Category Archives: Uncategorized

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!

PFAS? Seems a little zebrafishy to me

Per- or Polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a class of chemicals that are known for their ability to contaminate our environment and be resistant to breaking down. However, there’s still a lot to learn about their potential for toxicity. One way scientists can better understand PFAS toxicity is by using the embryonic zebrafish models. These tiny fish have a genome that is around 70% similar to humans. This makes the zebrafish a powerful tool in understanding how some chemicals may express toxicity in humans.

Eli Cowan is a second-year PhD student in the lab of Robyn Tanguay, which is a part of the Environmental and Molecular Toxicology lab here at OSU. His research focuses on using the zebrafish model to understand how PFAS exposure may lead to adverse effects in development. With this data and using his in-dept knowledge of biology, Eli then can help answer questions about how PFAS may be toxic to people. Eli was raised in Vicksburg, Mississippi, where he first encountered zebrafish toxicology in a locally-based lab. Eli has always been a natural born scientist, and that curiosity has led him all the way across the country pushing the bounds of science.

Tune into KBVR 88.7 FM at 7 pm PST on March 2nd to hear Eli talk about cold calling researchers looking for a job and how he fell in love with organic chemistry from an Obi-Wan Kenobi doppelganger.

Written by E Hernandez

If you miss the show, you can check out the interview wherever you get your podcasts, including on our KBVR page, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else!

Growing Crystals to Stop Global Warming

As global temperatures rise, ocean levels and extreme weather occurrences rise with it. One of the leading causes of global warming are greenhouse gases like CO2. However, if science could figure out cheap and effective methods for capturing CO2 humanity can start down the path of reversing the damage to our planet. Currently, there are many methods being researched to capture CO2, but most struggle with issues like being expensive to make and maintain or being difficult to scale up to useful size. This means that research on cheap, robust ways of CO2 capture are hot right now. Hotter than the rising global temps.

Emily Hiatt is a second-year PhD student in the May Nyman lab in the Department of Chemistry here at OSU. Her research focuses around creating organic/inorganic crystal clusters to be used in the capture of CO2 with the goal to create a renewable way to combat this potent greenhouse gas. Originally from Fredrick, Maryland, Emily has always been fascinated by science and now she’s using her love of chemistry and science communication to not only fight the good fight against global warming but inspire others to do the same.  

Tune in at 7 pm PST on KBVR 88.7 FM on February 23rd to hear Emily talk about everything from taking AP Chemistry out of spite to her love of the stars and beyond. It’s guaranteed to be out of this world! 

Written by E Hernandez

If you miss the show, you can check out the interview wherever you get your podcasts, including on our KBVR page, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else!

Diving into Underwater Robots

Have you ever wondered what goes into designing and building a robot? In an age of seemingly exponential technological growth, robots are becoming more and more commonplace. On land, robots have excelled at tasks such as assembly line manufacturing, warehouse logistics, and even household chores. Engineers and researchers are now designing robots capable of exploring other environments such as the ocean. The use of robots underwater can aid humans in many tasks, including engineering projects like offshore construction. This approach significantly improves safety by removing humans from often dangerous situations, while also increasing efficiency. However, the underwater environment differs dramatically from land, posing many challenges for researchers.

Akshaya Agrawal, a fifth-year PhD candidate in the Robotics Department at Oregon State University’s College of Engineering, is tackling the challenges of implementing robots underwater. Ocean currents create drag—up to 800 times greater than what we experience on land—and communication signals like Wi-Fi do not travel well underwater, making it difficult to localize (determine the robot’s exact position). Akshaya’s research involves developing and testing motion-planning algorithms designed to help teams of robots coordinate movement and perform tasks underwater. She utilizes realistic simulations to assess the performance of robots underwater, coupled with laboratory tests on ground-based robots, and plans to transition to an underwater testing phase in the future.

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Akshaya’s passion for engineering and robotics began at an early age. Her journey from India to Oregon is inspirational, as is how she’s redefining the academic landscape for women in robotics. To hear more about her story, all the cool robots she’s working with, and the steps involved in getting them underwater, tune in to KBVR 88.7 FM this Sunday, Feb. 2. You can listen to the episode anywhere you listen to your podcasts, including on KBVR, Spotify, Apple, or anywhere else!

Take a Deep Breath: Tracing the Carbon in our Air back to the Source

Carbon emissions in our air have long-term consequences for our health and our planet. Despite this, yearly carbon emissions are in the range of billions of metric tons. However, not all the carbon in our air is chemically the same, and the differences in these compounds can give researchers forensic evidence on where these pollutants are coming from.
Alison Clark is in the lab of Kim Anderson in the Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology. In her research she aims to answer the question “where do the things that we are exposed to over time come from and how can we tell?” In particular, she is investigating ways to detect and trace the origins of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). PAH are found in engine exhaust fumes, tobacco smoke, wildfire smoke, coal and petroleum products. Long-term exposure to PAH can lead to various cancers and cardiovascular issues.
Currently, Clark is investigating human exposure to PAH and how it moves through the environment by analyzing data from a town with a known source of PAH emissions.

Tune in at 7pm on January 26th at 7 pm PST on KBVR 88.7 FM to hear all about the sounds and silence of our forests and what that tells us about them! 

If you miss the show, you can check out the interview wherever you get your podcasts, including on our KBVR page, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else!

Hear ye! Hear ye! Bioacoustics are telling us about the health of our forests

If you’ve ever recreated in the stunning forests of the pacific northwest, you’ve probably taken in a peaceful moment listening to the wind rush through the trees, the pattering of the rain, the buzz of insects, and the chattering of birds. What you may not have considered, is that these sounds could be indicators of forest health. Second year masters student in Fisheries and Wildlife, Anna Bloch Kohlberg, is assessing the health of Pacific Northwest forests with bioacoustics. Bioacoustics uses sound to study an ecosystem or species. From animal communication and behavior to coral reef health, the study of bioacoustics has broad applications.


Anna is specifically investigating forests covered by the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP). The NWFP is a series of federal policies and guidelines governing land use on federal lands in the Pacific Northwest. It was established to protect threatened and endangered species while also contributing to the social and economic sustainability of the region. In her research with Damon Lesmeister and Taal Levi, she analyzes bioacoustics data collected from 4000 recorders across the Northwest for acoustic signatures of indicator species. The processing and analysis of these massive datasets is aided by AI tools developed by the lab. From the analysis of these datasets they are able to get key information on the health of forests across the Northwest, which inform policy and conservation efforts.
Tune in at 7pm on November 10th at 7 pm PST on KBVR 88.7 FM to hear all about the sounds and silence of our forests and what that tells us about them!

If you miss the show, you can check out the interview wherever you get your podcasts, including on our KBVR page, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else!

How do you like them NAPLs? Investigating the chemical properties of pollutants

Seneca Lake in New York is known for stunning views, wine tasting, and being the lake trout capital of the world. However, a threat lies unseen in its beautiful waters. Earlier this year the Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association put out a report showing positive tests for polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in water drawn from several sites in Seneca Lake. The report provides evidence that the known PFAS contamination at the former Seneca Army Depot is spreading beyond its borders. Seneca Lake is not the only community facing this issue. In Tucson, Arizona there has been an ongoing effort to remove PFAS from groundwater since the late 2010s when it was found that PFAS contamination was stemming from two nearby Air Force facilities. At K. I. Sawyer Air Force Base in Michigan, the Air Force is monitoring PFAS contamination in the water and soil with the help of the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy.

PFAS are often used to make products grease-proof, waterproof, nonstick, or flame-resistant. They are also found in firefighting foams, which are commonly used to put out fires at airports and military bases. They are also known as “forever chemicals” because they do not break down easily in the environment or the human body. PFAS have also been linked to several health problems, including certain cancers.

An additional factor becomes a concern when thinking about the impact from PFAS laden firefighting foams: non-aqueous phase liquids (NAPL). Common examples of NAPL are petroleum products, coal tars, and pesticides. In certain pollution sites there are both NAPL and PFAS present, which have the potential to interact in unexpected ways, impacting how these pollutants move through the environment, and potentially creating new NAPL-PFAS compounds of concern.

This week on ID we are interviewing Mireia Roig-Paul, a second year PhD student in Environmental and Molecular Toxicology, to learn all about these pollutants and the potential threats they pose. She studies in the laboratories of both Jennifer Fields and Serhan Mermer, and her research focuses on the intersection of PFAS and NAPLs, how they move through soil, and how they interact with each other. Tune in at 7pm on October 27th at 7 pm PST on KBVR 88.7 FM to hear all about it!

If you miss the show, you can check out the interview wherever you get your podcasts, including on our KBVR page, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Pictured is Mireia Roig-Paul (provided by Mireia Roig-Paul).

Fear.exe: How horror video games hijack more than just your computer

Our upcoming guest is Erika Stewart, a second-year MA student in the School of Writing, Literature and Film. As an avid gamer growing up, Erika found a way to explore this passion more deeply in graduate school, where her thesis focuses on horror in video games. 

Scholars have studied our relationship with horror for decades, identifying that the fear induced arises from a threat to our bodies. But what about video games, where no immediate physical threat exists? An emerging genre of games—coined by Erika as ‘malwaric’ games—hijack your computer (much like malware) and can induce deep fear in players. How do these games create fear if there’s no representation of the body?

Erika explores this question by presenting the argument that the computer functions as an extension of the body. Malwaric games are designed to be intrusive and reflect a cultural fear: they are terrifying because the computer has become a part of us, and these games seem to attack us directly. In an age rife with artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and virtual reality, Erika’s research is both timely and insightful, addressing what this means for the ‘digital divide.’

To learn more about Erika’s research—and how childhood video game memories and positive community college experiences influenced her path to graduate school—tune in to KBVR 88.7 FM this Sunday, Oct. 13. You can listen to the episode anywhere you listen to your podcasts, including on KBVR, Spotify, Apple, or anywhere else!

Welfare, TANF, and Higher Ed: Students thrive when we remove the barriers

In 2023, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF) distributed aid to nearly 20,000 families, and approximately 40,000 individual recipients in the state of Oregon (FY2023 TANF Caseload). The families and individuals who receive TANF often face unseen difficulties and obstacles, especially related to higher education. This week on ID, we speak with Terese Jones, a recent PhD graduate in Human Development and Family Sciences. Terese’s dissertation work centered around TANF recipients, the challenges they face with higher education, developing a pilot program to address these challenges, and assessing the outcomes. 

Terese’s research identifies many common obstacles that TANF students face, a few of which are a lack of information about resources, stigma surrounding the use of these resources, and practices and procedures that discourage students from using these resources. In the program she developed, she sought to eliminate some of these barriers. For example, she removed a requirement that certain students receiving assistance needed to provide a state issued form that tracked their class attendance, which had to be signed by their professors. This change was the most positively received component of the program among the participants because it eliminated a significantly embarrassing and uncomfortable experience for the students.

Terese found that eliminating some of the barriers the students identified allowed them to expand what is called “possible selves” which refers to the futures that students can imagine and identify as possible for themselves. Students who initially sought to become phlebotomists changed their career trajectory towards nursing when they realized they would have the support to do so. Additionally, the participants also expanded their “public selves” which refers to how they see themselves within their community/public life. Many of these students saw themselves going back to their communities as health professionals, addiction and counseling professionals, and social service and welfare professionals. 

Terese says that she found herself relating to these students because she also has a background of poverty that drove her through her higher education journey. She is now continuing her work in a position at LBCC, where she is developing more programs centered around deep poverty in Linn-Benton county with the hopes of making a difference in the lives of people in our community. To learn more about Terese and her work, check out this week’s episode of ID. Also take a look at some of the resources Terese provided below!

Emergency Financial Assistance — Vina Moses Center

Family Support Program – Corvallis Public Schools Foundation (cpsfoundation.org)

South Corvallis Food Bank

Full cream: The power of milk on infant development

Our upcoming guest is Jillien Zukaitis, a first year PhD student in Nutrition, College of Health. Her lab, fondly referred to as the ‘Milk Lab’, studies at all things milk. With a clinical background as a dietitian, Jillien now couples her practical experience with translatable research.

Partnering with OHSU, Jillien assesses the composition, nutritional value, and potential health benefits of human milk on the development of preterm infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). This involves analyzing various proteins and peptides in the different types of milk fed to these infants and seeing how they are digested to isolate their roles in infant health and development. One way she does this is by isolating milk peptides from infant stomach and intestine and testing these on macrophage cells, examining the immune function of some of the peptides identified. By assessing the processing methods, milk types, and milk contents, she aims to discern what milk is best to feed infants. She plans to compare these results against other sources of nutrition such as infant formula in the future.

One innovative element of her research is through use of an in-vitro “digestion machine” known as SHIME (The Simulator of the Human Intestinal Microbial Ecosystem), which essentially mimics the entire digestive process from start to finish, allowing valuable insights at each stage involved. This revolutionary machine is one of the few in the USA and is right here at OSU!

To learn more about her research, passion to improve the lives of infants, and the unorthodox pathway that led her to pursuing her PhD, tune in to our prerecorded conversation on KBVR 88.7 FM this Sunday, May 12. You can listen to the episode anywhere you listen to your podcasts, including on KBVR, Spotify, Apple, or anywhere else!