Today's storyteller is Louise Carroll! Louise is an operational meteorologist based in Australia and also a fellow member of the Homeward Bound program. I was really excited to meet Louise and hear about her work as meteorologist, and the far flung places where her work has taken her. She's worked in Antarctica multiple times, and on remote islands…

Today's storyteller is Dr Courtney Robichaud! Courtney is a wetlands scientist who has primarily researched Phragmites australis - which is a super tall colony forming invasive freshwater plant species. And when I say tall, it's regularly 10-15 feet tall. And Phragmites (aka phrag or roseau) is very good at invading locations and outcompeting nativ…

Today's storyteller is Dr Jonathon Valente! Jonathon is a longtime dear friend of mine who does all kinds of interesting bird and wildlife research and so I'm excited to share this conversation with you! We first met at Louisiana State University (LSU) back in I think like 2007, when I was finishing up my bachelor's degree and he was starting his m…

Today's storyteller is Dr Clay Tucker! Clay is a tree ring scientist, also known as a dendrochronologist, and his specialty is related to hurricanes and climate change. I could have called this episode "Dendrochronology" but probably most people have no idea what that would mean and I didn't want to detract from this fabulous episode!! So trees gro…

Today's storyteller is Jhénelle Williams! Jhénelle is an ocean engineer from Jamaica using nuclear technology to do ocean and environmental science research. If you're wondering how that works and what that even means, don't worry that's the very first thing we talk about! We talk about the types of research they do, how they use nuclear techniques…

Today's storyteller is Brittaney Spruill! Britt is friend and neighbor and architect and today we talk about pretty much everything! ALSO, surprise because Cedric Johnson is back to guest host this time! If you missed Cedric's episode, it's #128. So listen to that one too if you missed it. Anyway back to this episode! Britt is here today to talk ab…

Today's storyteller is Dr Jarrod McKenna! Jarrod is a reproductive biologist at Monash University in Australia and today we talk about the Egyptian spiny mouse and studying reproductive biology. The Egyptian spiny mouse is a rare example of menstruation in mammals, especially a small prey sized mammal, as opposed to large mammals with few to no act…

Today's storyteller is Lisa Caprelli! She is a children's book author and the creator of the Unicorn Jazz book series, which also launched an Amazon show called The Thing I Do. Today Lisa and I talk about the things that people do, social and emotional intelligence, the importance of people sharing what they do to a young audience, and how her psyc…

Today's storyteller is Logan Kline! Logan is a master's student at the University of Maine studying nesting birds using drones! She is using drones to find nests of colonial nesting seabirds on islands in Maine, and training AI to interpret the images. It's really just so cool! I studied shorebirds for my master's, and have a special place in my bi…

Today's storyteller is Dr Cynthia Awruch! Cynthia is a marine biologist studying sharks of Argentina and Tasmania. She's researching shark physiology and reproduction, how physiology helps conservation, and how marine contaminants negatively impact shark reproduction. Today we talk all about her research, and dive into how physiology does impact sh…

Today's storyteller is Dr Bharathi Boppana! Bharathi is a Research Scientist at the Institute of High Performance Computing in Singapore. Today we talk about her work there using computational simulations to model wind and pollution in urban areas. Bharathi's journey is so interesting - her background is in engineering, and her PhD is in applied ma…

Today's storyteller is Dr Karen Joyce! Karen is a geospatial scientist, and today we talk all about drones, remote sensing, geography, and everything in between! Karen wears a lot of hats - she's a lecturer at James Cook University in Australia, she's the cofounder and education director of She Maps (which we'll talk about), and she also runs the d…

Today's storyteller is Paula Silva! Paula is a water resources engineer at a large international consulting firm. If you're like me, when you think water management, you either think of something like in urban areas (for me, that would be the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board, in particular), or in more natural environments (for me, Mississippi Ri…

Today's storyteller is Dr Claire Cannon! Claire is a veterinary oncologist based in Melbourne Australia. Today we talk all about cancer in pets, particularly dogs and cats, and I learned so much about the field, research, and types of cancers that impact our pets. Also, did you know that elephants don't get cancer!? Which is awesome and mind boggli…

Today's storyteller is Dr Marga L Rivas! Marga is a marine ecologist based at the University of Almeria in Spain. She's done a lot of work with sea turtles, marine conservation, ocean plastics, remote sensing, and sometimes all these aspects combined. It's all really interesting work so check it out! Marga is also part of Homeward Bound 5 with me, …

Today's storyteller is Dr Yona Nebel-Jacobsen! Yona is a geochemist based in Melbourne Australia, she works with isotopes, and she teaches me so much cool geology straight away. In this episode we talk about what a geochemist does, if it was the "geo" or the "chem" part that appealed to her, the nonlinear twisty path she took to her current positio…

Today's storyteller is Cedric Johnson! Cedric is very good friend of mine, who is an architect, loves sports, and has the most contagious laughter I've ever heard. I've known Cedric for a long time but I met him because of kickball (yay sports) and our mutual good friend Brittaney Spruill, so I enlisted Britt to guest host with me in this episode!!…

Today's storyteller is Georget Oraha! Georget is a graduate student at Cal State Fullerton, studying tidal influences on mussels in California. We start out talking about her research and how all that went, especially with how the pandemic has impacted her fieldwork and also her study areas. So we talk about all that, but we also have a really good…

Today's storyteller is Dr Scott Davidson! Scott is a peat researcher and this podcast episode is all about peat! Peat is, very generally, partially decayed organic matter, and forms the base for ecosystems like peatlands, bogs, and more. Scott's work is focused on how disturbance and climate change will impact resilience of wetland systems, particu…

Today's storyteller is Dr Anna Frebel! Anna is an astronomer and stellar archaeologist, working as a professor and researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her work focuses on finding the oldest stars in the universe, and y'all this is some really mind blowing work she's doing. In this episode we learn about metal poor stars, …

Today's storyteller is Aedín McAleer! Aedín currently works on the VOCAB project with NUI Galway in Ireland. She's also concurrently doing her master's studying ocean acidification! So today we talk about her work as a research assistant and master's student doing long term monitoring research with ocean acidification and climate change. We talk ab…

Today's storyteller is Dr Joanna Sumner! She is the Manager of Genetic Resources at Museums Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. She's also a self described "flick falling herpetologist" and tune in because asking what that means was my very first question in this episode! Today we talk about the work she does, what that work even is, the kind of coll…

Today's storyteller is Isobel Romero-Shaw! Isobel is a PhD student at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. She studies gravitational waves, which is AWESOME. I'm not even going to pretend to be smart enough to write out an explanation of what that is so just listen in and Isobel will explain it to us. What I will say is that the existence of …

Today's storyteller is Dr Harriet Teare! I got connected with Harriet because she's in the newest cohort of Homeward Bound - HB6 - and I put an all call on Twitter to invite them to come be on the podcast! So Harriet is the first of several episodes featuring HB6ers, and I feel a bit like a sophomore in high school now with the new class coming in …

Today's storyteller is Dr Carol Silberberg! She's a consultation-liaison psychiatrist living in Melbourne, Australia. I met Carol through HB5 - which is the 5th cohort of Homeward Bound - and it was really great to have her on for a one on one conversation. So, today we talk about a LOT of topics, including about her career, what drew her to medici…

Today's storyteller is Dr Auriel Fournier! I found Auriel on Twitter because of her rail research, and then turns out that my friend Dr Craig Miller (Episode 27) now works with her at the Illinois Natural History Survey so he connected us. It's a small world out there y'all, and I was so happy to meet Auriel and have her on the pod. The title of th…

Today's storyteller is Dr Richard Allen White III! Richard is a professor of bioinformatics at UNC Charlotte, and also has a biotech company called RAW Molecular Systems. We talk today about viruses, coronaviruses, viral therapies, eradicating diseases, antibiotic resistance, phage therapy, and a whole host of things. There's something in this epis…

Today's storyteller is Damion Whyte! Damion is a naturalist and biologist, and is currently a PhD student working on conservation and restoration efforts of the Jamaican iguana on Goat Island. This particular species was thought to be extinct in the 1940s, but was rediscovered in 1990, and there's a lot of research going on with this species. It's …

Today's storyteller is Dr Bryan Fry! Bryan is a toxicologist working on how toxins impact health, and working a lot with venom, hence why he also goes by the nickname Venom Doc! Which is also the title of his memoir about his experiences, which we'll talk about a few times in this episode. Bryan works with venom from a variety of species, and uses …

Today's storyteller is Sarah Youngren! She was one of my earliest guests, and a friend of mine from when I was in grad school. In her first episode, we talk about her life as a seabird biologist, which involves "migrating" to different remote areas throughout the year. Sarah and her partner Dan Rapp regularly work out in the Pacific on islands and …

Today's storyteller is Amani Webber-Schultz! Amani is awesome, and this is a great conversation so I'm excited for y'all to hear it. I think I first found Amani on Twitter because of her How It Pants series, where she draws pants on animals and people debate how that critter would wear pants, and I love it. Basically I showed up for the fun critter…

This is episode 23 of the Antarctica series, and it's also the final one in the series. Today's storyteller is the perfect finale though to bring this series full circle. So - today's storyteller is Megan McCuller! You may remember her from the very first episode of the Antarctica series where we heard from her as she was onboard the NSF ship the R…

Today's storyteller is Priya Gandhi! She's a building sustainability consultant based in Melbourne, Australia, and also she's part of Team HB5 with Homeward Bound! Today Priya and I talk about her work, the kinds of changes people can make in their buildings to be more environmentally friendly, and her career journey to get where she is today, and …

Today's storytellers are Kirsten Carlson and Greg Neri! They are co-chairs of the Antarctic Artist and Writers Collective (AAWC), and they went to Antarctica together as part of the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Antarctic Artist and Writers Program in 2017. The AAWC brings together all past members of the NSF program together to collaborate t…

Today's storyteller is Dr Jeremy Conkle! He's a professor at Texas A&M Corpus Christi, and his specialty is pollution in wetlands, including pharmaceuticals and microplastics. I met Jeremy way back in the day when we were both students at LSU, and today we talk about his journey to his current job and research focus! Jeremy has always done really i…

Today's storyteller is Saz Reed! Saz is currently a technician for the Scottish Association for Marine Science, known as SAMS, and in this episode we talk about her time when she was based at Rothera in Antarctica for 18 months! She's done a lot of polar work in both directions, is a diver, loves adventure, and was just a treat to talk to. Saz is a…

Today's storyteller is Dakota Hilliard! He's an undergraduate at the University of North Dakota here in the US, majoring in astrophysics and minoring in space studies! I asked Dakota to be on the podcast because his enthusiasm for space is infectious (in a good way) and I enjoy following him on Twitter, so I thought it would be fun! I know next to …

Today's storyteller is Marlo Garnsworthy! Marlo is an artist, illustrator, author, and science communicator. She has now travelled to Antarctica twice as an education and outreach officer aboard an Antarctic cruise ship, which is a really important role aboard those ships because they educate and interpret the landscape and environment for passenge…

Today's storyteller is Dr Yoshi Maezumi! Yoshi is a paleoecologist and if you don't know what that is (like I didn't) don't worry - that's the very first thing we talk about! She studies the history and long term interactions of people and the environment, specifically focused on how fire plays a role. We talk about how she does this research in th…

Today's storyteller is Dr Michael Schrimpf! He's currently doing a postdoc position at the University of Manitoba, and his research interests are species distributions, bird conservation, and species interactions. Today though he's here to talk about his PhD research at Stony Brook University, where he was in the same lab at Alex Borowicz (Episode …

Today's storyteller is Pat Lennard! He's a PhD student at Leiden University in the Netherlands and from Tasmania. His background is in biotechnology, One Health, and infectious diseases. We start this episode talking about his work with Tasmanian Devils and their transmissible cancer called the Devil Facial Tumor Disease (also known as DFTD). His w…

Today's storyteller is Dr Mike Gooseff! He's a professor at the University of Colorado and specializes in hydrology in streams, glaciers and frequently in polar regions, in this case Antarctica! He's also the lead on the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long Term Ecological Research Project, which studies the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems in the McMurdo Dr…

Today's storyteller is Rebecca Atkins! She's a PhD student at the University of Georgia studying marsh periwinkles in salt marshes. Marsh periwinkles are an adorable little purplish snail found in coastal salt marshes around the coastal United States. I've always seen them when I do field work but got to learn so much about them from Rebecca. We al…

Today's storyteller is Dr Pacifica Sommers! She is a microbial ecologist based at the University of Colorado - Boulder interested in the ways that microbes drive interactions in ecosystems, and has studied this in (spoiler alert) Antarctica! Pacifica's research is centered in the Taylor Valley area of Antarctica, which may sound familiar to steady …

Today's storyteller is me! This is a remix version of Episode 1, where I share the story of how I became a field biologist. I have re-edited it, added stories, and expanded on things I glossed over in the first version. I won't re-release episodes regularly, but I have learned so much about storytelling, editing, and podcasting in general so I want…

Today's storyteller is Schuyler Borges! They are a PhD candidate in Astronomy & Planetary Science at Northern Arizona University. Their research, in their own words, is aimed at "understanding how Antarctic microbial communities form remote and in situ biosignatures detectable on rocky, cold planetary bodies in and outside our Solar System". I just…

Today's storyteller is Dr Emlyn Resetarits! She's an aquatic disease ecologist specializing in snails and their parasites, and currently doing a post doc at the University of Georgia. Today we talk all about her research studying aquatic snails and their parasites, including with California Horn Snail in California marshes, and marsh periwinkles in…

This is a special one year anniversary episode! Exactly one year ago today I released that very first episode, the one in which I interview myself, and started this whole podcast thing rolling. I am very appreciative of the support over the last year, grateful to have met so many amazing humans, and happy to have learned so much from everyone, and …

Today's storyteller is Alicia Purcell! She's a PhD candidate at Northern Arizona University, and her background is in microbial ecologist. In her own words, Alicia research is "using field based techniques to understand how the growth of soil microbes change in response to warming temperatures. I'm studying this both in Northern Arizona and on the …

Today's storyteller is Anna Colucci! Anna is here today to tell the story of how she grew up in Italy and spent time in the summers on the Mediterranean, where she was fascinated by the water and got interested in marine biology and marine mammals. Our paths often meander and so her path ultimately took her all the way to Australia, then back to Eu…