podcasts and lectures

A relationship bridging the divide between scientists and artists is reflected in a fight over where to store tomatoes.

Alison graduated with a BSc in Astrophysics from Newcastle University. Leaving for London to seek her fortune, she worked for several years in building services engineering in investment banks; first as an operations manager and then as a consultant. She left this career to pursue her love of physics, completing a Masters in Space Science and a PhD in solar physics at UCL. She is now at Queen Mary looking after outreach and student recruitment for maths and physics.

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Allison Hartshorn: Common Ground

When neuroscientist Carl Hart meets with his cousin he wonders about what he now knows about psychiatric medication and society, and whether his own life is a success.

Carl Hart is a member of the faculty at Columbia University, jointly-appointed in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in neuroscience, psychology, and pharmacology and has been recognized for excellence in teaching with the University's highest teaching award. Dr. Hart is also a Research Scientist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute in the Division of Substance Abuse. For High Price, his first trade book, he received the 2014 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award.

Carl Hart: My Cousin's Meds

A chemistry set is the perfect opportunity for Nate Charles Troisi to connect with his engineer father.

Nate Charles Karagiannis-Troisi is an award-winning, multifaceted theatre maker and performer whose work spans decades, genres, mediums, and continents. He has studied, created, and performed extensively across Australia, The Netherlands, and the USA. His current focus lies in autobiographical explorations of multiculturalism, intergenerational trauma, sex, relationships, and contemporary Australia through a CALD and queer lens.

Trained at the Victorian College of the Arts in Naarm and currently residing and creating work in Tarntanya, Nate has worked as a facilitator for SAYArts Youth Theatre, Riverland Youth Theatre and a story-collector for Open Space Contemporary Arts (OSCA).. Most recently he performed the role of Freidrich von Schoen in the upcoming Asylum Studios film The Land That Time Forgot, and featured in the subsequent making-of documentary Mockbuster by Anthony Frith, and has received funding through Carclew to mentor young indigenous playwright Mali Harkin-Noack as she writes her first play Burn Your House to the Ground. In his spare time, he performs as keyboardist Howlin’ J. Weatherill in satirical country band Brad Chicken and the Bootstraps, and functions as half of theatre-trash duo Muse of Fire.

Nate Charles Troisi: Family Chemistry

Erik Vance searches for the real meaning of biology while chasing porcupines.

Erik Vance is a native Bay Area writer replanted in Mexico as a non-native species. Before becoming a writer he was, at turns, a biologist, a rock climbing guide, an environmental consultant, and an environmental educator. His work focuses on the human element of science – the people who do it, those who benefit from it, and those who do not. He has written for The New York Times, Nature, Scientific American, Harper’s, National Geographic, and a number of other local and national outlets. He is currently working on his first book, under contract with National Geographic Press about how the mind and body continually twist and shape our realities. 

Erik Vance: Is This Biology?

Today we travel to a fully digital world, a world where paper is a thing of the past.


Tree Free

In the memoir "Lab Girl" geobiologist Hope Jahren unlocks the secrets of plants and the personal discoveries behind the pursuit of science.

Lab Girl: The Pursuit of Sanctuary, and Science, Inside the Lab

Speaker(s): Professor Richard Nisbett | Are humans getting smarter? Are some groups smarter than others? Are some groups getting smarter faster than others? What are the possibilities for increasing the rate of growth of human intelligence? Hint: Science, mathematics, logic and philosophy have generated concepts in the past 150 years of great power which have yet to escape into the reasoning toolkits of laypeople. Richard Nisbett is Theodore M. Newcomb Distinguished Professor of Social Psychology and Co-director of the Culture and Cognition program at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He is the author of Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking. "The most influential thinker, in my life, has been the psychologist Richard Nisbett. He basically gave me my view of the world." – Malcolm Gladwell. Hyun-Jung Lee is Assistant Professor in Organisational Behaviour in the Department of Management, LSE. Her research is on multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism and cross-cultural management. Michael Muthukrishna (@mmuthukrishna) is an Assistant Professor of Economic Psychology. His research focuses on the evolution of humans and human culture and the many implications of these psychological and evolutionary processes. Bradley Franks is Associate Professor at LSE. The Department of Social Psychology (@PsychologyLSE) is a leading international centre dedicated to consolidating and expanding the contribution of social psychology to the understanding and knowledge of key social, economic, political and cultural issues.

podcasts and lectures

Dennis Hansen 1