The Sci-Files on Impact 89FM

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

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by challenges with social communication as well as restricted and repetitive interests. Parent training is an evidence-based treatment for ASD in which providers train parents to build on their child’s skills or address their child’s challenging behavior. However, it is not frequently offered in community settings like mental health clinics or public schools. Diondra Straiton is a doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology program at MSU. Her research is focused on improving access to evidence-based practices in community settings for traditionally underserved children with ASD, including families who are of racial and ethnic minority backgrounds, of lower resourced backgrounds, or who have limited English proficiency. Recently, her research has focused on barriers and facilitators to the use of parent training within the community mental health system for Medicaid-enrolled families of children with ASD. Tune in to learn more about how to overcome challenges that arise when trying to increase providers’ use of parent training with this population.

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 Vanessa, Mary, Greg, and Emma.

Together this team of students conducts research on Per-and Poly-fluoroalkyl Substances (PFASs) at the Center of Diamond and Coating Technologies-Fraunhofer USA. These students are Vanessa Maldonado (2nd year Ph.D. Student in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Material Science), Mary Ensch (3rd year Ph.D. student in Chemical Engineering), Greg Landis (undergraduate student in Chemical Engineering) and Emma Davis (undergraduate student in Environmental Engineering).

PFASs are a group of synthetic chemicals used in a wide variety of products including firefighting foams, non-stick cookware, and water-proof clothing. However, due to their high chemical and thermal stability attributed to the carbon-fluorine bond, PFASs are extremely difficult to degrade and persist in nature. The state of Michigan has identified multiple sources of surface water and groundwater polluted with these compounds.

The aim of the research is to develop electrochemical treatment technologies for different wastewaters containing PFASs, including landfill leachates and wastewater streams from industries using PFASs.

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 Tayler Murphy and Victor Gipson II

Tayler Murphy is a 3rd year Ph.D. student in the Genetics and Genomic Sciences program in Dr. Amy Ralston’s lab.  This summer, Tayler mentors Victor Gipson II. Victor is a junior cellular biology major at the University of Georgia. He is at MSU this summer through the Summer Research Opportunities Program (SROP). The goal of their project is to understand how stem cells are created, by using pre-implantation mouse embryos as a model. They particularly are looking at a type of stem cell called extraembryonic endoderm cells (XEN cells) which are naturally occurring cells in the embryo that eventually become the yolk sac.

Tayler is a part of the genetics student organization. She was the second author on a paper in 2018.

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 Isaiah Kaufman.

Isaiah is currently attending Goshen College with a major in Biochemistry, interested in researching plant biology. He is participating in an REU program through the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, working in the Sharkey lab.

With the Sharkey Lab, he is researching plant resilience to temperature changes in relation to a small molecule called isoprene that many plants emit. Plants release an estimated 550 million tons of isoprene annually. It is important in understanding how plants on a global scale respond to temperature changes from day to day and from season to season, as well as in understanding how they will respond to a changing climate. It has been shown that isoprene leads to heat resistance; his work this summer is focused on measuring how isoprene-emitting plants respond to cold stress.

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 Anastasiya Lavell and Cameron De La Mora. 

Anastasiya is a fifth-year graduate student in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology department. She is advised by Dr. Christoph Benning.  This summer she is working with an undergraduate student from Illinois State University, Cameron De La Mora, who came to MSU through our Plant Genomics REU program.

Photosynthetic organisms are key to capturing carbon dioxide and reducing it back to a usable form for other organisms to consume. The process of capturing the energy from sunlight though is quite dangerous and complex. Protein complexes and other accessory molecules are distributed in and around the thylakoid membranes, and in plants these membranes are housed by the chloroplast. Thylakoids have a special composition of membrane lipids compared to the rest of the cell in plants and studying the way these lipids are made can inform us of their importance for the process of photosynthesis. Anastasiya is currently studying a gene in Arabidopsis thaliana, the protein product of which is found in the chloroplast. This protein seems to be important for maintaining the normal composition of acyl chains on the galactolipids found in the chloroplasts of Arabidopsis. Through traditional biochemistry and molecular biology approaches, Anastasiya is trying to pinpoint exactly how this protein is participating in chloroplast lipid biosynthesis.  Together, Anastasiya and Cameron are working to further the understanding of how this protein might act as an integral membrane protease.

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 Kyle Card and Jasper Gomez.

Kyle is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics and Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior Program. His mentee, Jasper, is a recent graduate from the Biomedical Laboratory Diagnostics Program. They use bacteria from a long-term experiment to study how evolution in an antibiotic-free environment affects bacteria’s potential to gain resistance when these drugs are introduced. They focus on the role that strain genetic context plays in resistance evolution, with particular attention to patterns of repeatability and contingency in this process. Their future goal is to translate their findings to a clinical setting to slow the spread of antibiotic-resistant infections and improve patient treatment. Also, both Kyle and Jasper are from underrepresented minority groups; a status that has greatly enriched their mentorship relationship.   

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!

This week on The Sci-Files Chelsie and Danny interview Connie Rojas.

Connie is a 4th year Ph.D. Candidate in Integrative Biology and the Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior (EEBB) program at Michigan State University. She is investigating the interactions between animal hosts and their symbiotic microbial communities, a.k.a the ‘microbiome.’ Specifically, she is studying how the microbiome affects animal hosts’ physiology and behavior, and how the host and its environment affect their symbiotic microbial communities. Connie is apply her research questions to the social carnivore, the spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta). Her research is at the interface of ecology, animal behavior, microbiology, and genomics. Her project brings together fieldwork data, laboratory work and computational tools.

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 Nikki McClaran.

Nikki is a Ph.D. student in the Information & Media program within the College of Communication Arts & Sciences. Nikki’s research focuses on narrative persuasion, health and risk communication, and social norms.

Specifically, Nikki investigates how health and environmental issues are cognitively and effectively perceived, and whether narratives have the ability to encourage positive social behaviors. She’s conducted research regarding a variety of areas, including vaccinations, sleep, recycled water and alcohol consumption. The research Nikki conducts uses a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods to provide a holistic perspective of the issues under investigation. For example, a current project involves: focus groups of vaccine-opposed parents, a content analysis of entertainment portrays of vaccinations and experiments testing the effects of frequent exposure of such storylines on people’s real-world vaccination beliefs.

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!

This week on The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Benjamin Hall.

Ben is a 3rd year Ph.D. student at MSU in Physics and CMSE (Computational Math, Science, and Engineering). Ben works on applying quantum computers to solve many-body problems. Quantum computers are a newly developed type of computer are much faster than regular computers at certain tasks. He is working on figuring out how to program these computers to solve problems that classical computers can’t, specifically, simulating quantum systems. This could potentially lead to new insights into chemistry, drugs, medicine and materials. Ben is also the director of the MSU Physics A Cappella Choir. Stay tuned to hear a song by Ben and the MSU Physics A Cappella Choir!

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 Huiyun Wu and Natalie Kagole about their mentoring relationship in regards to the One Health challenge.

Huiyun Wu is a researcher in Environmental Engineering; her research is on water microbiology and virology. Huiyun has played a significant role in the One Health Student Challenge – a program that brings international interdisciplinary groups of undergraduate students together to work on solutions to One Health problems. She was an organizer of the program and served as a mentor to multiple students. One of the students she mentored was Natalie Kagole, a student in Psychology, with a minor in public health. Their team won First Place in the Second International One Health Student Challenge in 2018. This episode focuses on their project with water scarcity and how mentoring impacted their lives.

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!