Conversations with scientists

Stem cells are intriguing cells with a lot of flexibility in their biographies. And these cells are the focus of the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, ISSCR. It's happening soon: in July. Here is a sneak-peek of the meeting with the ISSCR leadership: Dr. Amander Clark from the University of California at Los Angeles, she is the current president of the ISSCR. Dr Malin Parmar from Lund University and Dr Agnete Kirkeby from the University of Copenhagen. They are program chairs of the ISSCR meeting. Co: host: Dr. Stelios Lefkoupolos from Nature Cell Biology (Art: J. Jackson, Music: Episode 6 by Walz; Sound effects: Laidback Lunch, both licensed from artlist.io..)

This podcast is with Dr Sethuraman Panchanathan who directs the US National Science Foundation. He talks about his nickname, about AI and data science, about training AI models, about transparency, about the language of collaboration, competitiveness, about talent. He says: "I think what we need as a nation is not only to unleash every ounce of talent in our country, the domestic talent, at full force and full scale. And we should welcome and aggregate and retain every ounce of global talent at full force and full scale."  (Art: J. Jackson, Music: Golden Era by Steven Bedall and licensed from artist.io.)

Can you be a scientist and parent? Of course. But it's not always easy. Dr. Ying Diao is at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign in the chemical and biomolecular engineering department. She has a stack of awards, a lab and two children. She talks about her research, for instance a project focused on wearable electronics for plants with which one can track their growth and well-being. The idea came to her during her pregnancy. She talks about deciding to have children and the reactions of those around her. And she describes which conferences have lactation rooms and which do not. (Art: J. Jackson, Music: Bubbles by XiMo, licensed from artlist.io)

This episode is about dirt or, phrased more scientifically, soil. It’s about soil health, soil biodiversity and ecology. It’s a conversation with Dr. Ciska Veen, soil and ecosystems researcher at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology and Dr. Wim van der Putten, who heads terrestrial ecology at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology. (Art: J. Jackson; Music: Jungle Jam by Evert Z, licensed from Artlist.io.)

Jean King, who is the dean of arts and sciences at WPI-Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts, talks about what Nobel Laureate Katalin Karikó means to her and about persistence and success in science. (Art: J. Jackson; Music: Towers by sero, licensed from artlist.io)

What good does it do to start a big research project? How do you get it to soar? Dr. Anna Barker has some answers about that from the past, the present and the future. She is chief strategy officer at the Ellison Institute, a think tank and research institute. Before that, she was the principal deputy director of the US National Cancer Institute and deputy director for strategic scientific initiatives there. One of her projects is The Cancer Genome Atlas, co-directed with Dr. Francis Collins. This episode will be about cancer. Cancer is upsetting, of course, but this episode might feel empowering. The podcast is also about academia, physics, information theory, big data, history and science policy. (Art: J. Jackson. Music: Michael Drake - Solstice licensed from artlist.io) 

The Society for Neuroscience annual meeting, a big conference in neuroscience, is about to start. This year, it's in Washington. And here is a sneak peek of the meeting for you. Along with editors at Springer Nature, I got the chance to ask a bit about the meeting before it starts shortly. It was a mash up of a press conference of sorts and a wider discussion with colleagues from Scientific American and from Nature Neuroscience. In this podcast episode, you will hear questions from them and from me and responses by Dr. Oswald Steward, the president of the Society for Neuroscience (SFN) and Dr. Damien Fair who is the chair of the SfN Public Education and Communication committee. (Art J. Jackson) (Music: Billiard Balls by Raw, licensed from artlist.io)

Science and academia need diversity. Easier said than done because, for example, many students face housing insecurity, which keeps them from a focus on their studies. But that's something students are trying to change. I spoke with current and former students at UC Santa Cruz about this. In this episode you will hear from Abbi Cundall, Natalie Clifford, Emerald Waters, Zennon Ulyate-Crow and Nicolas Robles. (Art: J. Jackson, Music: Nonsense by Raw licensed from artist.io)

Labs and a lab's team members often speak many languages. Science is international. But in a lab environment languages can set people apart. I wrote a story about lab languages for Nature Methods here: https://rdcu.be/doPnv There's a blog post here: https://cellmolbiocommunity.springernature.com/posts/podcast-lab-languages . And here is more from that story. It's a conversation with Dr. Denis Wirtz, a cancer researcher at Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and vice-provost for research at Hopkins. (Music: Better by Dizzy, Art J. Jackson)

Dr. Liz Bradley, who is on the computer science faculty at the University of Colorado Boulder, is an athlete-scientist. She is a mathematician and a former Olympic rower. In this podcast you will hear about her, about sweeping and sculling, about rugby, why it's good to have a notebook, about data analysis and some pitfalls that can happen in data analysis when you use software analysis but don't know exactly what the tools do and about the importance of whitespace. (Art: J. Jackson, Music Freerolling by T. Bless and the Professionals licensed from Artlist.io)