In today's episode, Casey, Maria, and Naomi talk to conservative climate activists about why they support carbon pricing policy. We'll hear from former Congressman Bob Inglis (RepublicEN.org), Kiera O'Brien (Young Conservatives for Carbon Dividends), former Congressman Carlos Curbelo, and Jerry Taylor (Niskanen Center). Read more at pricingnature.substack.com

5. The Conservative Case for Carbon Pricing

The transfer and non-traditional students programs make up a small but important part of the admissions office’s work to create a diverse undergraduate community. Hannah and Mark cover the basics of applying through either program and share the office’s approach to reviewing these applications. Director of transfer admissions Marisa shares advice for transfer applicants – especially those enrolled in community colleges – and director of Eli Whitney admissions Patricia shares insights for non-traditional students – especially US military veterans.

Transfer and Non-Traditional Students

As part of the whole-person review process, the Yale Admissions Committee consider each applicant’s engagement with “extracurricular activities” – pursuits and commitments outside of typical academic work. Admissions officer Reed joins Hannah and Mark to discuss how application readers evaluate extracurricular activities and how applicants can stand out in this part of the application. The trio expand on some simple advice for selecting and engaging with activities: Be Active. At the right level for you. Doing what you like.

The Activities Section

Today we welcome Billy Perrigo to discuss the exploitation of African workers performing content moderation for Facebook. Billy is a staff writer at TIME covering social media companies, with a focus on content moderation and responsible AI.

In this episode, we cover Billy's article at TIME, "Inside Facebook's African Sweatshop", which exposes how Facebook outsources content moderation on the cheap to a company called Sama in Kenya. Billy explains how he discovered the story, Facebook's relationship to Sama, the low pay and exploitative working conditions faced by content moderators at Sama, how the company is alleged to repress worker resistance, and more.

Tech Empire is part of the Yale Podcast Network, and can be found on Soundcloud, iTunes, and YouTube, with additional outlets coming soon. You can follow Billy on Twitter at @billy_perrigo. Follow Tech Empire at @TechEmpireCast, Michael Kwet at @Michael_Kwet, and Tshi Malatji at @tshimalatji.

Facebook's African Sweatshop with Billy Perrigo

After every application has been read and has gone through an area committee, there’s one final step before decisions are released. Hannah and Mark discuss the last week of the committee process, known as Final Review, when loose ends are tied up and the hard reality of the selection process necessitates that some decisions change. Admissions officer Alfie joins to discuss how officers and committee members work together to finalize the first-year class.

Final Review

The sudden availability of Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT have raised new questions about authorship, plagiarism, and fairness in college admissions. Hannah and Mark discuss why they think these tools are unlikely to help applicants gain an advantage in Yale’s selection process and why questions about generative-AI are the wrong starting point for understanding how to compose an effective college essay. LLMs can appear very knowledgeable, but they are inevitably ignorant of the foundation of any successful application: the unique person applying.

AI and College Essays: Wrong Question, Wrong Answer

Part 1 in a 3-part series on Yale’s test-flexible policy. Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Jeremiah Quinlan shares his thoughts on the role and value of tests generally, and how students should consider their scores during the college search process. Hannah and Mark discuss how admissions officers incorporate test scores in Yale’s whole-person review process, and they bust some persistent myths about testing.

Standardized Tests: The Big Picture

Part 2 in a 3-part series on Yale’s test-flexible policy. Hannah and Mark reveal the details of Yale’s newly announced test-flexible policy, which goes into effect for first year and transfer applicants for fall 2025 admission. They explain how applicants will fulfill Yale’s requirement and describe the questions that will appear on Yale’s application. They address concerns and questions about the new policy and share advice for how applicants can put their best foot forward with their available scores.

Standardized Tests: The Details

In the latest installment in the Mythbusters miniseries, Hannah and Mark discuss examples of reasonable—but ultimately inaccurate—beliefs that some applicants have about the admissions committee’s values and expectations. They address persistent myths about the qualities Yale admissions officers look for in applicants and offer advice for composing activities lists, essays, and short answer prompts.

What Yale Looks For: Special Mythbusters Edition

In this week’s installment of YJBM Science News, Majo and Roxanna discuss recent Yale-affiliated research about contraceptives, fertility, and immunology! Can our genetic variants help us predict which birth control method would be the most effective? What can the gut microbiome tell us about the immune systems of multiple sclerosis patients before and after undergoing immunotherapy treatment? Join us as we explore not only the answers to these questions, but also as we learn more about the trials and tribulations of data generation!

Papers featured in this episode:

“Pharmacogenomics of the Etonogestrel Contraceptive Implant: A Genome-Wide Association Study of Steady-State Etonogestrel Concentrations” - https://doi.org/10.1097/og9.0000000000000066
https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/analyzing-genetics-may-lead-to-better-contraceptive-experiences-for-women/

"Allosteric inhibition of the IZUMO1–JUNO fertilization complex by the naturally occurring antisperm antibody OBF13" - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2425952122
https://news.yale.edu/2025/03/03/scientists-discover-how-naturally-occurring-mechanism-hampers-fertility

“A single-cell atlas of circulating immune cells over the first 2 months of age in extremely premature infants” - https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.adr0942
https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/new-insights-into-preterm-infant-immunity-could-inform-care/

“Alterations in Gut Microbiome-Host Relationships After Immune Perturbation in Patients With Multiple Sclerosis” - https://doi.org/10.1212/NXI.0000000000200355
https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/gut-microbiome-changes-linked-to-multiple-sclerosis-ms-new-study-finds/

Read more about YJBM at:
https://medicine.yale.edu/yjbm/ 

Follow us on instagram!
https://www.instagram.com/theyjbm/

YJBM Science News 30: Reproductive Health and Immunology

Clinical Professor of Law Anika Singh Lemar talks about the struggle to build more affordable housing in Connecticut and the three clinics she leads at the Law School that work on housing issues. She also discusses her ideas about making it easier to build housing.

https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/podcast-anika-singh-lemar-confronts-connecticuts-housing-crisis

Anika Singh Lemar Confronts Connecticut’s Housing Crisis

A conversation with Janet Bishop, co-curator of the exhibition Ruth Asawa: Retrospective.

Ruth Asawa

For their third annual Bulldog Days Live episode, Hannah and Mark interview three recently admitted students about how they chose to spend their time in high school. The students share their insights on balancing schoolwork, extracurricular activities,  social life, work, family, and everything else on their path to applying to college.  Admissions officers Skylar and John discuss how the admissions office produces an action-packed three-day campus preview program, including two world-class performance showcases. Hannah and Mark also share dozens of pearls of wisdom submitted by audience members about prioritizing commitments and finding balance.

Bulldog Days Live 2025

Andrea Liguori, Kate Zanzucchi, Starr Figura, and Marcia Bartholme on the catalogue and Diebenkorn's printmaking practice.

The Richard Diebenkorn Catalogue Raisonné of Prints

The penultimate episode of season 4 is here, and it’s with someone we know you’ll love, @bishopmello of @episcopal_ct!! Tune in to hear about how Jeff Mello’s experience in social work impacts his ministry, how a posture of curiosity and willingness to fail are key, and at the very end, hear all about Bishop Jeff Mello as a person when we play our new favorite game: Holy Cow!

55: Flexible Leadership with Jeffrey Mello

Ryan Darr, YDS Assistant Professor of Religion, Ethics, and Environment and an expert on multispecies justice, discusses rapidly accelerating species extinctions, why they matter from an ethical and theological perspective, and why responses to the climate crisis and biodiversity loss requires less individual action and more new kinds of communities.

https://divinity.yale.edu/news/species-extinctions-and-why-they-matter-quadcast-interview-ryan-darr

Caring about Species Extinction and Climate Change from a Faith Perspective with Ryan Darr

When asked to give a presentation in your master’s program, Mario’s story shows that it could lead you to a doctoral program at Yale by way of a watershed connection and eventual mentorship with an interested professor. In this episode, Mario Soriano Jr. describes his educational pathway from his undergraduate studies in Civil Engineering at the University of the Philippines, to his master’s degree in Sustainability at the United Nations University and University of Tokyo, and to his PhD in Environmental Studies at Yale University’s School of the Environment. Through these programs, Mario both enhanced and leveraged his skillsets in the study of agricultural water systems. Mario also demystifies how STEM students often find their labs. Along the way, we’ll talk about why it’s important to attend workshops tailored to grad writing in earlier stages of the degree program, like prospectus panels, especially to manage feelings of imposter stress. 

Leveraging Skillsets in Hydrology with Mario Soriano, Jr.

You’ve embarked on an Ivy Plus Exchange program to do archival research in Portland, Oregon in your fifth year as a Sociology PhD Candidate. Covid hits, the archives close, what are you going to do? In this episode, we hear Dana’s story about finding a place within university life after more than a decade of trials, tribulations, and ultimately, successes with her “pivoted” dissertation project. We learn that time wasn’t wasted time, but instead a pause that allowed Dana to reflect on what about universities she loved and wanted to keep, and what she wanted to let go. If you’re curious about what I like to call “academic-adjacent” roles within the university, or roles that directly connect to and work with university scholars and teachers, this episode is for you. 

Staying Embedded in University Life on Your Terms with Dana Hayward

In this week’s episode of the YJBM Science News podcast, co-hosts Hanna and Roxanna explore papers that take us all around different organs in the body! Can we 3D print functional blood vessels? How does the brain spy on our organs? Find out the answers to these questions and more as we discuss recent Yale-affiliated research in biology and medicine.

Papers featured in this episode:
"Development and deployment of a functional 3D-bioprinted blood vessel”: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-93276-y
https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/scientists-successfully-implant-bioprinted-aorta-in-rats/
"Typhoid toxin causes neuropathology by disrupting the blood–brain barrier”:
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-025-02000-z
https://news.yale.edu/2025/05/09/how-typhoid-fever-triggers-severe-neurological-symptoms
“Adaptation to Volumetric Compression Drives an Apoptosis-Resistant and Invasive Phenotype in Liver Cancer”:
https://doi.org/10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-24-0859
https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/new-study-finds-that-physical-pressure-escalates-liver-cancer-aggression/
“The subfornical organ is a nucleus for gut-derived T cells that regulate behaviour”:
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09050-7
https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-01655-2
https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/t-cells-take-up-residence-in-the-healthy-brain-via-a-gut-fat-brain-axis/

Read more about YJBM at:
https://medicine.yale.edu/yjbm/ 

Follow us on instagram!
https://www.instagram.com/theyjbm/

YJBM Science News 34: All About Organs

In this episode, Stephanie Wong discusses her new book, Making Catholicism Chinese: The Catholic Church in a Modernizing China, with Chloë Starr. The conversation focuses on the life and work of the Lazarist priest-turned-Chinese citizen, Vincent Lebbe, and his work for church indigenization in the early twentieth century. 

Stephanie Wong, Making Catholicism Chinese

In this episode Peng Yin discusses his new book,  Persisting in the Good: Thomas Aquinas and early Chinese Ethics, with Chloë Starr.  They talk about moral development and what it means to be good in the thinking Mencius, Xunzi and Laozi—and how these interact with Aquinas’ thought, as well as historic European readings of Chinese philosophy.

Peng Yin, Persisting in the Good

In this episode Alex Chow discusses his new edited book, Chinese Heritage in British Christianity: more than foreigners, with Chloë Starr. They talk about the history of the Chinese church in the UK, Chinese heritage in British Christianity, and the diversity of Chinese-speaking congregations today. 

Alex Chow, Chinese Heritage in British Christianity

In this episode Naomi Thurston discusses her new book, Moltmann in China: Reception and Dialogue, with Chloë Starr. They discuss the reception of Moltmann’s theology—from despair and hope to eco-theology—among Chinese scholars, and Moltmann’s own forays into comparative work with his studies of the Daodejing. 

Naomi Thurston, Moltmann in China

In this episode Jesse Zixi Sun discusses his new book, Salvation and Revolution: A Twentieth Century Odyssey of the Chinese Protestant Mind, with Chloë Starr. They discuss the relationship between national modernization and religious salvation in China, and the disproportionate civic and social engagement of Christian intellectuals in national life in the early twentieth century.

Jesse Sun, Salvation and Revolution

Research has shown that a meditation practice is associated with a host of positive benefits. A body scan meditation is less about relaxation and more about awareness and taking inventory of how your body feels in the moment.

Body Scan Guided Meditation - Female Voice

Research has shown that both gratitude and meditation practices are associated with higher levels of happiness. Use this guided meditation to bring awareness to the people and things in your life that you are grateful for.

Gratitude Guided Meditation - Female Voice

Research has shown that Loving Kindness meditations can boost social closeness and implicit liking of strangers (Hutcherson et al. (2008). While this is a laboratory study, the results suggest this simple technique may help increase positive social emotions and decrease social isolation.

Loving Kindness Guided Meditation - Female Voice

Loving Kindess Guided Meditation - Male Voice

Gratitude Guided Meditation - Male Voice

Body Scan Guided Meditation - Male Voice

Hannah and Mark discuss how officers read applications, make notes, confer with colleagues, and prepare to present applicants to the Admissions Committee. Every year officers read more than 35,000 applications cover to cover and collectively make admissions decisions on each one. Admissions Officers Julian and John join as guests to discuss their strategies for reading and ratings files.

Reading

Every admissions decision is made by a committee composed of five members of the Yale community. Hannah and Mark take listeners inside a real admissions committee discussion and describe how the members reach consensus and make decisions. Admissions Officers Jill and Alfie join as guests to discuss their roles as a committee presenter and a committee chair.

Committee

Part 1 of 3. The most effective application essays help admissions officers understand who students are and the contributions they would make to a community. There’s no formula or perfect essay topic, but Hannah and Mark discuss what makes an essay work for an applicant. Admissions officer Keith joins to share insights on the choices that can be most effective when writing an essay.

Essays: What Works

Part 2 of 3. Application essays are an opportunity to speak directly to admissions officers and share meaningful insights and reflections. Unsuccessful essays miss that opportunity. Hannah and Mark share some of the ineffective choices that regularly appear in essays and discuss why each choice doesn’t work to the student’s benefit.

Essays: What Doesn’t Work

Part 3 of 3. Most colleges ask applicants to respond to several shorter questions that are unique to their school. Hannah and Mark discuss what officers look for when reviewing responses to Yale-specific questions. Admissions officer Reed joins to share the admissions office’s process of writing and reviewing those questions at the end of each admissions cycle.

Essays: The Little Stuff

Miriam Ingber (Yale Law School) and Kristi Jobson (Harvard Law School) will provide candid, accurate, and straightforward advice about law school admissions. Topics will include application timing, letters of recommendation, personal statements, and more!

Trailer

Miriam Ingber (Yale Law School) and Kristi Jobson (Harvard Law School) discuss what they’re looking for in law school applicants, covering hot topics like grade inflation, graduate degrees, extracurriculars and work experience, and the GRE vs. LSAT.

We’ll Tell You What We Want

Many applicants have an evaluative interview with a Yale student or alum as part of the application process. Hannah and Mark talk with Dara, the director Yale’s interviewing program, about how interviews work and what applicants can expect. They share do’s and don’ts for the interview and discuss how interview reports are considered Yale’s holistic review process.

Interviews

Every application to Yale includes three letters of recommendation – two from classroom teachers and one from a counselor. Admissions Officer Moira joins Hannah and Mark to share advice on selecting recommenders and tips for educators when writing on behalf of applicants. The officers share how effective letters can bolster and enhance an application, and they express their gratitude to the educators who write for their students.

Recommendation Letters

Most applicants to Yale are strong along many dimensions, but only a small group truly stand out. Hannah and Mark discuss how admissions officers try to gauge what an applicant would add to and take from the Yale experience. Admissions officer Keith adds insights about what makes applicants stand out in Yale’s large and diverse pool of prospective students.

YaleUniversity

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