Recent Posts

Taproot S5E1: Finding Strength in Diverse Scientific Communities

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This week’s Taproot podcast episode is a conversation with Dr. Tanisha Williams A plant researcher, she was inspired this summer by the simultaneous rise of the pandemic and the civil uprising against police brutality to draw Black botanists together for a social media event called #BlackBotanistsWeek.…

Taproot S5E0: Join us for Season 5 and let us know how you’ve been navigating these chaotic and unusual times!

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It has been quite a few months since our last episode! We intended to have a new season out by now, but as you might imagine, a few things got in the way. We are, however, back to working on topics and guests for Season 5 so stay tuned for new episodes this Fall! In the meantime, we want to hear…

Taproot S4E8: Convergent Evolution of Caffeine and Divergent Careers

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In the final episode of Season 4, we talk with Todd Barkman, Professor of Biology at Western Michigan University. Todd earned his PhD in Botany at the University of Texas at Austin with Beryl Simpson, and went on to a postdoc position at Penn State with Claude dePamphilis. He started his lab at Western…

Taproot S4E7: Milestone-Based Decision-Making In and Out of the Lab

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This episode, we continue our discussions about cultivating a career with guest Kelly Gillespie, Nursery Solutions Lead at Bayer Crop Science. Kelly got her bachelor's degree at Knox College, a small liberal arts college in Illinois. She then moved on to do a PhD with Lisa Ainsworth at the University…

Taproot S4E6: Staying Afloat: Time Management in a Sea of Obligations

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Our guest for this episode is Dr. Holly Bik. Holly obtained her PhD in Molecular Phylogenetics at the University of Southampton, working with John Lambshead at the Natural History Museum of London in conjunction with the UK National Oceanography Center. She completed postdoctoral appointments with Dr.…

Taproot S4E5: Navigating Experimental and Situational Panic

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In this episode, we talk with Laura Klasek who is a Plant Biology Ph.D. Candidate at the University of California, Davis about her research and experiences as a graduate student.  Laura received her undergraduate degree from Hendrix College, where she double-majored in Biology and English with a…

Taproot S4E4: Graduate Interviews Demystified

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In our previous episode, we talked with Dr. Scott Barolo about his research and shared tips for completing written graduate school applications. In this episode, we go to the next step, following up with Scott to discuss what to do once you’ve made it to the interviews. Scott shares tips for…

Taproot S4E3: How to mastermind experimental designs and your graduate applications

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In this episode, we talk with Dr. Scott Barolo about how he made a popular board game into a teaching tool, and we start a two-part discussion about the grad school application process. Scott gained his BSc at Penn State University and his Ph.D. in biology at the University of California, San Diego.…

Taproot S4E2: The GRExit and how we choose who goes to grad school

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In this episode, we talk with Dr. Zen Faulkes about the graduate application process, what program directors are looking for and how hard (or indeed impossible) it is to have unbiased selection system.  Zen gained a B.A., Psychology at the University of Lethbridge in 1989 and a Ph.D. at the University…