GradCast

466 | It's A Bird, It's a Plane, It's a Medical Delivery Drone!

This week, hosts Anthony Cruz and Mark Ambrogio are joined by Brianne O'Sullivan, a PhD Candidate in Health Information Science. Brianne's doctoral research focuses on medical delivery drones, which deliver essential healthcare supplies to people in hard-to-reach places. Could drones play a vital role in healthcare in the future? In addition to her doctoral research, Brianne is a policy analyst on Canada's World Health Organization team at the Public Health Agency of Canada. Brianne is also passionate about STEM education! Listen to learn all about her work.

Recorded on June 25, 2024.

Produced by Anthony Cruz.

Theme song provided by https://freebeats.io/ (Produced by White Hot).

465 | Categorizing the Vibes

This week, GradCast hosts Amalie Hutchinson and Anthony Cruz chat with Maddie Bloomberg, a Master's student in the department of psychology. Maddie shares her research into category learning and individual differences that can arise between neurotypical and neurodivergent fish-categorizers. 

To find out more about Maddie's work, check out her linkedin

Recorded on June 18, 2024

Produced by Amalie Hutchinson

Theme song provided by https://freebeats.io/ (Produced by White Hot).

464 | Hold My Medal: Ethical Dilemmas in Sports

This week, hosts Mark Ambrogio and Garth Casbourn are joined by Alan Oldham, a PhD candidate in Western's School of Kinesiology. In his work, Alan asks some challenging questions about sports. Is it fair for games to end in a tie? How do we decide who can or can't play a sport? Sports play a huge role in our lives, but these questions aren't easy to answer. Fittingly, Alan also talks about his experience in the Olympic sport of rowing.

To get in contact with Alan, find him on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Recorded on June 11, 2024.

Produced by Anthony Cruz.

Theme song provided by https://freebeats.io/ (Produced by White Hot).

463 | "I'm in my Graduate Era": Transitioning from Undergraduate To Graduate School

In this very special episode, Meghan Voll and Mark Ambrogio interview soon-to-be Master of Media Studies graduate student Janelle Allan. In this episode, Janelle asks our hosts her burning question about all things grad school, from getting a teaching assistantship, to managing new academic workloads. If you're entering a graduate program, you'll want to tune into this episode!

To follow Janelle on this new journey, follow her on Linkedin!

Recorded on June 4, 2024

Produced by Suzy Lee

Theme song provided by https://freebeats.io/ Produced by White Hot

462 | A Study of Nostalgia as an Act of Nostalgia

This week, GradCast welcomes Ameena Abid back to the interview table to follow up on her independent study project within her Master's of Social Work. Join hosts Mark Ambrogio and Anthony Cruz in their discussion with Ameena into her own family history - an autoethnography - and explore topics of nostalgia, the connection between grandparents and grandchildren, and how a story that seems like an outlier case may well comprise a whole story on its own.

To get in contact with Ameena, check out her Linkedin

Recorded on May 28, 2024

Produced by Amalie Hutchinson 

Theme song provided by https://freebeats.io/ (Produced by White Hot).

461 | Pulling an Architect out of History

This week, hosts Mark Ambrogio and Ryan Baxter interview Benjamin Vazquez, a student at Huron here at Western working on a master of arts in theology. They chat about the work of Gordon Lloyd, a local architect who lived and worked in the late 19th century. Benjamin follows Lloyd's career and spends, in his words, altogether too much time in old churches - but he loves it!

Recorded on May 21, 2024

Produced by Amalie Hutchinson 

Theme song provided by https://freebeats.io/ (Produced by White Hot).

460 | Desk Purple Yellow Blue: The Best (Worst) Way to End a Story

This week, hosts Liam Clifford and Amalie Hutchinson are joined by Alexander Sallas, a PhD candidate in Western's Department of English and Writing Studies. In his dissertation, Alexander talks about the Deus Ex Machina, a special, unpredictable way to end a story. Some people believe that this is not a great way to end a story, but Alexander strongly disagrees. Unpredictable events happen all the time in real life, so why can't they happen in a story?

Recorded on May 14, 2024.

Produced by Anthony Cruz.

Theme song provided by https://freebeats.io/ (Produced by White Hot).

459 | Look at all that Information: Examining Ontologies and Knowledge Translation across Domains

This week hosts Mark Ambrogio and Liam Clifford are joined by John Kausch, a PhD student in Information Science studying knowledge organization systems and ways to translate knowledge. This episode delves into what an ontology is, John's work on creating a formal model for knowledge translation and wider applications of information science research in other domains.

To learn more about John, check out his Twitter page @kausch and Observable Portfolio.

Recorded on May 7, 2024

Produced by Maria Khan

Theme song provided by https://freebeats.io/ Produced by White Hot

458 | Musical Clarity: Music, Emotions, and Memory

This week, hosts Mark Ambrogio and Ryan Baxter are joined by Caitlin Fitzpatrick, a Masters of Neuroscience student who is interested in examining the emotional effects of music on older adults with and without mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Tune in to this week's episode for discussions on the two sides of emotion in relation to music, as well as the grander applications of this research.

To learn more about Caitlin and her work, check out her LinkedIn page!

Recorded on April 30, 2024

Produced by Suzy Lee

Theme song provided by https://freebeats.io/ Produced by White Hot

#BookCast 1 | The Idiot by Elif Batuman

For our first #BookCast recording, hosts Scott Walters, Amalie Hutchinson, Mark Ambrogio, Garth Casbourn, and Meghan Voll discuss The Idiot by Elif Batuman. Join our book club for a discussion about writing style, dissociation with the world around you, and how we can all relate to being a bit of an idiot. 

Note: no spoilers, so if you've read the book already or haven't yet, you'll be able to enjoy this podcast.

Recorded on April 9, 2024

Produced by Amalie Hutchinson

Theme song provided by https://freebeats.io/ Produced by White Hot