Do you have a curious mind? Do you sometimes daydream about having a PhD in literature, science, or history?

Go inside the minds of PhDs at Harvard University with the Veritalk podcast. Veritalk is produced at Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. In each three-episode miniseries of Veritalk, you’ll hear how PhD students from different fields are trying to answer really big questions about the world.

Veritalk

Harvard PhD student Dakota McCoy, who studies Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, asks why birds of paradise evolved to have brightly colored feathers. Then she asks an even bigger question: Why did some of these brightly colored birds also develop super-black feathers?

Transcript available at https://gsas.harvard.edu/news/stories/veritalk-love-battlefield.

The Veritalk Team:

Host/Producer: Anna Fisher-Pinkert
Executive Producer: Ann Hall
Sound Designer: Ian Coss
Logo Designer: Emily Wilson

Plumage Episode 1: Love is a Battlefield

What if you wanted to recreate the iridescent blue-green of a peacock feather in a lab? It turns out that scientists are still trying to figure out how to replicate some of nature's most impressive plumage.

The Veritalk Team:

Host/Producer: Anna Fisher-Pinkert
Executive Producer: Ann Hall
Sound Designer: Ian Coss
Logo Designer: Emily Wilson

Full Transcript: https://gsas.harvard.edu/news/stories/veritalk-wild-blue-yonder

Plumage Episode 2: The Wild Blue Yonder

In our last episode about plumage, Chloe Chapin, PhD student in American Studies, explores how humans have used fashion to express gender and status -- and how present-day fashion can bend the "rules" we've come to know.

Full Transcript: https://gsas.harvard.edu/news/stories/veritalk-puttin-ritz

The Veritalk Team:

Host/Producer: Anna Fisher-Pinkert Executive Producer: Ann Hall Sound Designer: Ian Coss Logo Designer: Emily Wilson

Plumage Episode 3: Puttin' on the Ritz

Almost no outsiders have visited the internally displaced persons camps in Burma where over 140,000 Rohingya Muslims are forced to live. Cresa Pugh, a PhD student in sociology, was able to visit last year. She saw a community in turmoil – but many Burmese people deny that the Rohingya are being persecuted. Cresa asks why marginalized people like the Rohingya are often blamed for their own suffering.

Full transcript: https://gsas.harvard.edu/news/stories/veritalk-displacement-episode-1-rohingya

The Veritalk Team:

Host/Producer: Anna Fisher-Pinkert Executive Producer: Ann Hall Sound Designer: Ian Coss Logo Designer: Emily Wilson

Displacement Episode 1: The Rohingya

During World War II, many Greek people had to flee their homes and seek safety in the Middle East. Today, Syrian refugees flee violence in the Middle East, and wind up on the shores of Greece. Argyro Nicolaou, a PhD student in Comparative Literature, wants us to take a second look at the literature and art that displaced people produce, particularly in the Mediterranean. Can we find common ground between displaced Greeks in World War II, and displaced Syrians today?

Full Transcript:
https://gsas.harvard.edu/news/stories/veritalk-displacement-episode-2-shipwreck

The Veritalk Team:

Host/Producer: Anna Fisher-Pinkert Executive Producer: Ann Hall Sound Designer: Ian Coss Logo Designer: Emily Wilson

Veritalk Displacement Episode 2: The Shipwreck

PhD graduate in Sociology Monica Bell’s interviews with poor youth of color in Baltimore led her to formulate the idea of “legal estrangement.” While the press focuses on a “trust gap” between black youth and the police, Monica believes that the issue is far deeper. Her interviews revealed a generation of young Americans who feel both stateless and powerless.

Full Transcript:
https://gsas.harvard.edu/news/stories/veritalk-displacement-episode-3-estranged

The Veritalk Team:

Host/Producer: Anna Fisher-Pinkert

Executive Producer: Ann Hall

Sound Designer: Ian Coss

Logo Designer: Emily Wilson

Displacement Episode 3: The Estranged

Mermaids: They’re cute, innocent, and great singers, right? Think again! PhD candidate in Celtic Languages and Literatures Greg Darwin explains why you wouldn’t want to meet a mermaid in a dark aquatic alley. He also talks about selkie tales – and legendary creatures that live at the edge of humanity.

Full Transcript: http://gsas.harvard.edu/veritalk

The Veritalk Team:

Host/Producer: Anna Fisher-Pinkert

Executive Producer: Ann Hall

Sound Designer: Ian Coss

Logo Designer: Emily Crowell

Veritalk Monsters: Episode 1 - Mermaids

Some monsters live inside us. PhD candidate in Biological Sciences in Public Health Maddy McFarland studies Trypanosoma cruzi, a parasite that transforms its shape to sneak inside our cells and makes us sick. The scariest part: Our cells can’t signal that they’re infected until it’s too late.

Full Transcript: https://gsas.harvard.edu/news/stories/veritalk-monsters-episode-2-parasites

The Veritalk Team:

Host/Producer: Anna Fisher-Pinkert

Executive Producer: Ann Hall

Sound Designer: Ian Coss

Logo Designer: Emily Crowell

Special thanks to the lab of Barbara Burleigh, professor of immunology and infectious diseases at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and to the National Institutes of Health, which funds the research of the Burleigh lab.

Veritalk Monsters: Episode 2 - Parasites

Why isn’t King Kong scaling the Empire State Building right now? Should we worry about Godzilla rising from the depths of the Pacific Ocean? Shane Campbell-Staton, co-host of the podcast The Biology of Superheroes and Harvard PhD ’15 in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, talks about our favorite movie monsters, and some of the biological processes that could make them come to life. 

Full Transcript: https://gsas.harvard.edu/news/stories/veritalk-monsters-episode-3-king-kong-vs-gravity

The Veritalk Team:

Host/Producer: Anna Fisher-Pinkert

Executive Producer: Ann Hall

Sound Designer: Ian Coss

Logo Designer: Emily Crowell

Special thanks Shane Campbell-Staton and Graham Ball.

Listen to The Biology of Superheroes here: https://thebiologyofsuperheroespodcast.podbean.com/

Veritalk Monsters: Episode 3 - King Kong vs. Gravity

After moving to the US from Mauritius, PhD candidate in Romance Languages and Literatures Nikhita Obeegadoo felt homesick. Her experience eating a bowl of dal (spiced lentils) in the US led her to ask questions about food and diaspora, cultural appreciation, and cultural appropriation.

Full Transcript: 

https://gsas.harvard.edu/news/stories/masala

Host/Producer: Anna Fisher-Pinkert

Sound Designer: Ian Coss

Logo: Emily Crowell

Executive Producer: Ann Hall

Special thanks to Nikhita Obeegadoo, and the PRX Podcast Garage.

Food Episode 1: Turmeric Lattes and Tikka Masala

In the last few years, the popularity of "plant-based diets" has exploded. Celebrities from Tom Brady to Beyoncé promote eating less meat. Even Burger King introduced a meatless burger. Nina Gheihman, a PhD candidate in sociology, tells us how vegan cultural entrepreneurs, celebrities, and researchers are changing hearts, minds, and dinner plates. She'll also explain why we might all be eating vegan soon - whether we like it or not.

Full Transcript:
https://gsas.harvard.edu/news/stories/veritalk-goes-vegan

Host/Producer: Anna Fisher-Pinkert

Sound Designer: Ian Coss

Logo: Emily Crowell

Executive Producer: Ann Hall

Special Thanks to: Graham Ball, Youth Radio Oakland, and Nina Gheihman

Food Episode 2: Veritalk Goes Vegan

What does it mean to have a "healthy gut?" Is it worth drinking kombucha or taking probiotics? What about that gut-brain connection? PhD candidates Cary Allen-Blevins and Vayu Maini Rekdal explore how "good" bacteria help us to break down our food – from our “first food” (breast milk) to meat and veggies.

Love this episode? There are more stories about Harvard scientists' research into microbes on the podcast Proof, from America's Test Kitchen.

Full Transcript: https://gsas.harvard.edu/news/stories/go-your-gut

The Veritalk Team:

Host/Producer: Anna Fisher-Pinkert

Sound Designer: Ian Coss

Logo: Emily Crowell

Executive Producer: Ann Hall

Special Thanks to: Cary Allen-Blevins, Vayu Maini Rekdal, the Harvard Museum of Natural History, and the PRX Podcast Garage.

Food Episode 3: Go with Your Gut

Can nutrition education solve the obesity epidemic? Hannah Cory asked that question over and over while working as a dietician in a public school system. Now, as a PhD candidate in Population Health Sciences, Hannah’s research seeks to uncover the connection between fat-phobia, racism, and obesity in the US.

Full Transcript: 
https://gsas.harvard.edu/news/stories/your-body-isnt-broken

The Veritalk Team:

Host/Producer: Anna Fisher-Pinkert

Sound Designer: Ian Coss

Logo: Emily Crowell

Executive Producer: Ann Hall

Special Thanks: Hannah Cory, Rick Sheiber, Julia King, Noah Leavitt, and the PRX Podcast Garage.

Food Episode 4: Your Body Isn't Broken

From the moment you open your eyes in the morning, your sense of sight helps you navigate and interact with the world. But how do our brains understand what our eyes are telling us? And how do we know what's surrounding us, where we can move, and what objects are within reach? Emilie Josephs, a PhD student at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, is discovering that the way our brain processes vision is even more complex than scientists initially thought.

Full Transcript: https://gsas.harvard.edu/news/stories/its-all-within-reach

The Veritalk Team:

Host/Producer: Anna Fisher-Pinkert

Sound Designer: Ian Coss

Logo: Emily Crowell

Executive Producer: Ann Hall

Special thanks to Emilie Josephs and Phil Lewis, who voiced our brain. Emilie Josephs’ research is supported by the NIH Shared Instrumentation Grant Program.

Sensing Episode 1: It's All within Reach

Can robots ever learn to feel? Our ability to perform delicate tasks, like giving a gentle hug or picking a piece of fruit, is something that robots can't yet mimic. Ryan Truby, an alum of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences has created bio-inspired soft robots that can squish, stretch, and feel their way around the world - and they have the potential to change how we understand robotics.
Find the transcripts at: https://gsas.harvard.edu/news/stories/squish-goes-robot

Sensing Episode 2: Squish Goes the Robot!

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