Working Scientist

Watching documentaries about the Titanic inspired deep-sea microbiologist Beth Orcutt to study life at the bottom of the ocean - a world of ‘towering chimneys, weird shrimp and octopus nurseries’ that she has visited 35 times.But Orcutt says there is so much we still don't know about the deep sea, which is a problem for the sustainable development of this environment. Orcutt works at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Boothbay, Maine, where her research helps to understand how deep-sea mining might impact unique ocean communities.Research on similarly destructive activities, such as deep-sea trawling, show decades-long recovery times for keystone species such as corals and sponges, or in some cases no recovery at all.Orcutt works through the Crustal Ocean Biosphere Research Accelerator (COBRA) project funded by the US National Science Foundation to bring academics, policymakers and science communicators together to accelerate research about the deep sea and translate that knowledge for decision makers.This is episode 14 of How to Save Humanity in 17 Goals, a Working Scientist series podcast that profiles scientists whose work addresses one or more of the SDGs. Orcutt's work addresses Sustainable Development Goal number 14: to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine sources.Episodes 13–18 are produced in partnership with Nature Sustainability, and introduced by Monica Contestabile, its chief editor.This episode ends with a sponsored slot from La Trobe Institute for Sustainable Agriculture and Food in Melbourne, Australia, where we hear about how its researchers are focusing on the SDGs and the university’s holistic approach to food security. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Analytical chemist Jane Kilcoyne was working in her biotoxin monitoring lab one day in 2018 when she noticed a bin overflowing with plastic waste. The observation prompted her to join forces with like-minded colleagues and develop a package of measures aimed at reducing their lab’s carbon footprint. Their efforts include reducing energy consumption, composting shellfish waste, polystyrene recycling, and digitizing documentation. Labs are estimated to use 10 times more energy and five times more water than office spaces, she says, and the average bench scientist uses around 10 times more single-use plastics than the average person. Kilcoyne, who works at the Marine Institute, a government agency responsible for marine research, in Galway, Ireland, describes how their efforts feed into the thirteenth of 17 Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations in 2015 (to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts). How to Save Humanity in 17 Goals is a podcast series that profiles scientists whose work addresses one or more of the SDGs. Episodes 13–18 are produced in partnership with Nature Sustainability, and introduced by Monica Contestabile, its chief editor. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the sixth and final episode of The Last few miles: planning for the late stage career in science, Julie Gould unpicks some of the generational tensions that can arise in academia when a colleague approaches retirement.Inger Mewburn, who leads research and development training at the Australian National University in Canberra, tells her: “There’s a fine line between being around and being valued, to being around and kind of being a pain in the ass and no one will tell you to go away.”Gould also talks to scientists who, despite reaching retirement age, continue to engage with younger colleagues, enjoying positive interactions at conferences and co-authoring papers.They include Heather Middleton, who started trawling England’s Jurassic Coast in her 60s, looking for specimens that might lead to a deeper understanding of palaeontology. Middleton, who is approaching her 80th birthday, taught science in schools and colleges, and in retirement balances her fossil-hunting, (and the collaboration opportunities it brings), with family holidays, grandchildren, friends and Tai Chi. "It’s a great balance, which I hope other retiring scientists will be able to enjoy such opportunities that I’ve had," she says. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the fifth episode of this six-part podcast series about the late career stage, physicist María Teresa Dova outlines how she is preparing colleagues years in advance to ensure a smooth handover of her lab at the University of La Plata, in Argentina.But in the United States, when the principal investigator leaves it is likely the lab itself will close down, Gould discovers. For microbiologist Roberto Kolter, emeritus professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, this meant gradually downsizing his team before retirement, so all members had a clear timeframe in which to finish their work.Often what happens to the contents of a lab is decided by the institution. Equipment such as freezers are often given to other research groups, while unique resources — such as Kolter’s 10,000 strong collection of bacterial strains created from his years of research — are kept and managed by the institution.Chemist Craig Merlic, executive director of the University of California Center for Laboratory Safety in Los Angeles, stresses that it is important to think about the fate of hazardous lab materials to prevent future accidents.Sometimes there isn’t time to plan, as experienced by immunologist Carol Shoshkes Reiss at New York University, when she had to suddenly close her lab due to a lack of funds. Shoshkes Reiss shares the surprising feeling she experienced after this abrupt closure — relief. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The list of things to organize as retirement from academia approaches can feel daunting. In the fourth episode of The last few miles, a six-part podcast series about the late career stage in science, researchers talk about health, housing and financial planning.Carol Shoshkes Reiss, an immunologist at New York University, explains how her institution assigns individual wealth managers to advise on retirement investments and budgeting.Inger Mewburn, who leads researcher training at the Australian National University in Canberra, chose a private accountant to manage her finances, who probes not only her approach to risk around investments, but also potential retirement dates and her income expectations.Entomologist Matan Shelomi, associate professor at the National Taiwan University in Taipei and originally a citizen of the United States, describes how he has had to amend his retirement plans as an expat academic.Gerontologist Stacey Gordon works with Shoshkes Reiss at New York University as part of a personalised program to support individuals with the mental and social aspects of their retirement, helping colleagues to find purpose and meaning in retirement. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Because many scientists see their career as a calling, when retirement arrives it can bring with it feelings of insecurity and worry about what this means for them.Microbiologist Roberto Kolter, emeritus professor at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts, is keen to show others that retirement is a joyous time and a chance to broaden one’s scientific area of interest. It can also bring with it new speaking and travel opportunities.Experimental physicist Athene Donald is soon to complete a 10-year stint as master of Churchill College at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. Donald tells Gould how she is handling the nervousness that comes with the arrival of a second retirement phase, and what she is doing to balance continued involvement in academia with the slower pace of life.Inger Mewburn, who leads research training at the Australian National University in Canberra, and Pat Thompson, education researcher at the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom, acknowledge how hard it can be to give up something that has given you purpose and drive for so many years.Some, such as Thompson, have developed hobbies alongside their working careers that they are looking forward to doing more as they step back from academia. Both Mewburn and Thompson agree that an important part of the process is figuring out which parts of your working identity, such as writer or educator, you want to carry through to retirement.This is the third episode of the six-part podcast series: The last few miles: planning for the late-stage career in science. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The idea that retirement marks the end of employment and the beginning of a life of leisure is one that many academics feel is outdated.Roger Baldwin, a retired researcher of higher education at Michigan State University in East Lansing and chair of the US Association of Retirement Organizations in Higher Education (AROHE), a membership organization based in Los Angeles, California, describes it instead as “an open ended period after one’s main professional employment that has almost infinite potential opportunities” — academic or otherwise.Some take on the role of an emeritus professor, an honorary title that grants the holder continued involvement with their university. Shirley Tilghman, a molecular biologist and emeritus professor at Princeton University in New Jersey, continues to serve on university boards and advise on science policy.Carlos García Canal, a physicist at the University of La Plata in Argentina, took the emeritus title after forced retirement 15 years ago (aged 65) so that he could continue teaching at the institution.An alternative option for academics is an adjunct professorship, which human molecular biologist and geneticist Juergen Reichardt selected. It enables him to continue in a research role at the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia.It can be difficult deciding whether to continue with a role in academia after retiring or to switch to something different. Health and family considerations can have a big impact on this decision. As Baldwin explains, it can be hard to balance the freedom and flexibility offered by retirement with continued academic commitments. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What are the signs that you’re transitioning from the middle to the late stage of a career in science? Is this transition something you can plan in advance, and if so, what does this look like?Working backwards from your planned retirement date can help you to re-evaluate your priorities and predict the challenges the next few years might bring. But in many countries there is no set retirement age, so it can be difficult to know when to start preparing.Scientists from across the globe talk to Julie Gould about their different approaches, from reviewing timelines and forming succession plans to returning to the lab.Inger Mewburn, who leads research training at the Australian National University in Canberra, and Shirley Tilghman, a molecular biologist and former president of Princeton University in New Jersey, highlight the importance of thinking about and planning for the future.This is the first episode of the six-part podcast series: The last few miles: planning for the late stage career in science. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In many parts of the world these days garments are bought purely as fashion items, and discarded after just a few months or years. But as the global population grows and personal wealth levels increase, solutions are urgently needed to process increasing volumes of textile waste as consumption rises. This waste includes synthetic fibres, which do not degrade in nature.Sonja Salmon describes advances in enzymatic processes to deconstruct and then recycle mixed fibre garments made from both polyester and cotton, alongside the environmental costs of producing and transporting clothes in the first place. “Technically, there are going to be some challenges in it. But that’s why we’re scientists, right? That's what we do,” says Salmon, who is based at Wilson College of Textiles in Raleigh, North Carolina.How to Save Humanity in 17 Goals is a podcast series that profiles scientists whose work addresses one or more of the SDGs. Episodes 7–12 are produced in partnership with Nature Water, and introduced by Fabio Pulizzi, its chief editor. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Draw a Scientist is a test developed in 1983 to explore children’s perspectives of scientists and how stereotypical views can emerge at an early age, influenced both by popular culture and how STEM subjects are taught in schools.In April, 50 images from Nature’s weekly Where I Work section, a photo essay which depicts an individual researcher at work, went on display in London’s Kings Cross district.The photographs were chosen to reflect the diversity of scientific careers, and in the words of senior careers editor Jack Leeming, to demonstrate that “scientists aren’t all wacky lab-coated, round-goggled people from the science fiction film Back to the Future.”In this Working Scientist podcast, Julie Gould visits the exhibition with a group of 12-13 year-old female pupils from London’s Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School, where she repeats the Draw a Scientist test, based on their perceptions of scientists. The children draw two pictures, one before and one after viewing the 50 photographs. Gould then asks them how their perceptions have changed, based on what they have seen.As one pupil put it after seeing the exhibition, which closes later this month: “You can be a scientist in almost any part of the world. You could be involved with flowers, with the ocean, with weather, with space. You can do anything.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lynette Cheah’s research group collaborates with psychologists, computer scientists and urban designers to develop smarter and more sustainable ways of city transportation. “We can’t have sustainable cities without transforming the way people move and how goods are moved around,” says Cheah, an engineering systems researcher who is based at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia.Cheah outlines some challenges to meeting targets in the eleventh of 17 Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations in 2015 (making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable) by 2030. In part these rely on more cities using the data-driven and centrally-planned approach taken by Singapore, the south Asian city state in which she grew up and worked until recently, she argues.Informal transport options such as tuktuk rikshaws in Thailand and shared taxi matatus in Kenya, for example, can present a barrier to delivering smarter cities, but they also have advantages. She explains why.“I am very optimistic that good science and knowledge does exist to help us, you know, track the path towards sustainable urban development,” she says. “It’ll take lots of work. It’ll take public-private partnerships. It’ll take some credible financing, lots of capacity building.”How to Save Humanity in 17 Goals is a podcast series that profiles scientists whose work addresses one or more of the SDGs. Episodes 7–12 are produced in partnership with Nature Water, and introduced by Fabio Pulizzi, its chief editor. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Francisco Ferreira’s first exposure to inequality of opportunity was during his daily ride to school in São Paulo, Brazil, and seeing children his age selling chewing gum on the streets. Ferreira, a former World Bank economist who now researches inequality at the London School of Economics, speculates on the wasted human talent caused by such hardships, and how many more scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and writers there would be if inequalities could be tackled at an early stage in children’s lives. “I think it deserves even more attention than it already gets,” he says, before going on to describe progress toward delivering Sustainable Development Goal 10: to reduce inequality in and among countries, and how best to measure it. Ferreira outlines how machine learning tools are helping to identify the most powerful predictors of societal divisions and how income is distributed.How to Save Humanity in 17 Goals is a podcast series that profiles scientists whose work addresses one or more of the SDGs. Episodes 7-12 are produced in partnership with Nature Water, and introduced by Fabio Pulizzi, its chief editor. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Power networks are humankind’s biggest engineering achievement to date, says Sinan Küfeoğlu. But ageing infrastructure in advanced industrialised economies, coupled with the fact that around one billion people in the world lack continuous power access, particularly in Global South countries, could threaten the delivery of Sustainable Development Goal 9 by 2030, he warns. The goal promotes resilient infrastructure, inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and innovation.Speaking in a personal capacity, Küfeoğlu, a senior policy manager at the UK government gas and electricity market regulator OFGEM, lists some of the hurdles ahead, based on his work as an energy systems researcher in Finland, UK, US, and Turkey, where he grew up.Many funding proposals, he says, pack in “buzzwords” such as green, sustainable, holistic, inclusive, and circular economy, but governments and other infrastructure project funders are often poor at measuring impact, and undertaking return-on-investment and cost-benefit analyses.How to Save Humanity in 17 Goals is a podcast series that profiles scientists whose work addresses one or more of the SDGs. Episodes 7-12 are produced in partnership with Nature Water, and introduced by Fabio Pulizzi, its chief editor. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Kenya, where Moses Ngoze teaches entrepreneurship and management at Masinde Muliro University in Kakamega, micro, small and medium enterprises provide 75% of jobs and more than 80% of the country’s gross domestic product. Typically these organizations employ between one and 100 people and include subsistence farming, hospitality and artisan businesses, mostly operating in a jua kali environment, a Swahili term meaning “hot sun,” he says.Ngoze's research explores how the enterprises can help achieve full employment and sustained (and sustainable) economic growth by 2030, captured in Sustainable Development Goal 8, one of 17 agreed by the United Nations in 2015.He tells the How to Save Humanity in 17 Goals podcast that African economies and employment ambitions need more than multinational employers moving there. These firms only employ 10% of the world’s workforce, he says.Infrastructure improvements are also needed, Ngoze adds, alongside more reliable energy, stronger internet connectivity, and tax breaks for business. Government funding for university-based centres of enterprise development are also a priority.The podcast series profiles scientists whose work addresses one or more of the SDGs. Episodes 7-12 are produced in partnership with Nature Water, and introduced by Fabio Pulizzi, its chief editor. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Julien Harou’s career started in geology in his current role as a water management and infrastructure researcher now straddles economics and engineering, with a particular focus on using artificial intelligence (AI) to measure Ghana’s future energy needs. Harou is relatively upbeat about progress so far towards achieving sustainable and reliable energy for all by 2030, the seventh of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed by the United Nations in 2015. He points out that from 2015 to 2021, the portion of the global population with access to electricity increased from 87% to 91%, and last year about 30% came from renewable sources. Harou’s research at the University of Manchester, UK, incorporates computer modeling and artificial intelligence design algorithms to balance Ghana’s long term renewable energy and infrastructure needs. But AI also helps to address the environmental and human health impacts. For example, Ghana’s Volta River was dammed in the 1960s to create the Akosombo dam. But its arrival depleted fish stocks and increased weed and algae growth, providing habitat for vectors of waterborne diseases. It’s all about compromise, he tells the seventh episode of How to Save Humanity in 17 Goals, a podcast series that profiles scientists whose work addresses one or more of the SDGs.Episodes 7-12 are produced in partnership with Nature Water, and introduced by Fabio Pullizi, its chief editor. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

María Teresa Dova describes how an early career move to CERN as the first Latin American scientist to join Europe’s organisation for nuclear research ultimately benefited both her but also the researchers she now works with back home in Argentina.The move to Geneva, Switzerland, where CERN is based, required Dova to pivot from condensed matter physics, the subject of her PhD at the University of La Plata, Argentina, which she gained in 1988. But any misgivings about the move to Europe and switching to a new field were quickly banished by her excitement at working on the L3 Large Electron Positron Collider project, she tells Julie Gould. Dova returned to Argentina two-and-a-half years later, launching the experimental high energy group at La Plata and driving other important collaborations, including the inclusion of Argentina in CERN’s ATLAS particle detector collaboration. She describes how it happened. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A 2021 report by the UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean revealed that only 18% of public universities in the region had female rectors. Vanessa Gottifredi, a biologist and president of Argentina’s Leloir Institute Foundation, a research institute based in Buenos Aires, says this paucity of visible role models for female scientists in the region means that damaging stereotypes are perpetuated.A female, she says, will not be judged harshly for staying at home to handle a family emergency, but will be for being pushy at work, unlike male colleagues. “Women need to hear that they are good, more than men do, because they tend to convince themselves they're not good enough,” she adds.In the penultimate episode of this six-part podcast series about female scientists in Latin America, Gottifredi, who worked abroad for 11 years before returning to Argentina, tells Julie Gould how she aims to empower female colleagues, based on what she witnessed elsewhere. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fernanda Staniscuaski earned her PhD aged 27. Five years later she had a child. But in common with many scientist mothers, Staniscuaski, a biologist at Brazil’s Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, saw funding and other career opportunities diminish as she combined motherhood with her professional life. “Of course I did not have as much time as I was used to have. And everything impacted my productivity,” she tells Julie Gould.The Brazilian biologist founded the Parent in Science advocacy movement after talking with other scientist parents. In the fourth episode of this six-part podcast series about Latin American women in science, Staniscuaski lists the movement’s achievements so far, and the challenges that lie ahead.In 2021 Parent in Science won the science outreach category in the Nature Inspiring Women in Science awards, in partnership with the Estée Lauder Companies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Paleontologists Ana Valenzuela-Toro and Mariana Viglino outline some of the challenges shared by researchers across Latin America. These include funding, language barriers, journal publication fees and conference travel costs. But the two women then list some of the extra burdens faced by female researchers who live and work there, many of which will resonate with female colleagues based elsewhere. “When you are in a room sharing a scientific idea or project, nobody listens to you. Then another person, usually a male researcher, says what you said,” says Valenzuela-Toro, who is based in Caldero, Chile. Mariana Viglino, a Puerto Madryn-based researcher at CONICET, an Argentine government science agency, says the election of far-right governments inevitably results in science funding cuts. “And that means many people having their careers cut. Many research projects that are not going to be able to continue,” she warns.“It makes me feel really hopeless, and really burnt out, and really sad. I really don’t even know how to put it into words. You want to give back to the government who has invested in you. You want to give back to society. You just feel like they are just pushing you out.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2013 physicist Carolina Brito co-launched Meninas na Ciência (Girls in Science), a program based at Brazil’s Federal University of Rio Grande de Sul.The program exposes girls to university life, including lab visits and meetings with female academics. “There are several girls who have never met someone who has been to university,” says Brita. “It’s beyond a gender problem.”Jessica Germann was one of them. The 19-year-old is about to start an undergraduate physics degree. She tells Julie Gould how writing a school essay about particle physics and a fascination for YouTube science videos helped in her career choices.This episode is the second episode in a six-part Working Scientist podcast series about Latin American women in science. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In her role as Vice Rector for research partnerships and collaboration at the University of the Valley in Guatemala City, Monica Stein works to strengthen science and technology ecosystems in the Central American country and across the wider region.To mark International Women's Day on 8 March, Stein outlines the steps needed to attract girls into science careers. Access to higher education needs to widen, she argues, alongside more robust legal and regulatory frameworks to make research careers more diverse.“We need to inspire other women, we need to mentor other women, we need to be available for conversations,” she says. “We need to tell them it’s okay to say no to a project, because you’re pregnant, just giving birth, or your child is young, which is something that is so common here in Guatemala.”This episode is the first episode in a six-part Working Scientist podcast series about Latin American women in science. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Laure Sione’s postdoctoral research at Imperial College London addresses the sixth of the 17 United Nations SDGs, but, she argues, sanitation also plays a huge role in gender equality (SDG 5) and good health and well being (SDG 3) targets.Sione’s PhD research focused on water management challenges in Kathmandu, but she now focuses on Sub-Saharan Africa and the problems caused by open defecation and excrement-filled pit latrines that are sited too close to the water table, risking contamination.A third option is toilets layered with Tiger Worms. A key advantage is that these take longer to fill up as the worms quickly degrade faeces, but one barrier is getting people to use them in the first place. “It’s like, it’s a gross thing, and they don’t want to think about it. But I think the benefits quickly take over,” she says.Each episode of How to Save Humanity in 17 Goals, a Working Scientist podcast series from Nature Careers, features researchers whose work addresses one or more the targets. The first six episodes are produced in partnership with Nature Food, and introduced by Juliana Gil, its chief editor. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2016 the University of Melbourne, Australia, asked for female-only applicants when it advertised three vacancies in its School of Mathematics and Statistics. It repeated the exercise in 2018 and 2019 to fill similar vacancies in physics, chemistry, and engineering and information technology.Elaine Wong and Georgina Such tell the How to Save Humanity in 17 Goals podcast why certain schools wanted only female candidates to apply, and how staff and students reacted to the policy. They also explain what it achieved in terms of addressing the under-representation of female faculty in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects.Both Wong, a photonics researcher who was appointed Pro Vice-Chancellor (People and Equity) at the university in 2023, and Such, a polymer chemist and associate professor there, explain how the university’s “affirmative action” strategy is helping to address the fifth of the 17 United National Sustainable Development Goals: to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.Each episode in this series, from Nature Careers, features researchers whose work addresses one or more of the targets. The first six episodes are produced in partnership with Nature Food, and introduced by Juliana Gil, its chief editor. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As a child Solomon King Benge loved Eric Laithwaite’s 1974 book The Engineer in Wonderland, based on the mechanical engineer’s 1966 Royal Institution Christmas lectures. After reading it he asked his physics teacher if he and his classmates might try some of Laithwaite’s practical experiments, but was told: “Don’t waste your time with this. This is not important, because it’s not in the curriculum.” The rejection promoted Benge to launch Fundi Bots in 2011. The social education initiative aims to give education a stronger practical focus, a move away from learning by rote in front of a blackboard. Last year it reached 22,000 students, most of them in Uganda, and hopes eventually to cover one million across Africa.Robotics is a key component of the program. Benge recalls one child in northern Uganda who built a sensor-driven robot and was asked what he might do with it. He said: “I think I can now create something that lets the goats out of the pen in the morning so that I don’t have to wake up early.”Benge tells the How to save humanity in 17 goals podcast series: “It was hilarious for us, but a very real testament of once you empower children and make learning meaningful, then they actually begin looking at the practical applications of that learning.”The educator and entrepreneur describes how Fundi Bots addresses SDG 4 and its aim to deliver quality education and lifelong learning for all by 2030.Each episode in the series features researchers whose work addresses one or more the targets. The first six episodes are produced in partnership with Nature Food, and introduced by Juliana Gil, its chief editor. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A drive to reduce suicide mortality rates is a key indicator of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Psychiatrist Shekhar Saxena, who led the World Health Organization’s mental health and substance abuse program after working in clinical practice for more than two decades, says that although progress is being made, a worryingly high number of young people are choosing to end their lives.“They have to struggle through the school education, competitive examinations, then they have to struggle for a job,” says Saxena, who now teaches at Harvard Chan School of Public Health, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “And many young people decide that dying is easier than struggling through for many years, which is very sad. It reflects the society that we live in where a young person does not feel that life is worth living.”In the third episode How to Save Humanity in 17 Goals podcast series, Saxena welcomes the inclusion of mental health in SDG 3 and its aim to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. But he points out that countries on average spend less than 2% of their health budget on mental health, when the disease burden is around 10%. Each episode in the series features researchers whose work addresses one or more the targets. The first six episodes are produced in partnership with Nature Food, and introduced by Juliana Gil, its chief editor. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As a nutrition and planetary health researcher, Christopher Golden takes a keen interest in the second of 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and its aim to end hunger.But Golden’s research also focuses on “hidden hunger,” a term he uses to describe the impact of dietary deficiencies in micronutrients such as iron, zinc, fatty acids, and vitamins A and B12.Hidden hunger, he argues in the second episode of the How to Save Humanity in 17 Goals podcast series, could be better addressed if more people adopted a diet that includes more ‘blue’ or aquatic foods. These include fish, molluscs and plant species.Golden, who is based at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, says discussions about hunger and food security have tended to focus on terrestrial food production.As soil nutrient levels deplete and farmland becomes scarcer as human populations rise, more attention needs to be paid to marine and freshwater food sources, he adds.But rising sea temperatures threaten millions of people in equatorial regions whose diets are rich in blue foods. As aquatic species migrate polewards in search of cooler waters, their livelihoods and food security are at risk.Each episode of How to Save Humanity in 17 Goals, a Working Scientist podcast series from Nature Careers, features researchers whose work addresses one or more the targets. The first six episodes are produced in partnership with Nature Food, and introduced by Juliana Gil, its chief editor. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Poverty is about more than just meeting basic material needs, says Catherine Thomas. Its corrosive effects are also social and psychological, causing people to feel marginalized and helpless.Thomas’s research into anti-poverty programs has focused on the effects of one aimed at women in the West African country of Niger, which aims to support subsistence farmers whose livelihoods are impacted by climate change.One branch of the program involved providing an unconditional $300 cash transfer alongside business and life skills training. Thomas, who is based at the Unversity of Michigan in Ann Arbor, describes the impact it had, compared to similar schemes. These include microfinance business loans, but these tend not to reach those most in need, she says.Thomas’s research is very much focused on the first of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which aims to end poverty in all its forms everywhere by 2030. Each episode of How to Save Humanity in 17 Goals, a Working Scientist podcast series, features researchers whose work addresses one or more the targets. The first six episodes are produced in partnership with Nature Food, and introduced by Juliana Gil, its chief editor. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In August the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft touched down, making India only the fourth to have successfully landed a spacecraft on the moon. In this special episode of the Working Scientist podcast, Somak Raychaudhuryan astrophysicist and vice-chancellor at Ashoka University, tells Jack Leeming about India’s history of space research, the significance of the lunar landing, and how it might help to stem a “brain drain” of Indian researchers moving abroad permanently to develop their careers. The episode is part of the Nature Spotlight on India, an editorially-independent supplement. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For a three-year period as a postdoctoral researcher, molecular biologist and visual artist Daniel Jay was given both a lab and a sudio to work in. In the final episode of this six-part Working Scientist about art and science, Julie Gould asks why, decades later, Jay’s experience is still unusual. Why do scientists with expertise in, say, music, sculpture, pottery or creative writing have to pursue these interests as weekend hobbies, with science “paying the bills?”Jay, who is Dean of the graduate school of biomedical sciences at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, says today’s early career researchers want what he calls a “post disciplinary society,” offering the freedom to pick and choose different areas and competencies.Lou Muglia, a medical geneticist who is now president and CEO of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, a private foundation located in North Carolina, co-authored a 2023 paper in PloS Biology on art-science collaborations. Muglia says many early career researchers today don’t see themselves running a traditional lab, but are as excited about communication and the arts as they are about their science. Many funders now recognise this. Academia should too, he argues.Callie Chappell, Muglia’s co-author and a professional artist who researches biosecurity and innovation at Stanford University, California, says: “I would argue that science is actually a type of art. “To do science, you have to be creative, you have to blend different ideas, you have to communicate those ideas by creating something. In many ways that's what artists do.” Each episode in this series concludes with a follow-up sponsored slot from the International Science Council (ISC). The ISC is seeking perspectives from science fiction authors on how science can meet societal challenges, ranging from climate change and food security to the disruption caused by artificial intelligence. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Data form the backbone of the scientific method, but it can be impenetrable. In the penultimate episode of this six-part Working Scientist podcast series about art-science collaborations, Julie Gould talks to artists and data visualisation specialists about how they interpret and present data in art forms ranging from music to basket weaving.Keep things simple wherever possible, agree Duncan Ross, chief data officer at the Times Higher Education publication, and James Bayliss, an interaction and visualisation analyst at Springer Nature. “My go-to tool is a pen and paper or coloured pencils,” says Bayliss. “Start slow and don't get too complicated too fast.”Akshat Rathi, a senior climate reporter at Bloomberg News, describes how he used data to visualise the devastating impact of a 2015 earthquake in Nepal for an article in the business title Quartz.And Nathalie Miebach, a basketware artist who created a reed sculpture based on daily weather data she had collected in Provincetown, Massachusetts, says that translating data into artwork brings up all sorts of biases and expectations.Finally, Rebecca Fiebrink, a classically-trained musician with a PhD in computer science who now works as professor at the Creative Computing Institute at the University of the Arts, London, agrees. “Any kind of data analysis itself is creative, right?” she asks.Each episode in this series concludes with a follow-up sponsored slot from the International Science Council (ISC). The ISC is seeking perspectives from science fiction authors on how science can meet societal challenges, ranging from climate change and food security to the disruption caused by artificial intelligence. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

GUI/GOOEY is an international online exhibition that explores digital and technological representations of the biological world.In the fourth episode of this six-part Working Scientist podcast series about art and science, Julie Gould talks to some of the artists and scientist whose collaborations created exhibits for the event, which ran from March to June 2023.Its curator Laura Splan, an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, New York, says GUI/GOOEY reconsidered how technology affects our understanding of nature and our constructions of nature. She is joined by Diana Scarborough, arist-in-residence in bionanotechnologist Ljiljana Fruk’s lab at the University of Cambridge, UK.Scarborough describes a project involving Anna Melekhova, an inorganic chemist based in Fruk’s lab, which was influenced by an ancient method used in Mayan art to stabilise pigments using clay.Scarborough says the film she produced to communicate Melekhova’s science depicted a “luminous jelly,” included soundtracks from space, and a conversation generated by ChatGPT to symbolise the new material coming to life. “I was fascinated by the movement of this nonliving material. It looked really as though it is a living organism. I could very easily imagine alien species looking like this,” says Fruk, who also talks about how she and Scarborough first started working together.Will Etheridge, a PhD student in Fruk’s lab, also attended the first screening. “It just represented this kind of embryonic substance that was just coming into being and questioning its own existence,” he says. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the third episode of this six-part Working Scientist podcast series about art and science, artists and illustrators describe examples where accuracy is key, but also ones where they can exert some artistic licence in science-based drawings, sculptures, music and installations.For Lucy Smith, a botanical artist at London’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, measurement and accuracy is important, she says.But accuracy can sometimes take a back seat for illustrator Glendon Mellow, who is also a senior marketing manager a life sciences learning and development company Red Nucleus, based in Toronto, Canada.“When I put wings on trilobites, I’m not too concerned. It’s not likely that anything I do is going to suddenly nudge opinions into someplace they shouldn’t go on these fossils,” he says.But what if the science changes? You need 10 to 20 years to be able to look back on data to see whether something’s accurate or not, says artist Luke Jerram, who describes a 2004 project to produce a glass models of the hepatitis C virus. ”You ask the scientists if it actually look like that?” And they say, 'Well, we don’t really know.'”Sculptor and ceramicist Nadav Drukker outlines the challenges of capturing string theory in art, plus other concepts that form the basis of his theoretical physics research at King's College London.Kelly Krause, creative director at Springer Nature, explains how the art displayed on a Nature front cover comes about, and how she and her team aim to strike the right balance between accuracy, creativity and clarity to draw readers in. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Artist and illustrator Lucy Smith helps botanists to identify new species. Usually they request a set of drawings, she says, with a detailed set of requirements.But Smith, who joined London’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, more than 20 years ago, says: “We also feed back to the scientists and say, 'I’ve seen what you’ve asked me to see. But do you know what, I’ve also seen this? Did you know that this flower has this structure.'”In the second episode of this six-part Working Scientist podcast series about art and science, Smith is joined by other artists with experience of science collaborations. David Ibbett, resident composer at the Harvard and Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, says: “By trying to synthesize these different perspectives on what the science means, we arrive at something new.”Diana Scarborough, artist-in-residence in bionanotechnolost Ljiljana Fruk’s lab at the University of Cambridge, UK, says that the best collaborations are long term ones, requiring also curiosity and passion. “Looking at their research from a different angle opens up opportunities. If I can make a difference at that point, that will be superb.”Each episode in this series concludes with a follow-up sponsored slot from the International Science Council (ISC). The ISC is seeking perspectives from science fiction authors on how science can meet societal challenges, ranging from climate change and food security to the disruption caused by artificial intelligence. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the first episode of this six-part Working Scientist podcast series, Julie Gould explores the history of science and art and asks researchers and artists to define what the two terms mean to them.Like science, art is a way of asking questions about the world, says Jessica Bradford, head of collections and principal curator at the Science Museum in London. But unlike art, science about interrogating the world in a way that is hopefully repeatable, adds UK-based artist Luke Jerram, who creates sculptures, installations and live artworks around the world.Ljiljana Fruk, a bionanotechnology researcher at the University of Cambridge, UK, says artists can be more playful and work faster, whereas scientists need to repeatedly back up their work by data, a more time-consuming exercise. They are joined by Arthur I. Miller, a physicist who launched the UK’s first undergraduate degree in history and philosophy of science in 1993, and Nadav Drukker, a ceramic artist and theoretical physicist at King’s College London.Future episodes in this series will focus on how scientists collaborate with artists and why their partnerships are so important. It will also feature researchers who, like Drukker, juggle research careers alongside creating art. Each episode concludes with a follow-up sponsored slot from the International Science Council (ISC). The ISC is seeking perspectives from science fiction authors on how science can meet societal challenges, ranging from climate change and food security to the disruption caused by artificial intelligence.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Narrative CVs are increasingly being used by funders to capture how a successful grant application will positively impact society and promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Crucially, the narrative format also acknowledges contributions from citizen scientists, local communities and administrator colleagues.UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the largest public funder of UK science, is one adopter. In September 2021 it announced that its new approach would “enable people to better demonstrate their contributions to research, teams, and wider society”.In the final episode of this six-part Working Scientist podcast series about team science, Hilary Noone, research culture lead for the UK Association of Research Managers and Administrators (ARMA), says that to push the boundaries of knowledge, we need to hear from more than just people with a long list of publications to their name. Narrative CVs, she argues, make these other, hidden contributions more visible, and more funders globally should start using them.Nik Claesen, managing director of the Brussels-based European Association of Research Managers and Administrators (EARMA), says his organisation is keen to see greater awareness of the role of research managers and how they support the scientific enterprise. Confusingly, the profession is called different things around the world, he adds.This is the final episode of Team Science, a six-part podcast series that showcases the roles of research managers, administrators and technicians, and their often hidden contributions to the scientific enterprise. It is a collaboration between Nature Careers and Nature Index. The series is sponsored by Western Sydney University. This episode, and others in the series, concludes with a section looking at how it is helping to champion team science. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the penultimate episode of this six-part podcast series about team science, Richard Holliman describes a project involving indigenous researchers in Guyana who wanted to limit insecticide spraying without jeopardising the South American country’s efforts to tackle malaria.The early warning system they developed with Andrea Beradi, an environmental systems researcher and a colleague of Holliman’s at the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK, involved satellite technology, drones and ground monitoring systems.Holliman, who studies engaged research, says members of the wider project team were all paid and listed as co-authors. “That was a really straightforward example of just recognizing contributions from some fabulous people,” he adds. But sometimes, he argues, payment and authorship on a peer-reviewed paper may not be what co-producers are seeking. Instead they may want to co-write a report that would better serve their community’s needs in discussions with policymakers.Helen Manchester, who researches participatory sociodigital futures at the University of Bristol, UK, adds: “For me, there’s a real politics to knowledge production. We really need to be considering all the time when we’re doing our research, to think about our own position as researchers and our relationship to and with other people.”And finally, Lorraine van Blerk, whose project about homeless young people in African cities featured in a previous episode, lists key questions to ask when working with young people in a research setting. “How do we make sure that young people are involved in the research design, in the data collection, and the analysis and impact of data?” she asks.Team Science showcases the roles of research managers, administrators and technicians, and their often hidden contributions to the scientific enterprise, and is a collaboration between Nature Careers and Nature Index. The series is sponsored by Western Sydney University. This episode, and others in the series, concludes with a section looking at how it is helping to champion team science. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Elaine Fitzcharles, a senior lab manager at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), says the role is sometimes wrongly perceived as someone who “couldn’t cut it as a scientist.” Fitzcharles and her team oversee five BAS research stations, its main facility in Cambridge, UK, and the research vessel RRS Sir David Attenborough. Their responsibilities include advising on health and safety, import licenses, and chemicals and kit can be taken into the field. Their skillsets are completely different to researcher colleagues’, she argues in the fourth episode of a six-part Working Scientist podcast series about team science. “Recognising that everybody brings different  things to the table gives you a much stronger organization, and much better science output,” Fitzcharles adds.Terri Adams, a scientific glassblower at the University of Oxford, UK, says speaking up at work helps to promote the contributions of lab managers and technicians: “It pays to ask for investment, to tell people what you can do, and to be proactive in seeking things out and publicising yourself rather than sitting back,” she says.One obvious example of recognition for lab managers and technicians is to acknowledge their contributions in publications. But Devin Lake, a lab manager and PhD student at Michigan State University in East Lansing, has mixed feelings about this. “Some lab managers don’t intend on moving forward in academia, so it doesn’t matter to them whether or not their name is added,” he says.Team Science showcases the roles of research managers, administrators and technicians, and their often hidden contributions to the scientific enterprise.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Before launching his own consultancy in 2021, Simon Kerridge worked as a research manager in UK academia. “We’re the oil in the cogs,” he says of the role, adding: “Obviously, it’s a service profession, but we have to be careful not to be subservient.”But how empowered do research managers and administrators based in other countries feel, particularly those working in nations with rigid hierarchies, or where the profession is less established?Allen Mukhwana leads ReMPro Africa, a research management professional developement programme based in Nairobi. Some professors don't understand why a “lowly research manager” has the audacity to stop their study for ethical or regulatory reasons, she says. “They feel that research managers and administrators are adding extra layers of bureaucracy to their research.”Tadashi Sugihara, a research manager at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan, says a Japanese government scheme to develop the research manager role envisaged that postholders would have a PhD, as he has. Having a doctorate can help build trust between administrators and academic staff as the “customer”, he adds.Kerridge says the research management career pathway is most established in the US, with perhaps three generations from the same family joining the profession. Meeting a project proposal deadline or collaborating on a successful grant application at a research-intensive institution, he adds, will often result in a bottle of wine or box of chocolates from an appreciative researcher. But the pressure on them to increase their research income often results in huge power dynamics, says Kerridge, who cites instances of bullying and of academics setting unreasonably tight deadlines to submit a project proposal. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) collects research outputs from UK universities and is used by the the country’s government to distribute around £2 billion in research funding. But its focus on publications to measure outputs has drawn criticism. The Hidden REF, set up in 2020, looks at alternative measures. Simon Hettrick, its chair and director of the Software Susaintability Institute at the University of Southampton, UK, explains what can be submitted, and why publications are excluded. Gemma Derrick, a former member of the Hidden REF advisory committee who studies research policy and culture at the University of Bristol, UK, talks about its “hidden roles” category, and why some entries moved judges to tears. Kevin Atkins, who has worked as a site engineer at the University of Plymouth’s Marine Biological Association for 32 years, was highly commended in the category. He describes a typical day, and how his work contributes to the wider research enterprise.Another highly commended entry was Growing up on the Streets, an international co-produced research project led by the University of Dundee, which focuses on around 200 young people aged 14 to 20 across three African cities: Accra, Bukavu and Harare. Lorraine van Blerk, a human geography researcher at the university, explains how six young people in each city were recruited as researchers, and how their roles were recognised and celebrated. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the first episode of a six-part podcast series about research culture and team science, research managers Lorna Wilson and Hilary Noone describe how their skills and expertise can help deliver better research outputs, particularly when their contributions are better understood and valued by academic colleagues.Noone, research and innovation culture lead at the funding agency UK Research and Innovation, recalls the discomfort felt all round when an academic colleague tells a meeting: “Just get the admin to do it. That’s what they’re there for, to serve you.”Wilson, who is head of research development at Durham University, UK, describes being overlooked during an external meeting with collaborators where attendees were asked to introduce themselves. She was the only woman and professional services representative in the room. “It was a really disappointing moment for me. Until that point I loved working with my academic colleagues and had felt valued, but then I experienced that,” she says.Wilson, who chairs the UK Association of Research Managers and Administrators (ARMA), says many of her colleagues have expertise in public policy and research impact, so a more positive research culture with parity of esteem between the two teams will result in more funding proposals and higher-profile research outputs.In 2020 an ARMA research culture survey led by Noone identified that many of its members felt there was a “them and us” mindset in the workplace. She and Wilson describe what the organization is doing to address the findings.Team Science is a six-part Working Scientist podcast series, a collaboration between Nature Careers and Nature Index and is sponsored by Western Sydney University. Each episode concludes with a section looking at how it is helping to champion team science. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In November 2021, Maria Leptin became president of the European Research Council. After a long career in biological research, Leptin admits that starting the process of closing her lab at the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) before taking up her new role, was difficult. “You win some you lose some,” she tells Nature careers editor Jack Leeming of this new career step. “It's painful, but that's the decision I've made.”Leptin shares some advice for early career researchers writing grants and how researchers can advocate for more funding of science from politicians. She also speaks about the different types of research that deserve to be funded. It doesn’t all need to be ground-breaking, she says, adding: “Just because it's incremental and is not another breakthrough, doesn't mean it's not important. It's extremely important.”This episode is part of an ongoing Working Scientist podcast series about funding in science. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In late 2021 a BuzzFeed investigation revealed a catalogue of sexual misconduct incidents at the Panama-based Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI). Ecologist Sarah Batterman, one of more than a dozen women to speak out about their experiences, describes what happened to her and the impact it has had on her career.Batterman, who filed a formal complaint to the institute in 2020 after being contacted by other women with similar experiences of harassment and abuse at STRI, tells Adam Levy: “It was almost 10 years of a lot of pain after what happened, which made a lot of my research really difficult. I estimate that I lost three of the 10 years in productivity.”Josh Tewkesbury joined STRI as its director in July 2021, five months before the BuzzFeed story broke. He describes the measures taken to safeguard scientists from sexual harassment and assault since its investigation concluded.“We have been working with the people that came forward for the BuzzFeed article, engaging them in the process of how we make STRI a more safe place. ” he says. “We’ve been just overwhelmed and really thankful with the degree to which those individuals have, have been willing to engage.”This episode is part of a Working Scientist podcast series about freedom and safety in science. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Morteza Mahmoudi witnessed bullying behaviours during a series of lab visits following his PhD in 2009, and now studies the topic alongside his role as a nanoscience and regenerative medicine researcher at Michigan State University in East Lansing. In 2019 he co-founded the Academic Parity Movement, a non-profit which aims to end academic discrimination, violence and bullying across the sector.In the seventh episode of this podcast series about freedom and safety in science, Mahmoudi tells Adam Levy that bullying is triggered by workplace power imbalances and is particularly prevalent in academia with its hierarchical structure, often causing targets to stay silent.Bullying can cause a range of physical and mental health problems, he says. Perpetrators damage individuals, institutions’ reputations and wider society. He outlines steps to take if you find yourself bullied, and how academic institutions can tackle the problem.Mahmoudi is joined by geoscientist Chris Jackson, who left academia in 2022 for a role at engineering consultancy Jacobs, based in Manchester, UK. Jackson welcomes the fact that bullying harassment and discrimination in academia is now more talked about, but says its root cause is an individual’s inability to put themselves in someone else’s position and identify with their personality and experience. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As a child of the Space Age, Jeffrey Gordon dreamed of becoming an astronaut and discovering life on Mars. Instead he found fascinating life forms and interactions closer to home, inside the gastrointestinal tract.The microbiome researcher, winner of the 2023 Global Grants for Gut Health Research Group Prize, tells Julie Gould about his research focus and the workplace culture in his lab at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, Missouri.Gordon also describes the “magical meeting,” that forged a longstanding collaboration with physician Tahmeed Ahmed, executive director of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), and their investigations into how immaturity of the gut microbiota contributes to malnutrition.The two researchers explain how the prize money will help to further strengthen an ongoing two-way knowledge exchange between the US team and their colleagues in Dhaka.This episode of the podcast is sponsored by the Global Grants for Gut Health, supported by Yakult and Nature Portfolio. Learn more about the current call for grant applications and how to apply at this link. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A professor invites colleagues and their partners to a Christmas party but reacts negatively when a young gay researcher asks to bring his future husband along. A Black carnivore researcher conceals their bisexuality and pronoun preferences when doing fieldwork in sub-Saharan Africa.These two experiences are among those recounted in this Working Scientist podcast about the challenges faced by researchers from LGBTQIA+ communities.Paleantologist Alison Olcott, who co-authored a 2020 study of 261 LGBTQIA+ geocientists and their experiences of fieldwork, tells Adam Levy how some academic institutions are changing fieldwork policies in light of the study’s findings.They are joined by Florence Ashley, a bioethics and legal scholar whose research on trans youth care at the University of Alberta, Canada, has resulted in death threats and accusations of grooming.This is the sixth episode of a seven-part podcast series about freedom and safety in science. This episode and the five earlier ones conclude with a follow-up sponsored slot from the International Science Council about how it is exploring freedom, responsibility and safety in science. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe realised she was the only climate researcher in West Texas when she joined Texas Tech University in Lubbock, 15 years ago.Within a few months she was being asked to address community groups about climate change, but also a growing number of posts from social media trolls who disagreed with her, many of them misogynistic in tone.The situation has worsened since October 2022, she says. This follows amendments to Twitter’s free speech policies after the platform changed ownership.“It used to be that I would receive that hate via letters or emails, or phone calls, or official complaints to my university. And those certainly still arrive. But now the deluge of hundreds of hateful comments in a single day that the internet facilitates, whether it is on Twitter, or LinkedIn, or Facebook, or even Instagram, the volume is just 100 times more than it would be without the Internet.”Hayhoe and Chris Jackson, a geoscientist who was extensively trolled after becoming the first Black researcher to deliver a Royal Institution Christmas lecture, describe how employers can protect scientists facing both online and in-person harassment, alongside they personal strategies they have adopted to protect themselves.In the fifth episode of this seven-part podcast series about freedom and safety in science, they are joined by Alfredo Carpineti, a science journalist who chairs Pride in STEM, a UK charity that supports LGBTQIA+ scientists and engineers, and Lauren Kurtz, executive director of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit to help environmental scientists in the United States who find themselves under fire.The first six episodes in this series conclude with a follow-up sponsored slot from the International Science Council about how it is exploring freedom, responsibility and safety in science. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hassoni Alodaini hoped to complete a PhD when war broke out in his native Yemen in 2015.But as research funding dried up as a result of the hostilities, Alodaini fled to Egypt. His arrival there marked the start of a three-year journey to reach the Netherlands, much of it on foot, via Greece, Albania, Kosovo, Serbia, the Czech Republic, and Germany.In the fourth episode of a seven-part podcast series about freedom and safety in science, Alodani describes how it feels to have his research disrupted by war, and his hopes of finishing his doctorate. “I feel that I waste all the effort that I have done in the past. I feel that I begin from new,” he says.Syrian researcher Fares el Hasan also sought sanctuary in the Netherlands. He recounts dodging snipers during his daily journey to the University of Aleppo, prompting his decision to flee after ISIS seized control of the village where his parents lived, in 2013. After completing a Masters’ Degree at Wageningen University on an Erasmus Mundus fellowship, he now works in a support role at the University of Utrecht. “I like my work, but I was looking to do a PhD and becoming a professor or assistant professor. I’m not sure if this is feasible or not,” he says.Finally, Stephen Wordsworth, executive director of the Council for At Risk Academics (CARA), a UK based charity, describes how the organisation’s fellowship programme seeks to place academics who are seeking refuge at its partner universities and research institutes.“They’re not just coming to be supported,” he says of the academics CARA has helped over the years. “They are bringing their own experience and knowledge, sharing that while they’re here. And that can then be the basis of lasting partnerships.”The first six episodes in this seven-part series conclude with a follow-up sponsored slot from the International Science Council about how it is exploring freedom, responsibility and safety in science. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the third episode of this seven-part Working Scientist podcast series about freedom and safety in science, researchers in Nigeria, Venezuela and Ukraine describe what it is like to live and work in struggling economies.Ismardo Bonalde currently earns around $500 a month in his role as an experimental physicist and superconductivity researcher at the Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Research in Parroquia Macarao, but at times it has dropped to $15 in a country where inflation was 234% last year, down from 686% the previous year. His lab closed in 2017 after research funding dried up, he tells Adam Levy.Emmanuel Unuabonah describes the impact of power outages, equipment shortages and brain brains in Nigeria, where he works as a material chemist at Redeemer’s University in Akoda. “I tell my students I have become a hunter,” he says. “I hunt for grants.”Finally, Nana Voitenko describes how the COVID-19 pandemic and war in Ukraine, where she works as a neuroscientist at Kiev Academic University, has wiped out economic gains made after Ukraine gained independence from Soviet Russia in 1991.The first six episodes in this seven-part series concludes with a follow-up sponsored slot from the International Science Council about how it is exploring freedom, responsibility and safety in science. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In January 2022 the Biden administration announced its long-awaited strategy to safeguard scientific integrity across US federal research facilities and agencies.But 16 months on, do researchers working in those organisations feel better protected than they did under the administration led by Joe Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump?The Union of Concerned Scientists, a US non-profit and advocacy organisation based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has tracked more than 200 examples where scientific decision-making processes were politicised during the four-year Trump administration, compared to 98 under the 2001-9 presidency of George W Bush.In the second episode of this six-part Working Scientist podcast series about freedom and safety in science, Jacob Carter, research director at the union’s centre for science and democracy, joins Lauren Kurtz, executive director of the US Climate Science Legal Defence Fund, to describe the impact of the Biden strategy in empowering scientist whistleblowers to speak out.“Don’t punish the people who do come forward,” says Kurtz. “Even if their claims are found to be not a true violation or there was a misunderstanding or something, it’s imperative to not punish people who came forth with good faith claims.”Finally, Evi Emmenegger, who studies aquatic animal pathogens at a US federal research facility, describes what happened after she raised concerns to her supervisors about contaminated waste water being released in nearby wetlands over a six-month period.Each episode in this series concludes with a follow-up sponsored slot from the International Science Council about how it is exploring freedom, responsibility and safety in science. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

efJf Hawkins’ 2021 book A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence, focuses on the neocortex and how it helps us to understand the world around us, before examining the future of artificial intelligence, based on what we already know about the brain.In this final episode of Tales from the Synapse, a 12-part podcast series about neuroscience, Hawkins describes how his book finishes on a philosophical note, by covering the future of humanity in an age of intelligent machines.Hawkins is chief scientist at Numenta, a research company he started 17 years ago in Redwood City, California. He career started in the semiconductor industry but his interest in the theories underpinning brain science was triggered by a 1979 article in Scientific American, written by Francis Crick.“I realized that I don’t think there’s anything more interesting or important to work on, because every human endeavour is based on the brain. Everything we have ever done in the arts and the sciences, and literature and humanities and politics. It’s all brains,” he says.Hawkins’ search for an academic career in theoretical brain science proved fruitless, prompting a return to industry and the founding of both Palm Computing and Handspring. In 2002 he established the Redwood Neuroscience Institute, now based at the University of California Berkeley.Tales from the Synapse is produced in partnership with Nature Neuroscience and introduced by Jean Mary Zarate, a senior editor at the journal. The series features brain scientists from all over the world who talk about their career journeys, collaborations and the societal impact of their research. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.