Episode 28: Dr. Nsa Dada

In this episode, we hear from Dr. Nsa Dada, an Assistant Professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University. Her PhD research focused on the interactions between mosquitoes and their associated microbes, specifically those that inhabit domestic water containers. She worked on the container dwelling mosquito Aedes aegypti in Southeast Asia, Thailand, and Laos, where she was interested in understanding the relationship between fecal contamination of those containers and mosquito production. Her work now continues to focus on mosquito and microbe interactions, specifically how microbes shape the response and adaptation of mosquitoes to evolutionary pressure. Here, Nsa discusses what it was like to navigate a new culture and system by going to graduate school outside of her home country.  She reveals what it was like not knowing the unwritten/unspoken rules, and what she ultimately learned from this experience. Let’s listen! Transcript: Here Scientist Info: Nsa Dada University Profile: https://search.asu.edu/profile/4297879  Website: https://www.nsadada.com/  Fail-Safe Science Repository: https://risecenter.asu.edu/fail-safe  International Postgraduate Mental Health Alliance (MHA): https://www.ispmha.com/  Mental Health Resources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14G5m91FLPY5gZSHUzWXAQ4Jnm4uX9AS0yhypus3gsuQ/edit?usp=sharing Land Acknowledgement Resources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10lLcxY7OSsuTnXyq_CSC5Wvst8MSMRurisBfX5hK7AI/edit?tab=t.0