The Sci-Files on Impact 89FM

On this week's episode of The Sci-Files, your hosts Mari and Dimitri interview Emily Bolger. Emily Bolger is a 5th year PhD Candidate in the Department of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering. She works in the Computing Education Research Lab (CERL) with Dr. Danny Caballero. Her dissertation research uses Natural Language Processing to identify and synthesize themes in Instructional...

 On this week's episode of The Sci-Files, your hosts Mari and Dimitri interview Aubree Marshall. Aubree is a 5th year PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology. They work in the MSU Bioarchaeology Lab with Dr. Gabe Wrobel, and their research interests include understanding health, diet, and food access in ancient Maya populations, specifically from Central Belize. To do this, Aubree analyzes...

Mari and Dimitri interview undergraduate student researchers from Michigan State University's Summer Research Opportunities Program (SROP). The second episode of this 2-part series features Chris Lin, Kevin Villatoro, and Darnilla Samuel. If you’re interested in discussing your MSU research on the radio or nominating a student, please email Mari and Dimitri at thescifileswdbm@gmail.com .  Check Th...

Mari and Dimitri interview undergraduate student researchers from Michigan State University's Summer Research Opportunities Program (SROP). The first episode of this 2-part series features Kandy Pierre, Mohamed Elgallad, and Isteaq Zim. If you’re interested in discussing your MSU research on the radio or nominating a student, please email Mari and Dimitri at thescifileswdbm@gmail.com .  Check The...

Mari and Dimitri interview student researchers at the 16th annual Graduate Academic Conference (GAC), hosted by the Council of Graduate Students (COGS). The final episode of this four-part series features interviews with Jared Reiling from the Department of Computational Math Science and Engineering, and Priyanka Kathari from the Department of Teacher Education. If you’re interested in discussing...

Mari and Dimitri interview student researchers at the 16th annual Graduate Academic Conference (GAC), hosted by the Council of Graduate Students (COGS). The third episode of this four-part series features interviews with Md Fyaz Sadiq from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Marc Freidman from the Plant Pathology Program. If you’re interested in discussing your MSU research...

Mari and Dimitri interview student researchers at the 16th annual Graduate Academic Conference (GAC), hosted by the Council of Graduate Students (COGS). The second episode of this four-part series features interviews with Roselane Kithan-Lundquist,  and Ifeanyichukwu Eke from MSU's Microbiology department , and Simon Sanchez from the Department of Biomedical Engineering. If you’re interested in di...

Mari and Dimitri interview student researchers at the 16th annual Graduate Academic Conference (GAC), hosted by the Council of Graduate Students (COGS). The first episode of this four-part series features interviews with Sam Norcia and Char Dengler from the College of Nursing, and Bismarck Amaniampong from the Department of Chemistry. If you’re interested in discussing your MSU research on the rad...

On this week's episode of The Sci-Files, your hosts Mari and Dimitri interview Veona Cutinho. Veona works in the Cellular Reprogramming Laboratory at MSU led by Dr. Jose Cibelli. She works with zebrafish embryos and manipulates them so they can be ideal donors for cloning. These tiny embryos are perfect for studying cloning because their development is quick, easy to see, and happens outside the b...

Yunting Gu is a PhD candidate in linguistics from Michigan State University. Her research in speech production suggests a basis for several universals regarding the sound pattern of languages. Despite the differences in languages, some sound patterns are common to most languages of the world. For example, cross-linguistically, syllables starting with pl are more frequently observed than syllables...

On this week's episode of The Sci-Files, your hosts Mari and Dimitri interview Kiyotaka Suga, a PhD candidate in Second Language Studies. One of the engaging questions for second language (L2) teachers is how to introduce grammar instruction to help adult L2 learners develop their well-balanced communicative abilities. Most L2 teachers may believe intuitively that engaging in output (speaking and...

Bryan Stanley is a PhD student in the Physics Department. He does Physics Education Research (PER), where he primarily studies informal physics programs. Informal physics programs create physics learning spaces outside of the traditional classroom settings. Examples of these types of programs include, but are not limited to, summer camps, planetarium shows, public lectures, student groups, science...

When you get a scrape or cut, you might reach for a tube of Neosporin, but have you ever wondered what exactly this antimicrobial ointment does to bacteria, or how bacteria might avoid being killed? Bacteria possess a dizzying variety of specialized protein machinery that help them resist our medicines, complicating treatment of infection. Natasha, a graduate student in the department of microbiol...

Blood transfusions can be life-saving procedures for patients in need. However, they can also impart much more devastating complications, leading to poorer outcomes than prior to transfusion, such as infection, inflammation, and even death. This is in part due to the red blood cell “storage lesion”, which refers to the irreversible metabolic and physiological damages that occur to red blood cells...

Period poverty is an important, yet often ignored, public health crisis. The social shame and steep cost of menstrual products often push low-income people to adopt unhygienic practices during menstruation, negatively impacting their health, education, and dignity.   Specifically, period poverty significantly impacts young menstruators in universities. The lack of access to menstrual hygiene produ...

Alyssa studies the reproductive biology of African electric fish, called mormyrids, with a focus on their sperm and eggs. These freshwater fishes are found throughout lakes and river throughout the African continent and are used by research laboratories across the globe to study questions in evolution, neuroscience, behavior, and other biological disciplines. Besides their amazing ability to produ...

Ben is a graduate student in the Departments of Integrative Biology and Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior at Michigan State University. His research interests include understanding how species adapt to changing environments, especially thermal stress and conservation of coldwater fishes. Ben uses genomic tools to improve our understanding of species conservation by examining adaptive potential and...

On the first episode with the new hosts of The Sci-Files, Mari Dowling and Dimitri Joseph interview Megan McGrath.  Interacting with the world relies on our ability to take in information and stimuli from our environment and integrate it into a cohesive explanation of what it happening around us. But the world is full of constant, unending stimuli...so how do we know what to pay attention to? If w...

On this episode of The Sci-Files, Mari Dowling and Dimitri Joseph interviewed Chelsie Boodoo and Daniel Puentes about their research. Daniel Puentes graduated from Michigan State University with a Ph. D. in Physics. His work focused on using experimental information to inform nuclear astrophysical simulations describing the creation of elements in space. Daniel also developed a first-generation be...

Chelsie and Daniel visited the COGS Graduate Academic Conference (GAC) for the last time. For their final interview, they spoke with Dimitri Joseph and Mari Dowling, the new hosts of The Sci-Files. Dimitri Joseph is a 4th-year DO-PhD student in the Pharmacology and Toxicology department. He uses bioinformatics to study disparities in cancer. Mari Dowling is a 4th-year DO-PhD student in the College...

Chelsie and Daniel visited the COGS Graduate Academic Conference (GAC) for the last time. They continued to interview students briefly about their research. Listen to them speak with Jamily Ramos De Lima and Betul Kara. If you want to discuss your MSU research on the radio or nominate a student, please email Chelsie and Danny at scifiles@impact89fm.org . You can ask questions about future episodes...

Chelsie and Daniel visit the COGS Graduate Academic Conference (GAC) for the last time. They interviewed students briefly about their research. Listen to them speak with Debkumar Debnath, Sam Weiser and Daniel Marri. This will be a three-part series as Daniel and Chelsie say bye and welcome the new hosts of The Sci-Files soon.  If you’re interested in discussing your MSU research on the radio or n...

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Brett Volment. Heart diseases represent the leading causes of death worldwide. Researchers commonly use cellular and animal models to investigate and study cardiovascular disease and other diseases. However, these models do not provide the best representation of human physiology. To this end, Brett’s work focuses on growing and c...

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Joshua Kaste. Joshua is a Ph. D. Candidate in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Michigan State University, and he works in the Shachar-Hill laboratory. His work focuses on building and analyzing mathematical models that describe the rates of all the chemical reactions going on in a living cell or whole organ...

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts, Chelsie and Danny, interview Jamell Dacon. Jamell is the MSU Department of Computer Science and Engineering . His current research focuses on fairness and bias in Natural Language Processing (NLP). Because inclusivity matters in all forms. He intends to investigate, examine and mitigate societal biases to conceptualize the "isms" that plague our society vi...