The Story Collider

Nelson Lugo has a brilliant idea for his grade school talent show -- use chemistry to do a simple magic trick. It did not go over well. Nelson Lugo is a Magician, Sideshow Artist, and Batman enthusiast. He was featured by TimeOut NY as a New York Entertainer to Watch and co-hosts a podcast called "The EPIC PIEcast" for NerdyShow.com. He's been a guest speaker for The Sunday Assembly NYC, a guest singer for the BTK Band, an invited storyteller at Adam Wade's Whatever Happened to the Nerds as well as for the Five Boro Story Project, and was featured on the Story Collider podcast. He is currently performing a solo show called "Gathering The Magic" at The Tank Theater NYC -- which you can see on Sept 20th.

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Musician Emily Caudill's life-saving chemotherapy treatment causes her to lose her hearing. Emily Caudill is a songwriter and musician from Louisville, Kentucky. In 2011, while she was working in special education, and as a music therapy intern, Emily was diagnosed with metastatic germ cell ovarian cancer. She sustained significant hearing impairment as a result of chemotherapy. Emily believes that life is a song, and the music is composed by our stories. When she isn't writing songs and stories, Emily enjoys playing fiddle on the front porch of her lakeside cabin in Kentucky.

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Erika Engelhaupt is on a road trip out to DC when suddenly they're pulled over and her boyfriend is arrested. She'll need science to vindicate her man. Erika Engelhaupt is a science writer and editor. At the time of this show, she is about to start a new job as the online science editor at National Geographic. She was most recently a deputy managing editor at Science News magazine, where she started her blog, Gory Details. Gory Details covers all that is creepy, bizarre, or otherwise strangely fascinating in science, from psychopaths to what happens when you pee in the pool. Basically, she likes to give people the creeps, but in a good way. Erika's work has appeared in Science News, The Philadelphia Inquirer, on National Public Radio and in many other newspapers and magazines. Before becoming a writer, she had lots of adventures in biogeochemistry, many of which involved wearing hip waders in Louisiana swamps.

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Physicist Stephon Alexander feels overwhelmed until the father of quantum gravity himself helps him find inspiration in his subconscious. Stephon Alexander is the Ernest Everett Just 1907 Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Dartmouth College. Stephon was born in Trinidad and grew up in the Bronx, NY. He is a theoretical physicist specializing in the interface between cosmology, particle physics and quantum gravity (String Theory and Loop Quantum Gravity). He received his BSc (1993) from Haverford College and PhD (2000) from Brown University. He held postdoctoral fellowships at Imperial College, London and The Stanford University Linear Accelerator Center. Stephon is also a Jazz Saxophonist and Author, and will release his new album (in Colaboration with RIOUX) Here Comes Now in Aug, 2014. His upcoming Book will explore the secret link between music and cosmology.

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At four years old, Daniel Miller became one of the youngest people in the state of Texas ever to testify in court -- against his own mother, for sexual assault. As an adult, he struggles for stability, but finds hope in physics. (Warning: this story contains disturbing and potentially triggering events.) Daniel R. Miller is a Ph.D. student and research assistant at the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. Using large telescopes in the Chilean Andes to observe our Universe as it was 12 billion years ago along with state-of-the-art high performance computer simulations, he works at the intersection of observational and theoretical astrophysics on subjects including cosmology, cosmic structure, and reionization. He also spent several years doing research in plasma physics and controlled nuclear fusion on the MIT Alcator C-Mod experimental tokamak reactor. When not thinking strictly about physics, he may be found in the Future of Life Institute working on potential existential risks including climate change, nuclear proliferation, and artificial intelligence.

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Daniel Engber risks derailing his PhD by constant daydreaming, until his neuroscience research gives him a idea that will revolutionize the NBA. Daniel Engber is a columnist for Slate.com and Popular Science, and a regular contributor to the New York Times Magazine. He has appeared on Radiolab, All Things Considered and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and received the National Academies of Science Communication Award in 2012 and the Sex-Positive Journalism Award in 2008. His work has been anthologized in The Best of Technology Writing and The Best of Slate.

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Cosmologist Eugene Lim is pulled into another world when he goes to help teach after the earthquake in Haiti. One day, Eugene Lim decided to dump his Mech Eng. degree to do physics for a living. So he went and obtained a PhD in astronomy at the University of Chicago, advised by someone who does not have a degree in physics. He is currently at Kings College, London.

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Materials scientist Ainissa Ramirez never connected with her brothers' love of football until she unexpectedly ends up writing a book about it. Ainissa G. Ramirez, Ph.D. is a science evangelist, who is passionate about getting the general public excited about science. She co-authored Newton's Football (Random House) and authored Save Our Science (TED Books). She has appeared on NPR and CNN; gave a TED talk in 2012; and blogs for The Huffington Post. She was a mechanical engineering professor at Yale for ten years, and received her doctorate in materials science from Stanford. Based in New Haven, CT, she is currently writing a book on the impact of technology on humans.

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A cancer diagnosis is only the start of the collapse for Annalise Kaylor, but she finds support in an unexpected community. Hailing from the northwoods of Wisconsin, Annalise Kaylor planned to live in an RV and travel around the country when she made a pit stop in Atlanta and decided it was home. By day, Annalise is one of the country's foremost authorities on social media, helping companies concoct ways for you to loathe Facebook even more. By night, she's an anti-social pilot who loves beer, bourbon, and euro-style strategy board games. Annalise is a Write Club Champion and Moth StorySlam Champion who can also be heard at Naked City, Carapace, the Iceberg, and Scene Missing.

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A relationship bridging the divide between scientists and artists is reflected in a fight over where to store tomatoes. Alison graduated with a BSc in Astrophysics from Newcastle University. Leaving for London to seek her fortune, she worked for several years in building services engineering in investment banks; first as an operations manager and then as a consultant. She left this career to pursue her love of physics, completing a Masters in Space Science and a PhD in solar physics at UCL. She is now at Queen Mary looking after outreach and student recruitment for maths and physics. Help keep us going! If you love the podcast, please donate here: http://www.patreon.com/thestorycollider

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