Danni Washington - Apple Podcasts

The Genius Generation

The Genius Generation

Seeker and TRAX from PRX

11/08/2022

Tavish Sharma

After witnessing a mismatch in food bank donations — massive lines at one, and barely any supply at others — Tavish Sharma created Solve Hunger (https://www.solvehungercorp.org/). His app aims to address food shortages and rally communities around their local food banks, and it’s already recruited over 60 food banks, pantries, and soup kitchens.

15 min
22/03/2022

Science Pioneers with Danni Washington

Who proved the existence of dark matter? On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice learn about hidden figures of science you need to know about with author and science communicator Danni Washington. NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/show/science-pioneers-with-danni-washington/ Thanks to our Patrons Robert Anderson, Meagan Patrice, cael maurer, Marc-Anthony Serrano, Emily McKnight, Dave Fulton, lily_neko739, Josh Wyner, Tyler Mutchie, and Vanefede for supporting us this week. Photo Credit: Acagastya, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of StarTalk Radio ad-free and a whole week early.Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

50 min
10/04/2025

Get to Know Danni Washington

Meet science communicator Danni Washington, who brought us the story of environmental activist Xiye Bastida. Danni shares her love of the sea and how she began her science career. And tells the story of meeting Xiye in person at a climate march. This podcast is a production of Rebel Girls. It’s based on the book series Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls. This episode was produced by Isaac Kaplan-Woolner, with sound design and mixing by John Marshall Media. Our executive producers were Katie Sprenger and Jes Wolfe. Original theme music was composed and performed by Elettra Bargiacchi. A special thanks to the Danni Washington and the whole Rebel Girls team, who made this podcast possible. Until next time, stay rebel! [This episode originally aired on April 20, 2021]

8 min
23/06/2022

Angela Zhan

What if there were a way to biodegrade plastic, instead of having it collect in landfills and pollute oceans? Angela Zhan discovered bacteria that can do just that. The microscopic organisms that she found naturally eat up plastic, turning it into much more environmentally friendly products. Next, she’s scaling up her experiments from lab beakers to an entire bioreactor.

12 min
08/07/2021

Gia Mar Ramos

Ever since she was a little girl, Gia Mar Ramos had an interest in computer science and technology, but as she got older she noticed something: there were very few girls in her technology classes… so Gia decided to do something about that. The summer before high school she started a non-profit organization called Girl Innovation (https://www.girlinnovation.net/) dedicated to closing the gender gap in computing and technology. She does this by educating middle school girls about computer science on her home island of Puerto Rico.

13 min
20/05/2021

Chander Payne

Chander Payne had a life changing moment in his high school cafeteria (how many of us can say that?). He noticed his fellow classmates didn’t have access to healthy foods like fruit and vegetables - so he decided to grow them himself. Chander started an urban farm at his high school, growing fresh fruits and veggies right where they were needed the most. That project soon blossomed into a full-fledged organization called Urban Beet (www.urbanbeet.org/), creating urban farms in other schools and homeless shelters in the Washington D.C. area.

11 min
13/05/2021

Kyla Guru

The summer before her freshman year of high school, Kyla Guru discovered a unique passion for cybersecurity at the NSA GenCyber Camp. It was there she discovered that 90% of cyberattacks were due to human error. To combat this problem, Kyla founded Bits N’ Bytes Cybersecurity Education (https://www.bitsnbytes.us.com/) whose mission is educating and equipping people with the cybersecurity skills they need for the future. In addition to giving speeches and holding workshops, Bits N’ Bytes also designs downloadable lessons for teachers, so they can spread the word about cybersecurity to their own students.

14 min
14/07/2022

Samyak Shrimali

Hand-washing is an easy way to prevent the spread of germs, but many people (even doctors!) aren’t doing it correctly. Samyak Shrimali created Sanjeevani, a system to solve this problem in hospitals. Sanjeevani combines sensors and a computer model to track whether health care workers wash their hands according to World Health Organization guidelines.

13 min
12/08/2021

Nala Hayden

Nala is the creator of the non-profit organization MyHairLove. Her mission is teaching younger black children how to care for their natural hair while breaking stigmas and negative stereotypes at the same time. She plans to do this through YouTube, educational “hair kits,” and live workshops with elementary and middle school aged children.

12 min
07/07/2022

Ela Gokcigdem

A concussion left Ela Gokcigdem with time on her hands and plenty of ideas. Drawing from white noise therapy that helped her recover, she designed ePearl Technologies, a wireless, noise-canceling pair of earbuds made from recyclable materials. Since then, she’s become involved in climate activism and documentary filmmaking.

12 min
01/07/2021

Caleb Anderson

Caleb Anderson is a college student studying aerospace engineering at the prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology. Did we mention Caleb is 12? Yeah, Caleb has always been pretty smart. He was learning fractions at two years old, and had already qualified for Mensa by age three… one of the youngest people to ever do so. Now that he’s pursuing his degree in aerospace engineering, Caleb has big dreams to work at the likes of NASA or SpaceX. We’re confident he’s going to do great things.

11 min
09/06/2022

Mary Catherine Hanafee LaPlante

One day at softball practice, Mary Catherine Hanafee LaPlante noticed that noxious pesticides and herbicides were being sprayed on the field directly next to her. After arming herself with information and scientific research, she founded Speak Up Green Up (https://www.speakupgreenup.org/) to lobby her district to swap in less harmful alternatives and encourage others to do the same.

14 min
22/07/2021

Victoria Ren

When Victoria was 13 years old she had an epiphany at a speech and debate summer camp where her peer mentor, Ashna supercharged her learning experience. When Victoria and Ashna realized how powerful peer-to-peer mentorship could be they knew they wanted to spread that power to others. The result is the organization STEM & Buds (https://www.stemandbuds.org/) that uses the capacity of mentorship to foster a love of science in young people.

13 min
16/06/2022

Lino Marrero

At 15, Lino Marrero is already a serial entrepreneur: his inventions include the String Ring and the Sole Solution. Most recently, he designed a prototype for the Kinetic Kickz 2.0, a shoe insert that converts physical activity into an electrical current that can charge a cellphone. One day, he hopes to perfect his invention and hook the world on renewable kinetic energy.

10 min
30/06/2022

Varun Chandrashekhar

Inspired by the challenges that paralyzed people like Stephen Hawking face when communicating, Varun Chandrashekhar designed SpeakUp (https://www.varunchandrashekhar.com/research/research/speakup). His invention is a speech aid that picks up on a person’s brain and translates those impulses into speech. The device relies on a kind of computer analysis called machine learning, which Varun taught himself.

12 min
01/04/2021

Avi Schiffmann

Very early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, 18-year-old Avi Schiffmann recognized people needed a quick and easy way to get accurate information about the spread of the disease. So Avi put his computer programming skills to use and created nCoV2019.live - one of the world’s very first coronavirus trackers. The site quickly became an invaluable resource to millions of people all over the world and earned Avi the title of 2020 Webby Person of the Year - presented by Dr. Anthony Fauci himself.

11 min
24/06/2021

Anna Du

For as long as she can remember, 14-year-old Anna Du has had a deep love for the ocean. One day while collecting sea glass, Anna had an epiphany about how much plastic was polluting it. And she got to work. Since her realization Anna has developed an underwater robot that can detect microplastics deep in the ocean, started developing a model to predict where plastic pollution will occur, and written a book about her journey. Did we mention she’s 14?

13 min
17/06/2021

Max Feldman

Max Feldman believes the key to saving our planet is educating the next generation about the problems facing our environment today. And so that’s exactly what he does with his organization The Tomorrow Project (https://www.tomorrowprojectus.org/). They put on in-person and virtual workshops for kids all over the country to learn about the importance of being sustainable and how to live green lifestyles. What makes all of this even cooler is that Max and the entire team at The Tomorrow Project are all high school or college students.

13 min
06/05/2021

Zachary Siegel

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and schools closed, high school junior Zachary Siegel found himself with a lot more time on his hands. He used that free time to explore his passions (like computer programming), but quickly realized this was also an opportunity to share his passions with others. So he founded The Youth Passion Project (https://www.youthpassionproject.org/). It’s a platform for high school students to teach classes to young learners about the things they are most passionate about. The classes are completely free and cover a huge variety of topics from video game design to philosophy to Bollywood dance. Since its founding in March of 2020, Zach’s organization has grown exponentially, with thousands of students enrolled and chapters across the US, Canada, and South Korea!

13 min
15/07/2021

Peter Gordon

Peter was a freshman in high school when he learned that monarch butterflies are disappearing at an alarming rate, so he decided to act. He formed an organization called Homes4Monarchs (https://homes4monarchs.wixsite.com/milkweed) which has distributed 10s of 10,000s of milkweed seed packets all around his native city of Chicago. If you've never heard of milkweed, that’s okay. The one thing you need to know is that it's essential to the survival of the species.

13 min

Danni Washington sur Apple