Navigating a Physics PhD as a Coptic Student: George Iskander

Awesome chatting with STEM Twitter celebrity George Iskander, a Physics PhD student at the University of Chicago! I also want to announce that I’ll be bringing in co-hosts to bring in unique perspectives and questions! First one is the wonderful SaraJoy Salib of Occidental College! Enjoy! Special shout-out to Ethan Lin, a Valencia High School (Santa Clarita, CA) graduate and current undergraduate at the Rochester Institute of Technology, for producing the music used in this episode!

Humanity in Science: Dr. Karolin Luger

Dr. Karolin Luger is a biochemist and structural biologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Famously known for solving the structure of the nucleosome via X-ray crystallography, she also believes that one of the most important aspects of her job is training and inspiring the next generation of scientists! Enjoy! Transcription Transcribed by Jess Byun (she/her) JP Flores: Introduce yourself and really all you need to say is your name, where you did your undergrad PhD where you are now and then, and there was a fun fact, something that people may or may not know about you.

Bridging Social Factors & Context in Infectious Disease Modeling: Tiggy Menkir

Tigist (Tiggy) Menkir is a PhD student working with Dr. Caroline Buckee at the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics housed within the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She did her undergraduate training at Princeton University where she received her BA in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology with minors in Global Health and Health Policy and French Language in Culture. She studies infectious disease epidemiology and utilizes machine learning-based methods, spatial statistics, and traditional dynamic models for infectious disease surveillance, with a focus on data-limited settings and marginalized populations.

Being a Data Analyst in Costa Rica: Cristal Rivera

Cristal Rivera is an industrial production engineer who I had the pleasure of meeting through the 2021 RStudio Diversity Scholars program. She is extremely passionate about data science and advocating for opportunities in STEM for people from marginalized backgrounds, especially women! Enjoy! Transcription

First-Gen Feels: Dr. Charles Scaife

Episode 2 of Season 2 is LIVE! On this week’s episode, I had the opportunity to sit down and chat with Dr. Charles Scaife! Charles is currently an ORISE/ORAU Science, Technology, and Policy Fellow at the US Dept. of Energy and was formerly a NOAA Sea Grant Knauss Fellow! He received his PhD from the University of Virginia and completed his undergrad at UNC Chapel Hill! Enjoy! Transcription Transcribed by Caden Sweet (he/him)