Be­hind the Sci­ence

Fig­ure 1. Shaggy mane (Co­pri­nus co­ma­tus).  ©2015 christoph weigel

by Elio

Re­cently, I had the plea­sure of par­tic­i­pat­ing in a pro­gram called "Peo­ple Be­hind the Sci­ence." This is a se­ries of in­ter­views con­ducted by Marie Mc­Neely, a neu­ro­sci­en­tist who hosts this re­mark­able en­deavor. The pro­gram aims to pro­vide a can­did look at the lives of sci­en­tists across a va­ri­ety of fields and to show­case the hu­man side of sci­ence. Marie asks a bunch of prob­ing ques­tions that re­veal more than "the per­son in the white lab coat." I can at­test to this be­cause I was asked about my hob­bies (hunt­ing wild mush­rooms), a book I re­cently read (Allen's The Fan­tas­tic Lab­o­ra­tory of Dr. Weigl), re­veal­ing a quote I trea­sure (Sal­vador Luria's "If some­thing is not worth do­ing, it's not worth do­ing well"), and the per­son who most in­flu­enced me in sci­ence (my Copen­hagen men­tor Ole Maaløe). We didn't stop there but had a de­light­ful chat about other as­pects of my fa­vorite sub­ject (moi!). Truly, the ex­pe­ri­ence was ut­ter fun.

It turns out that the list of over 300 in­ter­views in­cludes a num­ber of mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gists, many fa­mil­iar to read­ers of this blog.  Lis­ten­ing to each of them is a les­son in the hu­man as­pects of do­ing sci­ence. I bet that you will find it re­ward­ing.

To ac­cess the in­ter­view, click on the name.

Episode num­ber

303:  Stan­ley Maloy: Ex­press­ing His Pas­sion for Sci­ence and Bac­te­r­ial Ge­net­ics

301:  Hélène Mor­lon: Con­duct­ing Di­verse Re­search in Macroevo­lu­tion, Macro­e­col­ogy, and Mi­cro­bial Bio­geog­ra­phy

300:  Mose­lio Schaechter: A Mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gist Cel­e­brat­ing the Lit­tle Things in Life and Sci­ence

294:  Jan West­pheling: Fu­el­ing Up on In­spi­ra­tion In­ves­ti­gat­ing How Bac­te­ria Can Fa­cil­i­tate Bio­fuel Pro­duc­tion

277:  Vic Ar­cus: Ex­cel­lent Re­search Ex­am­in­ing En­zymes and Pro­tein En­gi­neer­ing

257:  Amy Vollmer: Sci­ence on Stress in Sin­gle-Celled Or­gan­isms

256:  Louis Schip­per: Ad­vanc­ing Mi­cro­bial Ap­pli­ca­tions in Agri­cul­tural Man­age­ment

251:  Holly Bik: Se­quenc­ing Species in Deep-Sea Sed­i­ments

245:  Noah Fierer: Mys­te­ri­ous Mi­crobes in Our Guts, the Ground, the Air, and Every­where!

241:  Rob Dunn: From Mi­crobes to Man – Ex­plor­ing Evo­lu­tion, Ecol­ogy, and the Ex­cit­ing Un­knowns in Sci­ence

235:  Seth Bor­den­stein: See­ing Sci­ence and Sym­bio­sis Through the Lens of an Evo­lu­tion­ary Mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gist

227:  Charles Cock­ell: Ex­plor­ing Ex­treme En­vi­ron­ments and the Emer­gence of Life

186:  Tara Smith: Re­sis­tance on the Rise: Re­search­ing the Arms Race of An­tibi­otic Re­sis­tant Bac­te­ria and Po­ten­tial Trans­fers from Live­stock to Hu­mans

170:  Vin­cent Racaniello: Prac­tic­ing Com­mu­ni­ca­ble Sci­ence Study­ing Viruses and Shar­ing Re­search with the World

164:  Irene New­ton: Rev­el­ing in Re­la­tion­ships be­tween Bac­te­ria and Their In­sect Hosts

158:  Mark Mar­tin: Mas­ter of Mat­ters Mi­cro­bial In­clud­ing Preda­tory Mi­crobes and Bac­te­r­ial Sym­bio­sis

156:  David Bal­trus: Ger­mi­nat­ing Ex­cit­ing Ex­per­i­ments on Plant Pathogens and Mi­cro­bial In­ter­ac­tions

134:  Doug Weibel: In­fec­tious Cu­rios­ity for How Bac­te­ria Grow, Di­vide, and Func­tion

117:  Jen­nifer Bid­dle: Get­ting Sen­ti­men­tal About Mi­crobes in Ma­rine Sed­i­ments

091:  Cameron Thrash: Zoom­ing in on Ma­rine Mi­crobes and Their Crit­i­cal Role in the State of our Seas

087:  Jen White: In­ves­ti­ga­tion of Ben­e­fi­cial In­fes­ta­tions of Sym­bi­otic Bac­te­ria in In­sects

072:  Gau­tam Dan­tas: It's All About Com­mu­ni­ties When Study­ing Mi­cro­bial Ge­nomics and Ex­change of An­tibi­otic Re­sis­tance

068:  Cliff Beall: Ex­plor­ing the Crea­tures that Re­side Within by Study­ing the Hu­man Oral Mi­cro­biome