KIARA RODRIGUEZ-ACEVEDO
Episode 53
February 25, 2026
Stress affects men and women differently. We sit down with Kiara Rodríguez-Acevedo, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Pennsylvania to ask her how she is blending neuroscience and epigenetics to uncover how estrogen levels in the brain influence stress vulnerability and resilience.
Listen
More ways to listen and subscribe
More recent episodes
VIVIEN THOMAS
The Heart (Non-) Surgeon
Happy Black History month! In this episode, Aarati tells the unlikely story of a carpenter turned lab technician. Vivien Thomas created a blood shunt for the hearts of blue babies without ever having gone to medical school or earning a degree... and without getting credit for decades.
​
Listen
ANDREW ROBERTSON
The Ant Researcher
Ants may not be very big, but we have a lot to learn from these tiny creatures! Andrew Robertson, a PhD candidate at Georgia Tech and winner of Galactic Polymath Education Studio's 2025 #MySciJourney competition talks about his work on ants and other social insects.
​
Listen
DR. DMITRI
MENDELEEV
Organizing the Elements
​It's episode 50! Aarati tells the story of the temperamental Russian chemist who figured out a way to organize all the known (and unknown) elements into a table that ordered them by increasing atomic weight and grouped them into categories.
Listen