The Story Collider

While working as a census taker in 2010, Dawn Fraser is taken by surprise when her partner asks her for a favor. Dawn J. Fraser is a storyteller, educator and and nationally acclaimed speaker based out of New York City. She is the Host of the live show and upcoming podcast ‘Barbershop Stories’, which features storytellers performing true tales in barbershops and salons. Dawn has created programs for college students, educators and entrepreneurs to develop leadership potential through storytelling, and is an Instructor with The Moth and The Story Studio. She was featured amongst some of the nation’s top innovators and change makers as a speaker at TED@NYC and has performed in shows including The Moth Mainstage, Story Collider, RISK and The Unchained Tour. She loves being a twin, a Trinidadian, and tweetable @dawnjfraser. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As a young chemist working for the state crime lab, Bill Harwood is unexpectedly called to a crime scene. Lt. Bill Harwood is the director of the Maine State Police Crime Laboratory. He has over 26 years of experience in forensics and law enforcement. Lt. Harwood began his career as a forensic chemist at the Crime Laboratory in 1989 after graduating from the University of Maine at Orono with degrees in Medical Technology and Zoology. He examined physical evidence and testified as an expert witness over the next 5 years. He became a Maine State Trooper in 1994 patrolling Kennebec and Lincoln Counties. He was promoted to Maine State Police Detective in 1998 conducting child abuse investigations for the Kennebec County District Attorney’s Office while also serving as a homicide investigator for central Maine communities. He was promoted to Sergeant of the Crime Laboratory in 2002. He supervised the Firearms and Latent Print units while also serving as the Quality Manager and Assistant Director until 2008. He was then promoted to Lieutenant in charge of headquarters Special Projects until his assignment as crime laboratory director in 2010. Lt. Harwood has served as a Crisis and Hostage Negotiator, Staff Sergeant Cadre Supervisor at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy, State Police Emergency Response Team member for the Maine Emergency Management Agency and serves as the administrator of the Maine State Police Evidence Response Team. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A chance conversation gives Nneze Akwiwu a chance to study in the United States. Nneze Akwiwu is currently a senior Biology major at Spelman College. She thinks of herself as a bubbly, outgoing and very family oriented individual. She has plans of becoming the first female president of Nigeria. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

After reading about scientific theories of humor, comedian Chris Duffy decides to see if those principles can make his act better. Chris Duffy is a NYC-based comedian who performs across the country. His shows have been featured in The New York Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, and in The Onion A.V. Club. Chris is the creator and host ofYou're the Expert, a live show, podcast, and public radio program on Boston's WBUR where three comedians try to guess what a scientist studies all day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A young neuroscientist seeks control through an eating disorder. Kia is a recent graduate of Wellesley College, where she majored in neuroscience and mathematics. For two years after graduation she worked as the lab manager for a neuroscience lab at Brown University in Providence, RI. For the past six months she has been traveling and working on organic farms in New Zealand with her girlfriend. She recently returned to the US and is pausing in Providence to reunite with her cats and friends before moving to San Francisco to work in the tech industry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Growing up on a cattle ranch, Amanda Stockton dreams of searching for life elsewhere in the universe. Dr. Amanda Stockton is an assistant professor in the Chemistry and Biochemistry department at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her work walks the line between engineering and science to develop instrumentation capable of looking for organic molecules elsewhere in the solar system. These molecules could be the feedstock for an emergence of life or the remnants of past life now extinct on places like Europa, Enceladus, and Mars. Dr. Stockton grew up on a cattle ranch in Oklahoma, where she graduated from the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she majored in Aerospace Engineering and Chemistry – seemingly unrelated topics but perfect for her “dream job,” i.e. the one she has now. After obtaining a masters at Brown in chemistry, she earned her PhD with Dr. Richard Mathies at the University of California, Berkeley working on increasing the analytical chemistry capabilities of the Mars Organic Analyzer microchip capillary electrophoresis instrument platform. She continued in this vein at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, by furthering the microfluidic engineering side of the technology as first a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow and then as a Technologist. At Georgia Tech, her group’s work seeks to do both the engineering and the science to synergistically promote instrument capabilities and robustness. Currently, the group’s main NASA-funded project is a version of the Mars Organic Analyzer that could fit on a kinetic impactor mission to an icy moon – a project for which testing involves a giant rail gun and a magnetic capture system to decelerate the instrument at 50,000 g or the equivalent of hitting a planet at 5 km/s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

To study a dangerous disease, Dan Daneshvar asks families to consider donating their loved one's brains. Dan Daneshvar received an S.B. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Brain and Cognitive Sciences with Concentrations in Cognitive Neuroscience and Poetry. He joined the CTE Center at Boston University School of Medicine in January 2009, where he studies the effects of repetitive head impacts in athletes, including chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). He will receive M.D./Ph.D. dual degrees in May 2016 before beginning residency at Stanford. He also founded Team Up Against Concussions, an educational program that has educated over 25,000 middle and high schools students about concussions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A series of incidents propels Joe Palca to a career in sleep research. Joe Palca is a science correspondent for NPR. He comes to journalism from a science background, having received a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California at Santa Cruz where he worked on human sleep physiology. Since joining NPR in 1992, Dr. Palca has covered a range of science topics — everything from biomedical research to astronomy. He is currently focused on the eponymous series, “Joe’s Big Idea.” Stories in the series explore the minds and motivations of scientists and inventors. Palca has also worked as a television science producer, a senior correspondent for Science Magazine, and Washington news editor of Nature. Palca has won numerous awards, several of which came with attractive certificates. With Flora Lichtman, Palca is the co-author of Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us (Wiley, 2011). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Erika Engelhaupt gets a dream reporting assignment. There's just one problem--she has to take a small prop plane just like the one that she almost crashed in years ago. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Maryam Zaringhalam's scheme to cheat her way into the smart class makes clear a huge flaw in the education system. Maryam Zaringhalam is a molecular biologist and graduate student at The Rockefeller University. In the lab, Maryam tinkers with parasites and computers to understand how small changes to our genetic building blocks can affect how we look and function. When she's not doing science, Maryam runs ArtLab, a series that pairs scientists with artists, and podcasts with Science Soapbox, exploring science and policy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jonaki Bhattacharyya ventures out into rugged Canadian wilderness to research wild horses — but can does she have what it takes to survive? This story was produced as part of the Springer Storytellers series. Hear and read more at www.beforetheabstract.com/ Jonaki Bhattacharyya, PhD, does applied research in ethnoecology (focusing on Indigenous and traditional ecological knowledge), conservation planning, and wildlife management. Integrating cultural values and knowledge systems with ecological issues, her research endeavors have ranged from remote villages in India to backcountry meadows in British Columbia (BC), Canada. As Senior Researcher with The Firelight Group Research Cooperative, Jonaki works with First Nations and communities in Western Canada. Focusing on relationships between people, animals and places, she seeks to make applied contributions to conservation and human management practices around wildlife, protected areas, natural resources, and ecological systems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

While working at a hospital, David Putrino finds a surprise in his own medical records. David is a Physical Therapist with a PhD in Neuroscience. He has worked as a clinician in the US, UK and Australia, studied computational neuroscience at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and designed prostheses for Brain Machine Interface devices at New York University. He is an Assistant Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at Weill-Cornell Medical College, and the Director of Telemedicine and Virtual Rehabilitation at Burke Medical Research Institute. He works to develop low-cost patient monitoring and treatment systems, designed to decrease healthcare costs whilst improving the standard of patient care. David is a co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of GesTherapy, a telerehabilitation software company that works to improve the standard of care patients who require rehabilitation. He is also a volunteer for Not Impossible Labs, a company that develops technological solutions for large-scale humanitarian problems globally. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Saad Sarwana is finally about to win a high school award, but in his way is a math problem even the teacher got wrong. Saad Sarwana grew up in Pakistan, and moved first to Canada and then eventually to the US to attend graduate school in Physics. He's a professional physicist by day and an amateur standup comedian by night! As a Physicist, Saad has over 30 peer reviewed publications and two US patents. As a comedian Saad has performed over 1000 shows over 20 years. He co-hosts the Science Channel show "Outrageous Acts of Science", Season four starts to air in Feb 2016. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

While being treated after an accident, Rachel Fairbank struggles with not being the researcher. Rachel Fairbank received her bachelor's in biology from Cornell University, did some graduate work in the developmental biology program at Baylor College of Medicine, and is currently working on an MFA in creative writing at the University of Houston, where she also works as a science writer. In her spare time, she likes to box. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Abhishek Shah takes a simple job to pay for school--toxic waste disposal. Being a biomedical engineer, Abhishek Shah knows everything about physics, chemistry and biology. He applies the same fundamentals to his stand up comedy and storytelling to improve the chemistry with audience by applying the physics of joke structure. His intriguing experiences and fascinating background makes him a unique storyteller. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Brian Kennedy is forced to take a job in his local pharmacy to finance his theater dreams. Brian Kennedy is a writer/storyteller living in NYC. He's written for The Huffington Post and performed improv and sketch comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade. He tells stories on podcasts and at various venues, including The Moth -- where he's a StorySLAM winner. A long time ago, he wrote plays and produced them in the Minnesota Fringe Festival. Yes, he grew up in Minnesota. Yes, he still has the accent to prove it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Physicist Kaća Bradonjić's view of time is shaped by her experience as a war refugee. Originally from the former Yugoslavia, Kaća Bradonjić is a theoretical physicist living and working in Massachusetts. Her research on the nature of space, time, and gravitation straddles the boundaries of science, philosophy, history of physics, and visual art. She is particularly interested in the relations between mathematical structures used in physics and the aspects of the physical reality they are supposed to represent. Kaća lives and works in Massachusetts, where she is currently a Visiting Lecturer of Physics at Wellesley College and an artist member at Gallery 263 in Cambridge, MA. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Psychologist Ali Mattu didn't know what he wanted to be as a kid, but his older brother helped him find inspiration in Star Trek. Ali is a clinical psychologist at the Columbia University Clinic for Anxiety and Related Disorders where he specializes in the treatment of OCD, hair-pulling and skin-picking disorders. Outside of the hospital, Ali is an advocate for the brain and behavior sciences through his positions on national psychological associations and his presentations at comic cons. He writes about the psychology of science fiction at BrainKnowsBetter.com in the hopes that it will help others develop a love for psychology, just like Star Trek did for him. Ali's also the host of The Psych Show, a YouTube channel dedicated to making psychology fun and easy to understand. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Anna Nicanarova pretends to be sick to get out of a test, but how far will she take the ruse? Anna Nicanorova is Director of Annalect Labs -- space for experimentation and rapid prototyping within Annalect. Anna is Co–Founder of Books+Whiskey meetup and volunteer with ScriptEd (Science Skill Center High School). She holds an MBA from University of Pennsylvania -- The Wharton School and BA from Hogeschool van Utrecht. Her life is very rigorously tracked and visualized through Annual Quantified Self reports. In her free time she can be found art-hunting in museums or climbing tall mountains (aspiring to finish 7 Summits by 2020). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Used to the controlled uncertainties of his work, science writer Tom Levenson is forced to confront the dramatic uncertainty of whether he’ll be able to adopt a son. Tom Levenson writes books (most recently The Hunt for Vulcan) and makes films, about science, its history, and whatever else catches his magpie's love of shiny bits. His work has been honored by a Peabody, a National Academies Science Communication and an AAAS Science Journalism Award, among others. By day he professes at MIT, where he directs the Graduate Program in Science Writing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Adam Foote confronts the problem of obtaining sea urchins in land-locked Pittsburgh...during a polar vortex. Adam recently graduated with a Master's degree in Biology from Carnegie Mellon University, and he is very grateful to his sea urchin friends for getting him there. His first memory of science is when he took a long bath after a day in the woods and wondered why fingers prune up. When he is not explaining science to both willing and unwilling audiences, Adam enjoys cooking, which is chemistry for hungry people, and playing music, which is physics for the ears. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When he discovers his milk has been stolen from the dorm fridge, Neer Asherie has to resort to extreme science measures to find the culprit. Neer Asherie is a professor of physics and biology at Yeshiva University. He received a B.A. and M.A. in natural sciences (physical) from Cambridge University and a Ph.D. in physics from MIT. He was awarded grants from the National Science Foundation to support his research on the self-assembly of globular proteins. His articles have appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Physical Review Letters, and Crystal Growth and Design. In addition to his scientific publications, Neer has authored a novel and several short plays. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Rachel Pendergrass gets her dream job: talking to visitors in an aquarium, but dealing with the questions are not what she expected. Rachel Pendergrass is a storyteller, writer, actor, and science communicator native to the Atlanta area. She is a co-producer of WRITE CLUB Atlanta and the assistant director of the Dragon Con Science Track. She is the host of the new YouTube science communication comedy series Your Favorite Animal is A Dick. You can also find her performing at various live literature shows around town and on Dragon Con TV. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Alan Guth is working on a fairly typical research paper, when he accidentally makes a huge discovery about the origin of the universe. Alan H. Guth is the Victor F. Weisskopf Professor of Physics and a MacVicar Faculty Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Trained in particle theory at MIT, Guth held postdoc positions at Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) before returning to MIT as a faculty member in 1980. His work in cosmology began at Cornell, when Henry Tye persuaded him to study the production of magnetic monopoles in the early universe. Using standard assumptions, they found that far too many would be produced. Continuing this work at SLAC, Guth discovered that the magnetic monopole glut could be avoided by a new proposal which he called the inflationary universe. Guth is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has been awarded the Franklin Medal for Physics, the Dirac Prize, the Gruber Cosmology Prize, the Isaac Newton Prize, the Fundamental Physics Prize, and the Kavli Prize for Astrophysics. Guth has written a popular-level book called "The Inflationary Universe: The Quest for a New Theory of Cosmic Origins" (1997). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Adam Rogers gets an exciting opportunity to work in a marine biology lab, and see if he really wants to be a biologist. Adam Rogers is articles editor at WIRED, where he edits features about miscellaneous geekery and runs the science desk. His features for the print magazine have included stories about the astrophysics of the movie Interstellar, a fan cruise for apex nerds, and a mysterious fungus that lives on whisky fumes. That last one won the 2011 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award for magazine writing and lead to Rogers' New York Times bestselling book Proof: The Science of Booze. Rogers was a presenter and writer for the television show WIRED Science, which aired on PBS in 2007. Prior to joining WIRED, he was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and before that Rogers was a writer and reporter at Newsweek. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Facing an incredibly important decision, April Salazar is infuriated by way scientific information about reproduction is distorted. April Salazar is a writer and storyteller. She's written for The New York Times and has shared stories on The Moth podcast and NPR's Latino USA. In her spare time she works in technology at an educational non-profit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As a musician and writer Jimmy Wohl thought he was the ultimate creative, then he encounters a pharmaceutical marketing campaign. Jimmy Wohl is a writer and musician from New York City. He performs in many shows throughout the region, is the host of a travel storytelling show in Brooklyn called Get Outta Here!, and has published nonfiction in the New York Press (RIP). He's also a saxophonist who spent several years as a musical director on cruise ships, and has studied percussion in India. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Erik Vance searches for the real meaning of biology while chasing porcupines. Erik Vance is a native Bay Area writer replanted in Mexico as a non-native species. Before becoming a writer he was, at turns, a biologist, a rock climbing guide, an environmental consultant, and an environmental educator. His work focuses on the human element of science – the people who do it, those who benefit from it, and those who do not. He has written for The New York Times, Nature, Scientific American, Harper’s, National Geographic, and a number of other local and national outlets. He is currently working on his first book, under contract with National Geographic Press about how the mind and body continually twist and shape our realities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

With her truck stuck in the mud in the Serengeti, Aerin Jacob learns three important lessons. This story was produced as part of the Springer Storytellers series. Hear and read more at www.beforetheabstract.com/ Aerin Jacob is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Victoria and a Wilburforce Fellow in Conservation Science Fellow. Trained as an ecologist, she works to develop management strategies that incorporate local, Indigenous, and scientific knowledge to achieve conservation objectives while maintaining human well-being. She works with First Nations communities in British Columbia to study the environmental and socioeconomic outcomes of marine management in the Great Bear Rainforest. Aerin is also a member of the Sustainable Canada Dialogues, a network of scholars developing viable, science-based policy options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and guide sustainable development in Canada. Her previous work includes studies of land-use change, restoration ecology, and animal behaviour in East Africa and western North America. Aerin earned her PhD at McGill University and her BSc at the University of British Columbia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A remote disease comes very close to home for Queens resident Nicole Ferraro. Nicole Ferraro is a writer, editor, and storyteller living in NYC. Her personal essays have been published in The New York Times, Story Collider Magazine, The Frisky, Mr. Beller's Neighborhood, and elsewhere. Nicole is also the cohost of New York Story Exchange, a monthly storytelling series at Cornelia Street Cafe. For more information, visit: https://www.facebook.com/NewYorkStoryExchange. By day she earns her keep as the editor in chief of Netted by the Webbys. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A Japanese particle physicist struggles to find his place (and learn English) in the American midwest. Teppei Katori is an experimental particle physicist and a lecturer at Queen Mary University of London. His major interest is neutrino physics, especially neutrino interaction measurements on nuclear targets, and tests of space-time symmetry with neutrinos. Currently he works on two neutrino projects: the T2K experiment in Japan, and the IceCube experiment in Antarctica. He is native Japanese, and went to Indiana University for his PhD, then worked as an MIT scientist at Fermilab, near Chicago, USA. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

John Rennie finds it’s great to be editor in chief of Scientific American, but not when all the ingredients of sarin gas are in his office. John Rennie is a science writer, editor, and lecturer based in New York. Viewers of The Weather Channel know him as the host of the original series Hacking The Planet and co-host of the hit special The Truth About Twisters. He is also the editorial director of science for McGraw-Hill Education, overseeing its highly respected AccessScience online reference and the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology. Rennie served as editor in chief of Scientific American (including the monthly magazine, Scientific American Mind, ScientificAmerican.com and other publications) between 1994 and 2009. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As a mathematician, Adriana Salerno is used to solving problems, but depression is something else entirely. Adriana Salerno is originally from Caracas, Venezuela, where she received her undergraduate degree in mathematics from the Universidad Simon Bolivar in 2001. The following year she started graduate school in the Mathematics Department at the University of Texas, where she received her Ph.D. in 2009. In the summer of 2007, Adriana was the AMS-AAAS Mass Media Fellow. She worked at Voice of America for ten weeks under the sponsorship of the AMS and filed several stories about mathematics. She joined Bates College in 2009. Her research interests are number theory and arithmetic geometry and she is also interested in communicating mathematics to the general public. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Just after beginning a graduate program in neuroscience, Brittany Bushnell gets an unexpected look at her own brain. Brittany Bushnell has a BS in psychology from the University of Washington, and is currently working on her PhD in neuroscience at New York University. She is currently studying the neural basis of amblyopia -- a developmental disorder of the visual system. Outside of work, she takes aerial circus classes and grew up racing BMX bikes with her family. She lives in NYC with her husband Maurice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A chemistry set is the perfect opportunity for Nate Charles Karagiannis-Troisi to connect with his engineer father. Nate Charles Karagiannis-Troisi is an award-winning, multifaceted theatre maker and performer whose work spans decades, genres, mediums, and continents. He has studied, created, and performed extensively across Australia, The Netherlands, and the USA. His current focus lies in autobiographical explorations of multiculturalism, intergenerational trauma, sex, relationships, and contemporary Australia through a CALD and queer lens. Trained at the Victorian College of the Arts in Naarm and currently residing and creating work in Tarntanya, Nate has worked as a facilitator for SAYArts Youth Theatre, Riverland Youth Theatre and a story-collector for Open Space Contemporary Arts (OSCA).. Most recently he performed the role of Freidrich von Schoen in the upcoming Asylum Studios film The Land That Time Forgot, and featured in the subsequent making-of documentary Mockbuster by Anthony Frith, and has received funding through Carclew to mentor young indigenous playwright Mali Harkin-Noack as she writes her first play Burn Your House to the Ground. In his spare time, he performs as keyboardist Howlin’ J. Weatherill in satirical country band Brad Chicken and the Bootstraps, and functions as half of theatre-trash duo Muse of Fire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When reporters call to cover David Moinina Sengeh's work, that should be a good thing, but it depends on what story they want to tell. David Moinina Sengeh, born and raised in Sierra Leone, is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the MIT Media Lab. His research in the Biomechatronics Group is at the intersection of medical imaging, material science, human anatomy, computer-aided design and manufacturing. David is on Forbes 30 Under 30 in Technology for 2013, a 2014 TED Fellow, on the Wired Smart List 2013, winner of the Lemelson-MIT National Collegiate Student Prize, and other awards. David is a cofounder of Global Minimum Inc. (GMin), an NGO that aims to break the cycle of dependence on foreign aid by empowering young inventors to develop tangible solutions to challenges, as well as creative endeavors like his own custom clothing line and making rap music that draws youth towards creativity and away from drugs and gangsterism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tara Lagu's passion for beating her high school rival in the science fair turns into an unusual medical career. Tara Lagu, M.D., M.P.H, is an Academic Hospitalist in the Center for Quality of Care Research and Department of Medicine at Baystate Medical Center and an Assistant Professor at the Tufts University School of Medicine. After graduating with her MD/MPH from the Yale University School of Medicine, she completed a General Internal Medicine Residency at Brown. From 2005-2008, she was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, where she developed her research interest in the quality of health care in the United States. Currently, her work is focused on improving quality and reducing costs of health care in the United States and, in particular, improving access to care for patients with disabilities. She spends much of her free time thinking about, growing, talking about, taking pictures of, and eating heirloom tomatoes. Her favorite variety is Cherokee Purple. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A surprise email leads a biologist to NASA. Dr Karen James (@kejames on Twitter) is a biologist at the MDI Biological Laboratory, where she combines DNA-based species identification ('DNA barcoding'), with public participation in scientific research ('citizen science') to meet environmental research, conservation, and management needs. She is a co-founder and director of The HMS Beagle Project, a UK charity that aims to retrace the Voyage of the Beagle aboard a tall ship in support of science education and outreach. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Erica Ferencik's father left his family to pursue his obsession with finding monogamy in the animal kingdom. Award-winning novelist, screenwriter, and essayist Erica Ferencik is the author of the comic novel, Cracks in the Foundation and the best-selling collection of essays, Hot, Naked and Awake: Notes From the Burning Edge of Menopause. Her newest collection of essays, A Natural History of Boys, is due out in November of this year. Ferencik's novel, Repeaters, a paranormal thriller about reincarnation, has been optioned for film. Her work has been featured in Salon, the Boston Globe and on National Public Radio. More information is available at www.ericaferencik.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

George Church learns a lesson on the power of nature the hard way. George Church is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, Director of NIH Center for Excellence in Genomic Studies, and Director of PersonalGenomes.org, which provides the world's only open-access information on human genomic, environmental, and trait data. His 1984 Harvard PhD included the first methods for direct genome sequencing, molecular multiplexing, and barcoding. His innovations have contributed to nearly all "next generation" genome sequencing methods and companies. He has also pioneered new privacy, biosafety, environmental, and biosecurity policies. His honors include election to NAS, NAE, and Franklin Bower Laureate for Achievement in Science. He has coauthored 370 papers, 60 patents, and one book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Professor John Dimandja is confused when his class begins snickering on the first day -- until he realizes it's because they weren't expecting him to be black. John Dimandja is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at Spelman College. A native of Oxford, Ohio, John grew up in the US, Belgium and the Democratic Republic of Congo. His professional career includes work as an analytical chemist at the NASA/Ames Research Center and the CDC prior to joining Spelman in 2002. An internationally recognized leader in the field of multidimensional gas chromatography, John has given over 250 lectures around the world in the past 20 years. He enjoys cooking and travelling with his wife Ann, playing the piano (poorly) and golfing, now that his basketball days are over. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Early in her career researching dolphin intelligence Diana Reiss began wondering, "Who is training who?" Diana Reiss, a cognitive psychologist and a marine mammal scientist, is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Dr. Reiss's research focuses on dolphin cognition, communication, comparative animal cognition, and the evolution of intelligence. Much of her work has investigated vocal communication and vocal learning in dolphins using observational and experimental approaches. She pioneered the use of underwater keyboards with dolphins to investigate their cognitive and communicative abilities. Dr. Reiss and her colleagues also demonstrated that bottlenose dolphins and an Asian elephants possess the rare ability for mirror self-recognition previously thought to be restricted to humans and great apes. Her advocacy work in conservation and animal welfare includes the protection of dolphins in the tuna-fishing industry and her current efforts to bring an end to the killing of dolphins in the drive hunts in Japan. Dr. Reiss's work has been featured in hundreds of articles in international and national journals, science magazines, television segments and features, and newspaper articles. Her book, The Dolphin in the Mirror: exploring dolphin minds and saving dolphin lives was published in 2011. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

At a checkpoint in Iraq, not knowing if she'll get through, Uzma Rizvi reflects on what it means to be an archaeologist. This story was produced as part of the Springer Storytellers series. Hear and read more at www.beforetheabstract.com Uzma Z. Rizvi (PhD 2007, UPenn) is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Urban Studies at Pratt Institute of Art and Design, Brooklyn, where she teaches anthropology, ancient urbanism, critical heritage studies, memory and war/trauma studies and the postcolonial critique. She often finds herself trying to balance the very ancient with the very contemporary, both mediated by material things. An avid collector of experiences and thoughts, Rizvi travels extensively and utilizes those experiences to inform her research about past societies. Currently she is writing about crafting resonance in the ancient world, and is contending with the global heritage of epistemic laziness. A longtime resident of Brooklyn, she loves walking to work, and lives with her young daughter and husband. Their house is covered with books and shoes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

For physicist Brian Wecht, his new baby is the perfect opportunity--to do experiments. Brian Wecht studies theoretical particle physics and string theory and is the co-founder of The Story Collider. Additionally, he is half of the musical sketch duo Ninja Sex Party, in which he wears a ninja costume, remains silent, and plays the piano. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ecologist Jessica Henkel finds the keys to her research truck missing, as it's parked on a remote beach with one of the biggest tides of the season about to come in. Jessica is a Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellow with the National Academy of Sciences and a PhD candidate in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Tulane University. She has a B.A. in English from Stony Brook University and a M.S. in Conservation Biology from the University of New Orleans. Jessica is interested in how environmental and anthropogenic change and habitat degradation are impacting the coastal habitats of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and the communities that rely on them. Her dissertation research investigates the migration ecology and physiology of near-arctic breeding shorebirds that stopover in coastal habitats on the Gulf of Mexico. When not wearing mud boots or waders, Jessica can be found advocating for coastal issues or marching in the Mardi Gras parades of her adopted city of New Orleans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Not even the truth about Santa Claus and George Washington could prepare Carter Edwards for what happened to Brontosaurus. Carter Edwards' work has appeared in Mathematics Magazine, Hobart, The New York Times, and others. His debut collection of fiction, The Aversive Clause, won the 2011 Hudson Prize and was published by Black Lawrence Press. His debut collection of poetry, From The Standard Cyclopedia of Recipes, was released last summer, also from Black Lawrence Press. He is a 2014 Poetry Fellow of the New York Foundation of the Arts, attended the graduate writing program at The New School in New York and lives in Brooklyn. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Rose Eveleth always wanted to be fiercely independent. But sometimes being too independent has its downsides. Rose Eveleth is a writer, producer, and designer based in Brooklyn. She's dabbled in everything from research on krill to animations about beer to podcasts about fake tumbleweed farms. Her work has appeared in Scientific American, The Atlantic, BBC Future, Deadspin and more. She also produces the podcast for The Story Collider, a show you might have heard of. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Virendra Singh is responsible for carrying on his family's farm, but he begs his parents to be allowed to go to school. Virendra was born in a farmer's family in northern India. He experienced and learned engineering challenges while growing up on the agriculture farms. After receiving his PhD in Chemistry in 2007, he joined The Georgia Institute of Technology where he is currently working as a Material Scientist. His research focuses in the area of macromolecular nanoengineering. His latest research efforts are directed towards developing nanostructured materials with enhanced electrical and thermal transport for better performance of devices and engineering components. In his spare time, he enjoys developing new recipes (chemistry) in kitchen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sean Carroll gets a fabulous job offer—to work with Stephen Hawking—twice. Sean Carroll is a Research Professor of theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. in 1993 from Harvard University. His research focuses on fundamental physics and cosmology, especially issues of dark matter, dark energy, and the origin of the universe. Recently, Carroll has worked on the foundations of quantum mechanics, the arrow of time, and the emergence of complexity. His most recent book is The Particle at the End of the Universe. He has been awarded the Gemant Award by the American Institute of Physics, and the Winton Prize of the Royal Society of London. He frequently consults for film and television, and has been featured on shows such as The Colbert Report, NOVA, and Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman. Photo by Adrianne Mathiowetz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When neuroscientist Carl Hart meets with his cousin he wonders about what he now knows about psychiatric medication and society, and whether his own life is a success. Carl Hart is a member of the faculty at Columbia University, jointly-appointed in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in neuroscience, psychology, and pharmacology and has been recognized for excellence in teaching with the University's highest teaching award. Dr. Hart is also a Research Scientist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute in the Division of Substance Abuse. For High Price, his first trade book, he received the 2014 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.