The Sydcast

Do you know the truth about global warming? How bad is it really? Today, we talk to Erich Osterberg, an earth scientist and expert on climate change about the state of the earth’s environment, and how he came to care so much. If Erich Osterberg was just a Dartmouth professor and leading climate change scientist, someone who regularly testifies to Congress on this subject, it would be pretty interesting to talk to him, wouldn’t it? But he’s also a person, with a story and a passion that has taken him to the Arctic and the Antarctic to conduct research in some of the most inhospitable terrains on earth. Erich talks to us about the greatest threat our earth has ever seen, and some of the ways we, as everyday people, can combat this harrowing challenge. Most importantly though, as one of the most knowledgeable scientists in his field, Erich tells us why there’s still hope.

Kate was misdiagnosed. Then she was misdiagnosed again, and the cycle continued. She’s lived through such turmoil and suffering, dealing with suicide attempts, depression, anxiety, and many psychiatric hospitalizations. But after struggling with mental illness for over a decade, Kate broke through. And now she wants to tell her story to everyone, and especially others who have, or are dealing with, some of the same things Kate did. Kate does not back down from speaking openly about what happened to her, and does so with poise, pride, and energy that few can match. Now, as CEO of the Dogist, a flourishing young company, Kate is a millennial who can get anything done. Kate teaches us how to embrace the things that make us happy, how to deal with our emotions, and how dogs can make everything better. 

Whether it is Tony-award winning theaters, music festivals, university arts administrations, or even business school programs, Mary Lou has been in charge. Her poise and attitude express leadership experience, and her career is the perfect example of how one crafts not just their work, but their life. On this episode of The Sydcast, we learn who Mary Lou Aleskie is, and how she got that way. A journey across professions that are not usually mentioned in the same breath, a journey across the country, and a journey of discovery.

From the mean streets of Philadelphia to performance stages around the world and the Ivy League of Dartmouth College, Hafiz Shabazz has been on a powerful journey of discovery, creativity, and learning. He’s traveled the world both studying and performing on every imaginable type of percussive instrument. He has lectured at over 500 schools and has played with Max Roach – one of the best drummers of all time. Whether it’s a call to meeting, a performance in front of thousands, or a university lecture, Hafiz creates language through the music he makes. In this podcast we sit down in his studio to talk about music and sound, and to hear his story. As a special treat, Hafiz performs a couple of clips of his favorite jazz solos, and teaches us that the language of music and jazz is far less random than you might think. 

Jake Sullivan’s public service record is marked with achievements of global proportions. He’s served as Chief of Staff for Hillary Clinton, a top adviser in the Obama administration, and director of policy planning at the U.S. State Department. He brokered both the Iran Nuclear Deal and peace talks between Israel and Palestine. His experience also comes with a keen understanding of the humanness inherent in decision making, both big and small. Through his stories of advising and working with some of the world’s most powerful people, Jake provides a rare and exclusive look inside some of the most vital foreign policy work of our time.

17 U.S. National titles, 17 U.S. Championships, 16 podiums in the Stage World Cup, five-time Winter Olympian, one Olympic gold medal. That’s cross-country skiing star Kikkan Randall’s career in numbers, but there’s so much more to her story than that.

Kikkan Randall is the embodiment of achieving your childhood dreams—she knew from the time she was 5 years old that she wanted to be an Olympic skier. Her dream came true 14 years later, when she competed in her first Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002 at the age of 19. She finished in 44th place and immediately worked out a 10-year plan to make it to the podium—a goal she finally achieved at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, bringing home gold in the women’s team sprint at 35 years old. But her story’s bigger than her gold medal: she’s an inspirational speaker, community leader, and a cancer survivor. If you’ve been holding on to a long-time dream, let this conversation with Kikkan inspire you to see it through to reality, no matter how much or how long it may take.

You might not have heard Eric Fossum’s name before now, but you use his invention every day. So do billions of people around the world.

The next time you share a photo of your meal on Instagram, watch your favorite YouTuber’s latest upload, FaceTime with family across the country, or like your best friend’s profile pic on Facebook, thank Eric Fossum,“Father of the Selfie,” for the CMOS image sensor he invented in NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory 37 years ago. His “camera on a chip” is inside nearly every smartphone in the world—and web cams, digital cameras, pill cameras, and many other imaging devices we use today. In 2020, it’ll even make its way to the surface of Mars inside cameras on NASA’s newest rover, set to launch next July. Eric’s revolutionary contributions to engineering shape our modern daily lives and have more than earned him his spot in the Inventors Hall of Fame and accolades including the Queen Elizabeth Prize—considered the Nobel Prize of the engineering world. Is the ability to invent a natural gift or a skill we can learn and nurture? We explore this question and so much more with masterful inventor Eric Fossum.

Brandon is not your average cop. He’s Ivy League educated, holds two Masters degrees, and is finishing his PhD in philosophy. And as chief of police in Burlington, VT battling an opioid epidemic, he has some pretty powerful ideas to take this on, and the energy to make those ideas happen.

The intersection of public health and policing is unexplored territory that holds great promise for communities large and small. And that’s exactly what Brandon del Pozo is exploring himself as chief of police in Burlington, Vt. After graduating from Dartmouth College in 1996, he returned to his old New York City streets to serve and protect the community where he grew up. He helped to evacuate the New York Stock Exchange on Sept. 11, 2001, after the first of the Twin Towers collapsed and did rescue and security work at Ground Zero in the months that followed. But he’s most passionate about solving the crisis of opioid addiction, which kills 60,000 people every year—the same number of combatants killed during the entirety of the Vietnam War. Brandon is an innovative thinker who balances his police work with scholarship. His dedicated leadership and community building work have led the city of Burlington to implement new ways of treating opioid addiction—methods and programs that have reduced the number of overdose deaths in the city by 50% in the past year. There’s a lot to learn in this episode, not just about Brandon, but about the science-backed and medically proven ways that police and public health officials can work together to improve and save lives in their communities.

What’s it like to make a career talking to the world’s biggest celebrities, artists, and rock stars about their most vulnerable moments? Marc Meyers, the Wall Street Journal’s “Ink Shrink,” does exactly that.

Marc comes from a family of artists—his brother is a pianist, his mother wrote and illustrated children’s books, and his father drew cartoons for The New Yorker. Journalism is Marc’s art form: words are his paint and his columns—“House Call” and “The Anatomy of a Song” in the Wall Street Journal—are his canvas. Marc is a true master in the art of the interview, asking cultural icons like Joni Mitchell, Keith Richards, Joe Namath, and Olivia Newton John questions that probe the heart of the human condition, which makes his columns addictive reads. On this episode of The Sydcast, Marc and I talk about the importance of living your passion, qualities of stardom, the power of connecting to people through stories and print, and that one other little passion that got him into his dream job in the first place: jazz.

Warwick Fairfax is the scion of a long-time family-controlled media empire in Australia once worth billions of dollars, that is no more. And he’s the one most directly responsible for the collapse of the business. Who is Warwick Fairfax, what did he do, and how has he lived his life since?

Have you ever had a bad day at the office? Maybe made a deal that didn’t work out? We all have, but not like our guest today: Warwick Fairfax, a reluctant media mogul if there ever was one, made a deal that changed his life and challenged everything he held dear. In the space of a very few short years Warwick Fairfax’s deal led to the demise of the Fairfax family name and literally hundreds of millions of dollars, forever. Warwick is 5th generation Fairfax, one of the leading media companies in Australia for more than a century, competing with Rupert Murdock. And when I say a leading company, I’m talking about a family that was worth billions of dollars. We’ll hear Warwick’s incredible, and honest, description of the events that led up to the disaster, and especially how he’s lived his life since then. Remarkably, Warwick has made it through to the other side, and now spends his time helping other people deal with failure, challenge, and leadership. Despite what happened to the Fairfax company and name, Warwick’s story is an inspirational and powerful one, chockfull of lessons for all of us.