In honor of Mother’s Day, both of our storytellers share stories about their unique relationships with their moms.
Part 1: Rita Rigano always had a complicated relationship with her mother, and it becomes even more fraught when her mother’s dementia worsens.
Part 2: In the midst of writing her PhD dissertation, Jordyn Rice embarks on one last road trip with her mother, who is dying of lung cancer.
Rita Rigano is a NYC-based storyteller who appears locally and online. Some favorite shows include Generation Woman, New Tricks, (mostly) True Things, The Moth, The Once Upon a Time Show, and Better Said Than Done. She started storytelling with her children, presenting fairy tales with a twist at libraries and schools. She loves live theatre, live music, and swing dancing with her husband.
Jordyn Rice is a postdoctoral fellow based in Vancouver, BC. She is a physical therapist and researcher dedicated to finding strategies to promote healthy aging. While she is passionate about clinical research her love of neuroscience was sparked while studying sea slugs. Outside of the lab you can find her tucked into the mountains, rock climbing, or riding her bike.
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32:44
Missing Pieces: Stories about an unremembered friendship
In this week’s episode, Thomas Dixon and Rachel Robinson manage to build a friendship, despite not remembering the exact moments they shared.
Thomas Dixon is the author of "I'm Sorry... That's Awesome!: Inventing a Solution for Memory Loss", and the inventor of ME.mory (a digital memory mobile application/service). Thomas was running when struck by a car and injured so badly that he nearly died. His episodic memory (specific details like places visited, people met, what has happened recently) has been severely compromised by his TBI. Since inventing ME.mory Thomas speaks and writes on the role of technology's benefits for episodic memory. As a world traveler he has been in twenty countries and looks forward to setting foot in many more.
Rachel Robinson has lived with epilepsy for more than 20 years. To help overcome the challenges from this life-changing condition, she helps to educate those in the epilepsy community, working as a Patient Educator for a medical device company. In her spare time she enjoys bowling with her husband.
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20:59
Best of Story Collider: Justice
This week we present two stories from people who stood up against a system eager to tear them down.
Part 1: After a car crash alters Emily Winn's life forever, she must relive the trauma when she testifies in a deposition.
Part 2: Geneticist C. Brandon Ogbunu contemplates the role race has played in his academic career after he is confronted by the police.
Dr. Emily Winn-Nuñez is a data scientist based in Brooklyn, NY where she lives with her husband and adorable pug. She received her AB in mathematics from the College of the Holy Cross, spent a year in the Visiting Students Programme at St. Edmund Hall at the University of Oxford, and earned a PhD in Applied Mathematics from Brown University. She’s still a Sox fan, still ergs at the gym, and still enjoys comedy - but she’ll also happily discuss the New York Liberty or the Love Island multiverse.
C. Brandon Ogbunu is a Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, and an Assistant Professor at Yale University. His research focuses on evolutionary genetics and the ecology of disease. A New York City native, Brandon enjoys film, hip-hop, jazz and science fiction. He's an ex-very mediocre light heavy weight boxer, and slightly less mediocre experimental virologist. He has higher hopes for humanity than he does the New York Knicks.
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37:43
Freak Accident: Stories about highly unusual incidents
In this week’s episode, both our storytellers’ lives are altered by an unexpected mishap.
Part 1: When teenage Ron Hart accidentally walks through a glass door, he lands in the ER on the worst possible day: a tornado drill.
Part 2: After a car accident leaves all of her teeth bent inward, Di Cai begins to rethink her life as a scientist.
Ron Hart is a television writer, a Moth GrandSlam Champion, and a recovering mascot.
Di Cai is an investment professional by day, a stand up comedian at night, and a sailboat skipper (aka “captain”) if there's good wind on the Hudson River. A former Chinese TV hostess turned PhD scientist; an investor moonlights as a comedian, going by a stage name Dr Dee in the underground New York comedy clubs. Whether it's stand up or storytelling, Di has her unique perspectives as an immigrant, a woman, and a badass.
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34:49
Breaking Barriers: Stories about succeeding despite the odds
In this week’s episode, both of our storytellers share tales of persistence and beating the odds in order to pursue their scientific dreams.
Part 1: Determined to become an academic, Rajyashree Sen must take on a broken system to secure a spot in a PhD program in Vienna.
Part 2: Josh Barber dreams of studying fish, but when his father goes to jail and his mother is diagnosed with breast cancer, he’s left to care for his nine younger siblings.
Rajyashree Sen is a neuroscientist and postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University. She holds a PhD in neuroscience and molecular biology from the University of Vienna (Austria), and a masters degree in Biotechnology from the University of Hyderabad (India). As a graduate student with Dr. Barry Dickson, Dr. Sen dissected the neuronal pathways for evasive walking in fruit-flies. Her research focused on a set of neurons, dubbed the moonwalker neurons, that constitute the key pathway for backward walking in flies. Her work has been tweeted by MC Hammer. Dr. Sen is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Dr. Richard Axel, where she investigates the neuronal basis of social memories in mice. When she is not in the lab, she does improv comedy. While science has taken her to interesting places in interesting brains, improv has taken her to the moon, hell, back and beyond.
Josh is the Assistant Director of Aquatic Life at Columbia University where he oversees the well-being of various aquatic species in biomedical research. He's cohost of the Podcast "Gettin' Fishy With it" a podcast about fish in the wild, the hobby and the laboratory. His hobbies include improv comedy, ruining conversation flow with terrible puns, fishing, and fishing in his favorite videogame, World of Warcraft.
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Whether we wear a lab coat or haven't seen a test tube since grade school, science is shaping all of our lives. And that means we all have science stories to tell. Every year, we host dozens of live shows all over the country, featuring all kinds of storytellers - researchers, doctors, and engineers of course, but also patients, poets, comedians, cops, and more. Some of our stories are heartbreaking, others are hilarious, but they're all true and all very personal. Welcome to The Story Collider!
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