Surprises!
Join us for our next show in Cambridge, Massachusetts! We'll present five true, personal stories about scientific surprises.
Hosted by Ari Daniel and Christine Gentry.
Stories by:
Diana Burk is a graduate student in Neuroscience and studies visual perception. Her past scientific interests have taken her to labs around the world, and her projects have been extremely eclectic: from designing devices to track merging cars at intersections, to cooling atoms to near-zero temperatures, to designing animal models for glioblastoma and obesity. Her work has been cited in peer-reviewed journals and incorporated into patents. Dually trained as an engineer and a neuroscientist, she constantly seeks to figure out how things work. This curiosity flows in her life outside of the lab as well, and on any given day you could see her exploring a new city, trying a new activity, or teaching students in her community how to do the same. She now aims to draw upon her experiences in and outside the lab to bridge the gap between what we see and what we expect to see, in order to understand how the brain drives our interaction with the world.
Five years ago, Kevin Franciotti used ibogaine, a psychedelic-like plant medicine from Africa, to detox from heroin. Kevin publicly shared his story at an event at Northeastern University in 2013, where he was about to earn his Bachelor’s degree in Behavioral Neuroscience, having returned from dropping out three years earlier. Kevin has since spoken at an activist event on the Washington, DC Mall, and at a Students for Sensible Drug Policy conference. Kevin maintains an interest in therapeutic uses for psychedelics to treat addiction and mental illness, and is beginning graduate school in the fall to pursue a PhD in psychology.
Bart Thompson is a native Nebraskan who, after stints in Virginia and Rhode Island, now calls Somerville home. He is an avid Cornhusker fan and would love to talk College Football with you after the show. Although a life-long storyteller, Bart has only started hitting local stages in the last few years. He is an occasional performer on storytelling shows throughout New England including: Live Bait in Providence; Speak Up in Hartford; and The Moth, Massmouth, and South Shore Storyslams in eastern Massachusetts. He recently founded and produced a new series called "Now Listen Here!", which opened with an inaugural production in May.
MaryAnn Wilbur is currently an editorial fellow at the New England Journal of Medicine and a practicing OB/Gyn at the Dimock Center and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She graduated with a combined MD/MPH from Boston University in 2011 and completed residency training in Gynecology & Obstetrics at Johns Hopkins Hospital in June 2015. Next year, she will return to Johns Hopkins for a clinical fellowship in Gynecologic Oncology. Her areas of interest include women’s health issues and health outcome disparities.
Aaron Wolfe is a moth grandslam winning storyteller, writer, filmmaker, and obsessive fan of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. He is the screenwriter of the Academy Awards Shortlisted “Record/Play” and yet still somehow hasn’t won his friend's Oscars Pool. He has, however, taught his son to love soccer so there’s that. His work has been featured on The Moth radio hour, the NYTimes, and Slate. You can find out a lot more at aaron-wolfe.com