Before The Abstract

Dr. Virginia Dale realizes that the value of a question lies equally in the asking as well as the answering, while on a trip to the rainforest to conduct ecological models on land-use change.

Dr. Chiara Mingarelli describes her personal journey—and roadblocks encountered—to the “center of the universe.” Dr. Chiara Mingarelli is an Italo-Canadian gravitational-wave astrophysicist, currently based at Caltech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where she holds a Marie Curie Fellowship. Mingarelli received her Ph.D from the University of Birmingham, UK, in 2014, where she worked with Prof. Alberto Vecchio. Her core research is focused on using Pulsar Timing Arrays to detect low-frequency gravitational waves, with forays into electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational-wave events, such as fast radio bursts. Mingarelli’s thesis was published in the Springer Thesis Series (2015), and is the recipient of numerous grants from the Royal Astronomical Society and the UK Institute of Physics for both research and outreach. She recently appeared on Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, “Talk Nerdy” with Cara Santa Maria, and maintains a strong social media presence where she advocates for “Science, Coffee, and Girl

Jonaki Bhattacharyya details the wisdom gained on her journey alongside the man in the black hat.

Landscape architect Jack Ahern travels to The Netherlands to get his Phd but comes home with a new lens on how to view his surroundings.

Dr. Margot Kushel describes her emphatic efforts to help a homeless patient whose needs outweigh a hospital’s offerings. Margot Kushel, MD is a Professor of Medicine at UCSF in the Division of General Internal Medicine at San Francisco General Hospital. Margot’s research interests include the health and health care utilization patterns of homeless adults and other vulnerable populations. She is Principal Investigator of an NIA funded study that is following a cohort of 350 older homeless adults in Oakland CA to assess how life events have impacted their homelessness, their health status (including geriatric conditions) and their use of the health care system. In the near future, Margot plans to expand this research to include studying symptomatology and views about advanced directives, and on examining novel ways of finding stable housing for older homeless adults. Margot is also conducting evaluations of new efforts to provide permanent supportive housing to individuals experiencing chronic homelessness

Dr. Katherine Chretien, Hospitalist Division Leader at a Veteran’s hospital, describes her emotional journey when her husband is deployed for a year in Afghanistan.

Dr. Aerin Jacob recalls the three most valuable conservation lessons she ever learned...from a man with a machine gun.

Dr. Pasachoff explains his journey from being the shortest math major in Harvard history to a 50+ illustrious career in solar astronomy. Jay Pasachoff, Chair of the International Astronomical Union’s Working Group on Eclipses, is Field Memorial Professor of Astronomy at Williams College and a Visitor in Planetary Science at Caltech. He has viewed 60 solar eclipses, and is an expert on both their use for scientific observations and their use for public education. Pasachoff is past president of the International Astronomical Union’s Commission on Education and Development and Chair of the Historical Astronomy Division of the American Astronomical Society. He received the Education Prize of the American Astronomical Society and, last year, the Janssen Prize of the Société Astronomique de France. Pasachoff is the author or co-author of The Cosmos: Astronomy in the New Millennium, the Peterson Field Guide to the Stars and Planets, and Nearest Star: The Surprising Science of Our Sun as well as, on a more technical

After being diagnosed with a brain tumor, Dr. Michael Feuerstein learns that surviving and thriving post-cancer requires more than medical treatments.

Prof. Jeffrey Shaman thinks he has discovered something big...but no one will look at his paper. Jeffrey Shaman is an infectious disease modeler at the Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University. His background is in climate, atmospheric science and hydrology, as well as biology. He studies the environmental determinants of infectious disease transmission, in particular, how atmospheric conditions impact the survival, transmission and seasonality of pathogens and how hydrologic variability affects mosquito ecology and mosquito-borne disease transmission. More broadly he is interested in how meteorology affects human health. Much of his work is computational, employing combined model-inference systems to forecast infectious disease outbreaks at a range of time scales. Shaman also studies a number of climate phenomena, including Rossby wave dynamics, atmospheric jet waveguides, the coupled South Asian monsoon-ENSO system, extratropical precipitation, and tropical cyclogenesis.

Dr. Martin Shapiro recalls interactions with four very different doctors with one thing in common – all led to dramatic implications for his career and family. Martin F. Shapiro, MD, PhD, is Professor of Medicine and Health Services and Management and Chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research at UCLA. Dr. Shapiro’s scholarship has focused on assuring that medical care is applied equitably and appropriately to the population. He was the Principal Investigator of the HIV Cost and Services Utilization Study (HCSUS), in which he led a national team at over twenty institutions in evaluating such issues as diffusion of antiretroviral therapy, access, costs, outcomes of care, health status, mental illness, and disparities in and barriers to receipt of care in the first nationally representative study of health care for persons with HIV. He established UCLA’s Primary Care Research Fellowship, and is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and th

From being a “young gay science fair nerd” to her clinical experience as a researcher, Dr. Tara Lagu finds her calling as a social justice advocate with a passion for improving existing care for patients with disabilities. Tara Lagu, MD, MPH, is an Academic Hospitalist in the Center for Quality of Care Research and Department of Medicine at Baystate Medical Center, and an Assistant Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine. After graduating with her MD and MPH from the Yale University School of Medicine, she completed a General Internal Medicine Residency at Brown. From 2005-2008, she was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, where she developed her research interest in the quality of health care in the United States. Currently, her work is focused on improving quality and reducing costs of health care in the United States, and, in particular, improving access to care for patients with disabilities. She spends much of her free time thinking about, growing

COL (Ret.) Elspeth Cameron Ritchie explains how she enlisted in the armed forces to pay for medical school, but how her mission as an Army psychiatrist transformed her into a true patriot. COL (Ret) Elspeth Cameron Ritchie is a forensic psychiatrist with special expertise in military and veteran’s issues. She was most recently the Chief Clinical Officer, Department of Behavioral Health, for the District of Columbia. An internationally recognized expert, she brings a unique public health approach to the management of disaster and combat mental health issues. Her assignments and other missions have taken her to Korea, Somalia, Iraq, and Cuba. She has over 200 publications, mainly in the areas of forensic, disaster, suicide, ethics, military combat and operational psychiatry, and women’s health issues.

Dr. Tara Bishop revisits her time with a special patient, and how a long walk to the E.R. changed her view of medicine. Tara Bishop MD, is a doctor and an assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical College. She wants to improve the way we deliver healthcare in the U.S. and to make her research and the research of others in her field relevant to patients, physicians, and others in healthcare. Her personal blog, www.tarabishopmd.com focuses on interesting research that she reads, how to make research more relevant, innovations in medical education, and being a working mom. She also very active on Twitter @tarabishopmd.

Gerrit Verschuur describes how the thrill of discovery doesn't fade, even after decades of research. Dr. Gerrit L. Verschuur is best known for his work in radio astronomy. In his primary field of study Verschuur pioneered the measurement of the interstellar magnetic field using the 21-cm Zeeman effect technique. He is also co-inventor on a dozen patents, his favorites being on ways to read bar codes inside sealed envelopes. The third edition of his book, “The Invisible Universe: The Story of Radio Astronomy,” was published by Springer in 2015.

Before starting his PhD in Astronomy, David Kipping goes on an eventful – perhaps even reckless – trip to the Himalayas. David Kipping is a 30-year old astrophysicist working at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics as a Menzel Fellow. He grew up in the UK but emigrated to the USA five years ago. He researches a variety of topics related to extrasolar planets, but his main project is searching for exomoons.

Forced to wrestle with her identity as a scientist, archaeologist Uzma Rizvi travels to war-torn Iraq and discovers more than ancient artifacts. Uzma Z. Rizvi, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Urban Studies at Pratt Institute of Art and Design, Brooklyn, where she teaches anthropology, ancient urbanism, critical heritage studies, memory and war/trauma studies, and the postcolonial critique. She often finds herself trying to balance the very ancient with the very contemporary, both mediated by material things. An avid collector of experiences and thoughts, Rizvi travels extensively and utilizes those experiences to inform her research about past societies.

Pioneering anesthesiologist Elizabeth A.M. Frost quickly learns she is a force more powerful than the word "no". Elizabeth A.M. Frost, MD is Clinical Professor of Anesthesiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, NY, USA. She has authored or edited over 20 books in anesthesiology, authored over 150 research articles, given 400 invited lectures and serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Neurosurgical Anesthesiology.

Conversations with his airplane seatmates lead Kaspar von Braun's career in a different and unforeseen direction. Kaspar von Braun is an astrophysicist at Lowell Observatory. He received his PhD from the University of Michigan in 2002 with a study of eclipsing binary stars in Galactic globular clusters. Since then, he has changed to the field of exoplanets, working on detection and characterization of transiting exoplanets. His current work involves the interferometric analysis of exoplanet host stars to gain information on the planets themselves – you understand the exoplanet only as well as the host star, if you are lucky.