Facetime with Scientists

Stephanie Morphet is a biomedical scientist turned circus artist and hair hanger. She studied tuberculosis in the lab, working to develop point-of-care diagnostic tools, before deciding to pursue a full-time circus career. But she has brought her scientific mindset with her into circus, especially pertaining to her pursuit of a Guinness World Record for the most amount of weight held while hanging from only her hair! Hair hanging is all about maintaining the strength and health of your hair and scalp, which is all about protein chemistry and skin health. In this podcast episode, I talk to Stephanie about hair hanging, the science and chemistry of hair, the scientific mindset, and more!

Malaika Mahmood is an expert on pain. She studies not just how pain is registered by our nerves at the site of injury, but how it is processed in the brain. Pain perception is complex and involves multiple brain regions working together, including those that process emotion and control movement and action. It's no wonder that chronic pain can make us depressed - in fact, it can even rewire our brains long-term. Malaika is studying pain in mouse models to better understand which brain cells and brain regions are involved in pain processing, and how we might harness the brain's own power to soothe pain.

Cassandra is a research associate at Seattle Children’s Center for Global Infectious Disease Research. She's been known to dissect hundreds of mosquito salivary glands in a day to isolate malaria parasites in the hunt for a better understanding of this disease's dynamics of transmission from mosquito to human (or mosquito to animal) and back again. Cassandra and her colleagues are studying mosquitoes and malaria to help develop new automated tools for research (a mosquito-dissecting robot, anyone?!), and new routes for vaccination.

Isabelle Neylan studies copepods - think the little green Plankton from SpongeBob! - and how they deal with stressors like excessive heat in the splash pools where they live. Understanding the mechanisms of stress resilience and plasticity in copepods can help us better understand how ocean food webs may respond to future environmental conditions. We may even be able to learn a thing or two about how we humans can better adapt to stress from these tiny creatures! Join Isabelle in the lab with your host Paige Jarreau, as Isabelle extracts RNA from copepods and talks life as a scientist!

Shelby Prindaville is an interdisciplinary artist who works across painting, drawing, mixed media, ceramics, sculpture, and installation to create artwork depicting animals, plants, and ecosystems within a human-altered world. Her studio practice combines science and art to encourage a more conservation-focused relationship with nature. In this inaugural episode of the Facetime with Scientists podcast, Shelby discusses how science has shaped her art practice, how she has worked with chemists and conservation scientists, what it means to be creative, and the value of handcraft and art-based "synthesis" in the modern world.See more of Shelby's art at https://shelbyprindaville.com/.Enjoy! - Your host, Paige Jarreau