Jennifer Polk coaches PhDs ready to make a career change.It's the time of the year when many of us slow down and think about our career decisions. Are you happy with yours? Are you considering a change? I am, in fact, going to make a change

56 Food System Transformation – with Gesa Maschkowski

Oct 27th, 2020 32m 11s

Food production, transportation, and consumption habits have an immense impact on health, biodiversity, and the climate. Which food we eat influences our risks for metabolic and cardiovascular diseases; but also the use of land, water, fertiliz

55 Are you FIT 4 RRI?

Oct 14th, 2020 29m 26s

Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is the idea of bringing stakeholders to the table when we plan our research strategies. The EU-funded project "FIT4RRI" was tasked with finding out why aspects of RRI - such as citizen science projects

54 Flatten the Global Temperature Curve – with Maria-Elena Vorrath

Sep 14th, 2020 38m 55s

My guest in this episode is Dr. Maria-Elena Vorrath, a geologist who studies the history of climate change, who just finished her PhD. Besides her work as a researcher she is a science communicator with Scientists for Future. Her message is

53 A Neuroscientist’s View on Artificial Intelligence

Aug 20th, 2020 39m 36s

One of my favorite topics is artificial intelligence, or - more specifically - what we can learn from neuroscience about artificial intelligence. So, when I was gifted the book "Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence" by Ma

52 B&D Online Teaching, SciComm, and the Populist Fringes

Aug 3rd, 2020 38m 8s

My co-host Bart Geurten and I had a rather spontaneous conversation, again. We talk about remote teaching, how science communication and science journalism could be supported by the public, and speculate about how the political fringe might be

51 Extended Throwback: Precarious Postdocs – with Gary McDowell

Jun 29th, 2020 1h 27m

Postdocs are, besides graduate students, the main workforce in academic research. Following the PhD, the postdoc position is the only way to follow a research career within academia. Many PhDs around the world are advised to go to the USA for

50 Sustainable Mobility – with Jonathan Koehler of Scientists for Future

Jun 20th, 2020 44m 53s

For this episode, I spoke with Dr. Jonathan Köhler who studies the transformation of the transportation and mobility sectors using computational models at Competence Centre Sustainability and Infrastructure Systems of Fraunhofer Institute.

49 Times of Crisis – Conspiracy Myths and SciComm – with B&D

Jun 1st, 2020 41m 50s

For this episode, Bart and I had a rather spontaneous chat about conspiracy beliefs and science communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. Worldwide conspiracy myths about SARS-CoV-2 appear to be on the rise, and conspiracy narrators team

48 SciComm as Career Development Tool – Dmitry Kopelyanskiy

May 22nd, 2020 31m 19s

For this episode, Dennis talked to Dmitry Kopelyanskiy, a contest-winning science communicator who gives entertaining science talks on stage – mostly about his own research on tropical diseases. But here, Dmitry also talks about his academic ca

47 Extended Throwback: Insecurity and Uncertainties for Early Career Academics – with Maria Pinto

May 15th, 2020 1h 5m

During this season, once every 4 weeks, I pick one of the 13 most popular episodes from the first two years and post the original interview. These extended editions contain a couple of parts that didn’t make it into the final cut and give an in

46 Scientists for Future – with Thomas Loew

May 9th, 2020 40m 37s

The initial statement of Scientists for Future in support of Fridays for Future came out just at the right time. In the public debate, it was a swift response to politicians who were trying to mute the student strikes by telling them to "leave

45 Animal Research During the COVID-19 Lockdown – with B&D and Daniela Buchwald

Mar 24th, 2020 29m 23s

In this episode, Bart and I invited PhD candidate Daniela Buchwald from the German Primate Center – a private research institute. We compare how the University of Göttingen and the German Primate Center (GPC) responded to the impending shutdown

44 Green Biotechnology – with David Spencer

Mar 16th, 2020 36m 40s

Dennis’s guest for this episode is David Spencer, a researcherin plant physiology and phytopathology in Germany. In his Ph.D., David usesgenetic engineering to fortify soybeans against fungal infection. They explain whywe need more resilient

43 Extended Throwback: Genetically Modified Crops and the European Union – with Hélène Pidon

Mar 10th, 2020 59m 9s

Entering Year Three, Dawkins and Eugenics & Ranking Unis - with Bart and Dennis

Mar 1st, 2020 40m 45s

Thisepisode marks the official end of the second year of this podcast! (unfortunately,there was still no present for Bart - consider becoming a Patron to help!) Apartfrom the plans for year 3, Bart & Dennis discussed the hot topic of thewee

41 @RealScientists Tweet their SciComm – with Upulie Divisekera

Feb 9th, 2020 31m 9s

For this episode, Dennis talked to Upulie Divisekera, the Australian molecular biologist and accomplished science communicator who co-founded “@RealScientists”. She shares how she got access to platforms with large audiences, and lessons from

40 What does Society Think about Science? – B&D

Jan 29th, 2020 38m 48s

In this episode, Bart and I talk about Wissenschaftsbarometer or “science barometer”. This annual survey in Germany and Switzerland is about the public’s trust in science and scientists. Afterward, we talk about a similar survey in the USA, pub

39 From Cosy(?) Academia to Harsh(?) Industry! – with John Stowers

Jan 5th, 2020 37m 35s

Life as an Early Career Researcher is rather uncertain. The conditions for most postdocs aren’t really great and the availability of professorships isn’t increasing at the same rate as the number of PhDs entering the academic career path - we t

38 A Split in the Human Species: ANYA the Movie – with Carylanna Taylor and Jacob Okada

Nov 24th, 2019 37m 15s

In this episode, I talk about the science fiction movie ANYA with its creators, Anthropologist Dr. Carylanna Taylor, and Jacob Okada of First Encounter Productions (not a sponsor).The plot of ANYA could happen today! It all starts with a co

37 NOT IN MY BACKYARD! – with Bart and Dennis

Nov 18th, 2019 32m 47s

After an unforgivable delay this episode is finally out. We had some personal and technical delays. Sorry about that.Anyways, in this episode Bart and I continue a conversation about the Energiewende. Based on the latest episode we spoke ab

36 Energiewende II: Power Distribution

Oct 20th, 2019 29m 8s

This summer climate change has finally made it back into public discussion in Germany. In the last episode on climate change, Rüdiger Eichel and I spoke about Fridays for Future and how the results of the election for the European Parliament re

35 Why Academia Fails – with Bart and Dennis

Oct 6th, 2019 26m 23s

The main topic for this episode is Why Academia Fails… or better, what we may learn from the book “Why Nations Fail” (Acemoglu & Robinson) about the shortcomings of academia. But before we get to it, we will talk briefly about what happened ov

34 Community SciComm: The Addictive Brain – with Chinmaya Sadangi

Sep 22nd, 2019 24m 54s

In this episode I talk with Dr. Chinmaya Sadangi about his Science Communication Project "The Addictive Brain". Science Communication is of major importance. This becomes increasingly clear as we are witnessing the climate action demonstrat

33 Mandatory Open Access & E****ier – with Bart & Dennis

Sep 1st, 2019 32m 21s

Photo by Miriam Berger and Bart Geurten We are back from the summer break! So, we resume the “Bart and Dennis” Talk format! Bart and I briefly talk about Bart’s research, because he just published an article! And it appeared in a journa