Join Story Collider as we bring you true personal stories about helpful hurdles in science!

Hosted by Jitesh Jaggi and Lily Be.

Stories By:

Born and raised in Chennai, India, Seetha received a Ph.D. at the National University of Singapore. Seetha is now a postdoc at the University of Chicago working on understanding how our brains form and recall memories. Outside the lab, Seetha is a fierce advocate for better work-life balance and mental health resources for academics. The rest of my time I currently spend following the (lack thereof) motor, language, and decision-making skills of my infant. Pre-baby, I loved to travel, hike and immerse in the food and culture of places around the world. Post-baby life has been adventurous in other ways.

Errol McLendon is a Chicago solo performer and storyteller and a recent Moth winner. His stories have been heard all over the Chicago area and online at the Elmhurst History Museum web site. Errol also has a solo show, Inner State Stories, which will be a part of the Filet of Solo Festival early next year and will tour next summer. In the upcoming months Errol will be telling stories at Voicebox in Berwyn, Life Out Loud in The Pullman District, Ten By Nine on North Clybourn, Air Studio in Glencoe and The People Tree in Naperville. In October he will be telling ghost stories for The Schaumburg Library at Pollyanna Brewery’s Roselle Tap Room. Errol’s alter ego portrays patients for medical students in order to teach them communication skills. He loves sushi, his dog Cooper and his wife Wendye - not necessarily in that order.

Alicia Nesbary Moore is an urban farmer in Chicago’s East Garfield Park neighborhood. Trained as a molecular biologist, Moore oversees the cultivation of a variety of fruits, vegetables, herbs, and other microgreens for Herban.

In 2013, Alicia moved to Chicago’s West Side to work on empowering residents of minority neighborhoods that have suffered decades of disinvestment. She and her husband have brought a helping hand -- and new life -- to deprived city blocks through volunteer efforts and the farm she helps to cultivate, all in the midst of a community that historically has been a food desert.

Nesbary Moore, a graduate of the University of Illinois, holds a Master’s degree in molecular biology, with a specialty in genetics and plant science, from Chicago State University. She also teaches science at City Colleges of Chicago.