alpha: women shaping STEM+

Meet Dr. Beth Cameron.

She’s been a molecular biologist, a science policy advisor, a national security leader, and one of the people inside the White House thinking about the next pandemic long before the rest of us knew it was coming.

Beth has spent her career building what she describes as the smoke alarms of global health: the teams, systems, relationships, funding, and plans that need to exist before an outbreak becomes a crisis.

Her path started in a cancer research lab, but Beth realized that science could have an entirely different kind of impact when it reached the rooms where decisions were being made. That realization eventually took her from Senator Ted Kennedy’s office to the State Department, the Pentagon, and the White House, and into the response to the 2014 Ebola epidemic and the work of preparing for COVID-19.

This is a conversation about what it takes to act before the emergency, why prevention is so difficult to fund when success looks like nothing is happening, and what COVID taught us about the systems we still need to build.

And for the women wondering whether there’s a place for them somewhere between science, policy, national security, or global health, Beth’s message is simple: you can do it.

What Beth wants you to know:

“You can do it. You absolutely can do it… You will find people who will help you. And there’s a place for you here.”

Rapid fire:

• Most underrated preparedness tool: Personal protective equipment (PPE)
  
  
• Outbreaks happening right now she wishes more people were watching: New World Screwworm and H5N1
  
  
• One thing she wishes everyone understood about prevention: It always pays off.

Going beyond the episode:

• Beth on LinkedIn
• Brown University Pandemic Center
• Global Health Security Agenda
• American Democracy and Health Security Initiative

For all resources and links mentioned in this episode, read the full guide here: https://www.alphapodcast.studio/beth-cameron.

With gratitude to the organizations whose archival materials and recordings helped bring alpha to life:

• New Mexico PBS, Critical Mass: Women in Science (audio)
• NASA Image & Video Library
• American Archive of Public Broadcasting

Meet Dr. Paule Valery Joseph.

She grew up watching her mother be the community nurse. Now, at the NIH, her work helped reveal that losing your sense of smell was one of the clearest signs of COVID.

But the nose can tell us much more than whether something smells good or bad. Certain diseases have odors. Changes in smell can offer clues about our brain health and aging. And sometimes, our senses are catching things that medicine is walking right past.

This is a conversation about paying attention: to our bodies, to opportunities, and to the reasons we choose the work we do.

Paule shares why she roots her life in her “why,” how pride in who you are can open doors rather than close them, and why we shouldn’t reject ourselves from opportunities before anyone else has the chance to say yes. If you don’t apply, you’ve already given yourself a no.

And she asks us to reconsider something most of us rarely think about: our senses.

They are how we experience the world and connect us to the people we love. They can be early signals when something in our bodies changes. And when we intentionally notice and protect them, they can change the way we move through our entire lives.

Because sometimes the small things we overlook are telling us the most.

What Paule wants you to know:

“You matter. Your questions matter. Your curiosity matters. Never stop being curious. Never stop asking questions. When a door closes, a window opens. Look for that window.”

Rapid fire:

• What is a smell that takes you back to your childhood in Venezuela? Rain hitting hot pavement.
  
  
• Taste or smell: If you had to lose one of your senses, which one would it be? Taste.
  
  
• Is there a word that you can use for what it feels like to lose your sense of smell? Disconnected.

Going beyond the episode:

• Paule on LinkedIn
• Paule at the NIH
• Dementia Australia Research Foundation: Olfactory-based Cognitive Training (OCT) for older people at risk of dementia

For all resources and links mentioned in this episode, read the full guide here: https://www.alphapodcast.studio/paule-joseph

With gratitude to the organizations whose archival materials and recordings helped bring alpha to life:

• New Mexico PBS, Critical Mass: Women in Science (audio)
• NASA Image & Video Library
• American Archive of Public Broadcasting

Meet Dr. Shohini Ghose.

She explores the quantum world already running your life, and recovers the women physics wrote out of its own story. Everyone agrees quantum will shape the century. Her question is who gets to shape it.

This is a conversation about two kinds of invisibility: the invisible rules of the quantum world and the invisible woman who helped reveal them.

Dr. Shohini Ghose shares what it was like to be one of the only women in the room, from feeling isolated and questioning her abilities to realizing that the problem wasn't women who needed fixing. Mentorship and another summer camp for girls can only go so far if the classrooms, hiring practices, resources, and recognition around them remain unequal.

Shohini also takes us inside the strange and wonderful world of quantum physics, where reality isn't always what it appears to be. She shares when equations first became wonder for her and why understanding the history of physics means understanding not just what we know, but how we came to know it.

Shohini reminds us that science needs everybody, and we need to fix the system, not the women. Women are not waiting to be invited into science; they’ve been there all along.

What Shohini wants you to know:

“ There's this huge lineage of women, and there will be in the future, too. I hope future generations will know about all the amazing women who are contributing today, and they will become the voices in the heads of these future scientists who will help drive them to do bigger and better things.”

Rapid fire:

• A science fiction story everyone should read or watch: The Lilith’s Brood Trilogy by Octavia E. Butler
  
  
• A woman physicist or astronomer’s name who should be on every classroom wall: Every woman mentioned in Her Space, Her Time.
  
  
• One word for the quantum world right now: Possibility.

Going beyond the episode:

• Shohini on LinkedIn
• Check out Her Space, Her Time: How Trailblazing Women Scientists Decoded the Hidden Universe

For all resources and links mentioned in this episode, read the full guide here: https://www.alphapodcast.studio/shohini-ghose

With gratitude to the organizations whose archival materials and recordings helped bring alpha to life:

• New Mexico PBS, Critical Mass: Women in Science (audio)
• NASA Image & Video Library
• American Archive of Public Broadcasting

Meet Dr. M Jackson.

She’s been a geographer, glaciologist, writer, National Geographic Society Explorer, and TED Fellow, and whether it’s Greenland, Iceland, Antarctica, or the Arctic, Dr. M Jackson can be placed right in the middle of it and know exactly where she is.

With only her crampons and ears attuned to the sounds of glaciers, M is able to define her position, as well as the state of the ice below her feet.

This is a conversation about glaciers - What are they? What do they tell us? It’s also a conversation about ego and facing grief. How can we hold two things to be true and still show up to do world changing work?

M is a champion for the expansion of who gets to practice glacier science and who gets to produce glacier knowledge, and her calling to everyone is a shift in mindset: to look at what's next and to remember that global issues require global solutions.

What M wants you to know:

“ I want your listeners to come away with a full understanding that science is storytelling and storytelling is science. These things are the same, and then each person gets to have space in there to figure out how they're gonna tell the story, and I love that 'cause it's freeing.”

Rapid fire: 

• What is your favorite glacier? “I want to see glaciers in Papua New Guinea. They’re my current favorite because I’m obsessed with them but I’ve never seen them.”
  
  
• One word you’d want to associate with ice besides ‘melting’: Strength, transformation, hope
  
  
• What is it that you do to reset yourself: Put my phone away and pour myself a cup of coffee.

Going beyond the episode:

• Learn more about M and her work
• Check out M's Books

For all resources and links mentioned in this episode, read the full guide here: https://www.alphapodcast.studio/m-jackson

With gratitude to the organizations whose archival materials and recordings helped bring alpha to life:

• New Mexico PBS, Critical Mass: Women in Science (audio)
• NASA Image & Video Library
• American Archive of Public Broadcasting

Meet Dr. Renée Hložek.

She's an astrophysicist, cosmologist, professor, and bridge-builder.

From studying the universe’s earliest light to its possible ending, to applying astronomy techniques to brain imaging, Renée spends her days asking some of the biggest questions imaginable, and making sure more people get the chance to ask them too.

As a young girl growing up in South Africa, Renée's mother wasn’t concerned with perfect grades. Instead, she supported Renée with whatever she set her mind to. Only limited by her imagination.

That encouragement gave Renée permission to be curious before she knew exactly where that curiosity would lead. Today, it shapes how she mentors the next generation of scientists.

This is a conversation about dark matter, the fate of the universe, why uncertainty is one of science's greatest strengths, and how curiosity, not accolades, is what makes someone a scientist.

What Renée wants you to know:

“A lot of the time we have doubt about am I good enough, brave enough, strong enough, smart enough to be a scientist. And a lot of people will tell you a lot of things about being a scientist: ‘you’re a girl’ or ‘you’re not confident enough’ or ‘loud enough’. And to me, I would say, the thing to remember is, being curious about how the world works makes you a scientist.”

Rapid fire:

• A cosmic fact that sounds fake but is actually true: “I can tell you the fate of the universe after about 10⁻³⁷ seconds in its lifetime.”
  
  
• The most underrated object in the universe: Photons
  
  
• One person that has made her braver: A high school teacher who didn’t let her wiggle out of doing something, but pushed her to see her own capacity.

Going beyond the episode:

• Renée on LinkedIn

For all resources and links mentioned in this episode, read the full guide here: https://www.alphapodcast.studio/renee-hlozek

With gratitude to the organizations whose archival materials and recordings helped bring alpha to life:

• New Mexico PBS, Critical Mass: Women in Science (audio)
• NASA Image & Video Library
• American Archive of Public Broadcasting

Meet Dr. Gretchen Goldman.

She’s been the student, the scientist, the watchdog, the White House advisor, and now she’s the President of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

30 years ago, Gretchen was presented with a question by her 11th grade chemistry teacher:

Where would science be if we changed data?

This is a conversation about what happens when the facts become inconvenient, who pays when science is under attack, and Catharine presents Gretchen that very same question again.

What Gretchen wants you to know:

“We need you. The world needs scientists. We need truth tellers. We need people that see hard problems and run toward them.”

Rapid fire:

• One book all non-scientists should read: Doubt is Their Product by David Michaels
  
  
• Scientist everyone should know by name: Veronica O. Davis / LinkedIn
  
  
• Gretchen’s small ritual that keeps her steady: Going hard on the Peloton!

Going beyond the episode:

• Gretchen on LinkedIn
• Union of Concerned Scientists
• Science Rising

For all resources and links mentioned in this episode, read the full guide here: https://www.alphapodcast.studio/gretchen-goldman

With gratitude to the organizations whose archival materials and recordings helped bring alpha to life:

• New Mexico PBS, Critical Mass: Women in Science (audio)
• NASA Image & Video Library
• American Archive of Public Broadcasting

You're about to hear from the women building what comes next.

In cancer research and climate engineering.

In AI, space exploration, public health, biotech, policy, and every room where the future is being shaped.

This is alpha.

A podcast about women in science, technology, engineering, and math - the fields defining our future, and the women redefining what leadership inside them looks like.

I'm Dr. Catharine Young: a scientist, an immigrant, a mother, and a builder.

For years, I've sat across from extraordinary women changing their fields from the inside:  leading labs, building companies, shaping policy, asking hard questions, and carrying more than most people will ever see.

These are the conversations behind the breakthroughs.

The choices that shaped a career. The rooms that tested a voice. The moments that changed how someone understood her own power.

The failures, risks, reinventions, ambitions, and turning points that rarely make it into the official story,  but shape everything that comes after.

Because this isn't about giving women a voice. They already have one.

This is the platform their voices were always meant for. The one we're building together.

Welcome to alpha.

Listen, meet the women of alpha, and learn more at alphapodcast.studio.

Coming up on season one:

Ep 1: Dr. Gretchen Goldman, Science Advocacy
Ep 2: Dr. Renée Hložek, Astrophysics
Ep 3: Dr. M Jackson, Glaciology 
Ep 4: Dr. Shohini Ghose, Quantum Physics
Ep 5: Dr. Paule Valery Joseph, Sensory Neuroscience
Ep 6: Dr. Asha de Vos, Marine Biology
Ep 7: Dr. Michelle Monje, Cancer Neuroscience
Ep 8: Dr. Beth Cameron, Pandemic Preparedness
Ep 9: Dr. Sara K. Yeo, Science Communication 
Ep 10: Dr. Arati Prabhakar, Science & Technology Policy 

With gratitude to the organizations whose archival materials and recordings helped bring alpha to life:

• New Mexico PBS, Critical Mass: Women in Science (audio)
• NASA Image & Video Library
• American Archive of Public Broadcasting