The Story Collider

While working at a hospital, David Putrino finds a surprise in his own medical records. David is a Physical Therapist with a PhD in Neuroscience. He has worked as a clinician in the US, UK and Australia, studied computational neuroscience at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and designed prostheses for Brain Machine Interface devices at New York University. He is an Assistant Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at Weill-Cornell Medical College, and the Director of Telemedicine and Virtual Rehabilitation at Burke Medical Research Institute. He works to develop low-cost patient monitoring and treatment systems, designed to decrease healthcare costs whilst improving the standard of patient care. David is a co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of GesTherapy, a telerehabilitation software company that works to improve the standard of care patients who require rehabilitation. He is also a volunteer for Not Impossible Labs, a company that develops technological solutions for large-sc

Saad Sarwana is finally about to win a high school award, but in his way is a math problem even the teacher got wrong. Saad Sarwana grew up in Pakistan, and moved first to Canada and then eventually to the US to attend graduate school in Physics. He's a professional physicist by day and an amateur standup comedian by night! As a Physicist, Saad has over 30 peer reviewed publications and two US patents. As a comedian Saad has performed over 1000 shows over 20 years. He co-hosts the Science Channel show "Outrageous Acts of Science", Season four starts to air in Feb 2016. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

While being treated after an accident, Rachel Fairbank struggles with not being the researcher. Rachel Fairbank received her bachelor's in biology from Cornell University, did some graduate work in the developmental biology program at Baylor College of Medicine, and is currently working on an MFA in creative writing at the University of Houston, where she also works as a science writer. In her spare time, she likes to box. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Abhishek Shah takes a simple job to pay for school--toxic waste disposal. Being a biomedical engineer, Abhishek Shah knows everything about physics, chemistry and biology. He applies the same fundamentals to his stand up comedy and storytelling to improve the chemistry with audience by applying the physics of joke structure. His intriguing experiences and fascinating background makes him a unique storyteller. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Brian Kennedy is forced to take a job in his local pharmacy to finance his theater dreams. Brian Kennedy is a writer/storyteller living in NYC. He's written for The Huffington Post and performed improv and sketch comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade. He tells stories on podcasts and at various venues, including The Moth -- where he's a StorySLAM winner. A long time ago, he wrote plays and produced them in the Minnesota Fringe Festival. Yes, he grew up in Minnesota. Yes, he still has the accent to prove it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Physicist Kaća Bradonjić's view of time is shaped by her experience as a war refugee. Originally from the former Yugoslavia, Kaća Bradonjić is a theoretical physicist living and working in Massachusetts. Her research on the nature of space, time, and gravitation straddles the boundaries of science, philosophy, history of physics, and visual art. She is particularly interested in the relations between mathematical structures used in physics and the aspects of the physical reality they are supposed to represent. Kaća lives and works in Massachusetts, where she is currently a Visiting Lecturer of Physics at Wellesley College and an artist member at Gallery 263 in Cambridge, MA. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Psychologist Ali Mattu didn't know what he wanted to be as a kid, but his older brother helped him find inspiration in Star Trek. Ali is a clinical psychologist at the Columbia University Clinic for Anxiety and Related Disorders where he specializes in the treatment of OCD, hair-pulling and skin-picking disorders. Outside of the hospital, Ali is an advocate for the brain and behavior sciences through his positions on national psychological associations and his presentations at comic cons. He writes about the psychology of science fiction at BrainKnowsBetter.com in the hopes that it will help others develop a love for psychology, just like Star Trek did for him. Ali's also the host of The Psych Show, a YouTube channel dedicated to making psychology fun and easy to understand. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Anna Nicanarova pretends to be sick to get out of a test, but how far will she take the ruse? Anna Nicanorova is Director of Annalect Labs -- space for experimentation and rapid prototyping within Annalect. Anna is Co–Founder of Books+Whiskey meetup and volunteer with ScriptEd (Science Skill Center High School). She holds an MBA from University of Pennsylvania -- The Wharton School and BA from Hogeschool van Utrecht. Her life is very rigorously tracked and visualized through Annual Quantified Self reports. In her free time she can be found art-hunting in museums or climbing tall mountains (aspiring to finish 7 Summits by 2020). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Used to the controlled uncertainties of his work, science writer Tom Levenson is forced to confront the dramatic uncertainty of whether he’ll be able to adopt a son. Tom Levenson writes books (most recently The Hunt for Vulcan) and makes films, about science, its history, and whatever else catches his magpie's love of shiny bits. His work has been honored by a Peabody, a National Academies Science Communication and an AAAS Science Journalism Award, among others. By day he professes at MIT, where he directs the Graduate Program in Science Writing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Adam Foote confronts the problem of obtaining sea urchins in land-locked Pittsburgh...during a polar vortex. Adam recently graduated with a Master's degree in Biology from Carnegie Mellon University, and he is very grateful to his sea urchin friends for getting him there. His first memory of science is when he took a long bath after a day in the woods and wondered why fingers prune up. When he is not explaining science to both willing and unwilling audiences, Adam enjoys cooking, which is chemistry for hungry people, and playing music, which is physics for the ears. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When he discovers his milk has been stolen from the dorm fridge, Neer Asherie has to resort to extreme science measures to find the culprit. Neer Asherie is a professor of physics and biology at Yeshiva University. He received a B.A. and M.A. in natural sciences (physical) from Cambridge University and a Ph.D. in physics from MIT. He was awarded grants from the National Science Foundation to support his research on the self-assembly of globular proteins. His articles have appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Physical Review Letters, and Crystal Growth and Design. In addition to his scientific publications, Neer has authored a novel and several short plays. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Rachel Pendergrass gets her dream job: talking to visitors in an aquarium, but dealing with the questions are not what she expected. Rachel Pendergrass is a storyteller, writer, actor, and science communicator native to the Atlanta area. She is a co-producer of WRITE CLUB Atlanta and the assistant director of the Dragon Con Science Track. She is the host of the new YouTube science communication comedy series Your Favorite Animal is A Dick. You can also find her performing at various live literature shows around town and on Dragon Con TV. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Alan Guth is working on a fairly typical research paper, when he accidentally makes a huge discovery about the origin of the universe. Alan H. Guth is the Victor F. Weisskopf Professor of Physics and a MacVicar Faculty Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Trained in particle theory at MIT, Guth held postdoc positions at Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) before returning to MIT as a faculty member in 1980. His work in cosmology began at Cornell, when Henry Tye persuaded him to study the production of magnetic monopoles in the early universe. Using standard assumptions, they found that far too many would be produced. Continuing this work at SLAC, Guth discovered that the magnetic monopole glut could be avoided by a new proposal which he called the inflationary universe. Guth is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has been awarded the Franklin Medal for Physics, the Dirac Prize, the Grub

Adam Rogers gets an exciting opportunity to work in a marine biology lab, and see if he really wants to be a biologist. Adam Rogers is articles editor at WIRED, where he edits features about miscellaneous geekery and runs the science desk. His features for the print magazine have included stories about the astrophysics of the movie Interstellar, a fan cruise for apex nerds, and a mysterious fungus that lives on whisky fumes. That last one won the 2011 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award for magazine writing and lead to Rogers' New York Times bestselling book Proof: The Science of Booze. Rogers was a presenter and writer for the television show WIRED Science, which aired on PBS in 2007. Prior to joining WIRED, he was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and before that Rogers was a writer and reporter at Newsweek. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art1

Facing an incredibly important decision, April Salazar is infuriated by way scientific information about reproduction is distorted. April Salazar is a writer and storyteller. She's written for The New York Times and has shared stories on The Moth podcast and NPR's Latino USA. In her spare time she works in technology at an educational non-profit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As a musician and writer Jimmy Wohl thought he was the ultimate creative, then he encounters a pharmaceutical marketing campaign. Jimmy Wohl is a writer and musician from New York City. He performs in many shows throughout the region, is the host of a travel storytelling show in Brooklyn called Get Outta Here!, and has published nonfiction in the New York Press (RIP). He's also a saxophonist who spent several years as a musical director on cruise ships, and has studied percussion in India. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Erik Vance searches for the real meaning of biology while chasing porcupines. Erik Vance is a native Bay Area writer replanted in Mexico as a non-native species. Before becoming a writer he was, at turns, a biologist, a rock climbing guide, an environmental consultant, and an environmental educator. His work focuses on the human element of science – the people who do it, those who benefit from it, and those who do not. He has written for The New York Times, Nature, Scientific American, Harper’s, National Geographic, and a number of other local and national outlets. He is currently working on his first book, under contract with National Geographic Press about how the mind and body continually twist and shape our realities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

With her truck stuck in the mud in the Serengeti, Aerin Jacob learns three important lessons. This story was produced as part of the Springer Storytellers series. Hear and read more at www.beforetheabstract.com/ Aerin Jacob is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Victoria and a Wilburforce Fellow in Conservation Science Fellow. Trained as an ecologist, she works to develop management strategies that incorporate local, Indigenous, and scientific knowledge to achieve conservation objectives while maintaining human well-being. She works with First Nations communities in British Columbia to study the environmental and socioeconomic outcomes of marine management in the Great Bear Rainforest. Aerin is also a member of the Sustainable Canada Dialogues, a network of scholars developing viable, science-based policy options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and guide sustainable development in Canada. Her previous work includes studies of land-use change, restoration ecology, and animal behaviour in East Africa

A remote disease comes very close to home for Queens resident Nicole Ferraro. Nicole Ferraro is a writer, editor, and storyteller living in NYC. Her personal essays have been published in The New York Times, Story Collider Magazine, The Frisky, Mr. Beller's Neighborhood, and elsewhere. Nicole is also the cohost of New York Story Exchange, a monthly storytelling series at Cornelia Street Cafe. For more information, visit: https://www.facebook.com/NewYorkStoryExchange. By day she earns her keep as the editor in chief of Netted by the Webbys. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A Japanese particle physicist struggles to find his place (and learn English) in the American midwest. Teppei Katori is an experimental particle physicist and a lecturer at Queen Mary University of London. His major interest is neutrino physics, especially neutrino interaction measurements on nuclear targets, and tests of space-time symmetry with neutrinos. Currently he works on two neutrino projects: the T2K experiment in Japan, and the IceCube experiment in Antarctica. He is native Japanese, and went to Indiana University for his PhD, then worked as an MIT scientist at Fermilab, near Chicago, USA. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.