Brains Matter

People who have been guests of Brains Matter and that I’ve had the fortune to interview have been:

Michael Feller – Michael wrote a thesis called “The Aryan Connection”, and discussed Nazis and their origins, and the neo-Nazis of today, and how it is affecting society.
4/12/2006 – Episode 8 – The Aryan Connection

Dr Djoymi Baker – Dr Baker wrote a PhD thesis entitled “Broadcast Space: TV Culture, Myth and Star Trek”, and talked to me about mythological references within Star Trek, and the reworking of ancient epics in modern formats.
18/2/2007 – Episode 18 – Star Trek and Mythology

Professor Duncan Forbes – Professor Forbes works at Swinburne University and is the Deputy Director of Swinburne’s Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing. Professor Forbes talked to me around his interests in galaxy formation and globular clusters.
13/3/2007 – Episode 21 – Galaxies and Globular Clusters

Professor John Lattanzio – Professor John Lattanzio is a stellar astrophysicist at Monash University, and is a member and fellow of many astronomical societies, including the IAU. I talked to him about stars and their formation, and his interest in AGB stars.
8/5/2007 – Episode 26 – Stellar Astophysics Part 1
14/5/2007 – Episode 27 – Stellar Astrophysics Part 2

Dr Alan Dorin – Dr Alan Dorin is a Senior Lecturer at Monash University’s Centre for Electronic Media Art in the Faculty of Information Technology. His interests are in the philosophy and application of the principles of artificial life, in particular self-assembly and ecosystem simulation, to generative electronic art. He talked to me about how he has used IT to pursue his work interests.
28/5/2007 – Episode 29 – Computers, Philosophy and Art

Dr Zachary Moore – Dr Moore is from the Department of Biophysics and Molecular Genetics from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, and he talked to me about evolution.
16/6/2007 – Episode 30 – Understanding Evolution

Dr Adrian Gentle – Dr Gentle is from the Department of Mathematics at the University of Southen Indiana; formerly of the Los Alamos National Laboratories, and an expert in Relativity and Regge Calculus. He talked to me about Special Relativity (episode 32), General Relativity (episode 33), and Regge Calculus (episodes 35 and 36)
7/7/2007 – Episode 32 – Special Relativity
13/7/2007 – Episode 33 – General Relativity
31/7/2007 – Episode 35 – Introduction to Regge Calculus
4/8/2007- Episode 36 – Regge Calculus

Briony Rogers – Briony Rogers is a civil engineer for a multinational engineering firm, specialising in water. She is also the president of the Victorian chapter of Engineers Without Borders (Australia), and talked to me about engineering and EWB
5/9/2007 – Episode 38 – Engineers Without Borders

Dr Roger Rassool – Dr Rassool is an elementary particle physicist from the University of Melbourne, and also runs a physics outreach program aimed at getting students interested in science.
10/9/2007 – Episode 39 – MUPPETS – Physics Outreach Program
16/9/2007 – Episode 40 – Particle Physics and PSI Lab research
22/9/2007 – Episode 41 – How elephants communicate

Professor Peter Doherty – Professor Doherty won the Nobel Prize for Physiology in 1996, and was Australian of the Year in 1997. I talked to him about his work in immunology, his books, and his views on modern science.
7/10/2007 – Episode 42 – Immunology and the Nobel Prize

Dr Mark Boland – Dr Mark Boland started his career in researching fundamental processes in the atomic nucleus. As a user of overseas synchrotrons and other accelerators he conducted nuclear experiments to how the nuclear force binds neutrons and protons together. When Victoria decided to build a synchrotron, Mark made the jump into accelerator physics so he could use his skill in physics back home and reverse the brain drain. Mark helped commission the synchrotron and has been with the facility for four and a half years.
24/10/2007 – Episode 44 – Australian Synchrotron Part 1
25/10/2007 – Episode 45 – Australian Synchrotron Part 2

Professor Peter McIntyre – Professor McIntyre is the Head of Department of Pharmacology at the University of Melbourne, and completed his BSc and PhD in the Department of Biochemistry at LaTrobe university before postdoctoral fellowships at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and The Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now Cancer Research UK) Institute in London. He re-entered academic research in Oct 2005 after 16 years in the pharmaceutical industry working on drug discovery for chronic pain therapies with Novartis. He has published 13 papers in top ranked journals in the past 5 years and is a recognised leader in TRP channels. He talked to me about how we sense pain, the different types of pain, and their relationship to taste.
6/11/2007 – Episode 47 – Taste and Pain Part 1
13/11/2007 – Episode 48 – Taste and Pain Part 2

Dr Pamela Gay – Dr Gay received her PhD in Astronomy from the University of Texas in 2002, can be found at the physics department at the University of Southern Illinois, Edwardsville, and is also one of the hosts of the Astronomy Cast podcast. She talked to me about the Big Bang.
26/11/2007 – Episode 49 – The Big Bang

Dr Todd Lane – Todd Lane earned his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics and Meteorology from Monash University in 2000 examining the generation of atmospheric gravity waves by mountains and thunderstorms. Between 2000 and 2005 he worked at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado USA. At NCAR his research was on many aspects of mesoscale meteorology, including thunderstorm dynamics, and clear-air turbulence. His current research interests include atmospheric dynamics, numerical modelling, and mesoscale meteorology.
9/1/2008 – Episode 51 – The experimental Helios NASA aircraft
18/1/2008 – Episode 52 – Turbulence and air travel

Adam Parker – Adam is a former artist, is currently a musician and design expert, and is completing his PhD in robotics. Adam has an interest in robots, technology, design, and the philosophy behind all of the above.
To be published – Robots and Science Fiction