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Gabe Grell, Ph.D., is a self-described geek. He is a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow focused on high-energy astrophysics, which involves observing some of the most powerful objects in the universe, including…

Gabe Grell, Ph.D., i…

Gabe Grell, Ph.D., is a self-described geek. He is a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow focused on high-energy astrophysics, which involves observing some of the most powerful objects in the universe, including massive stars (10 to 20 times bigger than our sun), black holes, galaxies and supernovae, all of which emit very strong radiation in the form of X-rays. Grell analyzed the data received from satellites measuring these X-rays to deduce the atomic makeup and physical properties of those objects. Grell says he has always a math and science geek and began taking an interest in astronomy in high schoo…

Veronika Jercic, Ph.D., is a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. She studies structures in the solar atmosphere known as prominences or filaments. Jercic calls them cl…

Veronika Jercic, Ph.…

Veronika Jercic, Ph.D., is a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. She studies structures in the solar atmosphere known as prominences or filaments. Jercic calls them clouds on the sun. These clouds are important to understand stretch through all of sun’s atmospheric layers. Unlike the clouds on Earth, these clouds are much denser, so they're very heavy clouds and colder than the Corona in which they are situated. These clouds occasionally erupt, expelling huge masses of particles and energy into the interplanetary space, which see them as the Northern Lights. …

Maurice Roots, Ph.D., was six years old when he watched “Star Trek” and decided to be a physicist. His dream came true and today he is an atmospheric physicist in the NASA Postdoctoral Program Fel…

Maurice Roots, Ph.D.…

Maurice Roots, Ph.D., was six years old when he watched “Star Trek” and decided to be a physicist. His dream came true and today he is an atmospheric physicist in the NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow researching atmospheric chemistry and dynamics at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. Specifically, Roots focuses on ozone, which is one of the Environmental Protection Agency’s six critical pollutants. He says we need to measure and be concerned about ozone because of the Health risks associated with how ozone impacts air quality and breathing it in, adding that ozone isn’t directly …

Oak Ridge is at the nexus of the nuclear energy renaissance. One of the challenges is meeting the demand for the necessary workforce, and not just the scientific and technical workforce but the skille…

Oak Ridge is at the …

Oak Ridge is at the nexus of the nuclear energy renaissance. One of the challenges is meeting the demand for the necessary workforce, and not just the scientific and technical workforce but the skilled trades workers needed to build out and operate the small modular reactors and other facilities that are coming. On Thursday, May 14, ORAU is hosting the Pathway to Trades Summit, which will convene industry, trade unions, academia, government and other key players to begin to solve for meeting this important need. Laura Hammons, strategic programs and operations manager for the ORAU STEM Acceler…

If you take anything away from this podcast episode, Naomi Asher wants you to know you are enough, you are worthy and you have value. In this episode of Further Together, Naomi and host Michael Holtz …

If you take anything…

If you take anything away from this podcast episode, Naomi Asher wants you to know you are enough, you are worthy and you have value. In this episode of Further Together, Naomi and host Michael Holtz talk about career Burnout, the need for rest and recovery, and finding yourself in the process. Naomi is the author of the book, “Take to the Bed (And Bring a Cake),” about the importance of giving yourself permission to rest when life gets overwhelming (and life gets overwhelming at times), evaluate whether what you do and how you present yourself to the world aligns with who you are, and mak…

Ricardo Branco, Ph.D., is a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His research focuses on the development of detectors that can detect infrared or thermal radiation from very cold…

Ricardo Branco, Ph.D…

Ricardo Branco, Ph.D., is a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His research focuses on the development of detectors that can detect infrared or thermal radiation from very cold bodies throughout the solar system – think Uranus or the moon. Capturing the infrared radiation allows scientists to detect the chemical composition and other aspects of the body they are studying. Brando is a native of Brazil who has been interested in science since childhood. As a kid Branco wanted to be a doctor but fell in Love with physics in high school. The rest, as they say, is history.…

Kirtan Dixit, Ph.D., is a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow in the second year of his fellowship at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He is part of the high-energy astrophysics, high…

Kirtan Dixit, Ph.D.,…

Kirtan Dixit, Ph.D., is a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow in the second year of his fellowship at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He is part of the high-energy astrophysics, high-energy optics group on advances X-ray optics for future space telescopes. His research focuses on designing and fabricating multilayer mirror coating that can efficiently reflect hard X-rays. In this interview, he tells guest host Amber Davis that X-ray optical coatings are useful for focusing X-rays so that astrophysicists can make some sense out of it and can understand the underlying physics h…

Kirtan Dixit, Ph.D., is a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow in the second year of his fellowship at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He is part of the high-energy astrophysics, high…

Kirtan Dixit, Ph.D.,…

Kirtan Dixit, Ph.D., is a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow in the second year of his fellowship at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He is part of the high-energy astrophysics, high-energy optics group on advances X-ray optics for future space telescopes. His research focuses on designing and fabricating multilayer mirror coating that can efficiently reflect hard X-rays. In this interview, he tells guest host Amber Davis that X-ray optical coatings are useful for focusing X-rays so that astrophysicists can make some sense out of it and can understand the underlying physics h…

Greg Nichols is operations manager in the ORAU health studies program, but he wears a lot of hats. He has become an expert in Artificial Intelligence and received an ORAU Thought Leadership Research A…

Greg Nichols is oper…

Greg Nichols is operations manager in the ORAU health studies program, but he wears a lot of hats. He has become an expert in artificial intelligence and received an ORAU Thought Leadership Research Award to write a chapter on the convergence of AI and biotechnology. Nichols’s chapter, “Assessing Governance and Regulatory Frameworks for Converging Technologies: The Case of Artificial Intelligence in Biological Engineering and Design Technologies,” appears in Biotechnology and AI: Technological Convergence and Information Hazards. He says that While biotechnologies are somewhat better reg…

The annual Waste Management Symposia (March 8-12, 2026, in Phoenix, Arizona) is the premier international conference concerning the safe and secure management of radioactive wastes arising from nuclea…

The annual Waste Man…

The annual Waste Management Symposia (March 8-12, 2026, in Phoenix, Arizona) is the premier international conference concerning the safe and secure management of radioactive wastes arising from nuclear operations, facility decommissioning and environmental remediation, as well as storage, transportation and disposal, and associated activities. A team of ORAU subject matter Experts will be attending this year’s event. In this episode of Further Together, Kathy Rollow, senior director for Energy and International Strategy, and Chelsea Hill, manager of Workforce Solutions, discuss why Waste Man…

Kelly Whalen, Ph.D., studies black holes and how they interact with galaxy Growth as part of her research for the NASA Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. Whalen says there are a lot of misconceptions ab…

Kelly Whalen, Ph.D.,…

Kelly Whalen, Ph.D., studies black holes and how they interact with galaxy growth as part of her research for the NASA Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. Whalen says there are a lot of misconceptions about black holes because of pop culture and science fiction depictions. There are different kinds of black holes, and they are not gigantic forces of destruction. She tells Further Together, The ORAU Podcast that black holes can also create by forming new stars. Whalen says being selected for the NASA NPP program is a dream come true and looks forward to continuing her research. The deadline for th…

Stela Silva, Ph.D., an astrophysicist in the NASA Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, has her eye to the sky, sort of. Working with gravitational microlensing, which she says is "the physical phenomenon …

Stela Silva, Ph.D., …

Stela Silva, Ph.D., an astrophysicist in the NASA Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, has her eye to the sky, sort of. Working with gravitational microlensing, which she says is "the physical phenomenon that happens when we're observing a star and then another star with a planet passes in front of it," and machine learning she looks for signatures of exoplanets. The chance of finding a star is one in a million, Silva says, and she and her fellow researchers look at millions of stars at the same time trying to detect exoplanets. Silva grew up in Brazil, where NASA seemed as far away as the stars s…