This episode is for the new PI, the new student, and the future PEER scientist. I talk with Dr. Antoinette Foster about her journey into a new role in the academic sphere: a scientist of science. As a faculty member at Oregon Health & Science University's Vollum Institute for Neuroscience, she leads a student guidance center, teaches lectures on the social history of science, and counsels the program directors on admissions and administrative decisions. Through her journey, she offers advice and questions how the academic system's current state is impacting students and the quality of science. I encourage you to reflect on your own experiences and plans for your career in science.

I hope you enjoy this and let us know what you think!

You can find us at https://peeringintosciencepod.figma.site/

@peeringintosciencepod on Instagram, Bluesky, and TikTok

The PEERing into Science Podcast is made possible by our lovely team of neuroscience graduate students, including Tania Miramontes, Nina Luong, Joseline Medranos, and Juliana Cuartas. And our music is by Aztec Caves

Have you ever wondered about the molecules that allow our cells to sense touch? Well, Dr. Swetha Murthy has made it her lab's mission to understand just this. Yet how did she get to be a somatosensory (the science behind our sensations) neuroscientist? Growing up in Bangalore, India, she knew that she had a passion for biology, and with that passion, she directed her career into science. She reminisces about her experiences going down the academic path in India, until she knew she needed to move to America to pursue a career as a scientist, and from there she explored the world of molecular biology and biochemistry, only to end up as a neuroscientist! Using her skills to study the electrical activity of cells paired with her ability to capture the image of proteins (the machines cells use to do their thang) at the atomic level, to understand how the proteins behave. And she specifically studies proteins that change shape in response to a mechanical stimulus, called mechano-sensitive proteins, and our cells use these proteins to sense touch!

Anyways, to learn more about her work on how we sense the world around us visit her lab's website at: https://www.murthylab.com/

I hope you enjoy this conversation with Dr. Murthy about her journey to becoming a neuroscientist! And if you have any questions you wish we had asked, or someone you’d like to hear a similar story from, leave a comment below!

The PEERing into Science Podcast is made possible by our lovely team of neuroscience graduate students, including Tania Miramontes, Nina Luong, Joseline Medranos, and Juliana Cuartas.

Our music is by Aztec Caves: ⁠https://open.spotify.com/artist/0R678ieSUSqhzJOqiE3nXS⁠

More information about this episode can be found at ⁠PEERingintosciencepod.⁠figma.site

To start off this podcast series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Anusha Mishra, a scientist who studies how the cells in our brain respond to stroke, from the vessels that burst to the support cells called glia cells that rush to the scene and protect our neurons. Specifically, she studies how the cells that wrap our blood vessels in the brain change their messaging after a stroke to control the blood vessels’ size. To learn more about this, go to her lab website by following this link:https://www.ohsu.edu/jungers-center/mishra-lab.

In today's episode, I talk with Anusha about her journey into science, from her time growing up in Nepal, to how she discovered a career in science, the family responsibilities she had to carry as she pursued that career, and her wisdom in mentoring and building seminar programs that increase access to science for the general public as well as underrepresented communities.

I hope you enjoy, and if you have any questions you wish we had asked, or someone you’d like to hear a similar story from, leave a comment below!

The PEERing into Science Podcast is made possible by our lovely team of neuroscience graduate students, including Tania Miramontes, Nina Luong, Joseline Medranos, and Juliana Cuartas.

Our music is by Aztec Caves: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0R678ieSUSqhzJOqiE3nXS

More information about this episode can be found at PEERingintosciencepod.figma.site