Third Pod from the Sun

Third Pod from the Sun is the American Geophysical Union’s award-winning podcast about the people and methods behind the science. I helped found Third Pod in 2017 and served as the podcast’s unofficial executive producer until March 2021. In this role I led the vision, production, and execution of of the podcast, identified topics for new episodes, interviewed scientists, crafted narratives from raw interviews, oversaw episode production, and edited and mixed audio tracks. I also served as executive producer for Third Pod‘s Centennial series, which focused on telling science stories from a historical perspective.

Here is a sample of episodes I produced and/or mixed for Third Pod:

Earthrise: The story of the iconic Earthrise photo taken by Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders.

Paradise Lost: How an idyllic tropical island became a radioactive battleship graveyard.

Exhuming a buried piece of American history: How scientists are using grave soil to learn about the lives of enslaved Africans in colonial New York.

Night of the killer smog: How two tragedies sparked the first-ever acts of clean air legislation.

Toxic city under the ice: How waste from a secret, forgotten, Cold War U.S. military base could poison the environment and nearby communities if climate change continues.

Riders on the storm: An insider’s view of the world of stormchasing and the story of the 2013 El Reno, Oklahoma twister that became the widest tornado ever recorded.

Gunslingers of the sea: How snapping shrimp are settling in Oregon waters and acting as a dinner bell for gray whales of the North Pacific Ocean.

Waiting for poop: How scientists are using whale fecal samples to examine the giant mammals’ response to stress.

Tracking adorable chainsaws: How scientists studying northern fur seals are validating indigenous knowledge of the cute but dangerous creatures.

Journey to the center of the ice: How scientists study glaciers from within.

Alvin and the ocean deep: A day in the life of a scientist studying the ocean floor in the submersible Alvin.

Parking lot lava: The story of how a geologist and a sculptor teamed up to create real-life lava flows in a parking lot in upstate New York.