Being Giants Dr. Joyce Yager & Resherle Verna

This week, Joyce speaks with wildlife biologist Alex Troutman.  Alex is a wildlife biologist who has worked a lot of cool jobs, like being a bat biologist in Malaysia, working with sea turtles for the US National Park Service, working at the US Fish and Wildlife service, and Zoo Atlanta, just to name a few. Alex is currently a master's student at Georgia Southern University, where he also earned his BS in biology. In this episode Alex and Joyce speak about some of the jobs he's had and the glamorous and less glamorous sides of them. You'll hear about how important it was to Alex personally to have mentors and role models that have encouraged him in science who are people of color, and how Alex is actively mentoring younger black wildlife biologists. You'll also hear us geek out about bats and sea turtles and you'll hear about what ocean observing is and how it works on a dredging ship. Alex’s philosophy is that nature is for everyone, and we couldn’t agree more.

You can connect with Alex on instagram @N8ture_AL or twitter @N8ture_AL.



Music by:

DJ Williams - 75 & Lower

This week Joyce speaks with Dr. Zoë McKellar. Zoë is the managing editor at Stallard Scientific Editing. After receiving her MA in music, she worked a long list of jobs including McDonald's manager, musician, medical administrator, insurance, and many others. While coordinating employment medicals for petroleum geologists in Aberdeen, Scotland, she decided to go back to school and get her BS in geology and petroleum geology and afterwards earned her PhD in Geology at the University of Aberdeen. Zoë is actively working and publishing in Earth science and volunteers in several science outreach ventures, including House of Science.

In this episode we discuss her circuitous route to geosciences, what she learned working in large corporate environments, barriers to becoming a geoscientist from a class, mobility, and monetary standpoint (and in particular how field work and field camps can end up prohibiting participation in geoscience for some individuals), and much more.

You can connect with Zoë on twitter @PalaeoSeds, or on linkedin. You can see some of her work (and pretty figures) in this open access article.



Music by:

DJ Williams - 75 & Lower

This week, Joyce speaks with Jalal Awan, a PhD candidate at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. They discuss the coffee cup-sized air quality monitoring devices Jalal is using to test cheaper ways to measure air quality in the Los Angeles area. They also discuss Jalal's master's degree from the University of Southern California, where he was a Fulbright scholar, and his ongoing work as vice president of the Los Angeles Fulbright chapter. We discuss a bit about technology policy, Jalal's externship in Sitka, Alaska, and how smaller non-profit organizations can often have more direct and tangible impact than large organizations in the policy world. We talk about that and more in this episode.

Here is the NPR article that Jalal, for the record, does correctly talk about, which discusses how communities of color in the US are much more impacted by air pollution.

You can also read some of the writing Jalal has done about technology policy, like his piece on blockchain's potential for web-based vaccination records.

During the pandemic, Jalal co-founded Raabta - a 501 c (3) engaged in connecting primary school children in Pakistan with their peers in the US (you can connect with the organisaiton here).

All opinions expressed in this podcast are Jalal’s own – and do not reflect the organizations he is affiliated with. To learn more about his work and get connected, you can contact Jalal on twitter @jalal_awan, instagram @jalal_awan, or linkedin.

This week, Resherle chats with Charlotte Fagan, who is a Lead Analyst at National Grid in their Leadership Development Program. Additionally, she's a board member at the Village Bicycle Project. Prior to this, she earned both an MBA and a master's degree in Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles. In the episode, they talk about how Charlotte transitioned into the energy industry, her background in international development, and the time that she has spent working at various nonprofit organizations focusing on the use of bicycles.  


Here are a list of some of the organizations/terms mentioned in the episode:


National Grid Leadership Development Program
Village Bicycle Project
Thomas J. Watson Fellowship
Bikes Not Bombs
Southern California Edison
Beltway Bandits


You can connect with Charlotte here:


LinkedIn 
Twitter


Music by: 

DJ Williams - 75 & Lower

This week, Joyce speaks with Dr. Kate Voss. Kate was the 2019–2020 Congressional Science Fellow with the American Geophysical Union, where she worked in senator Tom Udall's office. Kate's background bridges geochemistry and the policy world. We discuss her experience and a science–policy fellow, some of her work as a hydrologist and geochemist, the sometimes extractive nature of geoscience research and how to better conduct research, and ways to better engage communities when doing field-based research.



A couple books we mention:

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

All We Can Save edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katherine K. Wilkinson

A few fellowships we mention:

AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowships

AAAS Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellowship

CUAHSI (Universities Allied for Water Research) funding opportunities



Music: DJ Williams - 75 & Lower

This week, Joyce chats with Amanda Godbold, a PhD candidate at the University of Southern California in the department of Earth Sciences where she researches conservation paleoecology. Prior to this, she was an undergraduate student at the University of Calgary where she earned a bachelors in Geology. They talk about Amanda's academic journey as a student with a learning disability and her growing up experiencing homelessness, how those experiences gave her insight into developing resilience and helping better serve at risk youth. Also, they talk about how the pandemic has impacted her fieldwork and her involvement with Paleoconnect, which aims to make the Paleosociety more inclusive.


You can follow/connect with Amanda on Twitter.


Music:
DJ Williams - 75 & Lower