People Behind the Science Podcast

By Dr. Marie McNeelyScience

People Behind the Science Podcast episodes

August 19, 2024 774: Dr. Alain Cuerrier: Continuing the Tradition of Superb Science in Traditional Medicine
Dr. Alain Cuerrier is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Montreal, as well as a Botanist and Researcher at the Montreal Botanical Garden. He received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from the University of Montreal. He worked at Harvard University during his PhD and this helped him achieve his current positions. Alain is also a writer and poet. He recently contributed to a book on Medicinal Plants thriving in the arctic and he has published a book of poetry in French. In this interview, Alain tells us more about his journey through life and science.
People Behind the Science Podcast Show Notes
Life Outside of Science
Alain loves to write, read, and tap into his musical side. Lately, he has been having fun playing the banjo and harmonica.
The Scientific Side
He works at the intersection of plants and people. The projects in Alain’s lab focus on understanding how people use plants and how they perceive nature.
A Dose of Motivation
Live and let live.
What Got You Hooked on Science?
Though he is not exactly sure when his interest in science began, Alain remembers that he had gravitated toward environmental science as early as secondary school. At that time, he was choosing projects related to the impacts of nuclear power on the environment and how trees near lakes affected the water and surrounding environment.
The Low Points: Failures and Challenges
One of the struggles that Alain faces in his work is getting funding. This is particularly challenging in the field of traditional medicine because colleagues and grant reviewers may not believe in it. There can also be difficulties with getting their papers on traditional medicine published in good pharmacological journals.
A Shining Success!
Alain received funding to host congress at the Montreal Botanical Garden this June with 30-40 First Nations. The group will discuss issues related to health, territory, plants, and the environment. This is an exciting opportunity to get people together, talk about the challenges they face, and work towards solutions.
Book Recommendations
The Earth’s Blanket: Traditional Teachings for Sustainable Living by Nancy Turner, poetry by Philippe Jaccottet
Most Treasured Travel
In 2001, Alain joined the Montreal Botanical Garden as a new researcher. He was thrilled to have the opportunity to travel to north that summer to visit the Canadian subarctic to collect specimens. As a plant taxonomist, it was exciting to see new plants and observe how these plants coped with the harsh environment.
Quirky Traditions and Funny Memories
During an interview with members of the Cree people in their homes, the son of Alain’s gracious host approached him with a plate of dried caribou intestine with a bowl of fresh blood. The child offered them up as a sort of chip and dip snack. Not wanting to offend his gracious hosts, Alain started to reach for the plate. Fortunately for Alain, it was just a joke and after a good laugh, he did not have to sample the unexpected cuisine.
Advice For Us All
Concentrate on a few things rather than trying to pursue too many things at once.
Guest Bio
Researcher at the Montreal Botanical Garden and writer, Dr. Alain Cuerrier earned his PhD in plant systematics (University of Montreal with one year at Harvard University) before switching to ethnobotany in 2001. He participated at the creation of the First Nations Garden in Montreal as well as in Laquenexy (France). Since then, he has started ethnobotanical and ethno-ecological projects with the Inuit, Innu, Naskapi, and Cree people. As member of the Canadian Institute Health Research Team in Aboriginal Antidiabetic Medicines, he has been active in traditional medicine since 2003. Alain Cuerrier is a member of the Plant Biology Research Institute, adjunct professor at University of Montreal, member of ArcticNet, and Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science. He has been vice-president of the Natural Health Product Research Society of Canada from 2010-2013 and is now president of the International Society of Ethnobiology. Dr. Alain Cuerrier has published more than 8 books on plant uses by First Nations and Inuit of Canada.

*This episode was originally published May 4, 2015.
The post 774: Dr. Alain Cuerrier: Continuing the Tradition of Superb Science in Traditional Medicine appeared first on People Behind the Science Podcast.
41 min
August 12, 2024 773: Dr. Amy Mainzer: Directing Our Eyes to the Skies with Stellar Infrared Images of Asteroids, Comets, and Stars
Dr. Amy Mainzer is a Senior Research Scientist and the Principle Investigator for the Near Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) mission at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She is also the Principal Investigator for the Near Earth Object Camera mission proposal and the Deputy Project Scientist for the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer mission. After earning her B.S. In Physics from Stanford University, Amy accepted a position at the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center. She then returned to academia to earn her M.S. in Astronomy from the California Institute of Technology and PhD in Astronomy from the University of California, Los Angeles. Amy has received many awards and honors for her work, including the Lew Allen Award for Excellence, as well as the NASA Exceptional Achievement and Scientific Achievement Medals. She has also been recognized along with NASA team members for their efforts on the Spitzer, WISE, and NEOWISE missions. In this interview, Amy discusses her life and science.
People Behind the Science Podcast Show Notes
Life Outside of Science
When she’s not at work, you can find Amy hanging out with friends at the local roller disco. For her, it’s a great way to get some exercise, and it’s fun to do something completely different from her work at NASA.
The Scientific Side
Amy is an infrared astronomer. She studies the universe using wavelengths of light that are longer than those we can see. Infrared astronomy is especially useful for looking at objects that are relatively cool in temperature such as asteroids.
A Dose of Motivation
“Never give up. Never surrender.” by Jason Nesmith in Galaxy Quest
What Got You Hooked on Science?
Amy has memories from her grade school years of reading children books on Greek mythology. When she looked up some of the characters like Andromeda in her family’s set of encyclopedias, she was able to read about the characters but also stumbled across pictures of a beautiful galaxy with the same name. Looking at these pictures lit the spark for Amy, and she wanted to learn more about the universe.
The Low Points: Failures and Challenges
While working on a piece of the Spitzer Space Telescope, Amy and her team faced a major challenge of connecting a tiny camera chip to the camera housing using a particular material that was supposed to be able to handle the stresses of space. They completed the part and watched nervously as it underwent vibration tests to ensure it could withstand the strong vibrations during launch. They had to face a devastating disappointment when they removed the part and realized it had cracked.
A Shining Success!
The big moments for space scientists are definitely the launch of each mission. It is thrilling to have a successful launch and see your experiment is going into space. In particular, the telescope missions Amy has been a part of have been particularly exciting. Being among the first people on Earth to see the initial images of space coming back is truly amazing. During these times of success, she likes to stop and reflect on all the people who worked together to make the mission possible.
Book Recommendations
I, Claudius by Robert Graves
Most Treasured Travel
For Amy, the Big Island of Hawaii has been one of her favorite places to visit for conferences. As a person curious about many fields in science, she enjoyed the phenomenal mix of stunning marine biology, geology, and biology. Amy is an avid scuba diver, and some of her most memorable dive experiences included seeing dolphins and hearing whale songs.
Quirky Traditions and Funny Memories
There was an office area in a room just outside one of Amy’s past labs. People would hang out in this room because you could have drinks and snacks there, but not inside the lab. The office space had one cabinet that was labeled with an intimidating side that said “Absolutely no food!”. Of course, everyone took advantage of the irony and stored their snacks in that cabinet.
Advice For Us All
Hang in there, and don’t quit! Also, try to make science part of your everyday life regardless of whether science is part of your career. There are so many wonderful things to learn about the universe around you.
Guest Bio
Amy’s scientific interests include asteroids, comets, low mass stars, and building telescopes and cameras for studying them. She is the Principal Investigator of the NEOWISE mission, an Earth-orbiting space telescope that finds and characterizes asteroids. She built the fine guidance sensor for NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, which helps the telescope point accurately at stars, galaxies, and planets.

*This episode was originally published on June 5, 2015.
The post 773: Dr. Amy Mainzer: Directing Our Eyes to the Skies with Stellar Infrared Images of Asteroids, Comets, and Stars appeared first on People Behind the Science Podcast.
41 min
August 05, 2024 772: Dr. Bryan Fry: Investigating Venom Evolution and Potential for Targeted Therapeutics
Dr. Bryan G. Fry is an Associate Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Queensland in Australia. He completed his undergraduate training in Molecular Biology, Scientific Philosophy, and Psychology at Portland State University and received his PhD from the University of Queensland. Afterwards, Bryan worked as a research assistant at the University of Melbourne, and he was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship to conduct research at the National University of Singapore. Next, Bryan returned to the University of Melbourne as an Australian Research Council postdoctoral fellow. He was later awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Research Fellowship and the Future Fellowship from the Australian Research Council. Bryan was the recipient of the 2011 Fenner Medal from the Australian Academy of Science for his research, and he is a member of the elite adventurer society The Explorers Club. In addition, he has been featured in documentaries on Animal Planet, BBC, Discovery Channel, and National Geographic TV. He has also been the author of numerous articles and two books: the textbook Venomous Reptiles and Their Toxins, as well as the memoir Venom Doc. Bryan joined us for this interview to talk about his research and his experiences in life and science.
People Behind the Science Podcast Show Notes
Life Outside of Science (2:58)
It can be hard to separate life from science because science is both a passion and a career for Bryan. When he’s not working in the lab, you can find him going out for a bushwalk enjoying the natural world with his wife and two dogs. Bryan’s hobbies also include rock climbing, skydiving, and big wave surfing.
The Scientific Side (4:30)
Bryan studies the evolution of venomous animals over time. His research also examines how we can use venomous substances as physiological probes, to learn about disease states, and in the development of potential therapeutic agents.
A Dose of Motivation (5:32)
“Never give up. Never surrender.” by Jason Nesmith in Galaxy Quest
What Got You Hooked on Science? (9:18)
At just two years old, Bryan was infected with meningitis which was intensely painful and had long-lasting impacts. This early experience combined with his fascination with snakes fueled his curiosity for toxins and venoms. At four years old, he declared he would make a career out of studying venomous creatures. Bryan recalls seeing photos of poisonous snakes that his mother’s family encountered while living in Africa, and he was always on the lookout for creepy crawlies in his own backyard as he traveled and moved to new places.
The Low Points: Failures and Challenges (24:34)
This past year, Bryan submitted six grants and was not awarded any of them, despite spending four months working on these proposals. As a result, the lab is running out of funding to support their research. The long-term future of the lab is secure because they recently received an equipment grant that allowed them to purchase the most advanced blood testing array instrument available. However, the short-term survival of the lab will be a challenge. Seeing the lab struggle for funding despite producing quality, high-profile research is particularly disheartening for the students.
A Shining Success! (35:14)
Bryan’s favorite snake is the brightly colored long-glanded coral snake. It is the epitome of venom diversification with its incredibly long venom glands, as well as the unusual mechanism of its venom, that allow it to feed on other venomous creatures, such as king cobras. Bryan’s group was able to determine that the long-glanded coral snake’s venom impacts a sodium channel in cells, opening the channels and preventing their closure, resulting in a rigid, spastic paralysis. This mechanism is different from the sedative, limp paralysis mechanism seen with most other venoms. In fact, the sodium channel impacted is the same type involved in myotonic muscular dystrophy. This means they can use the venom in models of muscular dystrophy.
Book Recommendations (39:07)
Venom Doc: The Edgiest, Darkest, Strangest Natural History Memoir Ever by Bryan Grieg Fry, Venomous Reptiles and Their Toxins: Evolution, Pathophysiology and Biodiscovery by Bryan Grieg Fry, Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft by Thor Heyerdahl, Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing
Most Treasured Travel (40:57)
Antarctica was Bryan’s favorite travel destination. The landscape was so beautiful and pristine. Bryan also shares some less favored but quite memorable stories of being kidnapped in Columbia and leaving Pakistan very shortly before their area and safe house were targeted by suicide bombings.
Quirky Traditions and Funny Memories (51:30)
While Bryan was in Pakistan, he gave a lecture at the University of Karachi. He was impressed that Pakistan had its own video intranet with hookups all over the country so anyone could watch scientific talks at the universities. When it was time to take questions, Bryan was apprehensive when the video screen revealed a person who looked like a stereotypical Hollywood villain. Bryan quickly realized that appearances can be deceiving, because the person was so nice and very complimentary of his work.
Advice For Us All (58:17)
If you want to stay, you have to leave. Spend time at other universities and overseas to learn new things and pick up new skills that you can bring with you to your next position. Make sure to think about where you want to go because if you don’t know where you want to go, you don’t know what you have to do to get there.
Guest Bio
Bryan leads the Venom Evolution Laboratory, working on venoms from a wide diversity of reptiles, centipedes, cnidarians, insects, scorpions, spiders, and even venomous mammals. He has published extensively on venom systems evolution and how they can be harnessed for therapeutic use. His discoveries include antifreeze venom in Antarctic octopuses, Komodo dragon venom, and new species of sea snakes. Fry’s publications have appeared in prestigious scientific journals, including Nature. He has led field expeditions to over forty countries and he is a member of the Explorers Club. His work has been featured in over seventy natural history documentaries appearing on Animal Planet, BBC, Discovery Channel, National Geographic TV and others. His work has been funded by grants from a diversity of funding agencies, including the Australian Research Council and the Australian Antarctic Division.

*This episode was originally published on January 2, 2017.
The post 772: Dr. Bryan Fry: Investigating Venom Evolution and Potential for Targeted Therapeutics appeared first on People Behind the Science Podcast.
1 hr 2 min
July 29, 2024 771: Dr. Samantha Maragh: Developing Tools, Terms, and Standards for Genome Editing
Dr. Samantha Maragh is Leader of the Genome Editing Program and Co-Leader of the Biomarker and Genomic Sciences Group at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). She also represents the U.S. as a technical expert on nucleic acid measurements for the International Standards Organization (ISO) Technical Committee on Biotechnology (ISO TC 276). Samantha received her B.S. degree in Biology with a specialization in Cellular & Molecular Biology and a minor in chemistry from Loyola University. She went on to get her M.S. degree in Biotechnology: Molecular Targets & Drug Discovery from Johns Hopkins University and her Ph.D. in Human Genetics & Molecular Biology from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. In 2019, Samantha received the Outstanding Young Scientist Award from The State of Maryland, The Maryland Academy of Sciences, and the Maryland Science Center. She was also selected as the recipient of the George A. Uriano Award in 2021 for her success in building the NIST Genome Editing Consortium as a public-private partnership. In 2022 she received the Measurement Science Excellence Award from the NIST Material Measurement Laboratory for leading the development of the first international standard for the field of genome editing published in 2021 and deploying the first inter-laboratory study for the genome editing field. In this interview, she talks more about her life and science.
People Behind the Science Podcast Show Notes
Life Outside of Science (3:41)
When she’s not working, Samantha loves cooking and enjoying food, especially seafood. For her, cooking is like science, but even more flexible and creative. Some of her other favorite pastimes include singing at her church on Sundays and playing puzzle games like Best Fiends.
The Scientific Side (5:52)
Scientists at NIST are developing controls and standards to make sure that measurements, tools, and all of the systems that rely on them are correct. Samantha’s work focuses particularly on genome editing. Genome editing has a lot of potential applications, including new treatments for diseases where a person’s own genetic code related to that disease can be fixed in their cells, and those cells are given back to the person as a therapy. Her job is to answer questions and develop tools to determine whether these therapies have the effects they are intended to have, whether the therapies created match what scientists planned to create, and more. While there are many applications for gene editing in healthcare, there are also important applications in agriculture and other fields, and the technology has the potential to positively impact so many people’s lives.
A Dose of Motivation (11:10)
It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.
What Got You Hooked on Science? (13:31)
From early childhood, Samantha was sure she wanted to be a lawyer. However, while flipping through the channels with her father one day, they stumbled across a show called Forensic Files, which featured real scientists working with the police to help solve cases. They stopped to watch, and Samantha was captivated. This serendipitous moment led to Samantha watching the show regularly and learning more about how DNA could be used to get more information about people. Samantha’s dad was an influential figure in her life who encouraged her that she could be anything and do anything. Her interest grew over the years, and she ended up pursuing studies in human genetics. Samantha was driven both by her scientific curiosity and also her desire to better understand her own heritage. Her family immigrated to America from Jamaica before she was born, and she is of both Black and East Indian ethnicities. Samantha’s experiences and background motivated her to better understand what makes people look the way they do and be the way they are.
The Low Points: Failures and Challenges (27:06)
For Samantha, the biggest challenges aren’t when experiments don’t work, but rather when the voices around her tell her that something can’t be done. When building the NIST Gene Editing Program and Consortium, she believed that gene editing was going to be really important. To accelerate development in gene editing, there were some basic tools missing that many working in the space could benefit from having. Samantha had the idea that they could bring people together from academia, industry, and government labs to build these tools, but a lot of people told her that it would be impossible. They were sure that for-profit companies would not be willing to cooperate in this way. However, Samantha persisted, and she managed to convince people that it was worth trying. She had to go out in the community to build her network, introduce scientists in the field to NIST, and sell them on her idea of collaborating to build these important gene editing resources together. In the end, Samantha was able to pioneer a new mechanism to make her dream project a reality. They created an approach that brought people together in a consortium to address some of the key measurements and standards needs so that genome editing technologies could be better used in research and commercial products.
A Shining Success! (29:49)
Samantha worked with other experts in an international consortium to create a standard set of terms and definitions for the field of genome editing that are internationally harmonized. This is critical for ensuring more precise, accurate communication in the field. It was a long process that involved a lot of back and forth to get to the point where the group agreed on the exact wording and punctuations for every definition to ensure they were technically accurate and as future-proof as possible. This project will help scientists around the world communicate more clearly and effectively about their work.
Book Recommendations (33:12)
Thursday Murder Club Series by Richard Osman
Most Treasured Travel (34:46)
Samantha will never forget her time spent in Paris for science. She traveled there to work with colleagues from the Genome Editing Consortium to learn more about their work and establish the details of their partnership. Being in the city was amazing. Samantha is passionate about food and cooking, and Paris has a remarkable food culture. She enjoyed exploring some of the many local desserts, particularly those with dark chocolate. Paris also has a rich scientific history, there are several world-class research institutions there, and it is home to the official kilogram physical artifact that the kilogram weight used to be based upon.
Quirky Traditions and Funny Memories (37:59)
As a graduate student, there are times when you need to step back and take a break from your research. Their lab had received small bobblehead characters that represented famous scientists from a vendor, and lab members would occasionally have dance party breaks, including these bobbleheads. The characters could stick to surfaces, and they would put them on a piece of equipment called a belly dancer so they could dance along with the group. The belly dancer is a small tabletop device designed to move liquid around in samples like cell cultures, and it was perfect for making the bobbleheads dance. Currently at NIST, Samantha prioritizes having a sense of balance in the lab. They work hard, but they also enjoy lab lunches, sharing their favorite foods with the group, and talking about life outside the lab.
Advice For Us All (45:32)
Be the best you that you can be. Always be the best version of yourself wherever you are in each moment. If you are in the lab, be the best scientist you can be. If you are at home with your family, be the best family member you can be. Also, be bold, ask questions, and don’t be afraid to ask for what you want or need. The worst thing that can happen is someone could tell you no, but they also could say yes. You’ll never know if you don’t ask.
Guest Bio
Samantha leads NIST’s programs supporting genome editing technologies. These programs focus on innovation in genome editing and measurements for the field of gene and cell therapies. She also works on projects to develop better measurements and assays for the early detection of cancer biomarkers in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute’s Early Detection Research Network. Samantha’s research is focused on measurement assurance and technology development for genome editing and validation of bioassays and biomarkers. This research has important applications spanning engineering biology, precision/regenerative medicine, and cancer biology.

Support for this episode of People Behind the Science was provided by Innovative Research, Inc.
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49 min
July 22, 2024 770: Dr. Erin Conwell: Cued in to Environmental Factors Important for Children Learning Languages
Dr. Erin Conwell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and Coordinator for the PhD program in Visual and Cognitive Neuroscience at North Dakota State University. She received her undergraduate degree in Brain and Cognitive Sciences from MIT and her PhD in Cognitive and Linguistic Science from Brown University. Her dissertation research received the Peter W. Jusczyk Award. Afterward, Erin conducted postdoctoral research in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. Erin is with us today to tell us about some of her experiences in life and science.
People Behind the Science Podcast Show Notes
Life Outside of Science (1:54)
Erin spends her free time hanging out with her husband and daughter. As a researcher of childhood development, she has often found herself closely observing and celebrating the milestones of her own daughter’s development. In addition, Erin is an avid reader who typically makes it through 80-100 books per year. Her other hobbies include knitting and curling.
The Scientific Side (4:40)
Erin studies how children aged 6 and younger learn about the structure of their native language. She is conducting studies to determine how they understand what we say to them and how they produce words, sentences, and phrases that are understandable to us. She also examines how children’s understanding and representation of language changes over the course of their first 6 years of life.
A Dose of Motivation (6:08)
“If you’re going through Hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill
What Got You Hooked on Science? (9:28)
Initially Erin was enamored with mathematics. Entering college, she planned to become a mathematician, but when Erin learned more about the day-to-day job tasks of a mathematician, she realized this wasn’t really what she wanted to do. Erin took a cognitive science course as an elective, and she had a eureka moment when she realized that this was something you could have a career studying. She particularly enjoyed the volunteer work she did with children with developmental delays and became fascinated with early development.
The Low Points: Failures and Challenges (22:44)
For Erin, the most difficult time for her was after her daughter was born. Becoming a parent was a big life transition, and her daughter was born early and had some medical problems. It was challenging to try to dedicate enough attention, time, and energy to work with so much going on at home. Fortunately, Erin had a wonderful support network with colleagues, family, and friends who all helped her through this tough time.
A Shining Success! (25:17)
Recently, Erin attended a small workshop that was a little outside of her normal research area. She was a little nervous about how it would go, but it was a great experience. Her presentation went well, she learned a lot, and she met some great people who she is collaborating with now on exciting new projects related to how children understand homophones.
Book Recommendations (3:36)
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson and The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean
Most Treasured Travel (27:29)
One of Erin’s favorite scientific travel memories happened during a trip to Nashville. She was attending one of the large annual conferences in her field, and it happened to overlap with her birthday that year. She went out with a group of colleagues to enjoy some fantastic live music, and one of them tipped the band and requested they play “Happy Birthday”. No one could have anticipated the amazing 7 minute long “Happy Birthday” ballad that the band produced, but it was an awesome and memorable experience.
Quirky Traditions and Funny Memories (30:23)
A number of senior faculty members are known for their overflowing shelves and cluttered offices, but Erin’s PhD advisor was on the more extreme end of the spectrum. It became an annual tradition in the lab to spend an afternoon cleaning up their boss’s office for his birthday. Even though they did this every year, it was always a huge undertaking. They always managed to find random stuff like stacks of scientific papers from the 1980s that had somehow escaped their attention in previous years.
Advice For Us All (35:08)
If you have 100 ideas, 90 of them won’t be good, and 1 will have already been done. It’s okay to have bad ideas, and you can explore them before rejecting them. Also, be good to the people around you, and surround yourself with people who are good to you. Having a solid support network is important to keep you going.
Guest Bio
Erin’s research focuses on how environmental factors, such as frequency of use in a particular grammatical structure, affect children’s learning of their first language(s). Erin is also interested in understanding how sensitivity to grammatical structure cues changes during development. She uses a range of techniques with both adults and pre-school aged children to assess the availability and efficacy of these cues during language learning and processing. When she is not in the lab, Erin enjoys such traditional North Dakota pastimes as curling, cross-country skiing, and snow shoveling.

*This episode was originally published on November 7, 2016.
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41 min
July 15, 2024 769: Dr. Carmel Majidi: Making New Materials for Soft and Flexible Bio-Inspired Robots
Dr. Carmel Majidi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. There, he also holds courtesy appointments in the Robotics Institute and in Civil and Environmental Engineering. Carmel received his B.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Cornell University and his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley. He completed postdoctoral fellowships at Princeton University as well as at Harvard University before joining the faculty at Carnegie Mellon. Over the course of his career, Carmel has received numerous awards and honors, including the Young Faculty Awards from the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR). He has also received the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Early Career Faculty Award, as well as the George Tallman Ladd Award and Carnegie Institute of Technology Dean’s Early Career Fellowship from Carnegie Mellon University. In addition, Carmel was named a PopTech Science Fellow in 2013. In our interview Carmel discusses his experiences in life and science.
People Behind the Science Podcast Show Notes
Life Outside of Science (2:45)
When not working, Carmel is often out engaging in physical activities including hitting the gym or walking/jogging in nearby parks and along river trails. He also enjoys the arts and travel. Carmel travels frequently for work, and he likes to block off extra time on these trips to visit museums and cultural landmarks.
The Scientific Side (3:46)
In Carmel’s soft machines lab, they are engineering new types of materials that can be used to make machines and robots soft, flexible, and more lifelike. The goal is for these machines to move more like natural organisms.
A Dose of Motivation (4:21)
“Soft lands breed soft people.” – King Cyrus in Herodotus
What Got You Hooked on Science? (8:31)
Carmel’s first exposure to science and engineering was through his mom. Though now retired, she was a professor at the University of Delaware where she taught and conducted research in mechanical engineering. Carmel’s mom has an incredible passion for research and science, and she taught him about physics, materials, atoms, and the basic principles of nature at an early age. Curiosity and enthusiasm for learning were highly encouraged in their household. In college, Carmel took an introductory course in dynamics, and the topic fascinated him. The professor for this course encouraged Carmel to consider getting involved in undergraduate research, and Carmel worked in the professor’s lab that summer. During his summer research project, Carmel worked on designing machines and robots that mimicked human biomechanics and motion. This experience led Carmel to realize he wanted to pursue a career in academic research and robotics because he saw how advancements in robotics could have an enormous impact on society.
The Low Points: Failures and Challenges (22:12)
During graduate school, Carmel spent a lot of time studying adhesive materials similar to the skin of geckos with the goal of creating wall-climbing robots. By the time he completed his PhD, scientists in the field had made a lot of progress in this area. Because people had already solved many of the basic challenges and problems, Carmel had to pivot to find a new research area to focus on going forward. This was a stressful process because he had to completely rethink and reexamine the direction of his research and his intended career path. For Carmel, it was helpful to fall back on his basic training in mechanics and materials engineering, and he was able to identify new challenges and applications in the domain of bio-inspired robotics to pursue.
A Shining Success! (25:00)
Earlier in Carmel’s career, a lot of his attention was focused on his own personal development and growth as a scientist. Now, his greatest source of inspiration and fulfillment is seeing some of the first students from his lab graduating and receiving their degrees. Training and mentoring students, and seeing them transition to the next stage of their own careers is a rewarding success for Carmel.
Book Recommendations (27:04)
The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
Most Treasured Travel (27:59)
The Air Force Research Laboratory at the Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton Ohio is among Carmel’s favorite places to visit. There, scientists are doing important basic research on materials for aerospace applications, and Carmel partners with some of the research groups there. The National Museum of the United States Air Force is located nearby, and they have an incredible collection of aircraft across the decades. Touring the museum is a great way to see the evolution of flight over time, from the Wright Flyer all the way to modern aircraft.
Quirky Traditions and Funny Memories (29:34)
Food is a unifying force in Carmel’s lab, and his research group enjoys getting together to share a good meal to celebrate special occasions and achievements. These gatherings may involve going out to restaurants, making hot pot, or having potluck meals featuring dishes from around the world. For their very first lab meal, Carmel and his students went out to a Szechuan Chinese restaurant, and someone ordered a dish with beef tendon. Carmel had never tried anything like it before, and it was uncannily similar in texture and consistency to the kinds of materials they worked with in the lab.
Advice For Us All (32:29)
Think comprehensively about research rather than getting fixated on a particular problem or methodology. As scientists, it’s critical to have a deep theoretical understanding of a particular area, but it’s also important to take a step back to think about the experimental side and practical applications. In addition to finding inspiration and fulfillment in your work, be sure to also look for inspiration and fulfillment in other areas such as arts, culture, physical activity, and other forms of scholarship. Keep your mind active and take care of yourself. Pursuing excellence in a variety of areas can help you achieve success in whatever career path you end up choosing.
Guest Bio
Carmel runs a research lab at Carnegie Mellon University dedicated to the discovery of new materials that allow robots to be soft, squishy, and safe for physical interaction with humans. In recent years, Carmel and has lab members have been focusing on ways to create electronics that are stretchable and act like an “artificial skin” for robot sensing and wearable computing. They have also been working on creating soft robots that use lightweight, motor-less actuators to walk, jump, and swim. In addition to research, Carmel’s research lab takes part in several educational outreach events each year and have developed training workshops for students to get hands-on experience with materials used in soft robotics and wearable computing. When he’s not at the lab, Carmel enjoys a wide variety of hobbies. He likes to play tennis, racquetball, and basketball; frequently works out at the gym; tends to his flowers, herbs, and vegetable garden; and likes to go for jogs and nature walks in the lush parks and neighborhoods that surround his Pittsburgh home.

*This episode was originally released on August 27, 2018.
The post 769: Dr. Carmel Majidi: Making New Materials for Soft and Flexible Bio-Inspired Robots appeared first on People Behind the Science Podcast.
35 min
July 08, 2024 768: Dr. Fiona “Boo” Maisels: Studying Interactions Between Animals and Humans to Conserve Species in African Tropical Forests
Dr. Fiona “Boo” Maisels is a Conservation Scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and an Honorary Professor of Biological and Environmental Sciences in the African Forest Ecology Group at the University of Stirling in Scotland. She completed her PhD and postdoctoral fellowship at Edinburgh University and has worked as a conservation scientist since then in the Central African tropical forest region. Boo is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, and she also previously served as an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Stirling. In this interview, she shares more about her life and science.
People Behind the Science Podcast Show Notes
Life Outside of Science (2:10)
When she’s not working, Boo spends her time walking around outdoors where she can enjoy the flowers, trees, birds, and everything else that’s alive. There are many great green spaces where she lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, but Boo really loves exploring different forests around the world.
The Scientific Side (2:55)
Boo’s research has focused on understanding the natural world and the interactions between plants, animals, people, and landscapes. In her work as a conservation scientist, Boo is also working to find ways to solve the problems they identify in these interactions to better preserve the natural world.
A Dose of Motivation (4:23)
“A day without learning something is a day wasted.”
What Got You Hooked on Science? (6:39)
Boo’s interest in science started with a fascination with wildlife. She always looked at things and wondered how everything worked. As an undergraduate, she decided to pursue zoology, and her plan was to run or manage protected areas. Boo thought a master’s degree in resource management was the next step on the path to that kind of position, but she realized after enrolling that this degree focused more on how to manage people. This wasn’t a good fit for Boo, so she went back to academia to focus more on understanding wildlife. Boo completed her PhD studying feral sheep on the island of Cyprus. Afterwards, she accepted a postdoctoral position studying gorilla feeding ecology in Gabon. This project went well, and after receiving a Fellowship from the Royal Society, Boo began to study monkey ecology in Africa. When her fellowship was completed, Boo transitioned over to the scientific side of conservation, working with various organizations on short contracts until she joined WCS in 1999.
The Low Points: Failures and Challenges (17:11)
Doing field work in remote areas introduces a lot of unique challenges, and one example is dealing with humidity. Humidity causes problems for a lot of electronic equipment, and if something breaks, it can take a long time for replacement parts or new equipment to arrive. Beyond the day-to-day difficulties, there are also larger challenges with doing research internationally, including political unrest and war. Boo was working at a research station in Africa in what was then known as Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1991 when the country experienced substantial political unrest. Riots broke out across the country. They had to quickly close down the research project they were working on and relocate hundreds of miles away to Rwanda. After a few weeks, it became clear that the situation was not likely to stabilize any time soon, and the whole project had to be moved to Gabon.
A Shining Success! (20:43)
Boo and her colleagues recently published a paper in the journal Nature that examined the effects of good forestry management on the wildlife living in the forests of Central Africa. Specifically, they looked at a practice called selective logging in which only a few individual trees are harvested per hectare. Logging companies can receive a certification if they follow good forestry management practices and social norms like having their employees wear appropriate safety equipment. Then customers can choose to buy products that have this certification to ensure they are buying products that are more sustainably and ethically sourced. Recently, one of Boo’s graduate students led a project examining the impact of this program on wildlife abundance. Their results clearly show that there were far more large animals (such as elephants, gorillas, chimpanzees, and buffalo) at certified sites compared to matched non-certified sites. This project demonstrated the strong impact these kinds of programs can have on wildlife, and Boo hopes this work can be replicated in other parts of the world as well.
Another recent success involved creating an action plan for the conservation of red Colobus monkeys, which are becoming more rare due to hunting and deforestation. These monkeys can be thought of as an umbrella species where protecting and conserving the Colobus monkeys will indirectly protect and conserve many other species that share its habitat. The action plans specified specific recommendations for what should be done to conserve the monkeys at particular sites across Africa, and the research team also transformed the ideas from these action plans into a newly published paper that will reach a larger, broader audience.
Book Recommendations (30:05)
The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow, any books by Cormac McCarthy
Most Treasured Travel (31:30)
Earlier this year, Boo traveled with two colleagues to Bolivia to teach other scientists how to analyze data for a new method they developed called camera trap distance sampling. This method allows researchers to count animals using camera traps even if the animals don’t have distinct markings/color patterns. About twenty people traveled from across Latin America to attend this educational workshop. It was fantastic to spend time with a large group of talented, interesting people in La Paz, the capital of Bolivia. The weekend after the workshop, the group went out together to the high Andes with WCS Bolivia staff, and the wildlife they encountered was absolutely remarkable. Boo enjoyed seeing wild vicuña, a wide variety of birds, and other native animals. Seeing the vicuña was particularly meaningful because these animals (which are similar to llamas and alpacas) represent an important conservation success story. The local people rely on the vicuña for their fine wool, and they had been hunting them for years until there were very few left in the wild. WCS worked with the community at a site in Western Bolivia on a plan to catch the animals every few years to shear and release them, and the numbers have increased from about 100 animals to now well over 10,000 animals in that area.
Quirky Traditions and Funny Memories (35:15)
For many conservation scientists, daily life doesn’t involve white lab coats and pristine lab benches. Boo mostly works out in forests or at a computer in her office. Over the years, she has met many fascinating scientists working in the field. Many of her colleagues are musicians, one colleague is a magician, and some are accomplished athletes or artists as well. In WCS, there were a handful of scientists who formed a band and played together for a while.
Advice For Us All (38:48)
Everyone faces challenges and difficult situations. It is likely that whatever problems you are facing now, someone else has dealt with before. They got through it, and you can too. Also, go outside, and look at the animals and plants around you. Don’t spend your whole life within four walls. This will help you become more aware of what’s around you and how things are changing.
Guest Bio
Boo’s earlier scientific work — mostly in the forests of Central Africa — focused on the interactions between animals and plants, and for the last couple of decades, the interactions between animals and humans from a conservation point of view. Key species interests include elephants, primates, ungulates and birds. In her spare time, Boo enjoys poking about in natural habitats, looking at wildlife!
The post 768: Dr. Fiona “Boo” Maisels: Studying Interactions Between Animals and Humans to Conserve Species in African Tropical Forests appeared first on People Behind the Science Podcast.
43 min
July 01, 2024 767: Dr. Douglas Futuyma: Examining the Evolution of Host Specificity in Plant-Eating Insects
Dr. Douglas Futuyma is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at Stony Brook University. He also holds an appointment as a Research Associate at the American Museum of Natural History. Douglas received his B.S. in Conservation from Cornell University and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Michigan. After receiving his Ph.D., Douglas joined the faculty at Stony Brook University where he has worked for most of his career. He served on the faculty at the University of Michigan for a few years from 2002-2004 before returning to Stony Brook. Douglas has written one of the most popular textbooks on Evolution and has received numerous awards and honors over the course of his career. He is an elected Member of the National Academy of Sciences, as well as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was also awarded the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright Senior Scholarship, the Sewall Wright Award from the American Society of Naturalists, the Joseph Leidy Award from the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, and an Honorary Doctoral Degree from the National University of Mongolia. In our interview Douglas shared stories from his own life and science.
People Behind the Science Podcast Show Notes
Life Outside of Science (2:43)
Douglas is a passionate naturalist who loves being outdoors and expanding his knowledge of natural history. He has also been an avid birdwatcher for many years. Each weekend, Douglas joins other members of the local birding community to observe birds in their area. In addition, Douglas is an opera and classical music enthusiast.
The Scientific Side (4:37)
Throughout his career, Douglas has been fascinated by evolution and how species adapt to their environments. Much of his research has examined the ways in which insects that eat plants have evolved (or failed to evolve) in their ability to eat different kinds of plants. Beyond his specific research area of expertise, Douglas has taught courses on evolution and evolutionary ecology, as well as served as a general spokesperson for evolution.
A Dose of Motivation (6:58)
“Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie
Which we ascribe to heaven.
The fated sky
Gives us free scope
Only doth backward pull
Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull”
–All’s Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare
What Got You Hooked on Science? (10:35)
The vast diversity of animals on our planet has enchanted Douglas since his childhood. He used to take the subway to the Bronx Zoo, which was one of the largest zoos in the country at the time. By middle school, Douglas was frequently out exploring nearby parks in New York City to observe the many insects, frogs, salamanders, and birds there. Around the same time, Douglas received his first pair of binoculars as a gift from his father, and he began meeting some of the local birdwatchers in the area. Douglas’s fascination with animals persisted in college, and his courses shaped his understanding of biological science. He realized that he could best understand the diversity of animal and plant life by pursuing a career studying ecology and evolutionary biology.
The Low Points: Failures and Challenges (26:29)
One of the fascinating, but frustratingly unanswered questions that Douglas has investigated involves a moth called the fall cankerworm moth. Within this species, Douglas discovered that there were instances where female moths and all of their offspring were genetically identical. However, there was also evidence that male and female moths were mating. To make matters more complicated, they noticed that it wasn’t uncommon for females to lay a batch of eggs where none of them would hatch. This was a challenging mystery to tackle because the months only emerge once a year in the fall, and they initially missed their window of opportunity to do many of the necessary experiments. As a result, they had to wait an entire year before they could further unravel what was happening. Douglas discovered that only the eggs of females exposed to males would hatch, but the offspring would still all have an exact match of the mother’s genome. It appeared as though the males were necessary, but their genetic information was not being incorporated into the embryo. Thinking about this mathematically, after a while, all of the males should go extinct if all of the offspring were exact copies of the mothers. However, this is not the case, and despite all the work they put into this project, Douglas still doesn’t know why.
A Shining Success! (31:26)
Douglas previously conducted research on a group of beetles in which the different beetle species each fed on specific plant species within the daisy family. His goal was to examine whether these beetles had the genetic potentiality to feed on other species within this family of plants. His lab created phylogenetic trees using DNA data to determine the relatedness of the individual beetle species and also the relatedness of the plants they ate. They discovered that beetle species that are more closely related feed on plants within the daisy family that are more closely related. This suggested that the beetles were evolving in relatively small steps, rather than big leaps. Douglas’s team next conducted genetic studies to examine whether these beetles had the genetic potential to adapt to eating a different species of plant. The results indicated that there was adequate genetic variation in some cases for a species to adapt to eating plants that were closely related to the plant species they currently consume. These findings were exciting because they matched the evolutionary history they saw in the phylogenetic trees. This was one of the first studies to match the evolutionary processes in individual species (microevolution) to the big picture of how species have evolved over millions of years (macroevolution).
Book Recommendations (52:14)
Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert Sapolsky, Remembrance of Things Past or In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
Most Treasured Travel (41:35)
Two of Douglas’s favorite places he has visited are Costa Rica and Turkey. Douglas dreamed of visiting the tropics since he was a kid marveling at all the exotic animals in the Bronx Zoo. In the summer after his first year in graduate school, he finally had the opportunity. Costa Rica has amazing biodiversity, beautiful forests, and phenomenal national parks. Since that first trip, Douglas returned to enjoy birdwatching with friends and also to teach a tropical ecology course. Douglas has been to Turkey on three separate trips. On one occasion, he was invited to speak in a symposium on evolution held in Ankara, Turkey. This symposium was organized entirely by undergraduate students, and it brought together 1,100 people to listen to scientific experts discuss various topics in evolution. It was exciting for him to see how passionate the students and other audience members were to learn about evolution, even though it is still largely not accepted in their country.
Quirky Traditions and Funny Memories (47:07)
While doing field work for a project on beetles, Douglas and a PhD student were driving on a remote road in western Utah. They stopped to explore a lake bed to search for their beetles of interest, but they didn’t have any luck there. Further down the same road, Douglas declared that they had to pull over again because there was a dead badger in the road. After all, this was the first time he had ever seen a badger before. In examining the badger, they discovered many beetles, so they turned off the truck for an impromptu beetle collection session. When they got back in the truck, it wouldn’t start. They were stranded. With their insect samples in peril due to warm temperatures, and their own water supply unfortunately low, things weren’t looking good. No cars passed by, so they had to set up their tent and camp there for the night. The next day, Douglas and his student managed to get their truck on track thanks to a quarter and much-needed help from a handy passerby.
Advice For Us All (55:56, 1:02:10)
Advice that was hard to act on, but the best advice Douglas ever received was to quit smoking. In addition, you should follow your curiosity, and do something you find inspiring and intriguing. Find a way to develop your passion into a successful and useful career. Also, remember that science is trustworthy. The same science that is used to create the technology that has improved our lives definitively supports that evolution is true. Though we still have a lot to learn in science, there is so much that we do know, and science is the best approach for understanding how our world works.
Guest Bio
Douglas is an evolutionary biologist whose research interests focus primarily on speciation and the evolution of ecological interactions among species. Most of his work has centered on the population biology of herbivorous insects and the evolution of their affiliation with host plants. Research on several species centered on genetic differences conferring adaptation to different host plants. These studies have cast light on the evolution of host specificity. Recent work has focussed on whether or not constraints on genetic variation are likely to have influenced the phylogenetic history of host associations in a group of leaf beetles (Ophraella beetles), and on the pattern of speciation in this group. Students in Douglas’s research group have worked on diverse evolutionary and ecological studies of insect-plant interactions and of speciation in insects. In addition to his research, Douglas has been the President of the Society for the Study of Evolution, the American Society of Naturalists, and the American Institute of Biological Sciences, as well as the editor of Evolution. He is currently editor of the Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, and also the author of the successful textbooks Evolutionary Biology and Evolution.

*This episode was originally published on June 4, 2018.
The post 767: Dr. Douglas Futuyma: Examining the Evolution of Host Specificity in Plant-Eating Insects appeared first on People Behind the Science Podcast.
1 hr 6 min
June 24, 2024 766: Dr. Jo Dunkley: Cosmic Conquests – Seeking to Answer Key Questions About Our Universe
Dr. Jo Dunkley is a Professor of Physics and Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University and author of the book Our Universe: An Astronomer’s Guide. She received her MSci with First Class Honors in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge and her PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Oxford. Afterwards, she conducted postdoctoral research and was subsequently a Visiting Research Fellow at Princeton University. Before joining the faculty at Princeton University, Jo served on the faculty at the University of Oxford. Over the course of her career, Jo has received numerous awards and honors including the Maxwell Medal from the Institute of Physics, the Royal Astronomical Society’s Fowler Prize in Astronomy, the Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award, the Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award, and the Philip Leverhulme Prize from the Leverhulme Trust. She also shared the Gruber Foundation Cosmology Prize, a NASA Group Achievement Award, and most recently the Breakthrough Prize for Fundamental Physics with the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe team. In our interview, Jo speaks about some of her experiences in life and science.
People Behind the Science Podcast Show Notes
Life Outside of Science (2:45)
Physics and family are two of the major pieces in Jo’s life. She loves spending time with her two daughters, while they run, draw, sing, and learn about space.
The Scientific Side (3:24)
Jo is a cosmologist, and her job is to study the universe. She conducts research to try to approximate how space behaves as a whole. This includes looking into space and taking measurements to determine how the universe began, what it’s made of, how it’s growing, and what is going to happen to it in the future.
A Dose of Motivation (4:22)
“Just step up; you’ll be fine.” – Kate Gross
What Got You Hooked on Science? (6:39)
In her early school years, Jo didn’t really know what science was, and her interests in science evolved from her passion for math. When she realized that mathematics could be used to describe and understand the world, she decided to pursue science. In her first year of university, Jo took a class about special relativity, and it completely captivated her. Despite enjoying her studies, Jo never really envisioned becoming a scientist. She had spent summers backpacking through South America and Southeast Asia, as well as volunteering for environmental organizations. This was the route Jo thought she would pursue after college. However, she quickly realized that she missed engaging in scientific and mathematical thinking. Teaching math to high school students in the evening had become the best part of her day. At that point, Jo decided to enroll in a PhD program to see if she enjoyed doing research. She discovered that she loved research and has been doing science ever since.
The Low Points: Failures and Challenges (15:17)
One of the most difficult periods of Jo’s career occurred during her early years in university. Jo always did well in school, and when it was time to go to college, she chose to study sciences at Cambridge. In her program, students began by studying four different sciences, and you were expected to specialize in one area in which you performed best or most enjoyed. Jo started off interested in physics, but she found it very difficult. She began to think that she wasn’t good enough to make it in physics and that she was the only one in her classes who was really struggling. It took the entire first year for Jo to realize that she wasn’t the only student having trouble, and she was actually doing just as well as the rest of the class. In addition to great teachers, Jo had a strong group of peers, and they all helped each other make it through.
A Shining Success! (18:00)
Jo is part of the Simons Observatory Telescope team that includes researchers at Princeton University and other institutions. They have been working on the design, planning, and building stages of the project. Over the past year, Jo has collaborated with an amazing team of postdocs and students to dig into each part of the scientifically interesting things they could do with the telescope and get a deep understanding of what the telescope will be able to do. They are now to a point where they know the telescope’s capabilities and have developed scientific goals for what they want to accomplish. These goals include measuring signals that will tell them about the birth of the universe and learning more about the invisible universe (dark energy, dark matter). It has been exciting to pull all of the pieces together in preparation for starting their observations with the telescope in 2021. This is a thrilling collaborative project where everyone has a part to play, and they will be able to achieve so much more together than any single researcher could on their own.
Book Recommendations (20:40)
Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure the Heavens by Andrea Wulf, Our Universe: An Astronomer’s Guide by Jo Dunkley
Most Treasured Travel (23:21)
The site of their telescope in Northern Chile in the Atacama Desert is one of Jo’s favorite places to visit. Their telescope is located at approximately 5,000 meters in elevation, and at that altitude in the highland desert, the landscape looks almost like the moon or Mars. It is absolutely beautiful and so different from most places she has ever seen. It was also exciting for Jo to go there because most of her work is theoretical, so being on the ground building experiments and making telescopes work was very different from her normal work analyzing data and comparing data to theories.
Quirky Traditions and Funny Memories (25:46)
When Jo was a graduate student at Oxford, there was a musician working as an artist in residence in their department. This individual encouraged Jo and others to form a rock band. Their group got together late at night to practice in the lab or department space, and they only played space-related songs. Jo started off playing the cello in the band, but eventually switched to the theremin. At Princeton, they have an annual Princeton Recital where everyone in the department who plays instruments showcases their skills.
Advice For Us All (29:33)
Follow your talent for science if that is where your interests are. When choosing a career, it can be easier to pursue your interests in things like languages and literature on the side than it is to pursue studying physics on the side. Ultimately, you should pursue a career that you enjoy, and you have to make it fun. Don’t panic if you encounter something challenging. Just keep working at it, and the solution will come to you.
Guest Bio
Jo’s research is in the area of cosmology. She studies the origins and evolution of the Universe. Her main projects are the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), the Simons Observatory, and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). The main goals of the ACT project are to study how the universe began, what it is made of, and how it evolved into what it is today. This project aims to improve on measurements of parameters describing the very early universe, as well as measure distant, large clusters of galaxies and their environments. The Simons Observatory will add new telescopes and new cameras with state of the art detector arrays that will improve researchers’ ability to study our universe and the cosmic microwave background. LSST will allow researchers to measure how Dark Energy behaves over time with higher precision than ever before. The LSST dataset on billions of galaxies will also help address many other key research questions in cosmology and experimental physics.

*This episode was originally published July 30, 2018.
The post 766: Dr. Jo Dunkley: Cosmic Conquests – Seeking to Answer Key Questions About Our Universe appeared first on People Behind the Science Podcast.
32 min
June 17, 2024 765: Dr. John Aitchison: Applying Systems Biology Approaches to Advance Our Understanding of Infectious Disease
Dr. John Aitchison is President and Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research, the largest independent, non-profit organization in the U.S. that is focused solely on infectious disease research. In addition, John serves as an affiliate or adjunct Professor at the University of Washington, the University of British Columbia, the University of Alberta, and the Institute for Systems Biology. John received his B.Sc. degree with Honors in Biochemistry from McMaster University and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from McMaster University as well. He then conducted postdoctoral research in the Laboratory of Cell Biology at The Rockefeller University. Next, John served on the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Alberta. Afterwards, he became a founding member at the Institute for Systems Biology where he later served as Senior Vice President and Executive Director of Integrative Biology. While working at the Institute for Systems Biology, John also began conducting research at the Center for Infectious Disease Research where he still works today. In our interview John shares his experiences in life, leadership, and science.
People Behind the Science Podcast Show Notes
Life Outside of Science (2:34)
When he’s not in the office or the lab, John loves to be out on the water sailing and racing sailboats. He’s also a fan of playing squash, skiing, spending time with his family, and being outdoors.
The Scientific Side (3:56)
Infectious diseases claim the lives of 14 million people each year, and populations in developing countries are particularly affected by diseases like malaria, HIV, and tuberculosis (TB). There aren’t currently vaccines for all infectious diseases because some of these diseases have developed ways to avoid and control our immune responses. John’s research investigates the systems biology related to infectious disease by using technology, computation, and high throughput biology (“-omics”) to examine molecules in complex biological systems to better understand how the system will react to a new stimulus or perturbation. Their ultimate goal is to predict how effective a drug or vaccine will be against a particular disease and to implement it with high efficiency.
A Dose of Motivation (6:13)
“The secret to a happy ending is to know when to roll the credits.” – The Drive-By Truckers
“Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain, and most fools do.” -Benjamin Franklin
“I thought my ideas were reasonable, so why not propose them?” -Gunter Blobel
“So long as there’s a bit of a laugh going, things are alright. As soon as this infernal seriousness, like a greasy sea, heaves up, everything is lost.” – D.H. Lawrence
What Got You Hooked on Science? (11:15)
As an undergraduate student, biochemistry and metabolic pathways seemed dry and boring to John. He later took an honors thesis class where students had to do research in a lab for a few months, and John ended up working in Rick Rachubinski’s lab. There was a moment during this lab experience where John was looking at an autoradiogram, and he realized that he was the only person in the world who knew the results. It struck him then that it was an amazing privilege to do science and be able to work on topics that were so important to humanity. This initial excitement and thrill of discovery sparked John’s love of science.
The Low Points: Failures and Challenges (22:27)
When John started his postdoctoral position with the distinguished scientist Günter Blobel, he was assigned to work on a pet project that Günter was really invested in and was determined to see through. Günter had a particular hypothesis for this project, and every experiment John did pointed them in a different direction. John used all the tools in the lab, tried numerous experiments, and still could not find evidence to support the hypothesis of his brilliant mentor. This was really frustrating, and John started to wonder if he was good enough to stay in science. One day, he met with Günter and presented his argument for why the project wasn’t working and likely would never work. Günter was deeply disappointed, and John felt terrible. The next day, Günter had recovered, and he told John that giving up on that project was the smartest thing John ever did.
A Shining Success! (25:35)
John’s research group discovered a family of transport proteins that move different proteins into and out of the nuclei of cells. They were really excited about these transport proteins, and he remembered going back to his apartment, standing in his kitchen, and not being able to shake thoughts of these proteins from his mind. He seemed to never stop thinking about them. Other research groups had different hypotheses about the roles of these proteins, but the hypotheses from John’s group ended up being correct. The project was so exciting, so much fun, and also a real challenge.
Book Recommendations (27:46)
Endurance: Shakleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing
Most Treasured Travel (29:34)
Italy is John’s absolute favorite travel destination. He first went there after making the exciting transport protein discovery in 1996 to present their research at a conference on Günter’s behalf. The conference was held in a beautiful place in Northern Italy called Lago di Garda. At the conference, John was surrounded by all the big names in his field, and it felt like a true celebration of all of the work they had poured into this project. Afterwards, John’s wife flew in to meet him in Venice, and they explored Italy together. Since this initial trip, John and his family have been back to Italy a few times, and the village of Portofino is his favorite place in the world.
Quirky Traditions and Funny Memories (31:00)
Around the holidays at the end of the year, John’s lab partakes in a tradition to recognize all of the wonderful people in their group. Each lab member draws a name out of a hat and writes a poem about that person. They all take turns reading these poems aloud while enjoying a celebratory meal together at a nearby restaurant. The poems are always so funny and creative, and you get to see another side of the people you work with every day. It really brings the lab together.
Advice For Us All (35:09)
It’s a competitive world, and science is competitive. If you enjoy what you’re doing and are passionate about it, you can deal with the inevitable challenges. Doing research as a career can bring you a lot of joy. Ultimately, life is short, so love what you do, and pursue it with passion.
Guest Bio
John’s scientific vision is to harness the power of systems biology to develop strategies that lead to new vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics that will help eradicate infectious diseases. He and his team combine high-throughput biology with computation and math, to understand complex behaviors and predict biological outcomes. Outside of work, John enjoys time with his wife Leslie and his two kids. Growing up with the dream of being a professional sailor, John still races sailboats when he has the chance.
*This episode was originally published May 14, 2018.
The post 765: Dr. John Aitchison: Applying Systems Biology Approaches to Advance Our Understanding of Infectious Disease appeared first on People Behind the Science Podcast.
38 min

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