The Innately Science Podcast
Long conversations with scientists about the work, and about the life around the work.
Careers in science are rarely tidy. People change fields, lose funding, start again, and find their direction in places no one planned for. The Innately Science Podcast is where those routes get talked about honestly, in conversations long enough to get past the summary and into the substance.
Guests have included palaeontologists and public health scientists, disability scholars and mathematicians, science communicators and journal editors. Episodes run around an hour, because the useful part usually arrives after the first twenty minutes.
The Host
Dr Daniel Underwood is a Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews and the host of the Innately Science Podcast. A microbiologist and immunologist by training, his research has examined how Salmonella survives inside the immune cells meant to destroy it.
He also wrote for the first issue of the Innately Science newspaper, on resilience and what it costs to keep going through a difficult PhD. That piece is part of why he hosts this show: he asks the questions people usually leave out of the official version of a scientific career.
Listen
A look at some of the conversations so far
- From Pure Math to AI Disruption, with Dr Phillip Compeau. Leaving pure mathematics for computational biology, and why AI may upend how universities operate. 54 min.
- Fossils, Slugs, and the Journal of Geek Studies, with Dr Rodrigo Salvador. Snail fossils, Arctic snail farms, and the surprising social lives of slugs. 56 min.
- The Archaeology of Death, with John Turco. What a Roman burial actually looked like, and why coins were placed in mouths. 55 min.
- From Petri Dishes to Public Health, with Dr Erta Kalanxhi. The links between climate change and antimicrobial resistance. 58 min.
- Rethinking Disability, with Prof. Tom Shakespeare. The hidden design choices that divide the world into included and excluded. 56 min.
- Career, Confidence and Coming Back, with Dr Jaclyn Pearson. A record deal, a Nature paper, and rebuilding confidence after rejection. 56 min.
- AI, Morality, and the Psychology of Trust, with Maryam Khan. Why people are turning to AI for moral guidance. 54 min.
- Science Isn’t Just for Scientists, with Lois Sands. Researching parasites in Thailand, and helping others feel they belong in science. 51 min.
Come on the show
If you are a researcher with a route into science worth talking about, or work that deserves an hour rather than a headline, we would like to hear from you.