Join us in Ames, IA this October 16th for an evening of true, personal stories in partnership with Iowa State University. All storytellers are ISU faculty and graduate students sharing tales of seeking, finding, and losing new opportunities in science. This event is FREE but does require registration in advance (link below).
Stories by...
Jim Adelman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management at Iowa State University, where he studies physiology, disease, and behavior in wild songbirds. Specifically, his research focuses on how variation in immune and behavioral responses to infection can alter the transmission and evolution of avian pathogens. He feels incredibly lucky that this work keeps bringing him to different mountains across the continent.
Denise Coberley has been a science educator for twenty-three years. She is now pursuing a Master’s in Science Communication with a minor in Linguistics and Neuroscience. Her acceptance to the graduate program at Greenlee School of Journalism at Iowa State University allowed her to reconnect with her academic roots. Coberley’s goal is to understand how people react and develop science identities and opinions based on their interactions with media, including social, print, and news. Her husband, who works at ISU, and her children, who attend ISU, are her biggest cheerleaders.
Tomas Gonzalez-Torres was born in Puerto Rico and grew up in Knoxville, Iowa. During his undergraduate degree in Aerospace Engineering at ISU, he completed multiple internships at the NASA/Johnson Space Center, where he went to work after graduation. Gonzalez-Torres trained astronauts to perform space walks and worked missions involving the assembly of the International Space Station and repairs to the Hubble Space Telescope. He was eventually selected as a NASA Mission Control Flight Director. He left NASA in 2016 to move back to Iowa and be closer to his family. He currently teaches at ISU in the Aerospace Engineering Department.
Rachel Mans McKenny is a writer, mother, and lecturer at Iowa State University in the English and Speech Communication departments. Rachel was a US Presidential Scholar in the Arts and a graduate of the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Arts. Her work has appeared recently in The Rumpus, Electric Literature, Scary Mommy, and forthcoming in Split Lip Magazine. Her essay about breasts and cancer risk was just published in the anthology My Body, My Words. She can be found @rmmckenny and at rachelmansmckenny.com.
Abhay Mishra is an Associate Professor and Dean’s Fellow of Management Information Systems at the Debbie and Jerry Ivy College of Business at Iowa State University. Previously, he was on faculty at Georgia State University, Carnegie Mellon University, and University of Maryland at College Park. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin. Abhay enjoys cooking for his family and friends, playing with his kids, and traveling to beautiful places. His wife, Kristina, and he enjoy taking in shows, drinking wine, and hiking. Abhay is a firm believer in the power of science and human connection to transform lives.