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Profiles

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Nature •

What it means to practise values-based research

Max Liboiron’s academic career criss-crossed science a few times before finding an interdisciplinary home in geography. Growing up in the rural hamlet of Lac la Biche in northeastern Alberta, Canada, where university education wasn’t common, Liboiron dreamt of being a scientist. But in 1998, when they began undergraduate science studies, they became disillusioned with their university’s push towards industrial applications of science and so gravitated towards fine arts instead. After earning a b
Nature •

TikTok’s dancing chemist catalyses joy in students

André Isaacs’ love of chemistry began at school in Kingston, Jamaica, inspired by his uncle — a teacher, who created fun ways to connect chemistry with life experiences. Isaacs earned his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 2011 and did a postdoc at the University of California, Berkeley, before returning to the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts — his undergraduate alma mater — as a group leader in organic chemistry in 2012. As an educator, he mixes his
Hakai Magazine •

Coastal Job: Underwater Cave Ecologist

Fernando Calderón-Gutiérrez is a Mexican underwater cave ecologist who dives in the coastal caves of Mexico, Belize, and the United States to document organisms and learn how they interact with their hostile environment.

Most aspiring marine biologists are drawn to charismatic animals like sea turtles and whales. For me, the pale, blind creatures of the world’s darkest caverns are more alluring. For a long time, scientists wondered how life in underwater caves was possible because there’s no su
Our Wild Puget Sound •

Can the Traditional Practices of Indigenous Shellfisheries Guide the Way for Modern Restoration of Struggling Oyster Populations? — Our Wild Puget Sound

• None About 85% of oyster reefs across the world have been lost since the 19th century due to overharvesting, pollution, introduction of invasive species and habitat loss.
• None According to a new study, Indigenous communities in North America and Australia sustainably managed oyster fisheries for more than 5,000 years before Europeans and commercial fisheries arrived.
• None The knowledge of these traditional practices can guide sustainable fisheries management today, say the authors of the
Mongabay Environmental News •

Indigenous oyster fisheries were ‘fundamentally different’: Q&A with researcher Marco Hatch

In the 18th century, when European ships sailed into the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the Northwest coast of the Atlantic Ocean, they raved about the “wilderness” of the coast. The enormous natural wealth they saw—the wood from forests and the fur on animals—lured them into setting up a flourishing trade that would last centuries and script a new chapter in history.

The visitors thought the coast as pristine and untouched by humans. However, it was home to many Indigenous peoples, including the Nu
BBC •

Radio 4 - Last Word, Barbara Cook, Sister Ruth Pfau, Richard Gordon, Prof UR Rao

Kate Silverton on the "Broadway Diva" Barbara Cook, the American singer and actress who first came to prominence in the 1950s as the lead in the original Broadway musicals Plain and Fancy and Candide; Sister Ruth Pfau 'Mother Teresa' of Pakistan for her work in combating the spread of leprosy; Richard Gordon the anesthetist,whose medical work inspired him to write Dr in The House novels which were made into films and a TV series; Prof. U.R. Rao, Pioneer of India's Space Programme, who brought kn
Research Matters •

Prof. U R Rao: The person who ‘connected’ India

It was the early 1960s when India’s space research program was in its humble beginnings in the pulpit of a church in Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), as we know today, was yet to be established from its parent organization, the Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR), with Dr. Vikram Sarabhai as its head. India’s tryst with space research was limited to a few imported rockets and payloads. The prevalent geopolitical and economic situati
Deccan Herald •

Who is funding your research? A conversation with Nobel Laureate Prof Brian Schmidt

A recent report by the World Economic Forum states that India had 2.6 million new graduates with a degree in science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) in the year 2016, next only to China, which stood first at 4.7 million. The numbers are not surprising, considering the ample career options available for those with a degree in Science.


Today, with many youngsters motivated to pursue a satisfying career in Science, universities across the world are seeing unprecedented enrolments