The Sci-Files on Impact 89FM

This week on The Sci-Files, Chelsie and Danny interview Dianna Cowern (“Physics Girl”).

This interview sheds light on Dianna’s experiences as a science communicator. She is the creator and host of the viral and PBS sponsored “Physics Girl” web series with over 1.3 Million Subscribers, which is a resource for fun physics videos and other materials about physics and topics related to physics. Her videos total over 80 Million Views. Her show has featured well-known figures including the legendary Rodney Mullen, Bill Nye, and Anne Wojcicki – Founder of 23 and me.  In 2019, Dianna was named to the FORBES 30 under 30 list.

In this episode, Dianna also discusses her research about dark matter with Professor Jocelyn Monroe as an undergraduate at MIT and low-metallicity stars with Professor Anna Frebel as a post-baccalaureate research fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Finally, in this interview, Dianna speaks about her favorite parts of the job as a viral science YouTuber and famous science communicator. Dianna will be at MSU on Saturday, October 19th, 2019, you can see her speak at the Wharton Center for Performing Arts for the MSU SciComm Live Science-Art Show. Tickets are free and available to pick up at the ticket office of the Wharton Center. 

If you’re interested in talking about your MSU research on the radio or nominating a student, please email Chelsie and Danny at [email protected]. Check The Sci-Files out on Twitter @SciFiles89FM and on Facebook!

This week on The Sci-Files, Chelsie and Danny interview Kaitlyn Casulli.

Kaitlyn is a third-year Ph.D. student in Biosystems Engineering. Prior to coming to MSU, she received her Bachelor of Science in Food Science at North Carolina State University. Her dissertation focuses on relating heat and mass transfer kinetics to microbial inactivation during dry roasting, using peanuts as a case study. She is currently developing a model to simulate Salmonella inactivation on shelled peanuts in a flat-bed roaster, with a goal of relating the predicted inactivation to salmonellosis risk in roasted products. Eventually, she hopes to continue her research in risk modeling and process validation either as a university professor or as a consultant.
Kaitlyn also serves as the treasurer for the Council of Graduate Students (COGS). Before becoming treasurer, she served as her department’s COGS representative for two years, during which she was chair of the mental health committee, which organized MSU’s first-ever celebration of World Suicide Prevention Day. She has also served on a number of university committees tasked with mental health reform and supporting students with disabilities.

If you’re interested in talking about your MSU research on the radio or nominating a student, please email Chelsie and Danny at [email protected]. Check The Sci-Files out on Twitter @SciFiles89FM and on Facebook!

This week on The Sci-Files, Chelsie and Danny interview Mike Morrison.

Mike is a former User Experience (UX) designer who quit his tech career to become a Ph.D. student in Work Psychology. He says he’s trying to do three things in his career: 1) Bring User Experience design principles to science, to help disseminate knowledge faster and more efficiently 2) Understand the factors that make work meaningful (or meaningless). 3) Understand the psychological differences between so-called ‘realists’ and ‘dreamers’. He recently released a video introducing a new way to design scientific research posters — which every field in science uses and which are notorious for their bad design. His video went viral, and now scientists across every field in science are trying out his new design — and having more fun sharing their research with other scientists.

If you’re interested in talking about your MSU research on the radio or nominating a student, please email Chelsie and Danny at [email protected]. Check The Sci-Files out on Twitter @SciFiles89FM and on Facebook!

On this week, The Sci-Files, Chelsie and Danny interview Nguyen Truong.

Nguyen is an MSU Physiology Ph.D. student in Dr. Karl Olson’s lab. She studies the pancreatic beta-cell,  the cell type that secretes insulin to maintain our blood glucose. Her research focuses on studying the effect of inflammatory cytokines on the function of the pancreatic beta-cell. Studying the mechanism of how cellular metabolism is altered by these cytokines helps her understand the pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes and provide a promising approach for the identification of immunomodulatory therapeutics for the disease. 

If you’re interested in talking about your MSU research on the radio or nominating a student, please email Chelsie and Danny at [email protected]. Check The Sci-Files out on Twitter @SciFiles89FM and on Facebook!

On this week, The Sci-Files, Chelsie and Danny interview Vanessa García Polanco.

Vanessa García Polanco is a master student in the Department of Community Sustainability. Her research interests are minorities, immigrants, and refugee’s involvement in their local and regional food systems, especially in the areas of production, garden, and farm governance, access to markets and culturally appropriate foods and food policy. She studies the Agro-Biodiversity of Lansing Community Gardens run by minorities, immigrants, and refugee’s and how this relates to their foodways, and identity in the food system.
Vanessa has served at the local, state and regional level to promote democratic empowerment and racial equity in the food systems as a network member, writer and speaker for Food Solution New England and the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group. She worked as a chair for communications and outreach at the Rhode Island Food Policy Council, as a program assistant at the URI Cooperative Extension. Vanessa has served as a policy specialist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Interior. Vanessa is an alumna of the Food Solutions New England Network Leadership Institute. Vanessa received a B.S. in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics from the University of Rhode Island with minors on Hunger Studies, Leadership Studies and Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems. Vanessa is an immigrant from the Dominican Republic.

If you’re interested in talking about your MSU research on the radio or nominating a student, please email Chelsie and Danny at [email protected]. Check The Sci-Files out on Twitter @SciFiles89FM and on Facebook!

On this week, The Sci-Files, Chelsie and Danny interview Cort Thompson.

Cort is a Ph.D. student at MSU’s Biomedical Engineering department where he is studying the ways in which implanted neural interfaces affect the brain. His research focuses on understanding how specific components of current electrode array technologies affect biocompatibility at the molecular and cellular level. His experiments explore the ways in which device design impacts the cellular populations in the brain to better inform on future device design in the field of neural engineering.

Neural interfaces are a rapidly advancing technology that offers a vast array of potential therapeutic uses. Neural interfaces and their ability to record from and stimulate the brain are being researched all over the world by both academia and private industry in an attempt to better understand neuroscience and to treat injury and disease. Many initiatives such as the Braingate project have successfully connected the human motor cortex with assistive robotic devices to improve the quality of life for individuals suffering from debilitating neurological conditions.  A considerable amount of progress has been made toward the improvement of neural interfaces in recent years through the advancement of electrode technology and signal decoding. There is still progress to be made however on the path to creating seamlessly integrated neural devices. As it turns out, the brain reacts poorly to foreign objects. Many implanted devices suffer from chronic tissue inflammation for as long as they remain embedded in the brain. Implantation of invasive neural devices damages blood vessels, neurons, and other brain cells which results in inflammation and scarring around the device. This chronic inflammation is generally assumed to play a role in the functional decline of implanted electronics. Biocompatibility is an area of neural interface research that is becoming more important as neural interfaces become more sophisticated and as clinical implementation becomes more common.

If you’re interested in talking about your MSU research on the radio or nominating a student, please email Chelsie and Danny at [email protected]. Check The Sci-Files out on Twitter @SciFiles89FM and on Facebook!

On this week, The Sci-Files, Chelsie and Danny interview Lauren Cooper.

Lauren directs the Forest Carbon and Climate Program at the Michigan State University Forestry Department. Her work focuses on the intersection of forests, people, climate, habitat protection, wood use, and sustainability. With trees and forests taking center stage in terms of climate change mitigation and adaptation, her work aims to bridge the wide knowledge gap for professionals and the public in the physical science, management, and policy aspects of forest and climate. In this robust area of research and engagement, she is involved in research, professional training, and communication efforts.

Lauren is a Detroit native who earned a BA in History from Wayne State University before completing a Master of Science in Natural Resource Policy and Planning and a Master of Urban Planning from the University of Michigan.  She is currently completing a Ph.D. in the Forestry Department. She has international experience in Peru, Mexico, and Ecuador, and previously worked in Washington, D.C. and Cusco, Peru.

If you’re interested in talking about your MSU research on the radio or nominating a student, please email Chelsie and Danny at [email protected]. Check The Sci-Files out on Twitter @SciFiles89FM and Facebook!

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Kayla Conner, Justin Lee, and Jon Kaletka, all of them are graduate students from the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics.

At the Hardy lab, they lab study prenatal infection and how it affects pregnancy outcome/development. Jon’s research focuses on understanding how Listeria infection changes the extracellular vesicle production in host cells, and how those regulate the immune response. Kayla studies how infection changes the structure/function of the placenta. Justin studies how prenatal infection/inflammation alter brain development in the fetus.

If you’re interested in talking about your MSU research on the radio or nominating a student, please email Chelsie and Danny at [email protected]. Check The Sci-Files out on Twitter @SciFiles89FM and Facebook!

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Tatiana Bustos.

Tatiana is a 4th year Ph.D. student in the Ecological Community Psychology program at MSU. Her training is primarily in program evaluation, implementation science, and community-based research. Her work is focused on promoting access to health services among underserved communities. She has been involved in projects that prioritize the needs of Latinx communities and child mental health. For her doctoral work, she is studying how the collaboration of community-based organizations (CBOs) in health service systems can drive decisions for health policies and improve health disparities. Her project is applying network-based strategies to better support CBOs and system change efforts.

If you’re interested in talking about your MSU research on the radio or nominating a student, please email Chelsie and Danny at [email protected]. Check The Sci-Files out on Twitter @SciFiles89FM and Facebook!

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Jaimie Strickland, DVM and Matt Kuhn, DVM.

Cows have impressive immune systems compared to humans, yet they tend to get sick more often around the time of calving. The causes of this are still being uncovered, but changes in the metabolism of the omega fatty acids, like fish oils, appear to be a contributing factor. Matt’s research focuses on understanding why these changes occur around calving and what we can do to prevent it. Matt graduated from Michigan State University with a B.S. degree in Animal Science (’13) and began his Ph.D. while finishing his Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine also at MSU (DVM ’18). He has been a part of the Comparative Medicine and Integrative Biology program for three years and continues his research into improving the health of livestock.

Jaimie is a Ph.D. student in the Meadow Brook laboratory in the Michigan State University College of Veterinary Medicine where she studies dairy cow nutrition and health. Her research focuses on how vitamins may help improve dairy cow health and reduce antibiotic use. She works with both cows on the farm and their cells in the lab in order to test the effects of vitamins on things like inflammation and oxidative stress. Jaimie is also passionate about science communication and hopes to improve her ability to share her love of cows with the public.

If you’re interested in talking about your MSU research on the radio or nominating a student, please email Chelsie and Danny at [email protected]. Check The Sci-Files out on Twitter @SciFiles89FM and Facebook!