Being Giants

This week, Joyce speaks with wildlife biologist Alex Troutman.  Alex is a wildlife biologist who has worked a lot of cool jobs, like being a bat biologist in Malaysia, working with sea turtles for the US National Park Service, working at the US Fish and Wildlife service, and Zoo Atlanta, just to name a few. Alex is currently a master's student at Georgia Southern University, where he also earned his BS in biology. In this episode Alex and Joyce speak about some of the jobs he's had and the glamorous and less glamorous sides of them. You'll hear about how important it was to Alex personally to have mentors and role models that have encouraged him in science who are people of color, and how Alex is actively mentoring younger black wildlife biologists. You'll also hear us geek out about bats and sea turtles and you'll hear about what ocean observing is and how it works on a dredging ship. Alex’s philosophy is that nature is for everyone, and we couldn’t agree more.

You can connect with Alex on instagram @N8ture_AL or twitter @N8ture_AL.

Music by:

DJ Williams - 75 & Lower

This week Joyce speaks with Dr. Zoë McKellar. Zoë is the managing editor at Stallard Scientific Editing. After receiving her MA in music, she worked a long list of jobs including McDonald's manager, musician, medical administrator, insurance, and many others. While coordinating employment medicals for petroleum geologists in Aberdeen, Scotland, she decided to go back to school and get her BS in geology and petroleum geology and afterwards earned her PhD in Geology at the University of Aberdeen. Zoë is actively working and publishing in Earth science and volunteers in several science outreach ventures, including House of Science.

In this episode we discuss her circuitous route to geosciences, what she learned working in large corporate environments, barriers to becoming a geoscientist from a class, mobility, and monetary standpoint (and in particular how field work and field camps can end up prohibiting participation in geoscience for some individuals), and much more.

You can connect with Zoë on twitter @PalaeoSeds, or on linkedin. You can see some of her work (and pretty figures) in this open access article.

Music by:

DJ Williams - 75 & Lower

This week, Joyce speaks with Jalal Awan, a PhD candidate at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. They discuss the coffee cup-sized air quality monitoring devices Jalal is using to test cheaper ways to measure air quality in the Los Angeles area. They also discuss Jalal's master's degree from the University of Southern California, where he was a Fulbright scholar, and his ongoing work as vice president of the Los Angeles Fulbright chapter. We discuss a bit about technology policy, Jalal's externship in Sitka, Alaska, and how smaller non-profit organizations can often have more direct and tangible impact than large organizations in the policy world. We talk about that and more in this episode.

Here is the NPR article that Jalal, for the record, does correctly talk about, which discusses how communities of color in the US are much more impacted by air pollution.

You can also read some of the writing Jalal has done about technology policy, like his piece on blockchain's potential for web-based vaccination records.

During the pandemic, Jalal co-founded Raabta - a 501 c (3) engaged in connecting primary school children in Pakistan with their peers in the US (you can connect with the organisaiton here).

All opinions expressed in this podcast are Jalal’s own – and do not reflect the organizations he is affiliated with. To learn more about his work and get connected, you can contact Jalal on twitter @jalal_awan, instagram @jalal_awan, or linkedin.

This week, Resherle chats with Charlotte Fagan, who is a Lead Analyst at National Grid in their Leadership Development Program. Additionally, she's a board member at the Village Bicycle Project. Prior to this, she earned both an MBA and a master's degree in Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles. In the episode, they talk about how Charlotte transitioned into the energy industry, her background in international development, and the time that she has spent working at various nonprofit organizations focusing on the use of bicycles.  

Here are a list of some of the organizations/terms mentioned in the episode:

DJ Williams - 75 & Lower

This week, Joyce speaks with Dr. Kate Voss. Kate was the 2019–2020 Congressional Science Fellow with the American Geophysical Union, where she worked in senator Tom Udall's office. Kate's background bridges geochemistry and the policy world. We discuss her experience and a science–policy fellow, some of her work as a hydrologist and geochemist, the sometimes extractive nature of geoscience research and how to better conduct research, and ways to better engage communities when doing field-based research.

A couple books we mention:

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

All We Can Save edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katherine K. Wilkinson

A few fellowships we mention:

AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowships

AAAS Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellowship

CUAHSI (Universities Allied for Water Research) funding opportunities

Music: DJ Williams - 75 & Lower

This week, Joyce chats with Amanda Godbold, a PhD candidate at the University of Southern California in the department of Earth Sciences where she researches conservation paleoecology. Prior to this, she was an undergraduate student at the University of Calgary where she earned a bachelors in Geology. They talk about Amanda's academic journey as a student with a learning disability and her growing up experiencing homelessness, how those experiences gave her insight into developing resilience and helping better serve at risk youth. Also, they talk about how the pandemic has impacted her fieldwork and her involvement with Paleoconnect, which aims to make the Paleosociety more inclusive.

You can follow/connect with Amanda on Twitter.

Music:

This week Joyce speaks with Dr. Sean Knierim, the head and co-founder of SidePorch Consulting. Sean earned a PhD in comparative literature from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, masters degrees from Duke University in International development policy and Santa Clara University in interdisciplinary education, and a bachelors from Santa Clara University in English and Spanish. Sean has been a high school educator, Chief of Staff for the MacArthur Foundation and Jeff Skoll Group, among other roles, and his work his guided by making the planet a better place.

We discuss that and more in this weeks episode.

This week Resherle speaks with Dr. Monica Cox, a professor in the Department of Engineering Education at The Ohio State University and a 2020 Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education. Dr. Cox earned an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Spelman College, a masters degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Alabama, and a PhD in Leadership and Policy Studies from Vanderbilt University. Additionally, she is one of the cofounders of Black in Engineering and is the CEO of STEMinent LLC.

This episode features a discussion of her time at Spelman College, how she’s gone about making the transitions in her career, the work that she’s doing now, and the work she wants to do in the future.

Follow/connect with Dr. Cox on these platforms:

- Twitter

- LinkedIn

- Instagram

- Facebook

Music:

DJ Williams - 75 & Lower 

This week Joyce speaks with Dr. Meg, Chamberlin. Meg is a social scientist with expertise in public health. Her education has included an undergraduate degree in international affairs and economics at the George Washington University and two masters from the University of Texas at Austin in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies and in Public Affairs and Public Health. After her masters she worked at the US Department of Health and Human Services in the pandemic preparedness and response program! She later went to the Pardee RAND Graduate school for her PhD, where she focused on comparing the treatment of mental and physical health conditions in the US healthcare system.

We’ll talk about all of that and more on this episode. Here’s a link to a long-format journalism piece on misconceptions in obesity and health.

This week Joyce talks to Briley Lewis, a PhD student at the University of California in Los Angeles studying astrophysics. They’ll talk about Briley’s love for science communication and science writing and mental health during grad school.

You can learn more about Briley on her website, read some of her writing on STARtorialist, and see some art she makes at her etsy shop. You can find more about the science communication organization ComSciCon at their LA chapter’s website.

Intro to exoplanets and astrophysics:

Basic intro to how we detect exoplanets

A press release about debris disks (using the same instrument Briley uses)

How planets form

Examples of some of the strange exoplanets that are out there

Briley’s ‘radical reading list’, which is always in progress:

Parable of the Sower/Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

The Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor

The Care Manifesto by the Care Collective

Mutual Aid by Dean Spade

Emergent Stratgey by adrienne maree brown

Turn This World Inside Out by Nora Samaran

We Will Not Cancel Us by adrienne maree brown

Beyond Survibal by Ejeris Dixon and Leah Piepzna-Samarasinha

Pleasure Activism, written and gathered by adrienne maree brown

Octavia’s Parables podcast by adrienne maree brown and Toshi Reagon

Music by: Wataboi