addition, Nick is the author of the recently released book The Last Butterflies: A Scientist's Quest to Save a Rare and Vanishing Creature . Through his research, Nick searches for the rarest butterflies in the world and works to understan...

Dr. Louis L. Jacobs is Emeritus Professor in the Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences and President of the ISEM at SMU. As a vertebrate paleontologist, Louis studies the fossils of animals with backbones. His goal is to understand their evolution and how it fits together with the earth and the environment to present a holistic picture of our world. When he's not working, Louis loves to l...

Dr. Karen Daniels is a Professor in the Department of Physics at North Carolina State University. Karen's lab investigates the physics of how materials change state (e.g. from solid to fluid), how they deform, and how they may ultimately fail. She studies these questions across a variety of length and time scales, from microscopic phenomena that occur in less than a second to shifts in land that o...

Dr. Leif Karlstrom is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oregon. Leif uses fluid and solid mechanics approaches to better understand how water moves through glaciers and how magma moves through the Earth's crust to erupt in volcanoes. Much of his work involves developing theoretical models to better describe these processes. In addition to his career as...

Dr. Djuna Croon is Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and the Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology at Durham University. Trained as a particle physicist, Djuna is interested in the most fundamental building blocks of nature. She studies dark matter, a mysterious type of subatomic particle that we don't yet know much about yet. Their work uses astrophysical measurements and pa...

Dr. Chris Buddle is an Associate Professor in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences and Associate Dean of Student Affairs at McGill University. He is a community ecologist who studies biodiversity of different species, and he is interested in figuring out what animals are where in our ecosystem. In particular, his work focuses on spiders, insects, and other arthropods. Chris is a bird aficio...

Dr. Beth Stroupe is a Professor in the Department of Biological Science and the Institute of Molecular Biophysics at Florida State University (FSU). She is also Director of the Molecular Biophysics Graduate Program there. Research in Beth's lab focuses on understanding what molecules and proteins look like. This is important for better understanding how these molecules work, both from a basic scie...

Dr. Zach Eilon is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and he is also conducting research at Brown University. Zach is interested in understanding the earth's tectonics, including how continents are built, how they break apart, and what is going on under the earth's surface beneath the ocean floor. He wants to know how tectonic p...

Dr. Tess Russo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geosciences at The Pennsylvania State University. Tess is a hydrologist which means she studies water. Her research examines how water moves, how much of it there is in the world, and how the actions of humans change how water moves in the world. Tess has been spending a lot of time doing home renovations. When she's not working on her...

Dr. Ganesh Anand is an Associate Professor of Chemistry as well as Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at The Pennsylvania State University (or Penn State University) at the University Park campus. He is also an elected Board Member of the International Society for Hydrogen/Deuterium Exchange Mass Spectrometry (HDX-MS). Research in Ganesh's lab examines molecular switches. He wants to know how mole...