Join us at The Stata Center at MIT for four true, personal stories about how science can unseat us—or save us from displacement.
Hosted by Ari Daniel and Katherine Wu.
Please note that this show will be seated outdoors. You must be up-to-date on COVID-19 vaccines to attend. Masks are welcome and recommended.
Stories By:
Eric Boodman is a reporter for STAT whose work has also appeared in The Atlantic, Undark, and The Boston Globe Magazine. He's written about entomologists who specialize in fictional infestations, unscientific infant death investigations, and mysterious appearances of exotic arachnids in a Nazi air-raid shelter, and his features have won a number of awards, including the Evert Clark/Seth Payne Award for young science journalists, the American Society of Magazine Editors "Next" Award for journalists under 30, and the New America Award for public service coverage of immigrant communities.
Ryan McNamara is a staff scientist and a project lead for COVID-19 and HIV at the Ragon Research Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT, and Harvard. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Texas – Southwestern Medical Center, then transitioned to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ryan was also at UNC during the COVID-19 pandemic and was part of an effort to identify how the virus was spreading throughout the state. Ryan and his research team were some of the first to identify novel variants of SARS-CoV-2 that later became the predominant form of the virus. He has two dogs, Sherlock and Watson, who proofread all of his papers.
Born and raised in Southern California, LaShyra “Lash” Nolen is a writer, activist, and third-year MD/MPP dual-degree student at Harvard Medical School and Kennedy School of Government, where she is serving as student council president of her medical school class, the first black woman documented to hold this leadership position. Her work has been featured in the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature, and Teen Vogue, among others. She is the Founding Executive Director of “We Got Us,” a grassroots community empowerment project with the goal of bringing vaccine education and access to marginalized communities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. She is a co-host of the Clinical Problem Solvers Anti-Racism in Medicine Podcast. Her work has earned her the honor of being named a Boston Celtics “Hero Among Us” and named on the Forbes “30 Under 30” in healthcare list. She is a fervent advocate for social justice and enjoys storytelling through spoken word poetry, rap, and writing.
Latifa Turner Ziyad is the Resiliency Planning Coordinator at the Neighborhood of Affordable Housing (NOAH) in East Boston, MA. She has a Master’s in Community Economic Development from Southern New Hampshire University. Latifa has worked for the New England Aquarium, doing Coastal Community Resilience, and interned at the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Virginia Marine Science Museum and the Cousteau Society, Dolphin Log Magazine. Latifa is passionate about climate resiliency and racial health equity. In her free time, she sails, camps, skis, snowboards, hikes, walks, play writes, reads and travels with her three daughters.