The Global Hearth

Global Studies Institute

A podcast for conversations that stoke the mind and warm the heart. How does power shape the stories told in a changing world? How can the earth capture carbon to slow climate change? Can malnutrition-related disabilities in Cambodia and beyond be prevented? These questions guide conversations with University of Oregon researchers on The Global Hearth, a podcast hosted by the Global Studies Institute - University of Oregon. In a time of rapid change, The Global Hearth offers a place to slow down, tune in, and explore how UO’s community of inquiry is making an impact around the world.

Episodes

  1. 23H AGO

    Chris Chavez: "Cultivating a critical lens: Power and storytelling in the media."

    “I’m interested in voice in the collective sense. Who gets to have a voice? Which communities get to be heard? Which other communities are rendered voiceless in this process?” - Chris Chavez, Director of the Center for Latina/o and Latin American Studies and Carolyn Silva Chambers Distinguished Professor of Advertising  Professor Chris Chávez joins us at the Global Hearth to explore how the media and advertising industries systematically turn down the volume on Latinx voices, limiting access to freedom of expression and stifling diversity in representation.  Using National Public Radio as a case study, Chris explores how music can serve as a vibrant form of resistance, while documenting the institutional privileging inherent in training protocols that coerce journalists into neutralizing their cultural identities and homegrown accents to achieve commercial viability.  Chris ultimately leads us into the question of why a free press truly matters, who the work is for, and what listeners can do to diversify and critically expand their algorithms to more accurately reflect the vibrancy that surrounds the increasingly globalized world.   Quick links:   What is “sociolinguistics?”  Let's explore "Fractal Recursivity"  Reporters Without Borders: World Press Freedom Index  World Press Freedom Day  Octavio Paz, Nobel Laureate  Goodby, Silverstein, & Partners  Don’t Shoot the Journalist!  Laufer, Peter. Don’t Shoot the Journalists : Migrating to Stay Alive. London: Anthem Press, 2025. Print.   The Sound of Exclusion: NPR and the Latinx Public  Chávez, Christopher. The Sound of Exclusion : NPR and the Latinx Public. 1st ed. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2021. Print.  Isle of Rum : Havana Club, Cultural Mediation, and the Fight for Cuban Authenticity  Chávez, Christopher. Isle of Rum : Havana Club, Cultural Mediation, and the Fight for Cuban Authenticity. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2024. Print.  Chris Chavez’s Google Scholar Page  Lastly, remember to follow University of Oregon Global Ducks on LinkedIn, and your questions, comments, insights (and favorite poetry!) are welcomed via email to gsi@uoregon.edu.  Thank you for joining us at the Global Hearth.

    40 min

  2. MAY 4

    Jeff Measelle & Dare Baldwin: “Protecting Infant Developmental Health in Cambodia Through Thiamine Supplementation”

    “The first thousand days of life is when we’ve got to get it right.” - Jeff Measelle, Co-Director of the Center for Global Health, Professor of Global Health and Psychology  “Jeff and I had the privilege to go to Cambodia to help train the staff on how to carry out the neurocognitive tasks that we designed for the study. And, these are such thoughtful, talented, hardworking, determined, dedicated, young researchers traveling to rural village homes every day of the week, week after week, month after month, often in monsoon rains, down muddy tracks, for two hours, carrying heavy backpacks with equipment.” - Dare Baldwin, Professor of Psychology and faculty member in the Clark Honors College  Join Dare Baldwin and Jeff Measelle at the Global Hearth to explore the fragile yet powerful connection between maternal nutrition and a child's lifelong potential, bringing light to a silent crisis in Cambodia where thiamine deficiency puts infants at risk of lethal beriberi disease and cognitive stunting.  Jeff and Dare share how their research is demonstrating how the attunement between a parent and their infant, which is so important to early learning, can be made vulnerable by the lack of a single micronutrient. Ultimately, the project seeks to break the cycle of poverty and hidden hunger through sustainable, society-wide interventions like food fortification, protecting the foundational first 1,000 days of life for every child, and the community that cares for them.   Quick Links:   What is neuroplasticity?  What is Beriberi disease?  Thiamine supplementation     Let's learn the Khmer language!  Dare Baldwin’s Google Scholar Page  Jeff Measelle’s Google Scholar Page  With gratitude for support from:   Hellen Keller International  Weiss Asset Management Foundation    Lastly, remember to follow University of Oregon Global Ducks on LinkedIn, and your questions, comments, insights (and favorite poetry!) are welcomed via email to gsi@uoregon.edu.  Thank you for joining us at the Global Hearth.

    57 min

  3. APR 27

    Gyoung-Ah Lee: “Food, Memory, and Ancient Identity”

    “Although we have very limited data, if we just accept that people are people and they are in a way like us, [we understand] they want to love and be loved.” - Gyoung-ah Lee, Professor of Anthropology, Asian Studies, and Food Studies  Archaeologist Gyoung-Ah Lee invites us to look past the broken stones and pottery shards of the Neolithic period to see the profoundly human stories they carry. Reframing the ancient world not as a cold struggle for survival, but as a place where people expressed themselves artistically, leaving behind touching artifacts such as a Neolithic infant's footprint preserved in a clay plate.  The conversation re-stories common tropes to show how the move from foraging to farming was a sophisticated, balanced transition guided by Traditional Ecological Knowledge—a "bottom-up" practice centered on stewardship and resilience. By illuminating the communal hearths of ancient Korea, Professor Lee shows us that food has always been more than just nutrition; it is a medium for connection and community that has linked humans and our ancestors together for thousands of years.  Quick links:   Han Kang, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2024  Jeju Island, Korea  Gyoung-ah Lee’s Google Scholar Page  Lastly, remember to follow University of Oregon Global Ducks on LinkedIn, and your questions, comments, insights (and favorite poetry!) are welcomed via email to gsi@uoregon.edu.  Thank you for joining us at the Global Hearth.

    55 min

  4. APR 20

    Xiaobo Su: “From Tea Tables to Tourism Economies: Reshaping Home in a Globalized World”

    “I think the beauty of geography is you can study pretty much everything, from animal to trees to mountains to human beings...tea for me is the entry point to understand how people socialize with unfamiliar people.” - Xiaobo Su,  Director of the APRU Sustainable Cities and Landscapes Program and Professor of Asian Studies, Climate Studies, Geography  Xiaobo Su, a human geographer at the University of Oregon, joins the Global Hearth to explain how everyday human behaviors—from tea drinking in Chinese tourist towns to cross-border smuggling along the China–Myanmar border—reveal the spatial dynamics of power, belonging, and political economy. Drawing on the work of philosophers like Antonio Gramsci, he reframes concepts like home, governance, and cultural heritage as negotiated processes shaped by cooperation, compromise, commodification, and the lived realities of communities navigating inequality and state control.  Quick links:   Antonio Gramsci  Geographic Information System (GIS)   Urban State Venturism   Xiaobo Su’s Google Scholar Page   Research locations referenced in this episode:   Lijiang (Lijiang Ancient Town), China  Guangzhou, China  Dongguan, China  Ruili, China  Muse, Myanmar  Music attribution: Track: Bella Ciao, SE  Music by https://www.fiftysounds.com  Lastly, remember to follow University of Oregon Global Ducks on LinkedIn, and your questions, comments, insights (and favorite poetry!) are welcomed via email to gsi@uoregon.edu.  Thank you for joining us at the Global Hearth.

    46 min

  5. APR 13

    Lucas Silva: “Co-Creative Approaches to Complex Climate Processes”

    “Where we live here in the northwest, these are the most productive and biodiverse forests of their kind in the world. Not only that, they hold vast amounts of carbon, vast amount of water and deep, deep cultural roots and historical, traditional ecological knowledge of environmental changes, sustainability, and stories untold of how people figure out how to live here and how to understand and love and be part of the system in sustainable ways.” - Lucas Silva, Director of the Amazon Sustainability Center, Professor of Environmental Studies and Biology, and Director of the Soil Plant Atmosphere (SPA) Lab at University of Oregon  Professor Lucas Silva reflects on how his passion as an environmental scientist has taken him around the globe, from field sites in the Amazon Basin to the Tibetan Plateau. At the Global Hearth, he shares the key lessons and insights he has picked up along the way: what it takes to truly speak your mind, how young scientists can prepare themselves for success working in interdisciplinary contexts, and how his current co-creative work with Indigenous communities is leading to surprising scientific breakthroughs. Learn about this team’s dynamic work on the CARBS initiative, which uses isotopic analysis, environmental DNA, and artificial intelligence to better understand how ecosystems function, adapt, and respond to human disturbance and climatic change.  Quick links:    Amazon Sustainability Center  The CARBS Initiative  Soil Plant Atmosphere (SPA) Lab  Terra Preta, commonly known as “Amazon Dark Earth”  Lucas Silva’s Google Scholar Page  Lastly, remember to follow University of Oregon Global Ducks on LinkedIn, and your questions, comments, insights (and favorite poetry!) are welcomed via email to gsi@uoregon.edu.  Thank you for joining us at the Global Hearth.

    1 hr

  6. APR 2

    Elly Vandegrift: “Research, Innovation, Impact — Worldwide”

    “The work that we do and the work that we support has a real impact on people, the future of individuals, communities, and whole countries.” - Elly Vandegrift, Assistant Vice-Provost for Global Partnerships and Director of the Global Studies Institute (GSI)  Join us at the Global Hearth as Elly Vandegrift explores how research, resilience, and relationship-building are at the core of meaningful global engagement.   Learn how GSI supports internationally focused grants, faculty research centers, global travel for scholars, and cross-border collaborations that translate scholarship into tangible impact.    Quick Links to GSI research centers:    Amazon Sustainability Center   APRU Sustainable Cities and Landscapes Program   Center for Applied Second Language Studies   Center for Asian & Pacific Studies   Center for Cyber Security and Privacy   Center for Global Health   Global Justice Program   Islamic Studies Initiative   UNESCO Crossings Institute   US-Vietnam Research Center   Additional Resources:     Elly Vandegrift’s google Scholar Page  GSI’s available Resources and Funding   H.J. Andrew’s Experimental Forest   To learn more about Dr. Aisha Al-mana’s work in Saudi Arabia, make sure to check out her 2026 memoir, I Am My Own Guardian.  Māniʻ, ʻĀʼishah Muḥammad ʻAbd Allāh, and Nicola Sutcliff. I Am My Own Guardian. United States: Herstory House, 2026. Print. Lastly, remember to follow University of Oregon Global Ducks on LinkedIn, and your questions, comments, insights (and favorite poetry!) are welcomed via email to gsi@uoregon.edu. Thank you for joining us at the Global Hearth.

    28 min

  7. SEASON 1 TRAILER

    Season 1 Trailer

    Get a sneak peek of what’s to come this season on The Global Hearth as we explore the international research, ideas, and conversations happening in the Global Studies Institute at the University of Oregon

    3 min

Trailer

About

A podcast for conversations that stoke the mind and warm the heart. How does power shape the stories told in a changing world? How can the earth capture carbon to slow climate change? Can malnutrition-related disabilities in Cambodia and beyond be prevented? These questions guide conversations with University of Oregon researchers on The Global Hearth, a podcast hosted by the Global Studies Institute - University of Oregon. In a time of rapid change, The Global Hearth offers a place to slow down, tune in, and explore how UO’s community of inquiry is making an impact around the world.

Information

  • Creator
    Global Studies Institute
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    7
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Global Studies Institute
  • Show Website
    The Global Hearth

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