Yakademia

TL;DL: We're going on hiatus because there are more important conversations going on right now. Donate. Protest. Vote.

Here's yet another episode of Yakademia: Quarantine Edition. This time we talk to Dr. Chris Figgener, a biologist studying sea turtles in Costa Rica. She's loved marine life ever since her dad bought her a pair of goggles and told her to look in the ocean. Her life changed when she uploaded a video shot from the deck of her research boat. A sea turtle had a plastic straw embedded in its nose, and the gruesome extraction was watched hundreds of millions of times around the world, inspiring legislation to curb or ban single-use plastics. Listen to find out what she's doing now to make a difference.

"Cool Vibes" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetency.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

We're back for another episode of Yakademia: Quarantine Edition. This time we talk to Chris Law, a postdoctoral researcher at the American Museum of Natural History. He'll tell you all about his board game victory selfies, his quarantine experience in Manhattan, and what he can discover by looking at the skulls of different carnivorous mammals.

"Cool Vibes" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetency.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

The first episode in Yakademia: Quarantine Edition. Today we talked to Nikki Roach, a PhD candidate at Texas A&M who has lived in Colombia for the past three years. She's been dancing, trekking around the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, learning about amphibian declines, and forging relationships with local coffee farmers.

"Cool Vibes" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetency.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Today we interviewed Jennie Thies, a PhD student at the University of Alabama. After getting a basketball scholarship at a smaller institution, she realized that one thing was constantly on her mind: what were her Petri dishes doing while she wasn't in her microbiology lab? She then joined a research lab, sinusoidal'ed her way over to C. elegans research, and the rest is history.

"Cool Vibes" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetency.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Our next guest is Wesley Neely who recently got back from a field trip to Brazil. He attached radio backpacks to tree frogs, let them loose, and then tracked them every day for weeks. Why would he do such a thing? Let's find out.

"Cool Vibes" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetency.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Our next guest needs no introduction, so here's two truths and a lie: Sommer Starr loves fungus, she had wolf puppies, and she's met Dave Grohl. Hint: she hasn't met Dave Grohl. She's had an interesting path to academia that started from the Chesapeake Bay, passed through being an airplane mechanic, and ended up tackling the controversial topic of fungal denitrification.

"Cool Vibes" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetency.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Our next guest is the one and only Maddie McCutcheon, a Master's student who may have peaked in elementary school but is still killing it today. She's here to kick ass, start up university organizations, and name new species--and she's all out of ass.

"Cool Vibes" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetency.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Our very first guest is none other than Sam Heraghty, a Ph.D student in biology who, in his free time, hunts ghosts with Meghan Yap-Chiongco, runs with the Middle Aged Machines, and plays brutally competitive games of My Cows. In his working life, he's a big bee guy, studying what happens to bees when climate change drives them up onto mountain tops where they become isolated from one another.

"Cool Vibes" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetency.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Allow us to introduce ourselves. It's Louis and Meghan, your favorite academics in training. We're both biology grad students, but it's been a long road to get here.

"Cool Vibes" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetency.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License