The Sci-Files on Impact 89FM

On this week, The Sci-Files, Chelsie and Danny interview Cort Thompson. Cort is a Ph. D. student at MSU’s Biomedical Engineering department where he is studying the ways in which implanted neural interfaces affect the brain. His research focuses on understanding how specific components of current electrode array technologies affect biocompatibility at the molecular and cellular level. His experime...

On this week, The Sci-Files, Chelsie and Danny interview Lauren Cooper. Lauren directs the Forest Carbon and Climate Program at the Michigan State University Forestry Department . Her work focuses on the intersection of forests, people, climate, habitat protection, wood use, and sustainability. With trees and forests taking center stage in terms of climate change mitigation and adaptation, her wor...

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Kayla Conner, Justin Lee, and Jon Kaletka, all of them are graduate students from the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics . At the Hardy lab , they lab study prenatal infection and how it affects pregnancy outcome/development. Jon’s research focuses on understanding how Listeria infection changes the extracellular v...

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Tatiana Bustos. Tatiana is a 4th year Ph. D. student in the Ecological Community Psychology program at MSU. Her training is primarily in program evaluation, implementation science, and community-based research. Her work is focused on promoting access to health services among underserved communities. She has been involved in proje...

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Jaimie Strickland, DVM and Matt Kuhn, DVM. Cows have impressive immune systems compared to humans, yet they tend to get sick more often around the time of calving. The causes of this are still being uncovered, but changes in the metabolism of the omega fatty acids, like fish oils, appear to be a contributing factor. Matt’s resear...

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Diondra Straiton. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by challenges with social communication as well as restricted and repetitive interests. Parent training is an evidence-based treatment for ASD in which providers train parents to build on their child’s skills or address their child’s...

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Vanessa, Mary, Greg, and Emma. Together this team of students conducts research on Per-and Poly-fluoroalkyl Substances (PFASs) at the Center of Diamond and Coating Technologies-Fraunhofer USA. These students are Vanessa Maldonado (2nd year Ph. D. Student in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Material Science ), Mary Ensch...

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Tayler Murphy and Victor Gipson II Tayler Murphy is a 3rd year Ph. D. student in the Genetics and Genomic Sciences program in Dr. Amy Ralston’s lab.  This summer, Tayler mentors Victor Gipson II. Victor is a junior cellular biology major at the University of Georgia . He is at MSU this summer through the Summer Research Opportuni...

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Anastasiya Lavell and Cameron De La Mora.  Anastasiya is a fifth-year graduate student in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology department . She is advised by Dr. Christoph Benning .  This summer she is working with an undergraduate student from Illinois State University , Cameron De La Mora, who came to MSU through our Plant Ge...

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Isaiah Kaufman. Isaiah is currently attending Goshen College with a major in Biochemistry, interested in researching plant biology. He is participating in an REU program through the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, working in the Sharkey lab. With the Sharkey Lab, he is researching plant resilience to temperature changes in...

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Kyle Card and Jasper Gomez. Kyle is a Ph. D. candidate in the Department of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics and Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior Program . His mentee, Jasper, is a recent graduate from the Biomedical Laboratory Diagnostics Program . They use bacteria from a long-term experiment to study how evolut...

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Nikki McClaran. Nikki is a Ph. D. student in the Information & Media program within the College of Communication Arts & Sciences . Nikki’s research focuses on narrative persuasion, health and risk communication, and social norms. Specifically, Nikki investigates how health and environmental issues are cognitively and effe...

This week on The Sci-Files Chelsie and Danny interview Connie Rojas. Connie is a 4th year Ph. D. Candidate in Integrative Biology and the Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior ( EEBB ) program at Michigan State University. She is investigating the interactions between animal hosts and their symbiotic microbial communities, a.k.a the ‘microbiome.’ Specifically, she is studying how the microbi...

This week on The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Benjamin Hall. Ben is a 3rd year Ph. D. student at MSU in Physics and CMSE (Computational Math, Science, and Engineering). Ben works on applying quantum computers to solve many-body problems. Quantum computers are a newly developed type of computer are much faster than regular computers at certain tasks. He is working on figuring o...

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Huiyun Wu and Natalie Kagole about their mentoring relationship in regards to the One Health challenge. Huiyun Wu is a researcher in Environmental Engineering ; her research is on water microbiology and virology. Huiyun has played a significant role in the One Health Student Challenge – a program that brings international interdi...

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Courtney Larson. Aquatic ecosystems have captivated Courtney Larson and lead her to her research interests to insects that spend a portion of all of their lives in water. This can include different invertebrates such as dragonflies and caddisflies.  She graduated from Wartburg College with a B.A. degree in Biology with minors in...

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Courtney, Katie and Michael to discuss their research, along with mentor and mentee relationships. Courtney Larson is from the Department of Entomology and Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior Program . Katie Kierczynski is a Master’s student in Dr. Brian Roth’s lab for her current Master’s research. Michael Orbain is an u...

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Faryal Mir and Kate Hammond from the Department of Radiology in order to understand their research on engineering Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) proteins as well as the mentorship that occurs in the labs here at MSU. Faryal is associated with the Department of Genetics and the College of Osteopathic Medicine , pursuing a DO-PhD...

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Jacob Bradburn about his research on jobs. Jacob is a fourth-year doctoral candidate at the Michigan State University Organizational Psychology program . Jacob’s research focuses on employee selection, individual differences, and methodology. Research by Jacob and his colleagues has been published in outlets such as the Journal o...

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Chelsea Weiskerger from the Department of Environmental Engineering , pursuing a Dual Ph. D. with Environmental Science and Policy .  Chelsea has been involved in several different research projects focusing on how water quality and beaches affect public health. She has published statistical models of long-term (10-15 year) beach...

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Sara Ayoub about her research and involvement with the construction of the Separator for Capture Reactions ( SECAR ). Sara is a Ph. D. student in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and works the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory ( NSCL ). Specifically, Sara is an experimental physicist interested in how stars evo...

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your co-hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Darren Incorvaia about his research on bees, here at the Michigan State University. Darren is a Ph. D. Candidate in the Department of Integrative Biology . Social insects, such as bees, require many resources in order to build and maintain a nest, produce and nourish workers, and reproduce. To ensure the colony forages effecti...

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your co-hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Robert Logan about his research on deserts, here at the Michigan State University W. K. Kellogg Biological Station . Robert is a Ph. D. Candidate in the Department of Integrative Biology/Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior Program. Climate models predict that deserts are likely to get hotter and drier in the coming de...

Catch this week's episode of The Sci-Files, where Daniel and Chelsie interview Claire Hoffmann. Claire is a Ph. D. student in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Michigan State University, who studies the conflict between humans and large carnivores in East Africa. In this region, in East Africa, carnivores such as lions, leopards, and hyenas eat a lot of livestock. The livestock owners of...

This week on The Sci-Files, Daniel and Chelsie interview Joel Soler , MA. Joel is a Ph. D. Candidate in the Department of Psychology-Behavioral Neuroscience at Michigan State University. Environmental lighting conditions influence cognitive function in both healthy populations and patients with dementia. However, the underlying neural mechanisms are not well understood. The goal of his research is...