People Behind The Science Podcast - Stories From Scientists About Science, Life, Research, And Science Careers

Dr. Bryan G. Fry is an Associate Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Queensland in Australia. He completed his undergraduate training in Molecular Biology, Scientific Philosophy, and Psychology at Portland State University and received his PhD from the University of Queensland. Afterwards, Bryan worked as a research assistant at the University of Melbourne, and he was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship to conduct research at the National University of Singapore. Next, Bryan returned to the University of Melbourne as an Australian Research Council postdoctoral fellow. He was later awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Research Fellowship and the Future Fellowship from the Australian Research Council. Bryan was the recipient of the 2011 Fenner Medal from the Australian Academy of Science for his research, and he  is a member of the elite adventurer society The Explorers Club. In addition, he has been featured in documentaries on Animal Planet, BBC, Discovery Channel, and National Geograp

Dr. Winslow Briggs is Director Emeritus of the Carnegie Institution Of Science. He received his Ph.D. in Biology from Harvard University. He has served on the faculty at Harvard University and is a Professor of Biology Emeritus at Stanford University. Winslow has been the recipient of many awards and honors over the course of his career. He is an elected Member of the  U.S. National Academy of Science, a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, and a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences. In addition, he was awarded International Prize for Biology from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, the Adolph E. Gude Jr. Award from the American Society of Plant Biologists, an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Freiberg, the Finsen Medal from the International Association of Photobiology, the Sterling Hendricks Medal from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the American Chemical Society, the Stephen Hales Prize from the

Dr. Shaundra Daily is an Associate Professor of Computer and Information Science and Engineering, as well as the Director of the Digital Arts and Sciences Program at the University of Florida. Shani received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Florida State University, a M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Media Arts and Sciences from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She served on the faculty of Clemson University before joining the faculty at the University of Florida. Shani has received many awards and honors for her work, including the American Education Research Association Technology, Instruction, Cognition, and Learning Early Career Research Award, the Black Data Processing Associates Epsilon Award for Most Promising Technologist, and the Diverse Issues in Higher Education Emerging Scholar Award. Shani is with us today to tell us all about her exciting experiences in life and science.

Dr. Barry Byrne is the Earl and Christy Powell University Chair in Genetics, Associate Chair of Pediatrics, Director of the Powell Gene Therapy Center, and Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at the University of Florida. Barry received his B.S. in Chemistry from Denison University and his M.D. and Ph.D in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Illinois. He completed his Pediatrics residency, cardiology fellowship training, and post-doctoral training in Biological Chemistry at Johns Hopkins University Hospital. Barry started his career as a faculty member at Johns Hopkins, and he joined the faculty at the University of Florida in 1997. Barry’s excellence in research has been recognized throughout his career through his receipt of various awards including the Faculty Research Prize in Clinical Research and the Research Professor Award from the University of Florida, as well as the Clinician Scientist Award from Johns Hopkins University. Barry is here with us today to tal

Dr. Christian Franck is an Assistant Professor of Engineering at Brown University. He received his B.S. in aerospace engineering from the University of Virginia, and went on to be awarded his M.S. and Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology. Afterwards, Christian conducted postdoctoral research at Harvard before accepting his current position. Christian is here with us today to talk a little about his research and tell us all about his journey through life and science.

Dr. Leif Karlstrom is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oregon. He completed his undergraduate training at the University of Oregon, receiving a B.S. in Physics and Mathematics, as well as a B.M. in Violin Performance. He received his PhD in Earth and Planetary Science from the University of California, Berkeley where he was awarded the Louderback Research Award. Afterwards, Leif was the recipient of an NSF Division of Earth Sciences Postdoctoral Fellowship to conduct research at Stanford University. He joined the faculty at the University of Oregon in 2015. Leif is here with us today to talk a little about his research and tell us all about his journey through life and science.

Dr. Ohara Augusto is a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the Institute of Chemistry at the University of São Paulo. In addition, she is the Director of a network studying the redox process in biomedicine. She completed her undergraduate degree in Chemistry and her PhD in Biochemistry at the University of São Paulo. Afterwards, Ohara conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley and at the University of California, San Francisco before returning to the University of São Paulo to join the faculty. She has received many awards and honors for her work, including being named a Fellow of the Oxygen Society, as well as a Member of the Academy of Sciences of the State of São Paulo, the World Academy of Sciences, and the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. Ohara is also the recipient of the Silver Medal for Biology and Medicine from the International Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Society and has been named Commander of the Order of Scientific Merit by the Presidency of the Republi

Dr. Antoine van Oijen is a Distinguished Professor and Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow in the School of Chemistry at the University of Wollongong in Australia. Antoine received his MSc and PhD in Physics from Leiden University in the Netherlands, where his graduate work was recognized with the C.J. Kok prize for best doctoral thesis. Afterwards, he conducted postdoctoral research in Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University. Antoine served on the faculty at Harvard Medical School and Groningen University in the Netherlands before his recent move to the University of Wollongong where he is today. Antoine has received a wide array of honors and awards for his research, including the Armenise-Harvard Junior Faculty Award, a Searle Scholarship, a NSF CAREER Award, a Vici Award from the Dutch Science Foundation, the Dutch Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Award for the most promising young scientist, and the prestigious Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship. Antoine is

Dr. Erin Conwell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and Coordinator for the PhD program in Visual and Cognitive Neuroscience at North Dakota State University. She received her undergraduate degree in Brain and Cognitive Sciences from MIT and her PhD in Cognitive and Linguistic Science from Brown University. Her dissertation research received the Peter W. Jusczyk Award. Afterward, Erin conducted postdoctoral research in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. Erin is with us today to tell us about some of her experiences in life and science.

Dr. Rebecca Richards-Kortum is the Malcolm Gillis University Professor of Bioengineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University. She is also Director of the award-winning Rice 360 Institute for Global Health and founder of Beyond Traditional Borders Program at Rice University. Rebecca received her B.S. in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln and went on to receive her M.S. in Physics and PhD in Medical Physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She served as a faculty member at the University of Texas at Austin, where she was the Cockrell Family Chair in Engineering, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and a Distinguished Teaching Professor. Rebecca has received many awards and honors during her career, including very recently being named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow. Some of her other recent awards include the Pierre Galletti Award (the highest honor from The American Institute for Medical and Biomedical Engineering), the Lemelson-MIT Award for Glob

Dr. Christopher Castro is an Associate Professor in the Department of Atmospheric Science at the University of Arizona. He received his B.S. degree in Meteorology, with the highest distinction, from Pennsylvania State University and went on to be awarded a M.S. and PhD in Atmospheric Science from Colorado State University. Christopher conducted postdoctoral research at Colorado State University before joining the faculty at the University of Arizona in 2006. Christopher is here with us today to talk a little about his research and tell us all about his journey through life and science.

Dr. Gemma Reguera is an Associate Professor in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Michigan State University. She completed her undergraduate studies in Biology at the University of Oviedo in Spain and received her PhD in Microbiology from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Afterward, Gemma conducted postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst before joining the faculty at MSU where she is today. Gemma is with us today to tell us all about her journey through life and science.

Dr. Tamara Bogdanović is an Assistant Professor in the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Physics, as well as a member of the Center for Relativistic Astrophysics . She received her B.Sc. in Astrophysics from the University of Belgrade in Serbia and her Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Pennsylvania State University. Tamara conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Maryland, where she received a NASA sponsored Einstein Postdoctoral Fellowship as well as an Astronomy Prize Theory Postdoctoral Fellowship. She has also been named an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, a Cottrell Scholar, and a Cullen-Peck Fellow in recognition of her research and teaching. Tamara is with us today to share stories from her life and science.

Dr. Stacey Harmer is a Professor of Plant Biology in the College of Biological Sciences at the University of California, Davis. She received her BA in Biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley and was awarded her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of California, San Francisco. Afterwards, Stacey conducted postdoctoral research at the Scripps Research Institute in La Joya before joining the faculty at UC, Davis where she has been since 2002. She is the recipient of the American Society of Photobiology’s New Investigator Award and was selected as a Chancellor’s Fellow at UC Davis. Stacey is with us today to share her exciting experiences in life and science.

Dr. Shannon Manning is a Michigan State University (MSU) Foundation Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics. She earned her B.S. in biology from the University of Michigan, her M.P.H. in Hospital and Molecular Epidemiology, and her Ph.D. in Molecular Epidemiology from the University of Michigan. Afterwards, Shannon was awarded an Emerging Infectious Disease Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Shannon is with us today to tell us all about her journey through life and science.

Dr. Christopher Cederroth is an Assistant Professor within the laboratory of Experimental Audiology working on tinnitus within the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. He received his PhD from the University of Geneva, Switzerland for which he was awarded the Denber-Pinard Prize from the University of Geneva. During that time, he also contributed to the launch of the start-up company Amazentis S.A. Before joining the faculty at the Karonlinska Institute, Chris was awarded a Swiss National Foundation Advanced Fellowship for his postdoctoral work conducted at Rockefeller University, as well as the Wenner Gren Foundation and Nicholson Postdoctoral Fellowship to support his research efforts at the Karolinska Institute. Chris is here with us today to talk a little about his research and tell us all about his journey through life and science.

Dr. Adam Summers is a Professor in the School of Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences and Department of Biology at the University of Washington, and he conducts research in his lab within the Friday Harbor Laboratories there. He completed his bachelor’s degree in mathematics and engineering at Swarthmore College, and afterwards worked as a SCUBA instructor in Australia. Adam next decided to pursue graduate school, receiving his master’s degree in Biology from New York University and his PhD in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Massachusetts. He received a Miller Research Postdoctoral fellowship to conduct research at the University of California, Berkeley and went on to serve as a faculty member at UC, Irvine before joining the faculty at the University of Washington. Adam has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In addition, he was awarded the Bartholmew Prize for physiology research from the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology, the UC,

Dr. Alicia Kowaltowski is a Professor of Biochemistry at the Chemistry Institute at the University of São Paulo in Brazil. She was awarded her PhD in Medical Sciences from The State University of Campinas in Brazil, and she conducted postdoctoral research at the Oregon Graduate Institute (now known as Oregon Health and Sciences University). She is a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow (2006) and recipient of the CAPES-Elsevier Award (2014). Alicia is with us today to tell us all about her journey through life and science.

Dr. Melik Demirel is a Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics at The Pennsylvania State University. He received is B.S. and M.S. in Engineering from Boğaziçi University in Turkey and was awarded his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. Afterwards, Melik conducted postdoctoral research at Los Alamos National Laboratory and was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship in Molecular Biology at the Max Planck Institute in Gottingen, Germany. He accepted a faculty position at Penn State in 2003. Melik was a recipient of the Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research within the Department of Defense, was selected as a Wyss Institute Visiting Scholar at Harvard University, and was awarded the Outstanding Research Award from Penn State, among other honors during his career. In this episode, he tells us about his experiences in life and science.

Dr. Sapna Sharma is an Associate Professor in Biology at York University. She received her PhD in Ecology and evolution from the University of Toronto and completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Montreal and the Center for Limnology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She served on the faculty at Loyola before joining the faculty at York where she is today. Sapna is also founder of a science outreach program at York University for refugee children called SEEDS. She is with us today to tell us all about her journey through life and science.