Plant Kingdom Catherine Polcz

Translator, author and academic Dr Jon Pitt discusses his work in critical plant studies and the representation of plants throughout Japanese literature and media. He shares the joys of his recent translation of the work Tree Spirits Grass Spirits by acclaimed Japanese poet Hiromi Ito, and delves into what we can gain from becoming botanical – or thinking like a plant.

Bio:

Jon L Pitt is Assistant Professor of Japanese Environmental Humanities at the University of California, Irvine. He situates his work at the intersection of Japanese literary and media studies and critical plant studies. He is the translator of poet Hiromi Ito's Tree Spirits Grass Spirits (Nightboat Books, 2013). His first monograph is forthcoming from Cornell University Press. Selected publications include "Documenting Wordless Testimony: Botanical Witnesses of Hiroshima and Chernobyl" in the journal Angelaki, "Becoming Marimo: The Curious Case of a Charismatic Algae and Imagined Indigeneity" in the collected volume Being Algae: Transformations in Water, Plants (Brill, 2024), and "Of Miracles and Mourning: Reading COVID-19 Environmentally in Uchidate Makiko and Ito Seiko" in The Coronavirus Pandemic in Japanese Literature and Popular Culture (Routledge, 2023).

Plant Kingdom is hosted and produced by Catherine Polcz with music by Carl Didur.

Botanist and curator Åsa Krüger discusses her practice in connecting audiences with plants and shares behind the scenes stories from the Gothenburg Botanical Garden, Sweden. Investigating the role of botanical gardens in the modern world, she shares how the living collection is engaged in active research and conservation, and the importance of putting names to the living world around us.

Bio:

Dr Åsa Krüger is a curator at the Gothenburg Botanical Garden, Sweden. During her PhD, Åsa studied the phylogeny, biogeography and evolutionary history of plants in the coffee family (Rubiaceae), focusing on species in Madagascar. During her PhD, she was introduced to the world of botanical gardens and she divided her time between research and the Bergius Botanical Garden in Stockholm, Sweden. Since moving to the Gothenburg Botanical Garden, her focus has been on outreach, teaching and curating the tropical collections. She is the host of the podcast Botaniska trädgårds podden and in 2024 she was the recipient of the Marsh Award for Education in Botanic Gardens.

Plant Kingdom is hosted and produced by Catherine Polcz with music by Carl Didur.

Gamilaroi astrophysicist Karlie Noon dismantles sketchy ambitions to colonize the moon, asteroids and space. Grounded in indigenous sky sovereignty, she presents another way of knowing and caring for the solar system, Milky Way and universe. She shares her knowledge of moon formation, the growing discipline of space environmentalism, her research into the dynamics of the The Milky Way and all we can learn from Sky Country.

Bio:

Karlie Noon is a Gamilaroi astrophysicist and author with over a decade's worth of experience in science communication and advocating for Indigenous astronomical knowledge systems. She is the co-author of the award-winning book Astronomy: Sky Country, which was awarded the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards 2023 People's Choice Awards. She is currently undertaking a PhD in astrophysics at the Australian National University where she researches the chemical and dynamic characteristics of the Milky Way.

This conversation is hosted and produced by Catherine Polcz with music by Carl Didur.

Plant biologist Dr Grace Fleming dissects the secret life of seeds. In a conversation covering everything from seed vaults to space seed trials, she examines the mechanisms of seed dormancy and how seeds sense and interact with their environment.

Bio:

Dr Grace Fleming is an Assistant Professor in Plant Biology at Michigan State University in East Lansing. Her work examines the physiological underpinning of seed dormancy and responses to varying environmental conditions, with a high priority placed on identifying and validating genetic and physiological factors contributing to seed longevity in the soil seed bank. Her research on the underlying mechanisms of seed death, viability and germination has applications in diverse areas including crop cultivation, weed management, and gene bank storage.

This conversation is hosted and produced by Catherine Polcz with music by Carl Didur.

Micropaleontologist Dr Francine McCarthy goes deep into the sediments of Crawford Lake, a small and unassuming lake in the Niagara Escarpment town of Milton, Ontario. In 2023, Dr McCarthy led a team that identified Crawford Lake as the best location on earth that captured evidence of human caused planetary change. Endorsed by the Anthropocene Working Group, It was proposed as the best 'golden spike' site of the Anthropocene. Dr McCarthy shares how she first encountered the lake, her research on microscopic organisms of the Great Lakes Region, and personal reflections on the Anthropocene.

Bio:

Dr Francine McCarthy is a professor of Earth Sciences at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario. She is a micropaleontologist who reconstructs paleoenvironments through careful analysis of small organisms fossilized in lake sediments. Her research has spanned small lake to marine environments and everything in between. She has worked around the world but primarily focuses in the Great Lakes Region of Canada. Her interdisciplinary research has been conducted in collaboration with several geologists, biologists, geographers, and archaeologists from government, university, and the private sector.

This conversation is hosted and produced by Catherine Polcz with Music by Carl Didur.

Micronesian marine botanist and ocean advocate Dr Nicole Yamase meditates on the Pacific with a conversation spanning Hawaiian seaweeds, snorkelling across the Federated States of Micronesia and her submersible expedition to the Mariana trench. She generously shares her cultural perspective as a Micronesian scientist and discusses what lessons she's learned from the sea.

Bio:

Dr. Nicole Yamase is from the islands of Pohnpei and Chuuk in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). Although she is from the FSM, she spent parts of her childhood in the Republic of Palau and Saipan in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. She obtained her Ph.D. in Marine Biology from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa focusing on the ecophysiology of native Hawaiian macroalgae. Nicole is the Director of Impact for OneReef [https://onereef.org/about-us/about/], a non-profit organization that supports community-led ocean management. Through her job, she works closely with local communities and scientists to define, measure, and communicate impact in a meaningful way that interweaves both science and traditional knowledge.

This conversation is hosted and produced by Catherine Polcz with music by Carl Didur.