The Story Collider

This week we present two stories from people who needed a little luck to get by.Part 1: Studying Marine Biology in Florida, Philadelphian Kory Evans feels like a fish out of water... while fishing.Part 2: Carla Katz finds out she has a brain aneurysm while getting screened for a kidney transplant.Kory Evans is an evolutionary biologist broadly interested in the development, evolution and ecology of phenotypic diversity. His research integrates developmental biology, biomechanics, phylogenetic comparative methods, and ecology to understand how phenotypes develop, evolve, and interact with their respective environments across multiple time scales and how intrinsic (development) and extrinsic (environment) mechanisms influence patterns of phenotypic diversity. Carla Katz is a Jersey born and bred storyteller, comic, and actor living in Hoboken. Her solo show, ANGELINA, debuted at the SOLOCOM 2019 Comedy Festival at the Peoples Improv Theater. Her earlier solo show, BODY PARTS, sold out at the SOLOCOM 2017. She is a Moth StorySLAM Champion and has performed widely in New York, including at the Comedy Cellar, the Fat Black Pussycat, Story Collider, The Liar Show, The AWFNH Show at the Kraine Theatre, NYC's Secrets and Lies, Generation Women, and Funny Over Fifty at Caveat-NYC, The Barrow Group Restorative Stories, Sideshow Goshko and a wide a variety of shows at the Magnet Theater and the Tank. She has also performed across New Jersey, including in Hoboken's On The Waterfront Storytelling Series, Word of Mouth Storytelling by the Bucks Country Playhouse in Lambertville, and This Really Happened at the Hopewell Theatre. Carla is co-producer with Adam Wade of the Hoboken-based On the Waterfront Storytelling Series. 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.

This week we present two stories from people who decided to experiment with science when they were still teenagers.Part 1: In high school, Saad Sarwana decides to go from nerd to bad boy with a prank that he learned in chemistry class.Part 2: As a college student, Andrew Akira Hansen loves chemistry so much that he takes his experiments out of the lab and into the parking lot... and the shower... and anywhere else he could.Saad Sarwana is a Physicist and Stand-up Comedian. As a physicist he works in superconductor electronics and is the author of over 40 peer reviewed publications and the inventor behind two US patents. As a comedian he has been doing standup and Improvisational comedy for over 20 years, and even won a Moth StorySlam. For 6 years and over 100 episodes Saad was on the Science Channel TV show “Outrageous Acts of Science”. He is also the creator and host of the 'Science Fiction and Fantasy Spelling Bee'. Previously he has told Physics and Math inspired stories for the StoryCollider. This chemistry inspired story completes the Trilogy! He lives in Westchester County, NY with his wife and kids.Andrew Akira Hansen is an external chemist and a boy who finds himself falling more and more deeply in love with the natural world as he survives each day. Chemistry is the language he’s learned to love it with. After finishing his bachelor's degree at Knox College he messed around in Southern Illinois University Edwardsville's master's program for chemistry. From there, he’s worked a variety of chemistry-adjacent jobs he never imagined he’d find himself in, including space camp instructor, beer scientist and slime master (not all official titles). His path in chemistry has been winding, and he can't wait to see where it takes him. 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.

This week we present two stories from people who were confronted with what it means to lose family.Part 1: After leaving class early, Sonia Zárate gets a startling phone call about her daughter.Part 2: An indoor kid at heart, Sam Dingman goes on a hike anyways and ends up making a shocking discovery.Sonia Zárate is a proud Chicanx from SoCal. She is a mother and grandmother, Dodger-fan, trained plant molecular biologist and champion for diversity, equity and inclusion in STEM. As President for the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) and a Program Officer for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute she is living the dream at the intersection of STEM and Culture. When she is not working to make the scientific enterprise excellent by making it more inclusive, she enjoys traveling, running, facetime calls with her family and playing crazy 8’s. You can reach her on Twitter @sonia__zarate.Sam Dingman is the creator and host of Family Ghosts, a storytelling podcast about familial myths and legends which has been hailed as a critic's choice by The New York Times, The LA Times, and NPR. Sam is a winner of the Moth Grand Slam, and his stories have been featured on The Moth Radio Hour, Benjamen Walker's Theory of Everything, and Risk!. 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.

This week we present stories from people who found themselves in sticky situations in the midst of doing research.Part 1: Erik Vance's first job reporting on scientific research doesn't smell as much like success as it smells like manure.Part 2: Liz Neeley observes hypnosis from the inside when she becomes the subject of the experiment.Erik Vance is an award-winning science journalist based in Boulder, CO who works as an editor for the NY Times. Before becoming a writer he was, at turns, a biologist, a rock climbing guide, an environmental consultant, and an environmental educator. He graduated in 2006 from UC Santa Cruz science writing program and became a freelancer as soon as possible. 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. His first book, Suggestible You, is about how the mind and body continually twist and shape our realities. While researching the book he was poked, prodded, burned, electrocuted, hypnotized and even cursed by a witchdoctor, all in the name of science.Liz Neeley is the Executive Director of The Story Collider, and the cohost of our weekly podcast. She is not a naturally gifted storyteller, but came into the field the hard way: reading research papers on narrative and science communication. She started her career as a marine biologist, and her first job was to support community-based projects in Fiji and Papua New Guinea. Learning first-hand that science belongs to everyone changed everything. She misses the ocean these days, but loves getting to think about all different kinds of science now. Her biggest challenge is turning down new projects. Find her on twitter at @LizNeeley. 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.

This week we present two stories from people who found the improbable.Part 1:Part 2:As a national park ranger, native South Floridian Gary Bremen has spent the past 33 years telling the stories of the places and people that have shaped this nation. He has visited 254 of the 419 national parks, and now recognizes how much his encounters with lightning storms, bears, drag queens and grieving parents in these magnificent places have helped shape the person he is. He lives in an urban oasis filled with native plants in the little town of Wilton Manors with his best friend, traveling buddy and husband Roger and their cats Oliver, Elliott, and Amelia.Dawn J. Fraser is a storyteller, public speaker and a nationally acclaimed communications coach based out of San Jose, California. She is the Creator/ Host of ‘Barbershop Stories’, which features storytellers performing true tales in barbershops and salons around NYC, and the Founder/ CEO of Fraser’s Edge, LLC, which offers programs for businesses, nonprofits, and college students the opportunity to develop their leadership potential through storytelling. Dawn currently serves as a Lead Instructor with The Moth and was featured amongst some of the nation’s top change makers at TED@NYC. 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.

This week we present two stories from people who got called into action to save an animal they didn’t know they’d be called to save.Part 1: While running an errand, Andrea Azarian happens upon a lost horse that needs her help.Part 2: Left in charge of the farm for the first time, Gwynne Hogan panics when a goat goes into labor.Andrea Azarian has an undergraduate degree in Public Administration and Political Science from UW-LaCrosse. She completed her teacher certification and Master’s degree in Education at Alverno College. Andrea taught English, Math, Reading, and Family and Consumer Education in grades 5-8 in Milwaukee Public Schools before coming to UWM. She has been at UWM as an Academic Advisor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction for twelve years. Her time outside of work is spent traveling with her friends and family laughing and being present in the moment.Gwynne Hogan is a reporter and producer in the WNYC newsroom who seems to keep ending up covering disease and communities from measles to COVID-19. She's also a proud assistant on Story Collider podcast production team and is excited to make her virtual storytelling debut with the show. 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.

This week we present two stories from people who experienced challenges in their travels.Part 1: Transporting virginal fruit flies from Houston to Honolulu proves to be no easy task for Patricia Savant.Part 2: When a storm rocks the cruise ship where he works, Mike Funergy worries about how the elderly passengers will handle it.Dr. Patricia Shaw Savant has a Ph.D. In Counseling Psychology and Behavioral Medicine from North Texas State University (1986) and a Masters of Arts in psychophysiology from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. She currently has a private practice in psychotherapy in Clayton, MO. She practices under the name Patricia Shaw, Ph.D. With Phoenix Psychological Group, Inc. Dr. Shaw also provides counseling and support at music festivals as part of Harm reduction and Medical services. At the time of her story she was an undergraduate at the University of Houston in biology and chemistry.Mike Funergy first discovered his love for storytelling while wandering the markets of Morocco and watching old storytellers captivate the crowd. Upon returning to Canada he discovered the Toronto Storytelling Festival and found a new appreciation for folklore and mythology, and especially loves tales from the Jewish tradition. He now tells stories at the Vancouver Story Slam, and has made it to the finals for the past 2 years. Mike has studied Expressive Arts Therapy, and currently works for a non-profit organization helping adults with developmental disabilities discover what they want to do in their lives. 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.

This week we present two stories from people for whom science and love were interconnected.Part 1: When Saurin Choksi starts dating a neuroscientist, it challenges his assumptions about gender roles.Part 2: Wendy Suzuki's trajectory as a neuroscientist is forever altered by a passionate love affair in Paris.A proud member of the Writers Guild of America, he wrote on staff for the Facebook / Refinery 29 talk show, “After After Party.” He’s also worked with the good people at Comedy Central on a number of their digital sketches. Choksi won The Boston Comedy Fest and his stand up has been featured on Laughs on Fox TV and Sirius/XM radio. He's performed at numerous comedy festivals--Limestone, Bridgetown, and SF Sketch are among his favorites. Choksi also hosted a television show on Fuse called "White Guy Talk Show" where he talked about pop culture and wore suits he couldn't afford. He created internet videos for Seriously.tv and is a proud alumni of Chicago's Lincoln Lodge. Choksi produces and hosts two acclaimed live stand up showcases in Brooklyn: Comedians You Should Know NYC and Brown Privilege Comedy. He is a 2020 Sesame Workshop Writer's Room fellow.Choksi relaxes by sewing, crafting, and making stuff. He loves his wife, his family, and 4 of his friends. He thinks you should be nice to yourself and is impressed by your power.Dr. Wendy A. Suzuki is a Professor of Neural Science and Psychology in the Center for Neural Science at New York University. She received her undergraduate degree in physiology and human anatomy at the University of California, Berkeley in 1987 studying with Prof. Marion C. Diamond, a leader in the field of brain plasticity. She went on to earn her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from U.C. San Diego in 1993 and completed apost-doctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health before accepting her faculty position at New York University in 1998. Her major research interest continues to be brain plasticity. She is best known for her extensive work studying areas in the brain critical for our ability to form and retain new long-term memories. More recently her work has focused on understanding how aerobic exercise can be used to improve learning, memory and higher cognitive abilities in humans. Wendy is passionate about teaching (see her courses), about exercise (intenSati), and about supporting and mentoring up and coming scientists. 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.

This week we present two stories from people who felt shamed by a diagnosis.Part 1: Jamie Brickhouse's HIV-positive status becomes a point of tension at the dentist's office.Part 2: Diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder as a child, Anders Lee struggles with this identity as an adult preparing to donate sperm.Called “a natural raconteur” by the Washington Post, Jamie Brickhouse is the New York Times published author of Dangerous When Wet: A Memoir of Booze, Sex, and My Mother, and he’s appeared on PBS-TV’s Stories from the Stage, The Moth Podcast, Risk! Podcast, Story Collider Podcast, and recorded voice-overs for the legendary cartoon Beavis and Butthead. He is a four-time Moth StorySLAM champion, National Storytelling Network Grand Slam winner, and Literary Death Match champ. Jamie tours two award-winning solo shows, Dangerous When Wet, based on his critically-acclaimed memoir, and I Favor My Daddy, based on his forthcoming memoir. A fixture on the New York storytelling circuit, he has appeared on stages across the country and in Mexico and Canada. Jamie’s personal essays have been published in the New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Washington Post, Daily Beast, Salon, Out, Huffington Post, and POZ. Friend him on Facebook, follow him on Instagram, Twitter and YouTube @jamiebrickhouse, and visit www.jamiebrickhouse.com. Anders Lee is a DC based comedian and writer featured on TV's Redacted Tonight and the podcast Pod Damn America. 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.

This week we present two stories from people for whom science and their family crossed paths.Part 1: After her mom's version of the sex talk confuses her, Khadija Aweis is determined to make sure her little brother has clarity.Part 2: When Leesha Maliakal takes on an ambitious research project designing an app for marathon spectators, her supportive dad tries to help.Khadija Aweis is a Health Administration graduate student at the University of Washington. Indecisive by nature, Khadija has had the pleasure of bouncing around in several healthcare settings before landing on supporting the business needs of healthcare organizations with a desire to push forth strategic needs through an equitable lens. Khadija hails from the DMV metro area and is a Cancer through and through. She loves spending time with her makeshift Seattle family and going on internet research spirals inspired by late-night anxieties.Leesha is a Ph.D. student in the Technology and Social Behavior program at Northwestern. Inspired by the family and communities that raised her, she now explores systems that improve the ways in which we reflect, practice, learn, grow, and support one another in our communities. Read more about her work at leesha.io. 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.

This week we present stories about two people who had to navigate the complicated process of helping their family when they were needed most.Part 1: When his mother is diagnosed with breast cancer, Ian has to take care of her, even though she didn't always do the best job of taking care of him.Part 2: Determined to make it on her own, Yaihara Fortis Santiago leaves her home in Puerto Rico for grad school, but her father still wants to protect her.Yaihara Fortis Santiago grew up in the mountains of Puerto Rico where she felt in love with science. After completing her bachelors in Biology at the University of Puerto Rico, she moved to New England to pursue her PhD in Neuroscience at Brandeis University. Her time at Brandeis made her realized that she wanted to use her science training to have an impact on Higher Education. In 2012, as part of her AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowship, she worked at the Nationals Science Foundation (NSF). Her work at the NSF gave her the foundation to launch a career training scientists at the intersection of policy, communication, diversity, inclusion and equity. Currently, she is the Associate Director for Postdoctoral Affairs and Trainee Diversity Initiatives at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Furthermore, in 2020 she was selected as a fellow for the Women inPower network. She loves big city living, but she is the happiest at her family’s farm, traveling with friends, telling stories and dancing salsa. 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.

This week we present two stories from people who found adventure when on their own.Part 1: Shawn Hercules is a successful gospel radio deejay in Barbados, but he dreams of a different kind of life in science.Part 2: Emma Young feels ready for her first real job in science, surveying northern spotted owls, until she encounters some unexpected fears.Shawn Hercules is currently a Biology Ph.D. candidate at McMaster University. He investigates the epidemiology and genetics of an aggressive form of breast cancer disproportionately affecting women of African ancestry. After moving to Canada from the island of Barbados, Shawn quickly got involved with Let’s Talk Science and communicating science via social media (@shawnhercules) and most recently co-produced and participated in the first ever "Science is a Drag” show presenting science in drag!Emma Young is a Knauss Marine Policy Fellow with the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington, DC. She moonlights as a PhD candidate and science communicator at the University of Missouri - Saint Louis, where she studies avian malaria. She enjoys hoarding plants and shouting about how much she loves science, and she is the founder of Science Distilled, a bi-monthly science happy hour in St. Louis. She tweets @emyoung90. 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.

This week we present two stories from Black people who were dealing with the ramifications of our racist systems.Part 1: As a science teacher, Mamoudou N'Diaye was supposed to have all the answers, but he struggles to explain being Black in the USA.Part 2: Rhonda Key fights to be taken seriously by her white co-workers and students when she gets a job at a middle school.Mamoudou N'Diaye is a Mauritanian American comic, writer, filmmaker, activist, DJ, and former teacher. N'Diaye has been a correspondent for digital media companies Mic and Seeker, a creative comedy consultant for social justice nonprofits Color of Change, Hip Hop Caucus, The Center for Cultural Power, and The Center for Media and Social Impact, and a winner of 2019's Yes And Laughter Lab for his pilot, Franklin. He has written and appeared in the Comedy Central Original They Follow, written for Refinery29's After After Party, and is in post-production for the webseries Bodegaverse with Karen Sepulveda. N'Diaye is developing By Us, For Us, a late-night sketch/talk show centering Black voices, for Color for Change and Flyovers, a half-hour dramedy about being Black in the rural Midwest. N’Diaye holds a degree in cognitive behavioral neuroscience from the College of Wooster.Rhonda M. Key has served as a teacher and administrator in suburban, rural, and urban school districts throughout her career. Currently, she serves as Assistant Superintendent of Jennings School District. Under her purview as the former Principal/Director of Secondary Education-Community Partnerships, Jennings Senior High School achieved 100% graduation and job placements for the past three years. In 2014, Dr. Key was named one of Five Women to Make a Difference in the Decatur/Macon County area of Illinois. In March 2019 she was named Principal of the Year by the St. Louis Association of Secondary School Principals. Dr. Key is also the co-owner and founder of Key/Ming Educational Design LLC, educational consultant and co-author of articles regarding Urban Education. Dr. Key earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Lincoln University, and she completed her educational specialist and doctorate from the University of Missouri-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.

This week we present two stories about people who sprung to action to help a dad.Part 1: To cheer up her ailing father, Victoria Ruiz decides to smuggle a turtle into his hospital room.Part 2: Stacey Bader Curry finally meets a nice guy -- the only catch is, he needs a liver.Dr. Victoria Ruiz is an Assistant Professor in Biology at St. Francis College and Adjunct Assistant Professor at NYU Langone medical center. She obtained her PhD in Pathobiology from Brown University, and she completed her postdoctoral work at New York University Langone Medical Center. Her primary research focuses on the effects of environmental perturbations of microbial communities on host immunity. In addition to research, she is passionate about increasing equity and inclusion in STEM and developing new and innovative pedagogical strategies to improve learning outcomes for undergraduate students interested in pursuing STEM fields.Stacey Bader Curry has a BA in art history and political science from Rutgers University. Naturally, she began her career by selling laboratory equipment at Weill Cornell Medical College. She now sells apartments but can still get you a good deal on a centrifuge. Stacey is also a writer and storyteller and has appeared on PBS’ Stories From the Stage, Yum’s the Word with Mo Rocca, and has won several Moth slams, including a Grand Slam. Stacey lives in Manhattan with her four children, husband, a dog named Pip, and cases of powder-free nitrile gloves. 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.

This week we present two stories from people who lost loved ones and had to rebuild themselves.Part 1: Massih Moayedi survives cancer, but the recovery throws his life off track.Part 2: After his 20-year-old daughter dies suddenly, Paul Battista has to relearn what his role in life is.Neuroscientist Massih Moayedi studies pain, a job that raises eyebrows at parties and sometimes prompts the confused response: "What kind of paint?" His research actually focuses on understanding how pain is processed in healthy individuals, and where the differences lie for those with chronic pain. He is now an assistant professor at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Dentistry, and Co-Director of the Centre for Multimodal Sensorimotor and Pain Research, but his path to pain research was a personal one. Paul Battista holds Bachelor and Masters degrees from the University of Waterloo and leads the financial services practice for EY Canada. In the wake of the tragic loss of his daughter in 2017 as a result of a flawed diagnostic protocol, he founded the Leah Battista Foundation (leahbattista.org) dedicated to carrying out work that was destined to become Leah’s life legacy had she lived. To that end, her Foundation is dedicated to improving, enriching and empowering the lives of youth and the disadvantaged through health and education, the arts and social entrepreneurship. To learn more about Leah’s kind and generous spirit and to consider supporting the Foundation that has been created in order to continue to help carry on her work, please visit leahbattista.org and follow the Foundation on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/leahbattistafoundation/ and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/leahbattistafoundation 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.

This week we present a story from our back-catalogue that speaks to this current moment in time.As a medical school student Roger Mitchell Jr. sees a patient that makes him reflect on violence and police in the Black community.Dr. Roger Mitchell Jr. is the Chief Medical Examiner of Washington, DC and is uniquely positioned to understand the social determinants that lead to the violence affecting our most vulnerable communities. He has a great interest in Violence as a public health issue. He is board certified in Anatomic and Forensic Pathology by the American Board of Pathology. Dr. Mitchell is also a licensed minister serving as a mentor in his local community. He often shares how drugs and violence have shaped his own life. He is a husband to his wife of 17 years and a father to his three children. Dr. Mitchell has pledged his professional career and personal time to the service of others. 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.

This week we share two stories from people whose understanding of the use of memory was challenged.Part 1: Padraic Stanley gets a fresh start when his abusive father gets diagnosed with Alzheimer's dementia.Part 2: After meeting a man with a rare memory disorder, Paul Aflalo reconsiders his own memories.Padraic Stanley is a social worker living in Chicago, IL. He currently works as a program coordinator for health promotion programs in the Rush University Medical Center Department of Social Work & Community Health. He is also the chair of Rush’s Immigrant Health Working Group, which oversees Rush’s immigrant health and welcoming healthcare initiatives. Up until recently, Padraic was also a registry inpatient case manager at Mercy Hospital and Medical Center on the weekends. He is a graduate of the Loyola University Chicago School of Social Work, where he completed the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship and completed a clinical practicum at Heartland Human Care Services and the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. Currently, he is on the associate board for Erie Neighborhood House, a member of the National Schweitzer Fellowship Alumni Leadership Committee, and is on the executive board of the International Association of Social Work with Groups.Paul Aflalo is a storyteller and documentary producer. He creates narrative-driven pieces for film, radio and podcasts. His work has been featured on CBC Radio, SiriusXM, and presented at film festivals around the world, including the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. Paul has shared stories across Canada, in Europe and the UK. Paul is the Artistic Director of Replay Storytelling, an all-true storytelling show in Canada, and is also the Creative Director of the Aphantasia Network. In 2020 in response to the global pandemic, he founded the world’s first 24-hour True Storytelling Festival, bringing people together from all corners of the globe, to share personal true stories from lived experience. His focus is to help others share the stories that need to be told. 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.

This week we present two stories from people who used technology to understand their relationships.Part 1: Digital consultant Phong Tran navigates his relationship through various digital platforms.Part 2: Fed up with feeling lonely, Sufian Zhemukhov embarks on a data driven analysis of his own unlikability.Phong Tran is a Creative Technologist at a digital consultancy. He works on websites and applications in both roles as a designer and a developer. As someone with a preference to dabble and a short attention span, he works on art projects in various mediums. The projects tend to ask questions about our relationship to our digital selves, and overall how that changes how we see each other. Also, at other times it's just about food Phong ate. A collection of his design can be found at phonghtran.com, and a collection of other things will be at his Instagram account, @phonghtran.Sufian Zhemukhov is an award-winning author and performer. He received the 2020 J. J. Reneaux Emerging Artist Award, from the National Storytelling Network, "to a storyteller of major and unique performing talent." He is The 2019 Moth Champion and winner at the 2018 Story Slam at the National Storytelling Festival. Sufian’s recent solo show, Flirting Like an American, received critical acclaim in Washington, DC and Rochester, NY. Sufian's stories are based on his personal experience as a first-generation immigrant and professor of international affairs at George Washington University that might be much funnier than you would expect. His recent book, Mass Religious Ritual and Intergroup Tolerance, won the 2019 Best Book Award at the International Studies Association. 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.

This week we present four of our favorite stories of all time.Part 1: Neuroscientist David Carmel tests his own understanding of the brain when his own father suffers a stroke.Part 2: Ralph Bouquet goes off script during a psychology research study with uncomfortable and revealing consequences.Part 3: Feeling isolated in her new job as a particle accelerator operator at Fermilab, Cindy Joe finds comfort in the friendship of her unconventional pet.Part 4: To discover why some survivors of trauma experience PTSD and some don't, scientist Rachel Yehuda must convince a community of Holocaust survivors to let her study them.David Carmel grew up reading Oliver Sacks and loving the weird stories of what goes wrong in people's brains, so he became a neuroscientist. He spends his days trying to figure out how the brain creates consciousness, and his nights trying to remember why he ever thought he could accomplish this. He is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology at Victoria University of Wellington.Ralph Bouquet is the Director of Education and Outreach for NOVA, the PBS science documentary series produced by WGBH in Boston. At NOVA, Ralph’s team supports science educators through the creation of free classroom resources and finds creative ways to engage new audiences for NOVA’s broadcast and digital productions through science communication events around the country. Before NOVA, Ralph taught high school biology and chemistry in Philadelphia and then spent some time in ed-tech at a Boston-based startup. Ralph received his B.A. from Harvard University, and studied secondary science methods and urban education while completing his M.Ed. at UPenn. Cindy Joe is an engineering physicist at Fermilab, America’s particle physics and accelerator laboratory. She got her bachelor’s degree in physics and became a licensed senior nuclear reactor operator at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. After starting at Fermilab, she worked as a particle accelerator operator for seven years before taking her current role with several experiments studying neutrinos, tiny particles that might hold the answers to some of the universe’s biggest mysteries. Cindy is a frequent and deeply passionate contributor to Fermilab’s educational outreach programs and has spoken to audiences from elementary school students to members of Congress.Rachel Yehuda is a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Director of the Mental Health Patient Care Center at the James J. Peters Bronx Veterans Affairs hospital. Her research on PTSD has included both human populations and animal models, neuroendocrinology, neuronal stimulations studies with human stem cells, and genomic and molecular biological studies of trauma. She has recently established a Center for Psychedelic Psychotherapy and Trauma at Mount Sinai. 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.

This week we present two stories from two women who struggled to adopt.Part 1: Inspired by her work as a parental behavior researcher, Bianca Jones Marlin and her husband decide to become foster parents.Part 2: Raised by white adoptive parents, Kim Evey seeks out motherhood as a way to connect with her Asian identity.Dr. Bianca Jones Marlin is a neuroscientist and postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Dr. Richard Axel, where she investigates transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, or how traumatic experiences in parents affect the brain structure of their offspring. She holds a PhD in neuroscience from New York University, and dual bachelor degrees from St. John’s University, in biology and adolescent education. As a graduate student, her research focused on the vital bond between parent and child, and studied the use of neurochemicals, such as the “love drug” oxytocin, as a treatment to strengthen fragile and broken parent-child relationships. Dr. Marlin’s research has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Scientific American, and Discover Magazine’s “100 Top Stories of 2015.” Dr. Marlin aims to utilize neurobiology and the science of learning to better inform both the scientific and educational community on how positive experiences dictate brain health, academic performance, and social well being.Kim Evey is a Los Angeles-based actress and stand up comedian who has been writing and performing comedy for over three decades. She began her comedy career in Seattle as a founding member of the critically acclaimed long-form improv group Kings' Elephant Theater and as a guest cast member on the Emmy-winning sketch comedy show "Almost Live."In LA, Kim has studied at The Groundlings and Improv Olympic and taught sketch comedy writing at ACME Comedy Theater. She has appeared in numerous commercials and TV shows, written for children's animation, created and starred in the Sony produced web series "Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show" and produced the trailblazing series "The Guild," a web show so successful that it was actually put on display in The Smithsonian American History Museum. She currently performs stand up at venues all over Los Angeles and her online clips have garnered over seven million views. 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.

This week we present two stories from people who needed to decipher themselves.Part 1: After some unfortunate night-time incidents, Keith Mellnick realizes he needs to better understand his sleepwalking before it starts causing even more problems.Part 2: Avneet Johal is excited to start his first year at university, but strange thoughts and behaviors keep getting in the way.Keith Mellnick is a freelance photographer whose past work in the Middle East, Central Asia, and East Africa has been highlighted by National Geographic Books, the Atlantic, and his brother's refrigerator. Based in Washington, DC, he currently works primarily with organized labor and progressive causes throughout the US. In addition to photography and storytelling, he enjoys any opportunity to escape into the woods--far from politics, Photoshop, and oppressive DC heat indexes.Avneet Johal is an award-winning storyteller based in Vancouver, BC with expertise in communication and leadership. He previously managed housing programs for the Canadian Mental Health Association and has worked on a series of successful political campaigns. A Canadian representative at the United Nations, he follows global affairs and also enjoys sports, languages, and (good) rap music. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Los Altos Institute and is honoured to work with a team of talented undergraduate students at the University of British Columbia – a team which he thanks for encouraging him to share his stories with a wider audience. 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.

This week we present two stories from people who used to be scientists.Part 1: Despite loving science, Ivan Decker's first exposure to field work doesn't go as planned.Part 2: Nathan Min tries to pursue a 'respectable' scientific career, but finds himself relating to the mice he studies.Originally from Vancouver, Ivan Decker is a stand-up comedian that now makes his home in Los Angeles California. He has been featured on CBC, CTV, TBS and many other media outlets as part of shows such as: The Debaters, Just for Laughs, CONAN and he has a half hour special on NETFLIX. In 2018, Ivan was also the first Canadian to win a JUNO award for comedy album of the year since the award was given to Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas for the soundtrack to the movie strange brew in 1984. 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.

This week we present two stories from people who found themselves without the tools they needed.Part 1: When Jack Walsh finds out his first child will be born in just a few days, he panics.Part 2: After experiencing hearing loss, Jeannie Gaffigan receives the startling news that she has a brain tumor.Jack Walsh is an Emmy-winning television producer, a generally engaging storyteller, a halfway-decent writer, and the world’s worst guitar player. He has performed at the Moth, the Atlanta Science Festival, DragonCon, and, strangely, a Yom Kippur service. A native of Canton, NC, he now lives in Decatur, GA, with his wife and two daughters.Jeannie Gaffigan is a director, producer and comedy writer. She co-wrote seven comedy specials with her husband Jim Gaffigan, the last 5 of which received Grammy nominations. Jeannie was the head writer and executive producer of the critically acclaimed THE JIM GAFFIGAN SHOW, and collaborated with Jim on the two New York Times Bestsellers, DAD IS FAT and FOOD A LOVE STORY. Jeannie’s own book, WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU PEARS, debuted on the New York Times Bestsellers List. Jeannie, with the help of her two eldest children and some other crazy moms, created THE IMAGINE SOCIETY, INC., a not for profit organization that connects youth-led service groups. Most impressively, she grew a tumor on her brain stem roughly the size of pear. 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.

This week we present two stories from people who learned something about their childhood later in life.Part 1: Growing up in the fifties and sixties, Jenice Matias senses there's more to her mother's occupation than she understands.Part 2: D.B. Firstman has always known their body is different, but at the age of thirty, they make a discovery that changes everything.Jenice Matias is a dancer, singer, actress, comedy writer, and storyteller. Her story on the Guys We Fucked podcast has been listened to over a quarter of a million times, and she performs storytelling all over New York City. She is currently revamping her solo show “Pussinomics: a comedy” a political satire on the selling and marketing of the female persona. You can learn more about Jenice Matias on her website Jenicematias.biz D.B. Firstman is a lifelong New Yorker born and raised in Queens. A career-long civil servant, they are a data analyst for the City of New York, crunching numbers in Excel and SPSS. A lifelong baseball fan, they have had their work published on ESPN.COM and BaseballProspectus.com, as well as in the SABR Baseball Research Journal. Their first book: “Hall of Name: Baseball’s Most Magnificent Monikers from ‘The Only Nolan’ to ‘Van Lingle Mungo’ and More” is available on Amazon and local indy bookstores. 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.

This week we present two stories from people who deal with emergencies.Part 1: As a first-generation pre-med student with no financial aid, Brooke Dolecheck takes a job as a 911 operator to support herself.Part 2: Flight paramedic Marc Doll must transport a child to St. Louis for his last chance at a heart transplant.Brooke Dolecheck graduated from Boise State University in 2019 with a Bachelor of Arts in Multidisciplinary Studies with an emphasis in Leadership and Human Relations. She's now an undergraduate academic advisor at Boise State University in the program which she graduated from. She works with students who, like herself, have found alternative pathways to pursuing a degree when the traditional route didn't work. She's an advocate for her students - creating unique degree plans that meet the needs of students' goals and the demands of the workforce.Marc Doll is the EMS Bureau Chief of the City of St. Charles Fire Department and a 26-year veteran of Emergency Medical Services. Marc has flown world wide to transport those in dire medical need from remote Russia to Carbondale, IL. He’s spent a total of 15 years in the high adrenaline atmosphere as a flight paramedic for both repatriation and children. For a change of pace, he has spent 22 years as a firefighter. While working two full time jobs, he finished his bachelor's degree in EMS Management from Missouri Southern State University with honors and is planning on continuing at Maryville University to acquire his nursing degree starting in the fall of 2020. His hobbies include beer making, practicing his banjo, and spending time with his wife, daughter (who is a nurse), two sons, and two dogs. 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.

This week we present two stories from people who didn’t ask for help until it was too late.Part 1: Determined to fit in as a PhD student, Aparna Agarwal decides she'll never ask for help -- even if it means fitting in to much smaller gloves.Part 2: On a snorkeling trip of his dreams, Jesse Hildebrand doesn’t want to admit he has no idea what he’s doing.Aparna Agarwal is a graduate student in Dr. Deepa Agashe’s lab at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, India, by day, and a random thoughts compiler whenever inspiration strikes her. Currently, she is trying to understand adaptation and the role of microbes in that process using the red flour beetle. She is, on an average day, clueless but curious and trying to find answers. In that quest, she loves to travel in person, as well as through the magic of books, articles, blogs, conversations and in general, stories. She enjoys using these stories to help her share and build her science.Jesse Hildebrand is the VP of Education for Exploring By The Seat of Your Pants, a digital education non-profit that connects scientists and explorers with kids (http://www.exploringbytheseat.com/). He's also the founder of Canada's Science Literacy Week (http://www.scienceliteracy.ca/) and a fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society (http://www.rcgs.org/). Jesse suffers from an excess of personality, watches too many Blue Jays games for his own good, and can enter into a spirited debate on the merits of the Marvel films. 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.

This week we present two stories from people who were at the end of their rope.Part 1: After donating her kidney to a friend, Leah Waters struggles to get back to normal.Part 2: When the coral colonies of her childhood experience a bleaching event, Native Hawaiian coral biologist Narrissa Spies must face her greatest fear to protect them.Leah Waters is a multiplatform editor at The Dallas Morning News and also advises journalism programs at Frisco Heritage High School. Waters received her M.A. in Journalism from University of North Texas’ Mayborn School of Journalism in 2017. She also majored in journalism at Angelo State University in 2010, where she was the campus newspaper’s editor-in-chief. Waters currently serves as the Texas Association of Journalism Educators’ State Director and as a vice president of the Association of Texas Photography Instructors. She is a first amendment advocate and testified this session in support of a bill that would restore student press rights in Texas.Narrissa Spies is a Native Hawaiian scientist who was born and raised on the island of Hawaii. She received her bachelor and master’s degrees from the University of Hawaii at Hilo, and is in the process of completing her PhD this semester at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She has previously worked as a researcher, curriculum developer, and educator, and has a passion for marine conservation. In her current position she is on a team that manages ecological services on Oahu, Kauai, American Samoa, and Papahanaumokuakea. 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.

This week we present two stories from the math classroom.Part 1: High school math whiz Tori has always hoped a boy would fall in love with her mind, but when it finally happens, she's not sure how she feels.Part 2: High achieving, but superstitious college student Maryam Zaringhalam’s entire system collapses when she misses a calculus test.Tori is a high school math teacher in Rockville, Maryland. She spends her days taking derivatives, graphing parabolas, and making young people giggle when she says the word "asymptote." Back when she was a high school student in Rockville, Maryland, Tori's antics on the morning announcements earned her the nickname "Tori with the Story" - a moniker that remains appropriate to this day. Tori has shared stories on stage in DC with Story District, the Moth, and Perfect Liar's Club - and is excited for her Story Collider debut!Maryam is a molecular biologist who traded in her pipettes for the world of science policy and advocacy. She comes to D.C. from the concrete jungles of New York, where she received her PhD from The Rockefeller University. She co-hosts the science policy podcast Science Soapbox, and her words have appeared in Slate, Scientific American, and Quartz. Her cat is named Tesla, after Nikola and not Elon Musk's car. For insights like this and more, follow her on Twitter @webmz_ 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.

This week we present two stories from people who were faced with barriers to their education.Part 1: Eager to succeed in her Physical Chemistry class, Shaniece Mosley is thrown off by a professor's attempt at a compliment.Part 2: Lelemia Irvine struggles to get through his PhD program as he's constantly told that his identity as a Native Hawaiian is incompatible with academia.Shaniece Mosley has been a teacher for eight years, and currently teaches chemistry, AP Chemistry, and science research at Midwood High School in Brooklyn. After attending Northeastern University and SUNYAlbany, where she received a B.S. in Chemistry, she attended Pace University where she earned an M.S. in Secondary Science Education. A former New York City Teaching Fellow, Shaniece is now an MƒA Master Teacher. She enjoys spending free time with her husband Dan and their 2 year old son Greyson.Lelemia Irvine, PhD, EIT, is kupukaaina, a lineal descendant from the aboriginal families that sprouted out of the land of Waiʻanae, Oʻahu. Dr. Irvine is an Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Hawaiʻi at West Oʻahu. He is now at his dream job as a professor but the road to get there was not a breeze. Dr. Irvine is the first Kāne Kanaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian male) to earn a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering program at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in 2019. In his doctoral research, he studied the physics of stormwater within a bioswale using predictive and computational approaches. As far as we know, presently there are less than 10 Native Hawaiians with a PhD in any engineering discipline in the world. Dr. Irvine is a self-described Rain Farmer, a term he coined, when his father, who has dementia, ask him “boy, what you studying in school?”. As a rain farmer, he seeks to connect sky to aquifer thru the physics of fluids and indigenous engineering ways of knowing. Dr. Irvine shares his personal journey as an empowerment tool for others to co-navigate and constellate the village of higher education 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.

This week we share two stories from people who were confronted with their faith.Part 1: Feeling like a loser after he fails to graduate on time with his degree in materials science, Len Kruger accepts a dinner invitation from a cult.Part 2: After young Jehovah's Witness Emmanuel Garcia loses his faith, he finds a new purpose at a neuroscience conference.Len Kruger is a writer and storyteller. He recently retired from the Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress, where he was a Specialist in Science and Technology Policy. Len has performed stories on stage with local storytelling groups such as Story District, the Moth, and Better Said Than Done. His short fiction has appeared in numerous publications including Zoetrope All-Story, The Barcelona Review, and Gargoyle. He has Bachelor of Applied Science and Bachelor of Arts degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Maryland.Emmanuel (Mani) Garcia is an Indigenous-Black-Latino psychological scientist-practitioner; passionate science communicator; sign language interpreter; group fitness instructor; certified holistic yoga teacher; statistics educator; filmmaker; artist; writer; musician; and cult survivor living in Queens NYC. While completing his PhD in Clinical Psychology at CUNY-John Jay, Mani is focused on developing his recently launched wellness capacity-building movement #Joy4L. His mission with #Joy4L is to increase joy in the lives of all minoritized people by increasing their access to high quality wellness resources. You can follow Mani at: manigarcia.com; Instagram: @bodyweightfun; Twitter: @manigarcianyc. 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.

This week we present two stories of people having to navigate a new world.Part 1: Sean Bearden has never been interested in education, but when he's incarcerated at the age of 19, he finds a passion for physics.Part 2: When Victoria Manning decides to get a cochlear implant, she fears losing her identity as a deaf person.Sean Bearden is a Ph. D. candidate in Physics at UC San Diego, researching the application and development of memcomputing systems, a novel computing paradigm. Identifying as a nontraditional student, Sean went from dropping out of high school to receiving the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship. To alleviate the stress that is inevitably coupled with graduate research, he enjoys training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu at the P5 Academy in San Diego. Visit seanbearden.com to learn more.Raised in Lower Hutt and Deaf since age four, Victoria Manning’s first career was in psychology but her strong sense of social justice and experience in the USA saw her gravitate towards advocacy roles. Victoria led a 5 year long human rights complaint that resulted in the establishment of a telephone relay service enabling deaf, hard-of-hearing and speech impaired people to access the telephone. She co-chaired the Government’s Disability Strategy review reference group and was the inaugural chairperson of the Government’s New Zealand Sign Language Board. One of Victoria’s career highlights was being chosen to represent disabled New Zealanders at the United Nations for New Zealand’s first reporting on its progress on implementing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. She was given a Queen’s Service Award for her services to the deaf and disabled communities in 2015. 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.

Vote for your favorite Story Collider story of all time here: https://airtable.com/shreBxfsM5XYktIT5This week we present two stories from people who navigated the joys of sex in surprising ways.Part 1: When Eva Bloom struggles to have an orgasm, she turns to research.Part 2: Dasha Kelly Hamilton thinks of a creative way to teach her daughters about sex.Eva Bloom (she/her) is a sexuality educator and researcher. She is the creator of the inclusive, anti-oppressive, and evidence-based sex-ed web series for youth “What’s My Body Doing”, which has garnered over 1 million views. She holds a Masters of Science with her thesis focusing on sexuality and technology, with interests in self-compassion and bisexuality. She has spoken at the Guelph Sexuality Conference among others and is a winner of a Planned Parenthood Toronto’s Choice Award (2017) for excellence in sexuality education.Dasha Kelly Hamilton is a writer, performance artist and creative change agent. Through responsive and respectful intentionality, Dasha leverages the creative process to facilitate critical dialogues around human and social wellness. Dasha delivers her engagement sessions to campuses, classrooms, correctional institutions, association conferences, social service agencies, municipal departments and team retreats. Her nonprofit, Still Waters Collective, has curated poetry programming and spoken word events in the region for almost 20 years. The work has impacting more than 13,000 youth, provided professional development to more than 100 young people and created platforms for thousands of voices to be honored and heard. Dasha has written for national, regional and local magazines; produced three collections of poetry; recorded four spoken word CDs; and published two novels. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University and has taught writing courses at Mount Mary University, Alverno College and UW-Milwaukee. Dasha served as an Arts Envoy for the U.S. Embassy to teach, perform and facilitate community building initiatives in Botswana and the island of Mauritius. A former Artist of the Year for the City of Milwaukee, Dasha was recently named the city’s 11th Poet Laureate. 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.

Vote for your favorite Story Collider story of all time here: https://airtable.com/shreBxfsM5XYktIT5This week we present stories from people who navigated our changing relationship to technology.Part 1: As a kid, Samy Kamkar discovers his superpower -- hacking.Part 2: When Jordan Bush's father-in-law-to-be is diagnosed with cancer shortly before her wedding, she finds a creative way to help him attend.Samy Kamkar is a cofounder of Openpath, security researcher, and huge nerd. His open source hardware and software highlight the insecurities in everyday technologies, such as weaponizing a children's toy to unlock cars, designing clandestine wireless keyboard sniffers hidden into mobile phone chargers, and building drones that wirelessly hijack and control swarms of other drones. His work has been cited by the NSA, triggered hearings on Capitol Hill, and has been the basis for security advancements across vehicles, smartphones, and other technologies.Jordan is finishing up her dissertation in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. Her research focuses on when and where lizards fight over territories. She asks that you not confuse her obsession with lizards as a general interest in all reptiles - she does not like snakes, keep your snakes to yourself. After graduating, she has a real goal of becoming a professor at a liberal arts college, and a secret goal of becoming a science journalist and children's book author. She currently lives in Knoxville, TN with her wonderful husband, two babies, and two dogs. 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.

This week we present two stories from mothers who learned valuable lessons from the sons they birthed.Part 1: Avi Caspe and his mother, Ariel Detzer, reckon with what the label of "autism" means for their family.Part 2: When Paulette Steeves' son is given 2 years to live, she searches for a way to keep him alive.Dr. Ariel Detzer is a psychologist in Seattle, Washington, with a practice focused on neurodiversity. She believes that creating a better world for neurodiverse people comes about both through therapeutic support for clients themselves, and through educating clients, families, and surrounding educational and institutional stakeholders. Don't just help the client, change the whole system--this is the social model of disability. To challenge the complex pattern-loving part of her brain, she sings with the Seattle Early Music Guild a capella choir, Sine Nomine.Avi Caspe was a high school senior when he recorded this story. He began his autistic activism in sixth grade with a school social justice project on the lack of educator preparation for teaching autistic inclusion students. He made his first academic presentation to the national Association for Autistic Community Conference in 2014, sharing a presentation on how autistic middle schoolers process information in unique ways when under stress, which may in turn impact the way they process bullying experiences, as well as school discipline. Avi is now a freshman at Bellevue College in Washington, where he plans to major in Computer Science. He enjoys improving his standing on Rubik's Cube scores at World Cubing Association events. Paulette Steeves was born in Whitehorse Yukon Territories and grew up in Lillooet, British Columbia, Canada. She is an Indigenous archaeologist with a focus on the Pleistocene history of the Western Hemisphere. In her research Steeves argues that Indigenous peoples were present in the Western Hemisphere as early as 60,000 years ago, and possibly much earlier. She has created a data base of hundreds of archaeology sites in both North and South America that date from 250,000 to 12,000 years before present, which challenges the Clovis First dogma of a post 12,000 year before present initial migrations to the Americas. Dr. Steeves received her BA in Anthropology, Honors Cum Laude from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, and completed a two-year internship with the Quapaw Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) program during her undergraduate studies. In 2008 Dr. Steeves was awarded the Clifford D. Clark fellowship to attend graduate studies at Binghamton University in New York State. Dr. Steeves dissertation Decolonizing Indigenous Histories: Pleistocene Archaeology Sites of the Western Hemisphere is the first dissertation framed in Indigenous Method and Theory in Anthropology within the United States. In 2011 and 2012 she worked with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to carry out studies in the Great Plains on mammoth sites which contained evidence of human technology on the mammoth bone, thus showing that humans were present in Nebraska over 18,000 years ago. In 2019 she started a new research project focused on creating sacred Indigenous regenerative soils to address food insecurity in the North. Dr. Steeves has taught Anthropology courses with a focus on Native American and First Nations histories and studies, and decolonization of academia and knowledge production at many universities. She is currently an Assistant Professor in History at Algoma University and is a nominee for a Canada Research Chair in Indigenous History Healing and Reconciliation. 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.

This week we present two stories of people struggling with what the “right” thing to do is.Part 1: Catherine Macdonald always wanted to study sharks, but her first time tagging them in the field doesn't go as planned.Part 2: When Michelle Tong visits home after her first semester of medical school, a stranger presents an ethical dilemma.Dr. Catherine Macdonald is co-founder and Director of Field School (www.getintothefield.com), a marine science training and education company dedicated to constantly improving field research practices while teaching students to perform hands-on research with sharks. She is also a part-time Lecturer in Marine Conservation Biology at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.Company website: www.getintothefield.comPersonal website: www.drcatherinemacdonald.comMichelle Tong is a second-year medical student from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She has been published in the Margins and Glass, among other literary journals, and reads for the Bellevue Literary Review. This past summer, she won first prize in the Michael E. DeBakey Medical Student Poetry Awards and received a fellowship from Brooklyn Poets. She teaches poetry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and lives in East Harlem. 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.

This week we present two stories about people struggling with their identity.Part 1: When science journalist Katherine Wu interviews a scientist about a new facial recognition algorithm, the conversation turns more personal than she expected.Part 2: Hurricane Katrina gives Mary Annaise Heglar a new perspective on both her grandfather and home state.Katherine J. Wu is a Boston-based science journalist and storyteller whose writing has appeared in Smithsonian magazine, Scientific American, NOVA Next, and more. She's also a senior producer for The Story Collider. In 2018, she earned a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunobiology from Harvard University, where she studied how bacteria deal with stress so she could one day learn to do the same. She can spell "tacocat" backwards.Mary Annaise Heglar is a climate justice essayist and communications professional based in New York City. Her writing has been published in Vox, Dame Magazine, Zora, and Inverse. She writes regularly on Medium and rants almost daily on Twitter. 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.

This week we present two stories from people who had hypotheses.Part 1: Teaching sixth grade science becomes much more difficult when Xochitl Garcia's students start hypothesizing that fire is alive.Part 2: When journalist John Rennie is assigned to cover an entomological society event where insects are served as food, he sees an opportunity to face his fear of bugs.Xochitl Garcia is the K-12 education program manager at Science Friday, where she focuses on supporting the inspiring efforts of educators (of all types) to engage students in science, engineering, math, and the arts. She is a former NYC school teacher, who specializes in sifting through random piles of junk that she insists are "treasures," to figure out cool ways for learners to explore scientific phenomena. You can find her making a mess in the name of science education at the Science Friday office, her house, with other educators...you get the picture.Update: Xochitl welcomed her baby (not fire) into the world on 1/1/2020.John has worked as a science editor, writer and lecturer for more than 30 years. Currently, he is deputy editor at Quanta Magazine. During his time as editor in chief at Scientific American, between 1994 and 2009, the magazine received two National Magazine Awards. He co-created and hosted the 2013 series Hacking the Planet on The Weather Channel. Since 2009, he has been on the faculty of the Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program in New York University’s graduate journalism school. John is @tvjrennie and [email protected]. 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.

This week we present two stories of people who had to leave home to find a new home.Part 1: When Ph.D student Ali Mattu's girlfriend tells him she is moving to New York City, he has to make some tough decisions about where home is.Part 2: Arlo Pérez Esquivel struggles to define his boundaries with his father while he is pursuing his education in another country.Ali Mattu is a cognitive behavioral therapist who helps kids and adults with anxiety disorders. Through YouTube, Dr. Mattu teaches a global audience how to use psychological science to achieve their goals. He’s created over 100 videos for his YouTube channel, The Psych Show, which have been seen over 1,400,00 million times. He has been interviewed by the New York Times, appeared on Buzzfeed, MTV, CBS, NBC, PBS, and has the honor of being referenced, and not made fun of, on HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Dr. Mattu is a licensed clinical psychologist and was an assistant professor at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City. He presently serves on the Board of Directors of The Story Collider and creates curriculum for the Pop Culture Hero Coalition. He has served in a variety of leadership roles within the American Psychological Association.Arlo Pérez Esquivel was raised in Mexico until the age of 16, when he left for the United States. There, he moved across multiple states, and lived in the homes of different friends and relatives in order to finish his education. During this constant movement, Arlo developed a passion for street photography. His work attempts to investigate the “sense of place” by capturing people, their environment, and the relationship between the two. He is now a Digital Associate Producer for NOVA on PBS, currently working on a ten-part digital series on how life and science are done in Antarctica. 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.

This week we share two stories of people who were inspired by heroes of space.Part 1: After watching a documentary about the moon landing, Kate Downey comes away with a love of all things Buzz Aldrin.Part 2: Richard French gets the call to work for NASA, fulfilling a dream that started with his professor Carl Sagan.Kate makes you fall in love with things you thought were boring. As the co-founder and Creative Director of Caveat, she heads up a team creating live shows that make you a little bit smarter and a little bit drunker. Previously, she directed Shakespeare and opera with the Public Theater and New York City Opera, and helped build Museum Hack, a renegade tour company at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. If you've seen any scientifically inaccurate whale illustrations from the 17th century, please alert her @wrongwhale on IG and TW. Richard French is former Chair of the Astronomy Department at Wellesley College and is a founding science team member of NASA's Cassini Mission to Saturn. He uses the Hubble Space Telescope and telescopes around the world to observe the rings and atmospheres of planets, and particularly enjoys introducing self-proclaimed “non-scientists” to the wonders of the Universe. He chose the life of an astronomer over that of an opera singer, but still loves music and the allied arts. Dick enjoys mountaineering, paddling, bicycling, photographing his travels around the world, and encouraging others to read “Moby Dick.” 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.

This week we present two stories from people who found an intersection between numbers and their sex life.Part 1: When online dating isn't working out for him, Tristan Attwood decides to analyze the data himself.Part 2: In search of a deal, Gastor Almonte ends up with an unmanageable number of condoms.Tristan Attwood works as a business analyst for the airline industry. Originally from the Portland, Oregon, area, Tristan relocated to DC more than a decade ago after serving as a field organizer for a Senate campaign. Having been "unschooled" as a child, Tristan attended Linfield College in Oregon in the early 2000s but did not technically receive a high school diploma until getting his GED from the District of Columbia in 2015. He spends his free time renovating his DC townhouse, playing dungeons and dragons, and apologizing for the airline industry. He resides in DC with his wife, Jessica, and newborn baby Roland Tiberius.Gastor Almonte is a stand-up comedian and storyteller from Brooklyn, NY. He's appeared on Comedy Central's This Is Not Happening, Risk! podcast and the Story Collider Podcast. Timeout magazine named him one of your "New Comedy Obsessions." He's been featured on the New York Comedy Festival, The People's Impov Theater's SoloCom and Cinderblock Comedy Festival. His new album, Immigrant Made, was released in March 2019. 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.

This week we present two stories that give us insight into the birth and life of a scientist.Part 1: As a 16-year-old, Lily Be gets an unexpected education on the reproductive system.Part 2: Xavier Jordan discovers the party side of science at his first scientific conference.Lily Be started sharing stories in Chicago by accident in 2010. She never had a want to express herself artistically. This is not something she ever planned on doing. Lily is from the westside of Chicago, born and raised where she's spent most of her days raising her son. Storytelling fell into her lap one day and she's gone on to do crazy amazing wonderful things with it. From winning story competitions that would inspire and oftentimes usher more Latinos and marginalized people to tell their stories, to teaching people from all walks of life to share theirs, Lily has not stopped giving back to the artform that changed and saved her life. Lily produces The Stoop and Story Collider, is an editorial assistant for Story News magazine, and account manager for GoLucky Studios. She teaches storytelling all over the city both in person and online, is writing a book, and hosting a myriad of community and storytelling events. She's half magic, half amazing, and 100% real. Xavier Jordan is a University of Illinois graduate in chemistry and molecular and cellular biology. He is currently applying for microbiology research positions in Chicago. He's been telling stories for a long time and is glad to be part of the scene again. 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.

This week we present two stories from people who stood up against a system eager to tear them down.Part 1: After a car crash alters Emily Winn's life forever, she must relive the trauma when she testifies in a deposition.Part 2: Black geneticist C. Brandon Ogbunu contemplates the role race has played in his academic career after he gets confronted by the police.Emily Winn is a NSF Graduate Research Fellow and PhD candidate in the Division of Applied Mathematics at Brown University. Before Brown, Emily completed an AB in Mathematics at the College of the Holy Cross and spent a year in the Visiting Students Programme at St. Edmund Hall at the University of Oxford. Her research interests lie at the intersection of statistics, topological data analysis, and information theory; her current work applies theory from those fields to genomic data. Outside of school, you'll find her erging in the gym, screaming at the Red Sox game on TV, or binging the latest Netflix comedy specials. Follow her on Twitter, @EmilyTWinn13C. Brandon Ogbunu is an Assistant Professor at Brown University. His research focuses on evolutionary genetics and the ecology of disease. A New York City native, Brandon enjoys film, hip-hop, jazz and science fiction. He's an ex-very mediocre light heavy weight boxer, and slightly less mediocre experimental virologist. He has higher hopes for humanity than he does the New York Knicks. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram @big_data_kane. 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 sneak peek at our new BONUS podcast for Patreon supporters! Today's episode is the first of our Behind the Scenes series. Liz and Erin are joined by Dr. Ali Mattu to discuss the TERROR of stage fright -- and how to overcome it. For more bonus episodes like this one, join our Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/thestorycollider 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.

This week we present two stories from people who owe a debt of gratitude to somebody for their entrance into the science community.Part 1: A chance meeting with a stranger on an airplane has a huge impact on Melanie Knight's life.Part 2: Joshua Adams-Miller has never seen college in his future, until he receives encouragement from an unexpected source.Melanie Knight is CEO and Co-Founder of Ocean to Eye Level Consulting which supports coastal communities around the world open public marine education centres. Melanie is also the founder and past Executive Director of the Petty Harbour Mini Aquarium, a non-profit education centre in Newfoundland. Melanie had the opportunity to share her story of ‘bringing the ocean to eye level on the TEDx stage in Vancouver, November 2014. Melanie graduated from Memorial University of Newfoundland with a BSc. in Biology and a minor in Business. For the past 10 years, Melanie has been working with the largest and the smallest aquariums in Canada fostering curiosity for the underwater world. Melanie worked at the Vancouver Aquarium as a marine educator and manager of volunteers. Melanie has since been recognized for her work environmental work with the Petty Harbour Mini Aquarium becoming a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society, receiving the Newfoundland and Labrador Environmental Award, TechGirls Portraits of Strength and the Canadian Network of Environmental Educators Award in 2014. She lives in Vancouver with her husband and K9.Joshua Adams-Miller was born in 1989, in Sun Valley Idaho, to a family that has been in Idaho since 1873. He grew up in SE Boise under the care of his mother, who provided him more opportunities than anyone could ask for. However, he developed a sense of independence very early. Whether he was riding the city bus alone at 10 years old to get home from summer school programs or organizing large groups of friend to sneak out in the middle of the night, he’s always had a curious mind, and it wasn't beyond him to break the rules if it meant he got to learn something. He has always loved music and learned the viola and saxophone in school and self taught himself the piano and guitar. In his teens, he was sent to a jazz camp on a scholarship to hone his skills on the piano. Over his life, his curiosities have drawn him to the sciences repeatedly but by no means was it a clear path that brought him to his studies at Boise State as a Material Science Engineering Major. Like a sunrise, slowly illuminating the horizon, he realized that the best way for him to contribute to the future he wants to see was to bring to the world the materials that will make it possible. 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.

This week we present stories from two scientists who were confronted with their status as an “outsider.”Part 1: After getting hit by a car, Ph.D. student Reyhaneh Maktoufi must navigate the recovery and paperwork as an immigrant from Iran.Part 2: When scientist Danielle Lee travels to Tanzania to study pouched rats, she finds she's more of an outsider than she'd expected.Reyhaneh is a Ph.D. candidate in Media, Technology, and Society at Northwestern University. Her main fields of interest are science communication, curiosity, and public engagement with scientists. She is a visiting researcher at the Adler Planetarium, where she studies science communication and facilitates workshops on communication skills. Before starting a Ph.D., Rey has been working as a health communication facilitator and campaign manager in Tehran, Iran. She also produces comics and videos about science and the science of science communication. In her free time, Rey enjoys staring at a wall and making up stories in her head or play bad ukulele and scare off birds while singing high pitch.Danielle N. Lee is an outreach scientist who studies animal behavior and behavioral ecology. She studies the behaviors of mice and rats in the Metro St. Louis area and the natural history of African giant pouched rats. Lee was selected as a 2015 TED Fellow and was named as one of EBONY Magazine’s Power 100 and a White House Champion of Change in STEM Diversity and Access. Her current science outreach efforts emphasize engagement with broader audiences via science communication. In 2013, Lee helped found the National Science & Technology News Service, a media literacy initiative to bring more science news to African-American audiences and promote science news source diversity in mainstream media. 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.

This week we present stories from two people finding their boundaries with the wild world of animals.Part 1: Adam Selbst competes with tigers for the attention of his mother.Part 2: Weighed down by the burden of leadership as she supervises the construction of a telescope, Erika Hamden finds comfort in an unlikely spot.Adam Selbst is a writer and graphic designer from Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He hosts the monthly Big Irv’s Storytelling Roadshow and has been performing around NYC for the last 8 years. Adam lives in a bodega art collective with 64 other people and in his spare time he enjoys being slowly poisoned by an ancient, weird mold in his shower and throwing elaborate dinner parties.Erika Hamden is a Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Arizona. She develops UV detector technology, builds telescopes, and observes galaxies and hydrogen all over the universe. Her last project was a UV telescope that flew on a high altitude balloon. She is currently leading a team working on a proposal for a UV space telescope. When she isn't building or thinking about telescopes, she has a serious yoga practice, is learning to fly a plane, and loves hiking in the desert around Tucson. Before she went to grad school, Erika worked as a chef for a year. She is still really into eating. Erika is interested in sharing stories about how hardware gets built and the very human personalities that are behind scientific discoveries. 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.

This week we present two stories about people who discovered a diagnosis late in life.Part 1: As a child, TC Waisman is told that she is on the autism spectrum, but her mother refuses to accept the diagnosis.Part 2: Growing up, Craig Fay develops strategies to hide how terrible he is at math.Since 1998, TC has worked with leaders in large organizations to enhance their personal leadership capacity and make transformational changes to their leadership practice. Coaching and training leaders and public speaking about adaptive leadership for over 20 years, TC has learned to support her clients’ development using organizational best practices and evidence-based research.TC is an ICF certified coach, holds a Masters degree in Leadership & Training, and is currently undertaking her doctoral degree in leadership in a post-secondary context. Inspired by her late autism diagnosis at 48 years old, her research focuses on how higher education leaders, faculty, and staff can enhance services and outcomes for autistic students in higher learning. Since beginning her research two years ago, TC has co-founded a not-for-profit society for neurodiverse individuals, spoken on autism related topics, published an academic literature review on 'autism and the implications for higher learning', and was recently appointed as an editorial board member of the new scientific journal Autism in Adulthood. TC is now a doctoral candidate and is in the midst of her research.TC is of Indigenous Fijian and Nepalese origin and moved to Vancouver in 1976 where she lives with Dean her partner of 30 years. TC is a proud mother to her fiercely funny 23 year old daughter Sunshine and is the author of the book 75 Traits of Great Leaders. TC is on target to complete her doctoral degree in 2020. Craig Fay is a Toronto based engineer turned stand up comedian with a “keen insight that allows him to take subjects familiar to everyone and turn them into something new and laughable” (Exclaim). He has appeared on CBC’s Laugh Out Loud, performed at the world famous Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal and is co-host of "The Villain Was Right" podcast, which recently won a Canadian Podcasting Award for Outstanding Debut For a Series. Craig’s debut comedy album “Helicopter Rich” was praised as “observational and self-reflective…worth playing multiple times over” (Exclaim) and is available now on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon and Spotify. You can follow Craig on Twitter For (@CraigFayComedy), like him on Facebook (/CraigFayComedy), or sign up for his email newsletter at CraigFay.com. Or just Google him. You’ll probably just Google him. 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.

This week we present two stories from scientists searching for that special someone.Part 1: Zoology student Devon Kodzis's strategy of attracting boys with fun animal facts proves difficult.Part 2: Away from her boyfriend for grad school, Meisa Salaita starts to fall for a chemistry classmate who's her complete opposite.Devon Kodzis has a degree in biological sciences and professional experience in teaching, animal training, and education outreach, and science program design. She is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Biological Sciences. Her passions include reading about food, and shouting at the Antiques Roadshow with her cat.Meisa Salaita is enamored with the beauty of science. Through her work founding and directing the Atlanta Science Festival and as a producer for the Story Collider, she spends her days trying to convince everyone else to fall in love with science as well. To that end, Meisa also writes, has produced radio stories, and hosted tv shows - all in the name of science. Meisa has a Ph.D. in chemistry, has birthed two humans, and has a bizarre level of enthusiasm for shoehorns. If she had the stamina and talent, she’d be dancing hip-hop 24/7. 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.

This week we present two stories from people who let science lead them down a rabbit hole of curses.Part 1: Science journalist Erik Vance decides to get cursed by a witch doctor for science.Part 2: After taking a rock from Mauna Loa, volcanologist Jess Phoenix starts to worry that her offering to the volcano goddess Pele was not enough.Erik Vance is an award-winning science journalist based in Baltimore. Before becoming a writer he was, at turns, a biologist, a rock climbing guide, an environmental consultant, and an environmental educator. He graduated in 2006 from UC Santa Cruz science writing program and became a freelancer as soon as possible. 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. His first book, Suggestible You, is about how the mind and body continually twist and shape our realities. While researching the book he was poked, prodded, burned, electrocuted, hypnotized and even cursed by a witchdoctor, all in the name of science.Jess Phoenix is Executive Director and co-founder of environmental scientific research organization Blueprint Earth. She is a volcanologist, an extreme explorer, and former candidate for United States Congress. She has been chased by narco-traffickers in Mexico, dodged armed thieves in remote Peru, raced horses across Mongolia, worked on the world’s largest volcano in Hawaii, piloted the Jason2 submersible on an undersea volcano, and explored deep in the Australian Outback. Jess believes science should be accessible to everyone, and that creative possibility is limitless. Jess is a Fellow in The Explorers Club and the Royal Geographical Society, a featured scientist on the Discovery and Science Channels, an invited TEDx speaker, and she has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, in Wired, Fast Company, on National Public Radio, on CNN, NBC, and has written for the BBC. She is the host of the podcast Catstrophe! (catastropheshow.com) and has a book coming out in Spring 2020 with Timber Press called Miss Adventure: My Life as a Geologist, Explorer, and Professional Risk-Taker. 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.

This week we present two stories from people who had to become leaders whether they liked it or not.Part 1: Eager to show off their new job testing water quality, Prof.Ound takes their friends out on a boat for the first time.Prof.Ound is a Bronx-born and raised spoken word artist, actor, writer, educator and environmentalist. Prof.Ound’s creative work is notable for its Afrocentric emphasis on audience participation and conveying moral/ethical lessons. Merging these aesthetic values into their ecological restoration work and background, Prof.Ound has been developing and workshopping a culturally responsive arts-based outdoor education pedagogy. Prof.Ound strives to ensure the full participation and autonomous leadership of marginalized communities in environmental movements.Note from the Artistic Director: When this episode originally ran, it featured a second story, from neuroscientist and MeToo STEM founder BethAnn McLaughlin. In light of reports about this individual's conduct, we have chosen to remove her story from this episode. 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.