Lab Coats Podcast

Will Goth dives into the world of light and lasers.

Will is a true jack of all trades, as he holds a bachelor's in mechanical engineering from Northeastern University along with minors in both electrical engineering and biomechanics. He is now a biomedical engineering grad student advised by Dr. James Tunnell and Dr. Michael Sacks, and the research problem he's carved out for himself is the quantification of soft tissue physiological states using biomedical optics. To do this, he probes tissues with light, and as Will helps us understand, he is able to take advantage of the scattering, absorption, and polarization of that light to help make these quantitative decisions. Outside of the lab, Will is a total soccer fanatic, and played club soccer at both Northeastern and UT. A recent injury has forced him to the sideline in a coaching role, but as you'll hear in this interview biomedical engineers hold a unique perspective on ACL injuries and Will found himself trying to image his own knee with his custom-built polarized light microscopy system one day.

Shane and Ahmed realize Arnold is way cooler than them. Arnold Estrada is a post-doctoral fellow in Tom Milner's lab here at UT Austin.

The crew learns about Arnold's early forays in science by (almost) burning his house down. After that we get down to business and talk about the million things Arnold has done with his life including winning awards at Luminex, a stint as a private consultant, and working on the James Webb telescope, and that's not even half of it! As contractually obligated we do talk about Arnold's work here at UT  designing a smart laser knife for cancer surgery and imaging system for endometriosis detection.

If you have questions, comments, concerns, or just want to tell us how awesome we are you can contact us via email at: [email protected]

Or through twitter: @LabCoatsPodcast

Shane, Ahmed, and Zach Imam enjoy a moment together. Zach is a Ph.D. student in Jeanne Stachowiak's lab here at UT Austin.

We talk about Atlanta for far too long, but circle around to Zach's undergrad work there at Georgia Tech and co-op (and later employment) with a biomed startup. Lipids are discussed heavily and Zach's work with lipid rafts and their role in endocytosis plays a starring role. We lighten things up by talking about Zach's dog and what he does in his free time.

Please visit us at labcoatspodcast.wordpress.com and on twitter @LabCoatsPodcast

 If you have questions, comments, concerns, or just want to tell us how awesome we are you can contact us via email at: [email protected]

Shane and Ahmed banter with Chengyi Tu, a Ph.D. student in Janet Zoldan's lab here at UT Austin.

As Chengyi is the first international student we spoke with we talk about coming to the U.S. to pursue a graduate degree. We take a deep dive in to stem cells and Chengyi's work with induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) here at UT. Chengyi then tries to interview our very own hosts and hands down some life lessons.

Links to the Zoldan Lab website and twitter account if you want to learn more about the work that Chengyi does

Please visit us at labcoatspodcast.wordpress.com and on twitter @LabCoatsPodcast

 If you have questions, comments, concerns, or just want to tell us how awesome we are you can contact us via email at: [email protected]

We talk about Anum's former science fair mastery, her work at Emory with platelet mechanobiology, and her work here at UT with MRI and its uses for cancer detection and characterization. We also dip our toes in to her hobbies playing guitar and star wars.

Link to UT Center for Computational Oncology if you want more info on the type of work Anum does.

Please visit us at labcoatspodcast.wordpress.com and on twitter @LabCoatsPodcast

 If you have questions, comments, concerns, or just want to tell us how awesome we are you can contact us via email at: [email protected]

An overview of what to expect from the Lab Coats Podcast.

Please visit us at labcoatspodcast.wordpress.com and on twitter @LabCoatsPodcast

If you have questions, comments, concerns, or just want to tell us how awesome we are you can contact us via email at: [email protected]