April is the cruelest month! It's a rough time in higher ed: originally our theme for this episode was just "being tired." Work, travel, bills, dying houseplants. We push through our exhaustion to talk about the musical Hamilton, Get Out, Ghost in the Shell, and that awful Pepsi commercial with Kendall Jenner. The PhDivas just came back from their visit to Earlham College where they gave talks on their individual research and on bridging the STEM/humanities divide. Connecting with students and o...
Apr 07, 2017•54 min
Our latest guest Brianda is at a turning point: pursue a PhD in STEM or follow her dream of growing Flyy Science, which combines science communication with hip hop and style. This is a coming-of-age in academia episode that everyone can relate to! Liz and Xine chat with Brianda about her current work as a certified Medical Laboratory Scientist, the gap between STEM degrees and jobs, and the journey from realizing you love something to what it means to develop a career. Why don't kidneys get the ...
Mar 13, 2017•1 hr 1 min
Black child joy is a fundamental reason Black History Month needs to exist. We recap Black History Month 2017 with Danielle Morgan, Assistant Professor of English at Santa Clara University, from Beyonce's pregnancy with twins to Moonlight, Fences, and Hidden Figures at the Oscars. The figure of the Black child is important to address beyond sentimentality: Danielle and Liz explain to Xine what celebrating Black History Month meant to them as children. How do we make space for respecting all form...
Mar 02, 2017•55 min
This week we have a double episode release for Black History Month! Historian Mari N. Crabtree is Assistant Professor of African American Studies at the College of Charleston and works on lynching, narrativity, and memory in the South. She researches and teaches Black history not far from Emanuel AME Church, the site of the massacre committed by Dylann Roof, and in South Carolina, where Bree Newsome took down the Confederate flag from the state capitol grounds. We talk with Professor Crabtree ab...
Feb 27, 2017•1 hr 38 min
What do power, society, and ideology have to do with science? PhDiva Liz Wayne interviews Associate Professor Sarah Richardson, speaker at the 2017 Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics at Harvard. Professor Richardson's research uses a multidisciplinary approach to analyze how scientists understand sex and gender. In this episode, she discusses her interdisciplinary journey through history, philosophy, genetics, and feminism. Richardson challenges us to go beyond the 'Women in STEM" pip...
Feb 17, 2017•52 min
Muslim fictions and fictions about Muslims: we talk politics, stereotypes, and histories with Dr. Noor Hashem, expert on Muslim American literature. What are the ordinary, everyday, boring lives of Muslims in the United States? What is it like to be a person of faith in the academy and how does it inform one's work? Noor, Xine and Liz discuss points of intersection, activism, and ethical emotions. If tough love isn't doing it, what do we need? We end with a more recent interview with Dr. Noor to...
Feb 10, 2017•1 hr 7 min
Preparations for the Science March on Washington are underway! Whose science is it anyway? Liz brings us a group interview with aspiring physicists from the 2017 Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics at Harvard. We get insight into how these young women are inspired to study different aspects of physics: from Instagram selfies to engineering to parental guidance to the thrill of knowing the wonders of the universe. How do you transition from a childhood love to your professional path? Xi...
Jan 27, 2017•45 min
Crystal Springs, Mississippi: two girls graduated from their small town high school and grew up to be Dr. Shahara'Tova "Shaye" Dente, English PhD, and our own Dr. Liz Wayne, TED Fellow. Shaye gives us insight into the research and teaching of hip hop, social movements, and hip hop literature. Xine and Liz interview Shaye about pipeline programs for underrepresented minorities to the question of what makes good literature. We talk Jay-Z, Drake, Meek Mill, Nicki Minaj, Lil' Kim, Iggy Azalea -- and...
Jan 13, 2017•1 hr 18 min
Think positive, not punitive. How can we make resolutions that are not just individually-oriented? Make resolutions shared with friends, nominate good people for awards, buy a coffee/tea/drink/lunch for someone junior. We are trained in critique and then forget how compliments feed the human self. Xine and Liz are committed to making sure they lift others as they climb! The PhDivas are also dedicated to their own different approaches to body positivity -- but they're both aiming for unassisted p...
Jan 06, 2017•54 min
On New Year's Eve we go meta and reflect on our best moments, interviews, behind-the-scenes production, and the melanin contrast between us in our promo photos thanks to the inadequacies of phototechnology. We discuss what it means for us to be in public while academics are under attack in this post-Steven Salaita moment. How do we talk to each other in seminar, in question period, in our citations? As we climb, let's not forget to lift each other. Thank you to our amazing interviewees and the s...
Dec 31, 2016•48 min
Would a Black physicist have called it "dark matter"? Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is the 63rd Black American woman to earn a PhD in physics and works on early universe cosmology and the dark matter problem. Xine and Liz talk to Chanda about the mysteries of the universe and the differing conundrums of being Black in the United States versus Canada. Literature emerges as a necessary form of education and survival -- shout out to the writings of Lawrence Hill and Langston Hughes! We discuss Star ...
Dec 02, 2016•1 hr 17 min
Blaming biased data and bad algorithms? Stop moral outsourcing to machines because data is a reflection of us! Liz and Xine interview Rumman Chowdhury, PhD candidate in political science and a full-time data scientist. We talk about how ethics, diversity, and social justice play an integral part in data, dubious robots, and the uneven development of data science through industry and academia. Beyond tin foil hats, we discuss everything from racist redlining in Chicago, philosopher Hannah Arendt'...
Nov 24, 2016•54 min
Nasty, sassy, bossy -- how do we criticize women? And how can we articulate valid criticisms without being accused of misogyny? In this pre-election conversation, Liz and Xine discuss Hillary Clinton, gender, and the politics of representation and, well, politics! Is it just about Hillary, or also a post-Obama moment that has transformed our ideas about hope and change? We talk political compromise, respectability, US imperialism, histories of suffrage and race, and the power of memes. Since rec...
Nov 18, 2016•1 hr 1 min
Insecure, Broad City, and Girls: shows for and by women! These are shows that Liz and Xine watch as part of their lives as *serious* academics and researchers. What is the appeal? Well, we are still part of the much maligned Millennial generation. The PhDivas discuss how these female creators explore the trials and tribulations of work and love as Millennial women. What racial and gender barriers still exist despite the DIY innovations of Issa Rae, Lena Dunham, and Abbi and Ilana? We evaluate th...
Nov 04, 2016•48 min
Hip hop artist and producer, video game heroine, PhD candidate -- how cool and brilliant can one person be? We talk to Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo who performs under the stage name Sammus, a reference to Samus Aran of Metroid who is the first woman game protagonist. She studies gender and music production through Science and Technology Studies and is also a noted nerdcore rapper who has performed at SXSW, Geek Girl Con, PAX East. We talk about Kanye West, Nintendo, questions of representation, in gee...
Oct 20, 2016•1 hr 8 min
Wait, isn't getting a PhD supposed to set you up with a cushy professor job? We talk to Dr. Shyla Saltzman about the increasing phenomenon of PhDs ending up in adjunct positions -- temporary, underpaid, underresourced teaching positions. This episode is about the stresses of the adjunct life, the corporatization of the university, as well as a unglamorous side of alt-ac jobs. After fun and laughter as we commiserate about shared experiences as people of color, Shyla gives us a deeply personal, h...
Oct 13, 2016•1 hr 7 min
How does one complete a doctorate? Xine and Liz dispel myths about individual "grit" and "productivity" to talk about structural and psychological barriers to finishing the degree. Lack of resources, social norms, and administrative pressures on time-to-degree can all exacerbate the final years as a graduate student -- and we can internalize these problems as personal failures. While it's true that the best dissertation is a done dissertation -- and there's no such thing as a perfect one -- we a...
Oct 06, 2016•37 min
Art meets science = promoting women in science! Sara MacSorley of Wesleyan University is the creator of Super Cool Scientists, a Kickstarter project to create a coloring book featuring a diverse group of current women scientists. (Our own Liz Wayne is one of them!) We talk with Sara about what it means to support science as a non-scientist as well as community engagement and outreach through higher education. We are also excited about Hidden Figures and other media promoting histories of women i...
Sep 29, 2016•37 min
It's Postdoc Appreciation Week! But what are postdocs anyway and how do they differ between STEM and the humanities? What comes after the dissertation? Liz is now an NIH postdoc at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, while Xine is a SSHRC postdoc in Vancouver at the University of British Columbia. In this episode we talk about our new postdoc lives on different sides of the continent. We break down the differences between postdocs in different disciplines and the role that postdocs pla...
Sep 22, 2016•37 min
Wait, getting your PhD is not enough?! From scientist to science policy -- Liz Wayne talks to Dr. Catharine Young about alt-ac from the STEM side, developing skills from a postdoc in biomedical sciences to her current position as the Science and Innovation Policy Adviser for the British Embassy. Our different experiences in academia open us to new possibilities and equally legitimate ways to love the subject we study. Turns out that having a PhD is not enough for a job in 2016, even after all we...
Sep 08, 2016•38 min
From seminar papers to pieces for The Guardian -- how do we write for the public and how can our graduate training prepare us for non-academic work? Meredith Talusan is BuzzFeed's first openly trans LGBT staff writer and was a PhD in comparative literature. We interview Meredith about what it means to be a professional trans woman in the media and writing for different audiences. How do we balance the complexity of our expertise with the necessity for simplicity in communication? If we're at the...
Sep 01, 2016•1 hr 20 min
"YOU'RE the professor?!" What happens after the first day of teaching through to tenure and full professorship on top of positions as a program director and department chair? We talk to Xine Yao's Cornell PhD adviser Shirley Samuels about her 30+ year career journey as an acclaimed scholar of American literature, feminism, and visual culture. Shirley gives us her view of changes in the profession as a whole as well as the continued relevance of American studies as politics and education come tog...
Aug 20, 2016•1 hr 2 min
If you have every kind of privilege, how do you #staywoke? The PhDivas talk to their physicist friend Philip Smith Burnham III, a white upper-middle class straight cisman who is a staunch ally. How do you offer support without being a self-important savior? We discuss how to listen, the long, slow process of awareness, and how privilege should be leveraged as an asset for change and not just a source of guilt. An aspiring astronaut who is sometimes mistaken for a frat guy, Phil talks about the r...
Jul 22, 2016•1 hr 1 min
Meet the real-life Leslie Knope: Erica Ostermann is an Assistant Dean plus a full-time graduate student in Information Science. From Bowdoin, to Stanford, to Cornell, Erica is former boss to Liz and Xine (as well as activist Deray McKesson of #BlackLivesMatter!) She is possibly the most organized, driven person we know. But accidents are still important -- how do we take moments of randomness or even injury and make them into learning experiences? How do we find balance between our Type A tenden...
Jul 07, 2016•1 hr 7 min
Graduation! PhDiva Xine Yao was chosen as the baton-wielding degree marshal representing all graduating PhDs at Cornell for the 2016 Commencement. As a gesture of solidarity, she raised her fist when entering the stadium and on stage where it would be projected on the Jumbotron and recorded for posterity. Is Xine the "modelliest model minority ever" and can she try to use her visibility for good causes? Drs. Liz and Xine talk about struggle, success, privilege, and vulnerability amidst the pomp ...
Jun 24, 2016•35 min
How can we teach and care for our students in ways we are still learning to do for ourselves? It's not just about content, lessons, and assignments -- it's also about vulnerability and emotional labor. Join us for the laughter, tips, and anecdotes in the second part of a two-part series where Xine brings together Mariana Alarcon, Elizabeth Alexander, Aurora Masum-Javed, and Renia White from the Cornell English PhD and MFA programs for a lively conversation about teaching while WOC. We talk about...
Jun 09, 2016•47 min
Grades are in, teaching evaluations are in! Who is being judged and how? Women, people of color, and especially women of color (WOC) have the most to fear about how their teaching and authority are evaluated. In the first of a two-part series, Xine brings together Mariana Alarcon, Elizabeth Alexander, Aurora Masum-Javed, and Renia White from the Cornell English PhD and MFA programs for a lively conversation about teaching while WOC. Join these women as they discuss topics from being seen as "too...
May 26, 2016•46 min
Do you ever feel like you don't belong? Imposter syndrome names the feeling of being out of place that even successful people can experience -- and this is widespread in all levels of the academy. But when can we have anxieties as women of color that might not be about being an imposter? There's so much about power and structural inequality, from the brand power of schools to academic credentials to how performances of intelligence are recognized according to norms of race and gender. Liz was th...
May 13, 2016•44 min
End of the semester struggle is so real! This is a teaser for our upcoming discussion about imposter syndrome in academia. Good luck to all of you! Thrive and survive!
May 06, 2016•9 min
International grad students are the majority, but why don't we hear from them? We chat with Dr. Michelle Tong about visas, labor precarity, culture shock, and stereotypes about the model minority and alienness. This ep includes discussions of the dynamics of scientific methods. Michelle just earned her PhD in psychology working on smells and memory; in her words, she can't diagnose you but "would have to take out your brain and slice it." Together we reflect on the blurred lines between our rese...
Apr 21, 2016•53 min
