The Story Collider

Part 1: Ecologist Evon Hekkala travels to Madagascar to help protect a village from a man-eating croc. Part 2: Criminologist Stan Stojkovic receives a letter from an incarcerated man who killed two people when he was a teenager. Evon Hekkala was born just outside of Fossil, Oregon, population 200. How she ended up living and working in NYC and traveling around the globe studying wildlife is all a bit of a big crazy fluke, set in motion by a mixture of really good, bad parenting and the naive ability to never see her own boundaries. Now she spends her time teaching and researching at Fordham University and the American Museum of Natural History where she and her students explore a century of change in the wild world of animals. Stan Stojkovic, PhD is Dean and Professor of Criminal Justice in the Helen Bader School of Social Welfare at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM). He has been a faculty member within the Helen Bader School of Social Welfare for the past 33 years. He received his Ph.D. in social science (with cognate specializations in criminal justice and criminology, public administration, and philosophy) from Michigan State University in 1984. Stan Stojkovic's story was produced as part of a partnership with Springer Storytellers. Find out more at www.beforetheabstract.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Part 1: As a grad student, Liz Neeley falls in love with the order of science, but when she heads into the field, she’s forced to confront messy reality. Part 2: Criminologist Heith Copes gets close to his subjects when he studies meth users in rural Alabama. Liz Neeley is the executive director of The Story Collider. She is a lapsed marine biologist who will always name her printers after fish. For the past decade, she has been helping researchers around the world understand the science of science communication and find the courage to tell more stories about their work. She is a member of the advisory boards of Ensia Magazine and the CommLab at MIT. Heith Copes, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Justice Sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He has served as the President of the Southern Criminal Justice Association and has been a visiting professor at the University of Oslo, University of South Wales, Aalborg University, and the Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research at Aarhus University. He received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Tennessee in 2001. He is currently working with Jared Ragland on a photo-ethnography in rural Alabama. The project entails interviews, observations, and visual methods to document the lives of people who use methamphetamine in Marshall County, Alabama. Heith Copes's story was produced as part of a partnership with Springer Storytellers. Find out more about Heith and his work on the Before the Abstract website: http://www.beforetheabstract.com/2017/03/01/caught-being-stupid/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Part 1: Born and raised in Brooklyn, naturalist Helen Cheng leaves the comfort of the city to venture out into the field. Part 2: Ecologist Thom Young-Bayer makes the tough decision to leave science after his life changes course. Helen Cheng is once a city-dweller turned solitude-seeking naturalist. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Helen’s journey took her from the big city to the coasts of the New England, studying horseshoe crabs and receiving her M.S. in Zoology from the University of New Hampshire. Interested in how management plays a role in research, she worked at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as a Sea Grant Knauss Fellow. As an interdisciplinary marine biologist, Helen works on a variety of projects involving research, education and outreach, and science communication. Whenever she gets a free moment, Helen enjoys eating new and delicious foods around the city, hiking in the mountains, swimming in the ocean, and singing and playing acoustic guitar. Thom Young-Bayer’s affinity for the outdoors developed into a brief career as an ecologist, during which he worked as a tropical forest guide, studied coral reef fish and kelp forests, and traveled to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Since then, he has managed two organic farms, worked on a commercial fishing vessel, sailed across the Pacific using celestial navigation, and worked as the First Mate of a Maine windjammer. He maintains his tenuous grip on sanity with open water swimming, ultra-marathon running, and classical piano. He lives with his wife, Skylar, and their two dogs in Maine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Part 1: Drew Prochaska decides to confront his fear of sharks -- by going swimming with them. Part 2: Attorney Heather Cucolo must navigate the complicated psychology surrounding her sex-offender clients. Drew Prochaska is a two-time Moth StorySlam winner, who has been featured on the "RISK!", "Dear Show", and Audible's "Stories in Session" podcasts. A graduate of The Tisch School of Arts Dramatic Writing Program, Drew's writing was regularly featured on the website of Running with Scissors author Augusten Burroughs. He lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn with his dog, Lula. Heather Cucolo is an adjunct professor at New York Law School and the current director of New York Law School’s Online Mental Disability Law Program. She has contributed to the development of courses for the program as well as assisted in collaboration with Asia-Pacific partners to foster international distance learning. Her academic work has afforded her wonderful opportunities, such as addressing mental disability law issues at the United Nations and allowing her to travel domestically and internationally to lecture and teach. Heather Cucolo's story was produced as part of a partnership with Springer Storytellers. Find out more at www.beforetheabstract.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Part 1: Mark Pagán combats his phobia of flying in an unusual way. Part 2: Military surgeon Rob Lim must perform surgery in the middle of a sandstorm in Iraq. Mark Pagán is an award-winning storyteller, comedian, multimedia artist, and writer best known for his humorous autobiographical and documentary vignettes for stage, television, online, screenings, print, and installation. His work and performances have been shown at festivals worldwide including Slamdance Film Festival, PBS, Arizona International Film Festival, Maryland Film Festival, Rooftop Film Festival, North Carolina Comedy Arts Festival, Chicago Improv Festival, Del Close Marathon, Philadelphia Improv Festival, and the Charleston Comedy Festival. Robert B. Lim, MD is a General Surgeon on active duty in the United States Army. He specializes in Advanced Laparoscopic Surgery, which includes robotics, single-incision laparoscopic, and bariatric surgery. He did his fellowship training at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School. His academic career focuses on obesity care, surgical education, surgical simulation, and patient safety. He is on the Board of Governors at the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgery and holds the rank of Associate Professor at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Dr. Lim founded the Society of Military Surgeons and produced the first ever tri-service military surgical symposium in 2014. He has been deployed to the combat zone 5 times including the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003. He has served on Forward Surgical Teams, in the Combat Hospitals, and on the GHOST-T surgical team (Golden Hour Offset of Surgical Trauma-Team) with the Special Forces. He helped revitalize the Excelsior Surgical Society, which is a tri-service military society that originated during World War II under the guidance of Winston Churchill. Rob Lim's story was produced as part of a partnership with Springer Storytellers. Find out more at http://www.beforetheabstract.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Part 1: MIT Museum education coordinator Faith Dukes wonders if there’s something wrong with her when she fails to couple up. Part 2: Cara Gael O'Regan is startled when she tests positive for syphilis. Faith Dukes is the Education Coordinator at the MIT Museum where her passions for inspiring the next generation of innovators and learning about the latest in science and technology collide. There, she creates interactive sessions for middle and high school students to explore using MIT’s exhibitions, collections and current research. Her dedication to outreach has extended to the local community where she chairs the Boston Blueprint Conference for Middle and High School Girls. Faith credits failed experiments during graduate school for helping her find the greatest coping tool ever, boxing. Today she teaches a weekly kickboxing class in Cambridge and calls the gym her meditation space. Faith earned her PhD in Chemistry from Tufts University and her BS from Spelman College. Cara Gael O'Regan is an artist, health advocate, and podcaster who has more than two decades of lived experience with complex chronic illness and the chronic uncertainty that comes along with it. Her painting, Syndrome, was published in the Fall 2015 issue of The Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine. She is a Clue Ambassador for menstrual + reproductive health, and a 2016 Stanford Medicine X ePatient Delegate. Cara's podcast, In Sickness + In Health, features interviews with people about their relationships with their bodies and discussions about the intersections with chronic illness, disability, healthcare, and mortality. She tweets about life and living with chronic illness @bimpse, and you can find the podcast @InSicknessPod and at insicknesspod.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Part 1: As a teenager, Bri Riggio struggles to understand her eating disorder and connect with her psychologist father. Part 2: Seth Baum, an expert in global catastrophic risk, makes waves when he suggests a solution to the threat of nuclear winter. Bri Riggio has spent the last six years working at various institutions of higher education, from a study abroad program in Greece to George Mason University, where she now supports the Office of Research at the executive level. While not a scientist by training, she has always loved research and the process of learning. She stupidly spent an extra year in graduate school after choosing to base her Master's thesis on a social science methodology that she didn't know and just barely managed to finish her MA in Conflict Resolution this past spring. To keep her sanity, she runs marathons, plays video games, and looks for opportunities to tell her stories. Dr. Seth Baum is Executive Director of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute, a nonprofit think tank that Baum co-founded in 2011. His research focuses on risk and policy analysis of catastrophes that could destroy human civilization, such as global warming, nuclear war, and infectious disease outbreaks. Baum received a Ph.D. in Geography from Pennsylvania State University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship with the Columbia University Center for Research on Environmental Decisions. His writing has appeared in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Guardian, Scientific American, and a wide range of peer-reviewed scholarly journals. Follow him on Twitter @SethBaum and Facebook @sdbaum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Part 1: A series of unfortunate events reveals something off about molecular biologist Maryam Zaringhalam’s sense of smell. Part 2: Hillary Savoie’s daughter is born with a rare genetic mutation. Maryam Zaringhalam is a molecular biologist who just received her PhD from The Rockefeller University. In the lab, Maryam tinkers with parasites and computers to understand how small changes to our genetic building blocks can affect how we look and function. When she's not doing science, Maryam runs ArtLab, a series that pairs scientists with artists, and podcasts with Science Soapbox, exploring science and policy. You can follow her science-ish musings on Twitter @webmz_ Hillary Savoie is a writer, advocate, and mixer of killer cocktails. She is also mother to Esmé, a beautiful little girl with multiple rare genetic conditions. Hillary has blogged about life with Esmé since 2012. Her writing has appeared onMotherlode—the NY Times parenting blog, The Mighty, Vector—Boston Children’s Science and Innovation Blog, and the Huffington Post Blog, among others. In 2015 she published two short memoirs, Around and Into The Unknown and Whoosh. Hillary is the Founder and Director of the Cute Syndrome Foundation, which is dedicated to raising research funds for and awareness of PCDH19 Epilepsy and SCN8A Epilepsy. And she holds a doctorate in Communication and Rhetoric from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, which was great preparation for parenting Esmé, who is an expert in nonverbal persuasion. In her free time she enjoys gardening, dancing to Beyoncé and the Muppets with Esmé, snuggling her geriatric cat, Chicken, and dressing her daughter up as famous women from history. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @HillarySavoie and Facebook @HillarySavoieWriter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Part 1: Bioethicist Elizabeth Yuko tries to use her science training while reporting her sexual assault. Part 2: Engineering student Selam Gano returns to her father’s home country of Ethiopia with the hopes of providing clean water to the village where he grew up. Elizabeth Yuko is a bioethicist and writer, specializing in the intersection of popular culture and ethics. She is an experienced communications strategist both for political campaigns and academic research, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the UN-affiliated NGO the Global Bioethics Initiative, and as an external expert for the European Research Council. She has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Ms. Magazine, The Establishment, Playboy, Racked and The Advocate, among others. Yuko also hosts a comedy lecture show called Let's Get Ethical! at Q.E.D. in Queens, New York. Selam Gano is an MIT undergraduate studying Mechanical Engineering with Robotics. She also blogs professionally for MIT Admissions and around the internet. When not in class, she is an undergraduate researcher at the MIT Media Lab and the principal researcher for the Muti Water Project. Born in the United States to an immigrant family, she has her heritage in China and Ethiopia and speaks four languages. She has a passion for robots, international projects, and writing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Brian Mackenwells tries to smuggle something onto the vomit comet, and Jess Thom learns the best way to explain her Tourette's to someone new. Brian Mackenwells currently works at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics as the Public Engagement Officer. For the seven years before that he worked at "Science Oxford", an Oxford-based science communication charity, developing and delivering science shows and workshops to all ages of young people. In his spare time he acts and directs as part of an amateur dramatics group, and co-writes the monthly audio-drama podcast "Action Science Theatre". He has also derived E=MC^2 live on stage in the back room of a pub, floated in zero gravity, and has only made two children cry in the course of his public engagement career to date. Jess Thom is co-founder of Touretteshero and may or may not lead a secret double life as a superhero. Artist, playworker, and expert fundraiser, Jess currently helps coordinate a large play project in South London. Jess has had tics since she was a child but wasn’t diagnosed with Tourettes until she was in her twenties. With some encouragement from her friends, Jess decided to turn her tics into a source of imaginative creativity and the Touretteshero project was born. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Part 1: Journalist Erika Check Hayden travels to Sierra Leone and sees ebola up close and personal for the first time. Part 2: As a child, psychologist Ali Mattu suffers from paralyzing social anxiety. Erika Check Hayden is an award-winning San Francisco-based science, health, and technology reporter. She writes for the science journal Nature, and on a freelance basis for a variety of publications. She is the incoming director of the University of California, Santa Cruz, Science Communication Program. Find her at erikacheck.com or on Twitter @Erika_Check. Ali Mattu is a clinical psychologist who specializes in the treatment of anxiety and body-focused repetitive behaviors (trichotillomania/hair-pulling disorder and excoriation/skin-picking disorder). He aspires to bring psychology to everyone, everywhere by hosting THE PSYCH SHOW, writing about the psychology of science fiction at Brain Knows Better, presenting to the public, and advocating for the brain and behavior sciences through the American Psychological Association. Dr. Mattu is an assistant professor at the Columbia University Medical Center. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Though Adam Becker loved science as a kid, he struggled in school -- until he met first-grade teacher Mrs. Brown. Adam Becker is a writer, astrophysicist, and science publishing troublemaker. He is currently writing a book about the sordid untold history of quantum physics, which will be published in spring 2018 by Basic Books. He is also the managing editor of the Open Journal of Astrophysics, and a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley's Office for History of Science and Technology. Originally hailing from a tiny town in northern New Jersey, he earned a PhD in physics from the University of Michigan studying the arrangement of stuff in the very early universe. These days, he lives in Oakland, California, with his wife, Elisabeth, who is a writer, and their pet rabbit Copernicus, who is not. You can find him online at freelanceastro.com and @freelanceastro. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When biologist Mary Ann Allen gets a chance to study Down syndrome, the disorder her dear childhood friend had, she jumps at the chance, but the results aren't what she expected. Mary Ann Allen is a Sie post-doctoral fellow at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her work focuses on "genetically encoded suppressors of the deleterious Down syndrome phenotypes and exploring the molecular basis of expression dysregulation in Down syndrome." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Neuroscientist Rebecca Brachman is working late one night alone in the lab when she accidentally sticks herself with a needle full of deadly toxin. Rebecca Brachman is a neuroscientist, playwright, and screenwriter. She obtained her PhD at Columbia University, where she recently discovered the first drug that might prevent psychiatric disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. Prior to that, she was a fellow at the National Institutes of Health, where she did pioneering work on how the immune system influences cognition by showing that white blood cells can act as antidepressants. She has also served as the director of NeuWrite, a national network of science-writing groups that fosters ongoing collaboration between scientists, writers, and artists. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When geneticist and science communicator Emily Grossman is invited to discuss women in science on TV, she doesn't know she'll be debating a legendary Internet bully. Emily Grossman is an expert in molecular biology and genetics, with a Double First in Natural Sciences from Queens' College Cambridge and a PhD in cancer research. She also trained and worked as an actress, and now combines her skills as a science broadcaster, writer and educator; teaching maths and sciences at all academic levels and explaining science for a wide range of TV and radio programs and at live events. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices