Mom Genes Look Good on Everyone

Mammals encompass some of the most interesting animals on the planet. We can see how bats have mastered the sky with wings like birds or how dolphins have adapted streamlined bodies for life in the ocean just like fish. The ability to evolve similar characteristics to overcome common problems found in the environment is called convergent evolution and opens our eyes to the fundamentals of how life has changed to face the challenges of our planet. One such trait that is the product of convergent evolution is echolocation, which is the subject of research for our guest on the show this week Serena Frazee.


Serena is a 2nd year PhD student in the lab of Dr. Katie Everson, a part of the Department of Integrated Biology. Serena is an Oregon native from Portland and was initially driven to science by an interest at the intersections of neuroscience and art. However, it was her love of understanding genetics that inspired her to come to OSU and pursue her PhD. Since coming to OSU she has been a part of a few projects, but on the show we’ll get to hear what she’s learned while studying tenrecs, a relative of shrews that are only found in Madagascar.



Tune into KBVR 88.7 FM at 7 pm PST on May 25th to hear Serena explain how echolocation evolves in unusual places and her fight to change how people view the narrative of gene research. Hopefully she’ll also answer my burning question of “why does everything become crab?”

Written by Mireia Roig-Paul

Nanoplastics: From Farm to Table

Nanoplastics are an emerging contaminant and the result of plastics breaking down in the environment. In most cases these particles can be more than 70 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair. Their small size means that nanoplastics can easily entire the bloodstream where they can travel to every part of the body. The prevalence of plastic waste mixed with incomplete risk assessment data highlights the importance of further research like what’s being conducted by our guest this week Kelso Arther.

Kelso is a third-year PhD student in the Stacey Harper lab, part of the department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology here at OSU. Their research focuses on understanding how nanoplastics interact with pesticides in agricultural systems. They ask questions like how the presence of these nanoplastics effects pesticide efficacy, spread, and degradation. They’re also looking at how the mixing of nanoplastics with pesticides changes the toxicological profile of both components. Raised in Kentucky, Kelso is the grandchild of hard working coal miners so fighting to keep workers safe from occupational exposure to toxins is in Kelso’s lifeblood. We’ll get a glimpse at how growing up around a proud but dangerous pillar of America’s workforce inspired Kelso to strive and keep workers safe.   

Tune into KBVR 88.7 FM at 7 pm PST on May 18th to hear Kelso break down the complexities of the “nano world”, help us understand nanoscopic soil environments, and highlight how animal models help us answer important questions about molecule’s toxicity. We’ll also get to hear about their journey from undergrad to industry and what drove them to come to graduate school.

SHIME on: Simulated Guts, Prebiotics and Passion

If you walk into any grocery store today and find yourself in the beverage aisle, you’ll be able to find all sorts of “prebiotic” sodas touting ingredients like inulin that claim to improve gut health. Many of us are familiar with probiotics and the gut benefits of fermented or cultured foods that contain beneficial bacteria, but prebiotics are a little different. Prebiotics are typically nondigestible fiber compounds that pass undigested through the upper part of the gastrointestinal tract and function as a food source for your gut’s microorganisms.

However, it is unclear what the effects of prebiotics are on the human gut microbiome, and more specifically, how diet influences these effects. This is exactly what Emilee Lance, second year PhD student in the department of microbiology, is aiming to understand. Under the guidance of PIs Ryan Mueller and Tom Sharpton, Emilee is working on understanding how the gut microbiome is affected by prebiotics like inulin, and the impact that diet can have on prebiotic efficacy. Using a gut simulator called a SHIME (The Simulator of the Human Intestinal Microbial Ecosystem) she is able to totally control the initial microbial environment, diet, and mimic specific regions of the gastrointestinal tract such as the stomach, small intestine and different colon regions.

Emilee Lance with the SHIME (The Simulator of the Human Intestinal Microbial Ecosystem)

To hear more about the inner workings of those tiny guys in your gut, what they like to eat, and how they impact you, tune in to 88.7 KBVR Corvallis at 7PM PST on May 11, 2025 or tune in wherever you get your podcasts, including on our KBVR page, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts!

Written by Hannah Stuwe

Tracking Sharks in the Pacific Northwest

Announcement: TONIGHT WE HAVE A SHARK SCIENTIST ON THE SHOW!

Meet Jessica Schulte, a fourth-year PhD candidate in the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences. Jess is part of ‘The Big Fish’ lab, and guess what—she still has all her limbs! As you’ll hear on the show tonight, this isn’t a Jaws sequel. Sharks are often portrayed negatively in the media, but Jess is here to flip the script. She’ll highlight why sharks are fascinating, misunderstood, and worthy of far more research attention.

Broadly speaking, Jess is studying the movement and foraging ecology of an apex predator: the broadnose sevengill shark. Her work takes place primarily in Willapa Bay, Washington, where—mysteriously—these sharks gather in large numbers. Why they congregate there is unknown, but Jess is sinking her teeth into finding the answer. In fact, little is known about the movement and foraging ecology of broadnose sevengills. Last year Jess co-authored a paper on the first scientifically confirmed sighting of sevengills in the Puget Sound. To uncover more about what they are doing, Jess heads out on a boat 3–4 times each month from March to October and catches (yes, catches) these sharks. Utilizing strong ethical methods, she collects stomach contents and secures tracking tags before safely releasing them back to the ocean.

If you think Jess’s research sounds exhilarating, wait until you hear about her journey to grad school. She served in the Peace Corps in the Philippines, became a dive master in Honduras, assists with OSU’s scientific diving program, and has traveled to countless countries. She’s also just an awesome person—so tune in to our chat tonight on KBVR 88.7 FM, May 4th. You can listen to the episode anywhere you listen to your podcasts, including on KBVR, Spotify, Apple, or anywhere else!

Taking Shape: Disordered Proteins, Viruses, and Magnets

For most of the time that biochemists have been studying proteins they have preached the widely adopted dogma that structure equals function. Proteins are macromolecules made of chains of amino acids, and as they are produced they fold into intricate and specific shapes. These shapes or ‘structures’ are critical to the tasks that they perform, like producing energy for the cell, carrying molecular cargo from one end of the cell to the other, or letting ions across the cell membrane. However, over 30% of the protein humans produce has no specific structure. These are called intrinsically disordered proteins, and only in the last 15 years have they been brought into the spotlight of biochemistry and biophysics research (Structural Disorder in Eukaryotes).
Hannah Stuwe is a fourth-year PhD candidate in Biochemistry and Biophysics, and her research revolves around disordered proteins, particularly a protein from SARS-CoV-2 called the nucleocapsid protein. In her work she uses state-of-the-art techniques specifically suited for studying disordered proteins to understand how the flexibility of this protein changes throughout the viral replication cycle.

Hannah filling an NMR spectrometer with liquid nitrogen.


To hear from Hannah, ID host and this week’s interviewee, about all things NMR, protein, and virus, tune in to KBVR 88.7 FM at 7 pm PST on April 13th, or listen wherever you get your podcasts, including on our KBVR page, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else!

Progress: A Natural Product of Science

From penicillin to aspirin, some of the best known and life changing medications are natural products. To progress science and humanity we need diligent scientists on the front lines helping bring reason and understanding to the natural world. Natural product synthesis is not only a cornerstone of drug development, but it has also changed humanity for the better by allowing science to isolate and/or enhance the potency of certain drugs. On the show this week we have someone who does just that, Evie Starchman.

Evie is a 5th year Chemistry PhD student in Dr. Chris Beaudry’s lab. Her current research focuses on Asterelin A which is known to have some anti-fungal properties. By creating and better understanding the fine details of this molecule Evie hopes to further deepen the understanding of molecules like it. Evie is from Snohomish, Washington where growing up she loved figure skating and (to this day) reading any book she could get her hands on. When she isn’t in the lab you can find her doing anything from white-water rafting, browsing packs at her local card shop, or training for her next marathon.



Tune into KBVR 88.7 FM at 7 pm PST on April 27th to hear Evie talk about what drives her to keep going in this chaotic world and if we’re lucky, hear about her latest Pokémon card finds.

Written by E Hernandez

No Rest for the Massless

Sometimes the smallest things in the universe can answer some of the largest questions. That seems to be the case with neutrinos. Neutrinos are fundamental particles – which just means they are the smallest of the small and that they are indivisible. The name neutrino literally means electrically neutral (neutr-) and small (-ino). For a long time, scientists believed neutrinos had no mass. Now, it is known to have a mass, but nobody has been able to enumerate it. Despite their size (or maybe because of it) they are the most abundant particle in the universe. Every second, 100 trillion neutrinos pass through your body without interacting with any particles in your body. 

Noah at the Wilson Hall atrium at Fermilab, the national particle physics lab outside of Chicago where their experiments are based

Noah Vaughan (they / them) is a PhD Student in the Physics Department at Oregon State University whose research focuses on experimental high energy particle physics, specifically neutrinos! They are co-author on over 50 publications, which is an incredible feat at this career stage and demonstrates the collaborative nature of the field. Noah works on the Main Injector Neutrino ExpeRiment to study v-A interactions (MINERvA) Project which is the first neutrino experiment in the world to use a high-intensity beam to study neutrino reactions with five different nuclei. Basically, MINERvA provides understanding on how neutrinos interact with other particles which inform scientists about the bigger role they play, including in star supernovas, the creation of the universe, and the structure of protons.

Noah in the underground hall at Fermilab

Noah’s experiments for their dissertation were performed at Fermalab, which is 100 meters underground. That’s something I bet a lot of PhD students couldn’t claim! These experiments have given Noah a dataset with over 1,000,000 points, which is the largest of its type. The nature of neutrinos makes them difficult to study. They interact through gravity and something called the weak force. The weak force is one of the four fundamental forces of nature. It’s much weaker than electromagnetism, but it’s incredibly important. The weak force changes one type of particle into another. It’s one of the driving forces in radioactive decay and helps fuel the sun through nuclear reactions. The weak force changes the identity or “flavor” of particles, at a very small range (smaller than the size of a proton). This allows neutrinos to navigate through atoms of massive objects without interacting.

The top parts of the MINERvA detector that Noah helped rebuild for use in a new prototype detector to be used for DUNE, a future neutrino experiment. Each of the blue and red cylinders is a photomultiplier tube that reads out the light collected from the scintillation strips in the detector (Photo provided by Noah)

This all means that Noah’s work is very important, and answering questions about some of the smallest things in the universe leads to answers to the biggest questions in the universe.

The front face of the MINERVA detector in its original commissioning (photo provided by Noah, from Reider Hahn at Fermilab)

Written by Taylor Azizeh.

The News about Roadway Runoff? It’s Wheely Bad.

In the Pacific Northwest, Salmon hold significant ecological, economical, and cultural importance. They are a significant part of cultural identity for many Columbia River Basin tribes (Importance of Salmon – Pacific Coast). For several Pacific Northwest salmon species, returning to spawning grounds may pose previously unknown and deadly threats. Mass salmon die-off events have been linked to roadway runoff and a particular toxicant that comes from leachate from tire tread wear particles. The compound, called 6PPD-quinone, is an oxidation product of an additive intended to prevent damage to tire rubber from ozone (6PPD-quinone in Science).

Miranda Jackson is a fourth year PhD student in the labs of Stacey Harper and Manuel Garcia-Jaramillo in the department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology at OSU. She is a self-described aquatic ecotoxicologist, and she’s been investigating the toxins making their way into our surface waters and eventually salmon habitats. Her research involves investigating the toxicity of micro and nano-sized rubber particles and 6PPD-quinone that are derived from car tires, elucidating their mechanisms of toxicity in various fish species, and working on remediation strategies for removing 6PPD-quinone from the environment.

Miranda Jackson dosing fish tanks.

Tune into KBVR 88.7 FM at 7 pm PST on April 13th to hear Miranda talk about the impressive and scary toxicity of 6PPD-quinone (that also somehow is incredibly species specific to salmonids), how to remove these toxins from the environment, and what we can do to limit it from the source.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts, including on our KBVR page, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else!

Written by Hannah Stuwe

Changes, Dreams, and Everything In-Between

Per- or Polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a class of chemicals that are found in everything from food wrappers to the inside of firefighter turnout gear. Certain PFAS have been linked to things like high blood pressure, low infant birth weight, and an increased risk to certain kinds of cancers. Their toxicity mixed with PFAS’ resistance to breakdown in the environment means that a better understanding of their prevalence is necessary to keep people and the environment safe.

Derek Muensterman recently received his PhD while working in the lab of Jennifer Field as a chemistry graduate student. His research focuses on using various analytical techniques to quantitatively and qualitatively understand PFAS in various household products and environmental matrices. By creating a deeper understanding of PFAS, Derek hopes that his research can be used to further protect people and the environment from these emerging toxins. Derek is an Oregon native growing up in Bend, if he wasn’t snowboarding on Mt. Bachelor he was enjoy the natural beauty of the Cascades. Derek has always been a pillar of the Field lab and though we’re sad to see him go we’re excited to send him off with a great interview!

Tune into KBVR 88.7 FM at 7 pm PST on March 16th to hear Derek talk about the challenges of coming back to school after working in industry and his dive into the world of vinyl collecting.

Written by E Hernandez

Listen wherever you get your podcasts, including on our KBVR page, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else!

Gross and slimy: How salmon shark barf can teach us about their foraging ecology

If someone asked you to describe a shark, I imagine most folks would report a ten-foot long body, rows and rows of razor sharp teeth, and the ruthless nature of a (literal) cold-blooded killer. If you asked Master’s student Reilly Boyt to describe a shark, she would likely describe a salmon shark. Before you look at the photo below, I urge you to close your eyes and picture a shark that looks a little shy and vaguely embarrassed. Okay now open, is this what you pictured or is it even better?

Credit: Shane Gross
Pictured: Reilly Boyt helping conduct an ultrasound on a shark, all photos taken during permitted research

Reilly (she/her) is a second year Master’s student in the Big Fish Lab in the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences, studying the diet and habitat use of salmon sharks using multi-chemical tracers (e.g. eDNA metabarcoding and fatty acid analysis) across size classes and sex). Not only are salmon sharks adorable, but they are also one of the many fascinating shark species that are located right off the Oregon coast. Although salmon sharks are fish, they are actually warm-blooded or endothermic, meaning they can regulate their body temperature like mammals. Salmon sharks are apex predators, and they therefore impact the ecosystem from the top-down and have an incredibly important role throughout the entire food web. Despite this, scientists are still unsure of exactly what they are eating and where. That’s where Reilly comes in!

Reilly’s work aims to combine multiple methods that look for feeding signatures within fatty acids, isotopes, and DNA. These techniques can provide an understanding of both short- and long-term diet choices. In order to get these types of data, Reilly gets the simultaneously awesome and disgusting job of sorting through shark stomachs and vomit. I think true science nerds understand how cool that is! 

Pictured: Reilly Boyt examining the contents of a shark stomach.
Pictured: Reilly Boyt working in the lab.

From conducting diet analysis on coyote stomachs in high school to working for NOAA on shark diet studies, Reilly really has done it all. She is the founder and CEO of Disabilities Within Ocean Sciences (DWOS), an organization dedicated to “building a network and resource hub for disabled marine scientists at every career stage.” She has done prolific advocacy work that focuses on promoting inclusivity and equitable access within the field of marine science.

To learn more about DWOS and the adorably awkward salmon shark, you can check out the interview wherever you get your podcasts, including on our KBVR page, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else!

Written by Taylor Azizeh