Join us this April for five true, personal stories about science inspired by the theme paths. From wrong turns to blazing new trails, finding your path is always an adventure – with or without science.
Hosted by Misha Gajewski and Jesse Hildebrand.
Doors open at 7 PM. Show starts at 7:30 PM.
Stories by:
Ashley Stenzel is a PhD candidate in cancer epidemiology at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, NY. She researches ovarian cancer. Having had children as a teenager, her interests primarily include taking her kids on road trips, coaching their sports, and getting them involved in the arts and sciences. From her experience as a teenage parent, Ashley also teaches sexual health education to adolescents in developing countries, and promotes women in science and STEM education.
Amanda (Amy) Khan is an MD/PhD student at the University of Toronto, concurrently earning both an MD medical degree and PhD in biomedical/surgical engineering to become a clinician-scientist. She previously completed both her undergraduate degree and Master’s degree in Medical Biophysics at the University of Western Ontario in London, ON. Her current PhD work involves quantifying the amount of force it takes to damage delicate intestinal tissues in surgery with the surgical tools we use today. She plans to use her research to develop new, safer “smart” surgical tools to avoid surgical injuries. For her outstanding research skills, Amanda was awarded the prestigious Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, which is Canada’s top graduate research award and the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame student award for innovation and leadership. She was also featured on CBC's Canada's Smartest Person and awarded Canada's Most Powerful Women - Top 100 Award in the Future Leaders Category as a mentor of young women in science and medicine.
Craig Fay is a Toronto based engineer turned stand up comedian with a “keen insight that allows him to take subjects familiar to everyone and turn them into something new and laughable” (Exclaim). He has appeared on CBC’s Laugh Out Loud, performed at the world famous Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal and is co-host of "The Villain Was Right" podcast, which recently won a Canadian Podcasting Award for Outstanding Debut For a Series. Craig’s debut comedy album “Helicopter Rich” was praised as “observational and self-reflective…worth playing multiple times over” (Exclaim) and is available now on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon and Spotify. You can follow Craig on Twitter For (@CraigFayComedy), like him on Facebook (/CraigFayComedy), or sign up for his email newsletter at CraigFay.com. Or just Google him. You’ll probably just Google him.
Farah Qaiser is a graduate student at the University of Toronto's Molecular Genetics department, where her research involves sequencing patient DNA to better understand complex neurological disorders. When not in the lab, Farah dabbles in various science communication, policy and outreach initiatives in an effort to build an engaging and inclusive science culture in Canada. In the past, she has co-founded a student science policy group, hosted Wikipedia Edit-A-Thons, written freelance science pieces for various media outlets, and helped organize the 2018 Toronto March for Science. When not tackling her (ever-growing) to-do list, Farah enjoys speed-reading cliched dystopian books on her commute home. Follow her @this_is_farah
Laura Crocco is an Australian researcher in music performance and human movement science. She graduated with a Bachelor of Music (Voice Performance) and a Master of Applied Science (Health Science) from The University of Sydney and is now preparing for doctoral studies. The demanding nature of elite music training that she encountered during her undergraduate studies prompted her research interest in how the science of human motor learning may improve the way we train musicians. Laura aims to provide evidence-based professional development for music performance teachers in higher education so as to encourage student autonomy, improve performance and nurture the wellbeing of our future musicians. She is passionate about encouraging music teachers and students to recognise the current issues in one-to-one training, and showing them through her published works, presentations and masterclasses how more systematic and objective research may serve as an ally to the field. Laura often presses buttons on an accordion and hopes to one day convert an old upright piano into a mini-bar.