IDEAs in STEM Ed Darren Lipomi

My guest today is Neil Thompson: author, speaker, engineer, and host of the  teach the geek podcast. Neil is an advocate of science and engineering  education, a children's author and a educator in the area of improving  the speaking skills of technical professionals. In particular, Neil  founded the teach the geek to speak platform which contains many helpful  materials, including videos and other resources to help you as a  technical professional, including scientist and engineer, make your  ideas come to life to technical and non-technical audiences alike. I got  to know Neil a few months ago when I was a guest on his the teach the  geek podcast, and I almost feel that I have to give him a producer  credit for ideas in stem Ed, because he has actually connected me with  the last few podcast guests. It is my honor to speak to him today.

My  guest today is Jennifer Swanson. Jennifer is an author of science books  for children as well as a public speaker and podcaster. She got her  undergraduate degree in chemistry from the US Naval Academy, and has a  masters degree in K thru 8 science education. She is the author of over  40 books, including Save the Crash-Test Dummies and Outdoor School:  Rocks, Fossils, and Shells, which won the Kirkus Best Nature Book in  2021. In addition to her writing career, Jennifer is also a middle  school science instructor for the Johns Hopkins University’s Center for  Talented Youth. And also co-hosts a weekly podcast, Solve It! For Kids.  She is also involved in a million other initiatives that would take me a  full hour to list, which you can find on her website, jenniferswansonbooks.com.

In this episode, host Darren Lipomi sits down with Maynard  Okereke, the Hip Hop MD. Maynard is a trained civil and environmental  engineer who has developed a second career in scientific communication  for young people and particularly young people of color. He arrived at  this interest from previous careers in engineering and then acting and  music. He is also a seasoned entrepreneur, forgive the pun, with his own  line of flavoring salt which are vegan and number one selling brand on  Amazon. He is the host of hip-hop science as his alter ego, Hip Hop MD.  He is a renowned public speaker and advocate for diversity in STEM, He  is a true Renaissance human being, and it is my honor to check in with  him today.

Irene Reizman is an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at the  Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute Indiana. Irene  obtained her bachelor’s of engineering degree at the University of  Michigan in 2008 and her PhD at MIT in 2015. She has industrial  experience at LS9, Whirlpool, and Schott AG. Her research interests  include biochemical engineering, including metabolic engineering of  microorganisms for renewable chemical production. Her teaching interests  largely parallel this focus, with additional interests in chemical  process and product design, and biotechnology. Dr. Reizman has many  honors and awards, including the German Ministry of Research and  Education “Green Talents” Award, and recently was named the Alfred R.  Schmidt Endowed Chair for Teaching Excellence.

In this episode, I sat down with Shantanu (SK) Sharma, Chief Analytics Officer at Ingrooves Music, a music analytics company working with some of the world’s top artists. Ingrooves was recently acquired by Universal Music Group. Here, SK—who is a computational chemical physicist by training—talks about his unusual trajectory from gifted teenager in an underresourced neighborhood to grad school to finance to investing to engineering entrepreneur. I certainly learned a lot from this conversation and I hope you find it inspiring and helpful.

Dr. Wendy Marie Ingram is a molecular biologist, psychiatric epidemiologist and advocate for mental health among academic researchers. She is the Founder and CEO of Dragonfly Mental Health, a nonprofit that develops individualized programs for institutions to address the mental health needs of their researchers. In this conversation, Wendy and I discuss the personal circumstances that led her to found Dragonfly, why researchers are especially prone to poor mental health, the differences between stress, distress, disease, and crisis, resources for students, resources for institutions, and the connection between biology and psychiatric epidemiology.