The Story Collider

Italian neuroscientist Chiara Mariottini struggles to fit in when she moves to New York City. Chiara Mariottini has a PhD in Neurophysiology from the University of Florence, Italy. She graduated at the end of 2007 and moved to NYC in January 2008. She is a pharmacist by training, but she’s been always fascinated by science and in particular by the brain. She is interested in how memories are maintained for a long time by our brains and how they can be altered by disease and removed during forgetting.

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Standup comedian Wes Hazard's dangerous chronic illness rears its head while he's on stage one night. Wes Hazard is a Boston-based comic & storyteller who was named 1 of '5 Boston Comics to Watch' by the Boston Globe. His first book 'Questions for Terrible People' has been selected as a Barnes & Noble featured humor title. Follow him @weshazard.

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Amy Oestreicher is a normal teenage theater nerd... until the day her stomach explodes. Amy Oestreicher is a PTSD peer-to-peer specialist, artist, author, writer for The Huffington Post, speaker for TEDx and RAINN, health advocate, survivor, award-winning actress, and playwright, eagerly sharing the lessons learned from trauma and has brought out the stories that unite us all through her writing, mixed media art, performance and inspirational speaking. As the writer, director and star of the Gutless & Grateful, her one-woman autobiographical musical, she's toured theatres across the country, earning accolades since it’s BroadwayWorld Award-nominated NYC debut. As a visual artist, her works have been featured in esteemed solo exhibitions, and her mixed media workshops emphasize creativity as an essential mindset.

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Biologist Jana Watson-Capps struggles with feeling in over her head in her scientific career. Jana Watson-Capps is an Associate Director of the University of Colorado BioFrontiers Institute, where she serves as chief-of-staff and head of strategy. Jana works with administrators, faculty, and students from across the CU system and external partners to develop and implement the institute's interdisciplinary programs and industrial partnerships. Before joining BioFrontiers, she taught in the Biology Department at Metro State College of Denver and studied the mating strategies of bottlenose dolphins. Jana is interested in bringing diverse groups of people together in new ways to advance bioscience research, education and applications to help society. She received her Ph.D. in Biology from Georgetown University and her B.S. in Biological Sciences from Stanford University.

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Anthropologist Herman Pontzer spends time living among a Hadza hunter-gatherer tribe in order to see if they burn more calories than a typical Westerner. Herman Pontzer, professor of anthropology at Hunter College in New York, investigates the human and ape evolution. His work incorporates laboratory and field studies of humans and apes, living and extinct, to shed light on our evolutionary past. Most recently Dr. Pontzer has investigated energy expenditure among Hadza hunter-gatherers in northern Tanzania. Follow him @HermanPontzer.

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Layne Jackson Hubbard wakes up in a hospital room with a head wound and no memory of how she got there. Layne Jackson Hubbard is a PhD student in Computer Science at the University of Colorado Boulder and is the founder of MindScribe, a startup company working to empower early childhood development through creative technologies. During her undergrad at CU Boulder, she successfully spoke before the Board of Regents to create a new Neuroscience degree for the university's students. She has a B.A. in Computer Science and graduated #1 in her class. Her research is funded by the Chancellor's Fellowship.

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When comedian Aparna Nancherla's science fair project goes awry, she and her fellow students make some unethical choices. Aparna Nancherla is a standup comedian and writer who has written for “Late Night with Seth Meyers” and appeared on “Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell” among many other programs. Follow her @aparnapkin.

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Patrick Freeman is studying elephants in Namibia when he receives terrible news. Patrick Freeman is a Research Assistant at the Carnegie Institution for Science, Department of Global Ecology. He specializes in sub-Saharan wildlife ecology and is passionate about elephants. He has spent numerous field seasons observing them in Namibia, South Africa, and most recently in Kenya. He is an avid wildlife photographer, of which he says, "My goal is to bring authentic images of wildlife, wild spaces, and conservation challenges to life for people who may never be able to see them in the flesh." You can follow him @PTFreeman.

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To discover why some survivors of trauma experience PTSD and some don't, scientist Rachel Yehuda must convince a community of Holocaust survivors to let her study them. Rachel Yehuda is a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Director of the Mental Health Patient Care Center at the James J. Peters Bronx Veterans Affairs hospital. Her research on PTSD has included both human populations and animal models, neuroendocrinology, and genomic and molecular biological studies of trauma.

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As a young science reporter at NPR, Science Friday's Ira Flatow accepts a challenge to record what it sounds like to go over Niagara Falls. Award winning science correspondent and TV journalist Ira Flatow is the host of Science Friday, heard weekly on PRI, Public Radio International, and online. He anchors the show each Friday, bringing radio and Internet listeners worldwide a lively, informative discussion on science, technology, health, space, and the environment. Ira is also founder and president of the Science Friday Initiative, a 501 (c)(3) non-profit company dedicated to creating radio, TV, and Internet projects that make science “user-friendly.”

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