Join us for our first L.A. show of 2018! We'll present five true, personal stories about journeys in science.
Hosted by Audrey Kearns and Brian D. Bradley.
Stories by:
Pallavi Gunalan has worked in scientific labs since she was 13. She received her BS in both English and bioengineering from the California Institute of Technology in 2011, her MS in biomedical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2013, worked at Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. as a research & development scientist, and then moved down to Los Angeles in 2016 to start her PhD in biomedical engineering at the University of Southern California. Since she moved back to Los Angeles, Pallavi has been performing stand-up comedy. She has performed on booked shows at The Comedy Store, Westside Comedy, Flappers Comedy Club, The Ice House, HaHa Cafe Comedy Club, Seattle’s Comedy Underground, Mad House Comedy Club (SD), The Comedy Palace (SD), and the Canvas Laugh Club (Mumbai) in addition to several other venues. She is a co-producer of both MOM PARTY Comedy and Facial Recognition Comedy. She's performed on the Kill Tony Podcast, at Desi Comedy Festival, as well as all over the US and India (Pune, Mumbai, and Chennai). She will be performing at SF Sketchfest (Jan, 2018).
Christine Corbett Moran likes collecting projects and experiences which she hopes will one day render her able to solve any problem she finds interesting or important. It's slow going at points, but she has a lot of fun exploring and creating things in a variety of fields from AI to cryptography to astrophysics. She worked on the South Pole Telescope on-site at the South Pole in Antarctica for January-November 2016 with the University of Chicago. She's now returned from sabbatical to Caltech as an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow (NSF AAPF) in the Theoretical AstroPhysics Including Relativity and Cosmology (TAPIR) group. She does research in computational astrophysics, high performance computing, and big data visualization. She's primarily interested in the gravitational force, which she considers the most beautiful and mysterious of all of nature's fundamental forces. In 2014 she completed her Ph.D. in Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Zurich under Professor George Lake and Professor Romain Teyssier.
Chase Masterson is best known for her five-year breakout role as Leeta on Star Trek DS9 & the Doctor Who Big Finish audio spinoff, VIENNA. Seen Guest-Starring on The Flash, Chase is a fan-favorite for her roles starring opposite Bruce Campbell (SyFy'sTerminal Invasion), as well as opposite Jerry O’Connell, Tom Baker and Sylvester McCoy, and Co-Hosting with Ryan Seacrest and Scott Mantz. Feature film roles include starring in Stephen King’s Sometimes They Come Back for More, Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles, and e-One’s critically acclaimed sci-fi noir, Yesterday Was a Lie, as well as playing herself in Miramax’s Comic Book: The Movie, directed by Mark Hamill, and an early role in Robin Hood: Men in Tights, directed by Mel Brooks (SQUEEE!). During the run of DS9, TV Guide Readers’ Poll named Chase Favorite Sci-Fi Actress on TV. A devout feminist, Chase has consoled herself from being listed in AOL’s 10 Sexiest Aliens on TV, Screen Rant’s 15 Most Stunning Aliens on Star Trek and in Femme Fatales 50 Sexiest Women of the Year by creating a dizzying list of charity initiatives with ChaseClub: fundraisers for the firehouse most affected by 9/11, Caring for Babies with AIDS, Hurricane Katrina, and a long-standing relationship with Homeboy Industries, where she has mentored women and men coming out of gangs for the past 9 years. Chase is the Founder of the Pop Culture Hero Coalition, the 1st ever non-profit organization to stand against bullying, racism, misogyny, LGBTQI-bullying and cyberbullying using comics, TV and film.
Mari Provencher is a Los Angeles based photographer who's spent a decade exploring the contemporary circus boom. Her work has been featured in Variety, Forbes, The Huffington Post, Time Out Chicago, The LA Times, and more. Her photos have also been featured in the ad campaigns for two international circus festivals, Circuba and Festival Internacional Circo Albecete. In her spare time she volunteers with the educational nonprofit 826LA, teaching writing to students K-12. She loves to take in stories in any format, and is a voracious reader and podcast listener. Raised by a boundlessly curious entomologist mother, she and Story Collider were bound to cross paths.
Joseph Scrimshaw is a comedian, writer, and host based in Los Angeles. As a comedian, he’s appeared at SF SketchFest, Chicago Improv Festival, Dragon Con, headlined on Jonathan Coulton’s JoCoCruise, appeared on Wil Wheaton’s TableTop, and more. Joseph has written for Adult Swim, the movie riffing group, RiffTrax, Screen Junkies, Comic-Con HQ, and was a writer/performer on Wits, where he wrote sketches for Paul F. Tompkins, Dave Foley, Neil Gaiman, and more. Joseph’s plays Adventures in Mating, An Inconvenient Squirrel, and My Monster (written with Bill Corbett) have been performed all over the US, the UK, and strangely Bulgaria. His popular comedy podcast Obsessed is part of the Feral Audio podcast network and has been listed as a Staff Favorite on iTunes multiple times. Joseph also co-hosts the Star Wars podcast feed, ForceCenter. Joseph has released multiple comedy albums including 2015’s Rebel Scum and 2013’s Flaw Fest. John Hodgman said of the album, “I am glad Joseph Scrimshaw has the power of thought and audible speech, or else this very funny album would not exist.”