STEMS and Leaves

Columbus Ohio is all too typical of the physical imprint of racism on urban spaces. Redlining, urban highways, white flite, prohibitive zoning... All of these things and more have manifested in the economic and racial segregation that plagues Columbus. This episode shares some insight on Columbus' "urban problems" and offers several resources for planners and non-planners alike to learn more and do better. Discussed in this episode: Strong Women Strong Places, Tamika Butler, Dr. Destiny Thomas, The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein, Columbus Ohio Redlining Maps,Kirwan Institute Study on Infant Mortality, 500 Cities Health Data for Columbus, University of Toronto Study, Communication So White Reading List --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/stemsandleaves/message

It's the end of August, the uniquely American Labor Day is almost upon us and we are sleepy. Moss procured an excellent bit of tea history and shares wisdom from the OGs. Ezra's got some music reccs featuring a nifty tool that Anchor gave us. Also recommended in this episode, 'The Power' by Naomi Alderman. The Book of Tea by Kakuso Okakura REI AMI Hobo Johnson & the Lovemakers --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/stemsandleaves/message

We set ourselves up for success with homework last episode,,, which Moss actually did while Ezra pulled two books off the shelf fifteen minutes before recording. The Moss Mixtape begins to take shape with Janelle Monae and Moses Sumney as standout artists. Ezra highlights two non-binary educators/creators/leaders that share accessible content to educate on a variety of topics. Moss comes in with plant knowledge and at least one science fact and Ezra supplements with a poem and resources for the foraging-curious among us. STEMS AND LEAVES 2021 Discussed in this episode: Nature's Garden: Edible Wild Plants by S. Thayer , Early grrrl by Marge Piercy , Janelle Monáe , Moses Sumney , Christine and the Queens , Black Forager (Alexis Nikole) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/stemsandleaves/message

It's spoiler warnings on a several thousand year old myth, so there's that. Lila is back on the mic as a cohost and we gush about Madeline Miller's finest work ‘The Song of Achilles'. It touched both our hearts and we highly recommend this beautifully written, visceral retelling of one of myth and legend's most tragic lovers. Ezra has lots of feelings and Lila has some erudite observations to share. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/stemsandleaves/message

Planning in Appalachia, convincing a community that you're not taking their jobs, and the future of autonomous vehicles in rural places. My guest this week, Jason Pyles, and I discuss all this in more in one of my favorite interviews yet. As a kick off to our discussions centered around Geography and Geographic Information Science, I turn to Jason for his expertise. Jason works for the Buckeye Hills Regional Council as one of two GIS professionals supporting the agency's work. His position is unique in that he is sort of a one-man-GIS-show and does all the work entailed in GIS from top to bottom. He shared some great insights into what it means to serve his regional community through his role in technology. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/stemsandleaves/message

[From the archive] Another interview out of DC this week, my guest Shauna has worked as a freelance programmer for 9 years. She left neuroscience after a long reckoning with the uncertainty. Shauna found herself challenged by a big question: How do we quantify and understand the vast potential of human behavior with hard tools? Maybe we can't. Or at least not in the ways we want to. Shauna and I discuss these interesting ideas from her work and how she's grown professionally. We also touch on the significance of queer identities in these spaces and handling mental health. I was curious to know how she keeps herself accountable and practices self-care in a sometimes isolating work space. Shauna tells me all her great tips and tricks as she continues her journey of growth and learning. Discussed this episode: PyLadies Minority Postdoc Galaxy Rise Consulting Shauna on LinkedIn --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/stemsandleaves/message

[From the archive] In this episode, Sujata Emani and I spend a good amount of time discussing women of massive determination and how we work everyday to emulate their example. Sujata also shares some insight into her identity as a caregiver for her grandmother; an identity that was chosen for her and certainly changed the trajectory of her life in her mid-twenties. Discussed in this episode: Beltway Science Podcast American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Department of Energy National Labs Research Article: Designing the Danceable City --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/stemsandleaves/message

[From the archive] This episode features Dr Amber Woodburn McNair of the Ohio State University. She serves as an assistant professor in the Knowlton School as well as the Center for Aviation Studies (both within OSU's College of Engineering. We sat down to discuss Dr Woodburn's research and experiences in academia and how her identity and presentation as a woman has affected her journey. She also shared some wonderful advice about navigating the murky waters that await after graduation and the importance of keeping the hustle strong. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/stemsandleaves/message

Meet Moss, one of the hosts. A nature-loving cat parent with an affinity for tea and anime, Moss is one of my fave people. This episode contains (1) introductions (2) tea recommendations (3) indoor garden ideas (4) book recommendation (5) poetry recitation and a bit of other banter. | See more of STEMS and LEAVES at stemsandleaves.com https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781451666175 https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781982156947 https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781937865733 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/stemsandleaves/message

This episode we discuss the practice of urban foraging. That act of harvesting wild grown food is a practice as old as humanity. From society's earliest days, we have depended on the fruits, nuts, berries, and herbs we've found along the way to secure our food supply. Although, a recent surge in popularity of foraging in cities and a lasting legacy of racist and classist laws often prevent some groups from foraging in public spaces. This episode unpacks why and how we forage and recommends some interesting research papers that discuss an ideal future of foraging laws. Sources: Falling Fruit . org Food Law Gone Wild by Baylen Linnekin --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/stemsandleaves/message

This episode we chat about dance as a consideration in urban design. In China, millions of residents participate in urban dance as a way to enhance their health and foster social connection. These groups practice in parks and ‘waste spaces' around cities, accompanied often by live music. However, this practice has run into some resistance from the central and city governments. Complaints of too much noise have forced cities to ban these dancing retirees to parking lots and bridge underpasses. But the dancers persist, sometimes as an act of resistance. We unpack all that an more this episode of STEMS and Leaves. Links: Designing the Danceable City: How Residents in Beijing Cultivate Health and Community Ties Through Urban Dance' by Caroline Chen --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/stemsandleaves/message

In this episode, I wanted to share a great book by Laura VanDernoot Lipsky and Connie Burk, ‘Trauma Stewardship: A guide to caring for self while caring for others'. The founders of the Trauma Stewardship Institute walk the reader through identifying trauma responses and offer helpful, introspective prompts to get you thinking about the work you do and how it affects you throughout the process. For folks involved in trauma work or just people that want to bolster their emotional resilience, this is a great read that I cannot recommend highly enough! Other mentions in this episode: Thrivance Group, Back to School chat with Michelle Storms Thanks to: Donnie ‘Rosy' Ross for theme ‘Feeling Fool' Aaron Thomas Art for our album cover --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/stemsandleaves/message

What's there to say? It was a year and we share, to the best of our memory's ability, to recall important events globally and locally that were personally impactful. Couldn't bring all this baggage into 2021 with us. Also fair warning, Asher and I recorded nearly 2 hours of audio and I was able to trim it down to a tight 40… Unfortunately, that means you won't get to hear us ponder luxury fruits, cat hygiene, or bean varieties. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/stemsandleaves/message

Substance use disorders and addictions are one of the lingering taboos and unfortunate misunderstanding in society at large. Misuse of things like tobacco are alcohol share an incredible level of social tolerance, although tobacco had fallen out of popularity until vaping and e-cigs hooked the younger generation.In this episode, I share a bit of science about substance use disorders and what I learned about the brain and what happens when you develop a nicotine addiction. I also share some personal reflection -> quit smoking three weeks ago as of posting this episode (*cheers*). Thanks to:Donnie ‘Rosy’ Ross for theme ‘Feeling Fool’Aaron Thomas Art for our album coverListen Now @Apple PodcastsSpotify Google PodcastsStitcherBuzzSproutSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/stemsandleaves)

What's there to say? It was a year and we share, to the best of our memory's ability, to recall important events globally and locally that were personally impactful. Couldn't bring all this baggage into 2021 with us.Also fair warning, Asher and I recorded nearly 2 hours of audio and I was able to trim it down to a tight 40... Unfortunately, that means you won't get to hear us ponder luxury fruits, cat hygiene, or bean varieties. As always, thanks to Rosy Ross for use of our theme song 'Feeling Fool' & thanks to Aaron Thomas Art for creating our album art. Keep up with us at stemsandleaves.comThanks to:Donnie ‘Rosy’ Ross for theme ‘Feeling Fool’Aaron Thomas Art for our album coverListen Now @Apple PodcastsSpotify Google PodcastsStitcherBuzzSproutSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/stemsandleaves)

In this episode, I wanted to share a great book by Laura VanDernoot Lipsky and Connie Burk, 'Trauma Stewardship: A guide to caring for self while caring for others'. The founders of the Trauma Stewardship Institute walk the reader through identifying trauma responses and offer helpful, introspective prompts to get you thinking about the work you do and how it affects you throughout the process. For folks involved in trauma work or just people that want to bolster their emotional resilience, this is a great read that I cannot recommend highly enough!Other mentions in this episode: Thrivance Group, Back to School chat with Michelle Storms Thanks to:Donnie ‘Rosy’ Ross for theme ‘Feeling Fool’Aaron Thomas Art for our album coverListen Now @Apple PodcastsSpotify Google PodcastsStitcherBuzzSprout

Columbus Ohio is all too typical of the physical imprint of racism on urban spaces. Redlining, urban highways, white flite, prohibitive zoning... All of these things and more have manifested in the economic and racial segregation that plagues Columbus. This episode shares some insight on Columbus' "urban problems" and offers several resources for planners and non-planners alike to learn more and do better. Discussed in this episode: Strong Women Strong Places, Tamika Butler, Dr. Destiny Thomas, The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein, Columbus Ohio Redlining Maps, Kirwan Institute Study on Infant Mortality, 500 Cities Health Data for Columbus, University of Toronto Study, Communication So White Reading ListThanks to:Donnie 'Rosy' Ross for theme 'Feeling Fool'Aaron Thomas Art for our album cover More @ STEMS AND LEAVES

Episode recorded May 2020. Public transit across the US and the world has been entirely disrupted by the COVID19 pandemic. Transit agencies have been forced to cancel service, adjust fare collections, and take aggressive measures to ensure the safety of drivers and passengers. The Central Ohio Transit Authority took early steps to curb the impact on regional transit. They eliminated fares, mandated new protocol for how many passengers can ride at one time, and altered how those riders may enter and exit buses. The impact on the agency has been significant and in this episode, Andrew, a service planner at COTA, joins me to discuss some of these disruptions and what we can expect of public transit post-pandemic. More episodes and content @ STEMS and leavesCredits: Album Art and Show Theme MusicListen Now @:iTunesSpotifyGoogle PodcastsStitcherBuzzSprout

This episode is weird. Life is strange these days and one of my favorite gals is here to chat about life in a pandemic. We get personal about what we lost and learned as we both have graduated from university and look towards the future. We also talk about Survivor season 40 and how many beans is too many beans. Enjoy the beautiful mess!Bridget's LinkedInMore episodes and content @ STEMS and leavesCredits: Album Art and Show Theme MusicListen Now @:iTunesSpotifyGoogle PodcastsStitcherBuzzSprout

In this episode, we discuss an article posted on Medium by Tomas Pueyo, 'Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance'. It's an overview of the current state of COVID-19 and a summary of what measures should be implemented now in order to provide the world with our best fighting change against the virus. Pueyo presents three strategies: Do Nothing, Mitigation, and Suppression. The author presents a compelling case for Suppression and recommends that readers that are moved to sign a petition to the White House that pressures our leaders to approach COVID-19 with a suppression strategy. More episodes and content @ STEMS and leavesCredits: Album Art and Show Theme Music

Planning in Appalachia, convincing a community that you're not taking their jobs, and the future of autonomous vehicles in rural places. My guest this week, Jason Pyles, and I discuss all this in more in one of my favorite interviews yet. As a kick off to our discussions centered around Geography and Geographic Information Science, I turn to Jason for his expertise.Jason works for the Buckeye Hills Regional Council as one of two GIS professionals supporting the agency's work. His position is unique in that he is sort of a one-man-GIS-show and does all the work entailed in GIS from top to bottom. He shared some great insights into what it means to serve his regional community through his role in technology.Credit for our theme song (Rosy Ross) and album art (Aaron Thomas Art) here: https://stemsandleaves.com/credits/For more episodes and updates head to STEMSANDLEAVES.COM

Back from hiatus with new updates to share about what's coming next. With the blessings of OSU's Geography department, we'll be sharing some GIS related episodes on topics ranging from disease tracking to cultural preservation.Also a new project launching soon is Buildings Have Names, a crowdsourced local history scavenger hunt. Stay tuned for details.As always, keep up to date on social media and at stemsandleaves.com

This episode my friend and colleague Tobi Otulana chats with me about the field of planning and her path to sustainable planning. Tobi and I have known each other since spring semester, when we took a sustainable transportation class together. I recognized that Tobi is a super talented and passionate individual and I've been hoping our paths would cross again to allow that. Lucky for me, after graduating her MCRP program, she stayed local and has been with the Mid Ohio Regional Planning Commission for about half year now. I was super curious about her opinion on Ohio State's MCRP program and how she expects her career trajectory to change.Disclaimer: All views and opinions expressed in this episode are strictly those of myself and my guest. We in no way represent any organizations or agencies which we are currently or have previously been associated with. Links:Tobi's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tobiotulana/MORPC: http://www.morpc.orgCredits for Album Art and Theme Music: https://stemsandleaves.com/credits/

This episode we discuss the practice of urban foraging. That act of harvesting wild grown food is a practice as old as humanity. From society's earliest days, we have depended on the fruits, nuts, berries, and herbs we've found along the way to secure our food supply. Although, a recent surge in popularity of foraging in cities and a lasting legacy of racist and classist laws often prevent some groups from foraging in public spaces. This episode unpacks why and how we forage and recommends some interesting research papers that discuss an ideal future of foraging laws.

It's time again for a return to school and all the lovely obligations that come with student life. Thus, STEMS and leaves will be detouring from interviews for a bit and focus on sharing some snapshot stories about all sorts of things. This episode, we dig into some interesting research from Caroline Chen - a postdoc researcher at UC San Diego. Chen published 'Designing the Danceable City: How Residents in Beijing Cultivate Health and Community Ties Through Urban Dance' that explores the phenomena of urban dance in China. Chen set out to learn why and where urban dance is happening and how this movement might be relevant to American planning. We unpack a few interesting points in this shorter episode, but of course recommend reviewing the paper for the fullest experience.This podcast is made possible by a few wonderful artists credited here. Join the conversation at STEMS and Leaves

Sujata Emani has done a lot of interesting things with her career - both willingly and as a result of the universe's greater workings. From research with NASA to working for a whiskey company, she's fearlessly faced incredible challenges both professionally and personally. In this episode, we spend a good amount of time discussing women of massive determination and how we work everyday to emulate their example. Sujata also shares some insight into her identity as a caregiver for her grandmother; an identity that was chosen for her and certainly changed the trajectory of her life in her mid-twenties. Discussed in this episode:Beltway Science Podcast American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)Department of EnergyNational LabsResearch Article: Designing the Danceable City For more episodes and cool stuff: STEMS and leaves websiteTheme 'Feeling Fool' by Rosy RossAlbum Art by Aaron Thomas Art

Coral Torres is without a doubt one of the coolest engineers I've ever met. She exudes confidence in herself and her work; all the while remaining truly humble. It was a pleasure to join her for an afternoon at the Surface Transportation Board offices and learn a bit about her niche in the industry. Coral's official title is 'Transportation Industry Analyst', which she explains in this episode. More broadly speaking, she analyzes data to interpret railroad performance in a regulator capacity (if that sounds a little out of your depth, Coral explains it much better than I do!). She also shares how her identity as a Hispanic woman has shaped her experiences in Engineering. The transition from undergraduate studies in Puerto Rico to a master's program in upstate New York was incredible and Coral describes some of the culture shock moments she experienced.Credits for this show's theme music and art work can be found @ stemsandleaves.com

Another interview out of DC this week, my guest Shauna has worked as a freelance programmer for 9 years. She left neuroscience after a long reckoning with the uncertainty. Shauna found herself challenged by a big question: How do we quantify and understand the vast potential of human behavior with hard tools? Maybe we can't. Or at least not in the ways we want to.Shauna and I discuss these interesting ideas from her work and how she's grown professionally. We also touch on the significance of queer identities in these spaces and handling mental health. I was curious to know how she keeps herself accountable and practices self-care in a sometimes isolating work space. Shauna tells me all her great tips and tricks as she continues her journey of growth and learning.More at STEMSandleaves.com

Christy Gerencher is a Senior Program Officer at the Transportation Research Board. She manages hundreds of volunteers across more than a dozen committees all working to advance research in Aviation and Environmental Science. She's been an aviation nerd since day 1 - or least since she was old enough to drive to the airport for piloting lessons. In our conversations, she shared with me what exactly the National Academies do and how their research propels government decisions. We also chatted about her experience as a woman working in aviation, an industry notorious for low participation of women and minorities. Throughout her career, she's had opportunities to work with some amazing people and she shared some advice to young professionals beginning their careers. More episodes and content @ STEMS and leavesCredits: Album Art and Show Theme Music

Jocelyn is one of the coolest people I've ever known and I cannot wait to see what her future holds. We met over a year ago at the opening banquet for the Global Leadership Initiative cohort (of which we were both new members). I immediately knew that she was someone with a lot of great stuff to say and when she sat down with me in the studio... we sure did get to it.Between gripes about generational trauma and loving guidance from valued mentors, this episode steps outside of STEM to shed some light on mixed race identities and how we navigate the world. More about Jocelyn can be found on her linked in page here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jocelynrobertsonn/Credit for our theme song and album art here: https://stemsandleaves.com/credits/For more episodes and updates head to STEMSANDLEAVES.COM

This episode features Dr Amber Woodburn McNair of the Ohio State University. She serves as an assistant professor in the Knowlton School as well as the Center for Aviation Studies (both within OSU's College of Engineering. We sat down to discuss Dr Woodburn's research and experiences in academia and how her identity and presentation as a woman has affected her journey. She also shared some wonderful advice about navigating the murky waters that await after graduation and the importance of keeping the hustle strong. For more episodes and cool stuff: STEMS and leaves websiteTheme 'Feeling Fool' by Rosy RossAlbum Art by Aaron Thomas Art

Episode 1: DonnaMy guest this episode is my dear friend Donna. She works as a consultant with ODOT and has years of experience in technology. Her path has not been conventional and she shared a few great stories about what she has learned along the way. For more episodes and cool stuff: STEMS and leaves websiteTheme 'Feeling Fool' by Rosy RossAlbum Art by Aaron Thomas Art