On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Vanessa, Mary, Greg, and Emma. Together this team of students conducts research on Per-and Poly-fluoroalkyl Substances (PFASs) at the Center of Diamond and Coating Technologies-Fraunhofer USA. These students are Vanessa Maldonado (2nd year Ph.D. Student in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Material Science ), Mary Ensch (3rd year Ph.D. student in Chemical Engineering ), Greg Landis (undergraduate student in Chemical En...
Aug 11, 2019•45 min•Season 1Ep. 22
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Tayler Murphy and Victor Gipson II Tayler Murphy is a 3rd year Ph.D. student in the Genetics and Genomic Sciences program in Dr. Amy Ralston’s lab. This summer, Tayler mentors Victor Gipson II. Victor is a junior cellular biology major at the University of Georgia . He is at MSU this summer through the Summer Research Opportunities Program ( SROP) . The goal of their project is to understand how stem cells are created, by using...
Aug 04, 2019•28 min•Season 1Ep. 20
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Isaiah Kaufman. Isaiah is currently attending Goshen College with a major in Biochemistry, interested in researching plant biology. He is participating in an REU program through the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, working in the Sharkey lab. With the Sharkey Lab, he is researching plant resilience to temperature changes in relation to a small molecule called isoprene that many plants emit. Plants release an estimated 550...
Jul 28, 2019•19 min•Season 1Ep. 21
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Anastasiya Lavell and Cameron De La Mora. Anastasiya is a fifth-year graduate student in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology department . She is advised by Dr. Christoph Benning . This summer she is working with an undergraduate student from Illinois State University , Cameron De La Mora, who came to MSU through our Plant Genomics REU program. Photosynthetic organisms are key to capturing carbon dioxide and reducing it back ...
Jul 28, 2019•38 min•Season 1Ep. 19
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Kyle Card and Jasper Gomez. Kyle is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics and Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior Program . His mentee, Jasper, is a recent graduate from the Biomedical Laboratory Diagnostics Program . They use bacteria from a long-term experiment to study how evolution in an antibiotic-free environment affects bacteria’s potential to gain resistance when these drug...
Jul 21, 2019•33 min•Season 1Ep. 18
This week on The Sci-Files Chelsie and Danny interview Connie Rojas. Connie is a 4th year Ph.D. Candidate in Integrative Biology and the Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior ( EEBB ) program at Michigan State University. She is investigating the interactions between animal hosts and their symbiotic microbial communities, a.k.a the ‘microbiome.’ Specifically, she is studying how the microbiome affects animal hosts’ physiology and behavior, and how the host and its environment affect their ...
Jul 14, 2019•31 min•Season 1Ep. 17
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Nikki McClaran. Nikki is a Ph.D. student in the Information & Media program within the College of Communication Arts & Sciences . Nikki’s research focuses on narrative persuasion, health and risk communication, and social norms. Specifically, Nikki investigates how health and environmental issues are cognitively and effectively perceived, and whether narratives have the ability to encourage positive social behaviors. Sh...
Jul 14, 2019•26 min•Season 1Ep. 16
This week on The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Benjamin Hall. Ben is a 3rd year Ph.D. student at MSU in Physics and CMSE (Computational Math, Science, and Engineering). Ben works on applying quantum computers to solve many-body problems. Quantum computers are a newly developed type of computer are much faster than regular computers at certain tasks. He is working on figuring out how to program these computers to solve problems that classical computers can’t, specifically, sim...
Jul 07, 2019•39 min•Season 1Ep. 15
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Huiyun Wu and Natalie Kagole about their mentoring relationship in regards to the One Health challenge. Huiyun Wu is a researcher in Environmental Engineering ; her research is on water microbiology and virology. Huiyun has played a significant role in the One Health Student Challenge – a program that brings international interdisciplinary groups of undergraduate students together to work on solutions to One Health problems. Sh...
Jun 30, 2019•42 min•Season 1Ep. 14
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Courtney Larson. Aquatic ecosystems have captivated Courtney Larson and lead her to her research interests to insects that spend a portion of all of their lives in water. This can include different invertebrates such as dragonflies and caddisflies. She graduated from Wartburg College with a B.A. degree in Biology with minors in Chemistry and Environmental Science (’14) before beginning her Ph.D. studies in Michigan State Univer...
Jun 02, 2019•17 min•Season 1Ep. 12
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Courtney, Katie and Michael to discuss their research, along with mentor and mentee relationships. Courtney Larson is from the Department of Entomology and Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior Program . Katie Kierczynski is a Master’s student in Dr. Brian Roth’s lab for her current Master’s research. Michael Orbain is an undergraduate student in the Department of Integrative Biology and currently works with Courtney in D...
Jun 02, 2019•36 min•Season 1Ep. 13
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Faryal Mir and Kate Hammond from the Department of Radiology in order to understand their research on engineering Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) proteins as well as the mentorship that occurs in the labs here at MSU. Faryal is associated with the Department of Genetics and the College of Osteopathic Medicine , pursuing a DO-PhD. Kate is a recent graduate of MSU and will be attending the College of Osteopathic Medicine in the ...
May 19, 2019•51 min•Season 1Ep. 11
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Jacob Bradburn about his research on jobs. Jacob is a fourth-year doctoral candidate at the Michigan State University Organizational Psychology program . Jacob’s research focuses on employee selection, individual differences, and methodology. Research by Jacob and his colleagues has been published in outlets such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Research Methods, and the Journal of Vocational Behavior. The r...
May 12, 2019•23 min•Season 1Ep. 9
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Chelsea Weiskerger from the Department of Environmental Engineering , pursuing a Dual Ph.D. with Environmental Science and Policy . Chelsea has been involved in several different research projects focusing on how water quality and beaches affect public health. She has published statistical models of long-term (10-15 year) beach water quality patterns in Lake Michigan and Lake Erie. She has also created models of how sunlight be...
May 12, 2019•23 min•Season 1Ep. 10
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Sara Ayoub about her research and involvement with the construction of the Separator for Capture Reactions ( SECAR ). Sara is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and works the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory ( NSCL ). Specifically, Sara is an experimental physicist interested in how stars evolve and how heavy stars explode and die. We are made of stardust that was once formed inside a star t...
May 05, 2019•17 min•Season 1Ep. 8
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your co-hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Darren Incorvaia about his research on bees, here at the Michigan State University. Darren is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Integrative Biology . Social insects, such as bees, require many resources in order to build and maintain a nest, produce and nourish workers, and reproduce. To ensure the colony forages effectively, social insects have numerous communication strategies including the dance language of honeybees...
Apr 28, 2019•20 min•Season 1Ep. 7
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your co-hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Robert Logan about his research on deserts, here at the Michigan State University W. K. Kellogg Biological Station . Robert is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Integrative Biology/Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior Program. Climate models predict that deserts are likely to get hotter and drier in the coming decades which will most likely have big effects on the people and other organisms that live in these al...
Apr 21, 2019•23 min•Season 1Ep. 6
Catch this week's episode of The Sci-Files, where Daniel and Chelsie interview Claire Hoffmann. Claire is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Michigan State University, who studies the conflict between humans and large carnivores in East Africa. In this region, in East Africa, carnivores such as lions, leopards, and hyenas eat a lot of livestock. The livestock owners often retaliate by killing carnivores. This conflict places a lot of pressure on both human and wildlif...
Apr 14, 2019•22 min•Season 1Ep. 5
This week on The Sci-Files, Daniel and Chelsie interview Joel Soler , MA. Joel is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Psychology-Behavioral Neuroscience at Michigan State University. Environmental lighting conditions influence cognitive function in both healthy populations and patients with dementia. However, the underlying neural mechanisms are not well understood. The goal of his research is to examine how chronic daytime light conditions impact a brain region, the hippocampus, which is cru...
Apr 05, 2019•21 min•Season 1Ep. 4
This week on The Sci-Files, Daniel and Chelsie interview Kathryn Wierenga. Kathryn is a doctoral student in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department at Michigan State University. Her research focuses on an autoimmune disease known as lupus erythematosus. Autoimmune diseases affect over 25 million Americans. Her lab is studying how the development of lupus is affected by two environmental factors: silica, and the dietary omega-3 fatty acid (DHA). Kathryn’s laboratory uses a lupus-prone m...
Mar 31, 2019•26 min•Season 1Ep. 3
On this weeks episode of The Sci-Files, Daniel and Chelsie interview John Tran. John is a Plant Biology Ph.D. student at Michigan State University looking to improve bioenergy. He studies the plant cell wall which provides plants structural support and protection. The layer can be tough and rigid, which can make the production of plant biomass less amenable for bioenergy purposes. John’s goal is to tune the cell wall, so plants can grow healthy as well as be used more efficiently for producing b...
Mar 24, 2019•27 min•Season 1Ep. 2
To kick off The Sci-Files, Daniel and Chelsie interview Jennifer Watts. Jennifer is a Doctoral Candidate with the Physiology Department at Michigan State University. She is also the President of the Physiology Graduate Student Council. In this episode, Daniel and Chelsie interview Jennifer on her research with the Zika virus ( ZIKV ). ZIKV emerged in Brazil in 2015, causing detrimental effects on newborn babies. Aside from transmission via mosquito, ZIKV is to also sexually transmitted, which in...
Mar 03, 2019•23 min•Season 1Ep. 1
