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The official podcast of the Society of Graduate Students at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. We aim to showcase the innovative research that graduate students are conducting at Western University and appeal to various audiences including those within and beyond the academic community.
Episodes
46 minutes ago
46 minutes ago
This week, Purvaja Karthikeyan, a PhD candidate from Electrical and Computer Engineering is joined by hosts Mark Ambrogio and Victor Lau. Purvaja is supervised by Dr. Jayshri Sabarinathan, and is focusing on improving optical chip function for eventual deployment into space.. within ultra-small satellites known as CubeSats!
Listen to hear more about Purvaja’s work, and how it contributes to a bigger ecosystem (referencing the ‘nature’ of things and the Western Skylark project).
Here are some links accompanying’s Purvaja’s project, alongside hobbies outside of her research work!
https://space.uwo.ca/research/Missions%20and%20Instruments/Skylark.html
https://www.instagram.com/root_cycle?igsh=cTMxY2J3aHF1eHE0
Recorded on Tuesday, March 10th, 2026
Produced by Milan Mammen
Theme tune "Feelin Good" provided by FreeBeats.io (Produced by WhiteHot)
Tuesday Mar 10, 2026
Tuesday Mar 10, 2026
In this week’s episode, hosts Kuljeet Chohan and Rafaela Platkin interview Jake Daigle, a MSc student in bioinformatics, about his research on modelling mutation accumulation (buildup of genetic mistakes) in viruses.
From a bachelor's degree in math to starting a masters in bioinformatics, he discusses insights on his day-to-day life researching mathematical models that can hopefully be applied to the real world. Listen to find out the importance of asking "who cares" when formulating research questions and if you can ever know when you get something "right"?
Recorded on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026
Produced by Scott Walters and Milan Mammen
Theme tune "Feelin Good" provided by FreeBeats.io (Produced by WhiteHot)
Tuesday Mar 03, 2026
Tuesday Mar 03, 2026
In this week's episode, hosts Milan Mammen and Chrishma Perera are joined again by Varsha Vasudevan, a PhD candidate in the Health & Rehabilitation Sciences department at Western University, in the Health Promotion stream. Varsha went into depth in her work in a previous episode. Here, she goes more into her life outside her research, expanding on her journey as a Peer Advisor and the services available to help one market their skills in the job market and how peer advising can even empower oneself.
Click on the link to learn about the services offered by the Peer Advising team. Check out Western Connect it you would like to apply to become a Peer Advisor (Western Connect > Job Postings > Western Peer Leader Program > Job ID 126956 (Peer Advisor - Career Education).
Recorded on Tuesday, February 24, 2026
Produced by Evelyn MacKay-Barr and Anika Bushra
Theme song provided by FreeBeats.io (Produced by WhiteHot)
Tuesday Feb 24, 2026
Tuesday Feb 24, 2026
In this week's episode, hosts Maris Schneider and Mark Ambrogio talk to Jessica Holmes. Jessica is completing a combined MCISc/PhD in Speech-Language Pathology and Health & Rehabilitation Sciences. Her work focuses on how children respond when hearing the sound of their own voice subtly shifted, and what that reveals about speech development.
Jessica explains how altered auditory feedback is used to study children’s speech adjustments, what it's like to work with children in the lab, and what it’s like to balance clinical training with research.
Recorded on Tuesday, February 17, 2026
Produced by Kuljeet Chohan and Victor Lau
Theme song provided by FreeBeats.io (Produced by WhiteHot)
Tuesday Feb 17, 2026
Tuesday Feb 17, 2026
In this week’s episode, hosts Kelly Wang and Scott Walters interview Sorcha Rountree, a PhD student in Earth Science, about their journey from archaeology to geology and what studying ancient skull shapes can tell us about identity in the past.
Sharing insights from their MA research on cranial modification in Prehispanic Peru, Sorcha explains how geometric morphometric methods help researchers study shape and cultural practices, what their results revealed about identity and social status, and how their interdisciplinary background opened the door to a new path in Earth Science.
Recorded on Tuesday, February 10th, 2026
Produced by Milan Mammen
Theme tune "Feelin Good" provided by FreeBeats.io (Produced by WhiteHot)
Tuesday Feb 10, 2026
Tuesday Feb 10, 2026
This week, French studies PhD candidate Kaitlyn Gagnon takes hosts Garth Casbourn and Mark Ambrogio into both the literary and theatrical worlds of mid-nineteenth-century France. Her research focus is the short-lived foray of Émile Zola into writing comic works for the stage. We learn about the various pitfalls and opportunities this work afforded him, and how it fit into the broader picture of his life and career.
Follow the links below to learn more about Kaitlyn's research, and about that of her supervisor, Dr. Geneviève De Viveiros.
https://www.instagram.com/zolaspy?igsh=Y3R4MnJrbnpxbDZh&utm_source=qr
https://www.uwo.ca/french/people/faculty/deviveiros.html
Recorded on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2026
Produced by Garth Casbourn
Theme tune "Feelin Good" provided by FreeBeats.io (Produced by WhiteHot)
Tuesday Feb 03, 2026
Tuesday Feb 03, 2026
In this week's episode, hosts Garth Casbourn and Bruno Mesquita interview Jessica Lammert, a fifth year PhD student in the Cognitive, Developmental, and Brain Sciences research cluster in Psychology, to talk about her work studying narrative processing and storytelling in children.
Jessica also shares past projects bridging the arts and science to facilitate scientific communication and the importance of open science practices.
Recorded on Tuesday, January 27, 2026
Produced by Evelyn MacKay-Barr
Theme song provided by FreeBeats.io (Produced by WhiteHot)
Tuesday Jan 27, 2026
Tuesday Jan 27, 2026
In this week's episode, hosts Milan Mammen and Kuljeet Chohan interview Emilie Potts, a PhD student in Biomedical Engineering, to talk about what we still don’t fully understand about concussions, brains, and biological sex differences.
Sharing what it's like to bridge engineering and neuroscience, Emilie explains what surprised her most about female vs male brains and the life lessons she took from her PhD.
Recorded on Tuesday, January 20, 2026
Produced by Evelyn MacKay-Barr
Theme song provided by FreeBeats.io (Produced by WhiteHot)
Tuesday Jan 20, 2026
Tuesday Jan 20, 2026
In this week's episode, hosts Anthony Cruz and Bruno Mesquita interview Shahnaz Shahid Ali, a PhD student in Nursing under the supervision of Dr. Panagiota Tryphonopoulos. Shahnaz's research explore midwives' experiences providing physical and mental health care to women during pregnancy, childbirth, and afterbirth. Tune in to learn how sociocultural factors shape midwifery practice, where gaps exist in screening and referral pathways, and how improved training and structured mental health care systems can lead to better outcomes for mothers and families.
Follow this link to learn more about Shanaz.
Recorded on Tuesday, January 13, 2026
Produced by Milan Mammen
Theme song provided by FreeBeats.io (Produced by WhiteHot)
Tuesday Jan 13, 2026
Tuesday Jan 13, 2026
In this week's episode, hosts Ryan Baxter and Mark Ambrogio interview Ran Jiang, a PhD candidate in Music Education, in Western's Don Wright Faculty of Music. In her research, Ran explores how certain norms sometimes go unquestioned in music; especially, by non-disabled people. Music-making is sometimes associated with an "ideal" body, such as having above-average dexterity. In her field work, Ran works with secondary school students in China who use computer software and DIY electronics to expand what musical instruments are and who they are for.
In their conversation, Ryan, Mark, and Ran also discuss piano music and what it is like at Western's music faculty, as a place for research in music, music-making, and as a community.
Ran's supervisor is adam patrick bell, who, in addition to teaching at Western, is also the Canada Research Chair in Music, Inclusion, and Accessibility.
Recorded on Tuesday, January 6, 2026
Produced by Mark Ambrogio and Ryan Baxter
Theme song provided by FreeBeats.io (Produced by WhiteHot)