Episodios

  • Dreaming in space: A conversation with Ricardo Branco, Ph.D., NASA NPP Fellow

    Dreaming in space: A conversation with Ricardo Branco, Ph.D., NASA NPP Fellow
    Apr 8 2026
    Ricardo Branco, Ph.D., is a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His research focuses on the development of detectors that can detect infrared or thermal radiation from very cold bodies throughout the solar system – think Uranus or the moon. Capturing the infrared radiation allows scientists to detect the chemical composition and other aspects of the body they are studying. Brando is a native of Brazil who has been interested in science since childhood. As a kid Branco wanted to be a doctor but fell in love with physics in high school. The rest, as they say, is history. While he never dreamed he’d be at NASA, he is excited about his research and the potential it holds to be part of future NASA flagship missions to orbit Uranus. To learn more about the NASA NPP program, visit https://npp.orau.org/index.html
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    21 m
  • Cultivate your curiosity: A conversation with Kirtan Dixit, Ph.D., NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow

    Cultivate your curiosity: A conversation with Kirtan Dixit, Ph.D., NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow
    Apr 1 2026
    Kirtan Dixit, Ph.D., is a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow in the second year of his fellowship at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He is part of the high-energy astrophysics, high-energy optics group on advances X-ray optics for future space telescopes. His research focuses on designing and fabricating multilayer mirror coating that can efficiently reflect hard X-rays. In this interview, he tells guest host Amber Davis that X-ray optical coatings are useful for focusing X-rays so that astrophysicists can make some sense out of it and can understand the underlying physics happening at high temperatures in the universe. For scientists who might want to pursue a NASA Postdoctoral Fellowship, Kirtan recommends cultivating a deep curiosity about a problem that genuinely matters to you. To learn more about the NASA Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, visit https://npp.orau.org/index.html
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    19 m
  • Information hazards of the AI and biotechnology convergence: A conversation with Greg Nichols

    Information hazards of the AI and biotechnology convergence: A conversation with Greg Nichols
    Mar 11 2026
    Greg Nichols is operations manager in the ORAU health studies program, but he wears a lot of hats. He has become an expert in artificial intelligence and received an ORAU Thought Leadership Research Award to write a chapter on the convergence of AI and biotechnology. Nichols’s chapter, “Assessing Governance and Regulatory Frameworks for Converging Technologies: The Case of Artificial Intelligence in Biological Engineering and Design Technologies,” appears in Biotechnology and AI: Technological Convergence and Information Hazards. He says that While biotechnologies are somewhat better regulated and monitored compared to other technologies, artificial intelligence is not, and the combination of these two is certainly not explicitly or fully covered by most existing regulations or risk governance framework. This was an insightful and thought-provoking conversation. To learn more about the chapter Nichols wrote, visit https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-032-05246-9_8 Find the book at https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-032-05246-9
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    37 m
  • Sharing our capabilities on an international level: ORAU and the 2026 Waste Management Symposia

    Sharing our capabilities on an international level: ORAU and the 2026 Waste Management Symposia
    Mar 5 2026
    The annual Waste Management Symposia (March 8-12, 2026, in Phoenix, Arizona) is the premier international conference concerning the safe and secure management of radioactive wastes arising from nuclear operations, facility decommissioning and environmental remediation, as well as storage, transportation and disposal, and associated activities. A team of ORAU subject matter experts will be attending this year’s event. In this episode of Further Together, Kathy Rollow, senior director for Energy and International Strategy, and Chelsea Hill, manager of Workforce Solutions, discuss why Waste Management 2026 is an important opportunity for ORAU to share its capabilities with leading agencies, industries and experts in the nuclear energy sector. At WM 2026, the ORAU team will share information about staffing and recruiting Workforce Solutions, organizational and safety culture evaluations, PeerNet—our proprietary decision-making tool, Emergency Manager 360, Exercise Builder Nuclear and Exercise Builder Energy. To learn more about Workforce Solutions, contact Chelsea Hill at chelsea.hill@orau.org. To discuss any of these capabilities, contact Kathy Rollow at kathy.rollow@orau.org. For more information about ORAU, visit https://orau.org/
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    28 m
  • Being selected for the NASA Postdoctoral Program is a dream come true for Kelly Whalen, Ph.D.

    Being selected for the NASA Postdoctoral Program is a dream come true for Kelly Whalen, Ph.D.
    Feb 25 2026
    Kelly Whalen, Ph.D., studies black holes and how they interact with galaxy growth as part of her research for the NASA Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. Whalen says there are a lot of misconceptions about black holes because of pop culture and science fiction depictions. There are different kinds of black holes, and they are not gigantic forces of destruction. She tells Further Together, The ORAU Podcast that black holes can also create by forming new stars. Whalen says being selected for the NASA NPP program is a dream come true and looks forward to continuing her research. The deadline for the NASA NPP March application cycle has been extended to April 2, 2026. Learn more at https://npp.orau.org/index.html
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    20 m
  • Searching the cosmos for new planets: A conversation with Stela Silva, NASA NPP Fellow

    Searching the cosmos for new planets: A conversation with Stela Silva, NASA NPP Fellow
    Feb 18 2026
    Stela Silva, Ph.D., an astrophysicist in the NASA Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, has her eye to the sky, sort of. Working with gravitational microlensing, which she says is "the physical phenomenon that happens when we're observing a star and then another star with a planet passes in front of it," and machine learning she looks for signatures of exoplanets. The chance of finding a star is one in a million, Silva says, and she and her fellow researchers look at millions of stars at the same time trying to detect exoplanets. Silva grew up in Brazil, where NASA seemed as far away as the stars she now studies. But she and her grandfather shared a loved of astronomy, and she worked hard toward her dream of being at NASA. To learn more about the NASA NPP Program, visit https://npp.orau.org/. The deadline for the March 2026 application cycle has been extended to 5 p.m. ET on Thursday, April 2, 2026.
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    26 m
  • 'My success is because of past generations:' A Black History Month conversation with Myron Porter

    'My success is because of past generations:' A Black History Month conversation with Myron Porter
    Feb 11 2026
    Myron Porter is a section manager in ORAU’s Technical Solutions Group, which is part of ITS. In his role, he is a software developer working as part of the team that maintains and supports U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science web applications for National Science Bowl, the Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) program and the Laboratory Equipment Donation Program (LDEP). Host Michael Holtz talked to Porter as part of a two-part series on the people making Black History at ORAU. Porter says he got hooked on technology when his family set up their first computer and used AOL to access the internet. When he hears the phrase, “I am Black History,” he is mindful of the blood, sweat and tears that Black people before him have shed so he can have the life he lives today. He says his success is because of past generations. Porter hopes that when people look back on his life, they will see how he helped advance work in the scientific arena, and point to scientific breakthroughs that may have resulted because of the technology he helped support.
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    13 m
  • Remember the quiet encouragers: A Black History Month conversation with Rachel Hill, Ph.D.

    Remember the quiet encouragers: A Black History Month conversation with Rachel Hill, Ph.D.
    Feb 4 2026
    Rachel Hill, Ph.D., calls them angels: pastors, teachers, extended family members, neighbors who encourage us and cheer us on. The quiet encouragers who aren’t given and probably wouldn’t take credit for our successes. In honor of Black History Month, Further Together, the ORAU Podcast is featuring a two-part series of conversations with individuals making Black history at ORAU. For this episode, host Michael Holtz and special co-host Jill Latchana talk to Hill, an associate manager in STEM Workforce Development for ORISE, which is managed by ORAU for the U.S. Department of Energy. She discusses shift from academia to better focus on things she cherished. Hill shared her role in Black history, what it means to stand on the shoulders of her ancestors and what she hopes people will see in the story of her life.
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    26 m