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Jim Irons grew up in the 1960s and 1970s in Cleveland when environmental conservation was becoming more important for society, but it wasn’t until the Cuyahoga River in his hometown of Cleveland caught on fire in 1969 that his desire...

How does one go from being a B+ student who got dressed down by her 8th grade softball coach to the Division Director of the Earth Science Division at NASA? While this might sound like the plot of an inspirational...

After being drawn to the oceans at an early age, Paula continues to examine many factors that influence changes in the oceans. As a program manager for NASA, she enjoys the opportunity to work with dedicated researchers and learn how...

Dr. Ella Sciamma-O’Brien is a research scientist in laboratory astrophysics and planetary science. As a member of the Astrophysics and Astrochemistry Laboratory at NASA Ames Research Center, Dr. Sciamma-O’Brien has been working on the Titan Haze Simulation (THS) experiment, developed on the...

Melissa Trainer is a planetary scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and is working on the upcoming Dragonfly mission. We talked to her about pitching Dragonfly and finding out whether it got accepted on TV, accepting opportunities you didn’t...

As a leading international expert in weather and climate and Georgia Athletic Association Distinguished Professor of Geography and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Georgia, James Marshall Shepherd knows a lot about climate, and just as importantly, how to talk...

Lawrence Friedl discusses his life and experiences as Director of the Applied Sciences Program in the Earth Science Division at NASA Headquarters. Interested in space from a young age, he developed an interest in how the environment and public policy...

Ending interview

Ioan Lascu, research geologist at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, shares stories of his work studying minerals and rock magnetism. What do bacteria affect magnetism? What can we learn from stalagmites and stalactites? Why has there been in a...

If you’re a scientist in an oceanography department, you’re probably studying the ocean, right? Well, part of your job might be studying things like phytoplankton, the tiny oceanic powerhouses that play a crucial role in our planet's ecosystem. But how...

If Sharmila Bhattacharya wasn't Program Scientist for Space Biology at NASA Headquarters, perhaps she would've been a theater actress. And while her contributions on stage would likely be legendary, we're happy to have her at NASA learning about how space...

In research, Dalia Kirschbaum literally seeks landslide victories, though in her case this entails finding disasters. The research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center uses satellite monitoring to get clear predictions about actual landslides through satellite information. “My work...

Dr. Jim Green has spent 38 years of his life working at NASA. He started there with a fresh Ph.D. in Earth magnetospheric science and helped pioneer the magnetosphere research group at Marshall Space Flight Center. He spent 12 years...

Stephen Running, an Emeritus Regent's Professor at the University of Montana, shares about his work with NASA studying the global ecosystem from space. Trying out a microscope at a young age ironically led him into a lifetime of looking at...

On May 8th 2019 teens from the MyDurham program interviewed mature adults about their memories of the first Moon Landing in 1969. In this recording we hear about what it was like witnessing the landing as young adults in college...

Noah Petro is a research scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center- which doesn’t seem like much, but it includes being the lab chief of the Planetary Geology, Geophysics and Geochemistry Lab at Goddard and being the project scientist...

Matt Mountain thought he wanted to work alone as a scientist, but on his journey to becoming the president of an Association for Universities in Research in Astronomy and the telescope scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope at NASA,...

Paul Stackhouse is a sun chaser, but in his case it means measuring the surface radiation budget. This means figuring out how much sunlight gets to the surface of the planet, and takes a deep understanding of factors like cloud...

Brad Doorn’s, Water Resources and Agriculture Applied Science Program NASA, work includes forecasting the global food supply, including warnings and predictions about possible problems that might arise due to water supply shortages which can inform global market prices. While the...

Alex Young has a great finger on the weather. But the Associate Director for Science in the Heliophysics Science Division at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center’s attention is focused far higher than any storm cloud. He studies space weather and...

As the Scientific Visualization lead for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Mark SubbaRao oversees the translation of NASA science into images and movies. For Mark, science visualization is a key communication tool that allows the public to interact and explore...

Colleagues Lynn Mertz (58) and Theresa Edelstein (63) talk about their work with the Leaders in Equity and Diversity (LEAD) Collaborative. They discuss their careers and the need for health equity.

Jeffrey Myers knows his way around aerial photogrammetry. As a former lead manager at the Airborne Sensor Facility at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Jeffrey’s work with data collection and earth mapping has been affiliated with NASA’s U-2 program, MODIS, and...

Peter Michelson was inspired by the Apollo moon program to study physics; now, he's a professor of physics at Stanford University and works at the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. We talked to Peter about pivoting into a new field after...

As part of the 30th anniversary of the Corporate Volunteer Council (CVC), Linda Parrish (67) has a conversation with her friend Shirlene Anderson (67) about their time serving together on the CVC and about Shirlene being its founder and first...