We’re excited to announce the brand-new This is What a Scientist Sounds Like podcast, which will also be featured on Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child, a nationally syndicated family radio show distributed by PRX.  

The series will feature scientists sharing what it is they do and how they ended up there. If you’re interested in participating, please contact us at submissions@lookslikescience.com and put “Podcast” in the subject line.

Hi there! My name is Katie Parzych and I’m a PhD student in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at the University of Michigan. I use baker’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) to study the regulation of autophagy, which is an intracellular recycling process crucial for cellular maintenance and survival.

My greatest passion outside of science is acting. The above photo was of my most recent show, which I did with the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre. I hope to someday merge my passions for science and performance into a career with the Discovery Channel or some other science media outlet. Aside from acting, I enjoy dancing, singing, and reading (sci-fi/fantasy mostly).

My name is Rowan Martindale and I am a paleoecologist, currently doing postdoctoral research at Harvard. My research is a cross between paleontology and carbonate sedimentology (the photo is from the Austrian Alps where I do field work). I study the paleoecology of reefs and carbonate ecosystems from 230-170 million years ago as well as mass extinctions, invertebrate fossils (such as corals and sponges), and ocean acidification in deep time. I love SCUBA diving, horseback riding, knitting, swing dancing, and hiking!

David Liao, PhD, physics–enjoys singing and creating video tutorials at lookatphysics.com

My name is Carla Koretsky and I am an aqueous geochemist. This is me running my first ever trail marathon, the Mont Blanc marathon in France.

Melanie. Biochemistry professor. Wife. Mother of two. Cross-country-skier. Researcher of bacterial mating.

I learned how to cross-country ski (and love the winter) when I was in graduate school in Madison, Wisconsin. I also now love to snowboard.

My name is Mike Feigin and I study cancer biology.  I like punk rock, baseball and cooking.

I’m Emily, a particle physicist. The experiment I work on is located at a nuclear power plant in the French countryside. You can see the cooling towers and reactor buildings behind me. I love science and I enjoy writing about it – you can read my blog at weakinteractions.tumblr.com.

I am interested in combining classical virology and computational biology to provide an overarching view of what happens in a cell or a whole organism during a viral infection. My PhD research at Columbia University centered on picornavirus inhibition of the interferon response, while my postdoctoral work at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai focused on innate immune responses to flaviviruses such as dengue virus and yellow fever virus. I currently research the host response to avian influenza at the University of Washington. When I am not studying virus-host interactions, I mentor young scientists and design science education tools.