Skip to main content

Further Together, the ORAU podcast

Further Together podcast logo

Further Together, the ORAU podcast, covers all things ORAU, through interviews with our experts who provide innovative scientific and technical solutions for our customers. Learn about ORAU’s storied history, how we’re impacting an ever-changing world, as well as our commitment to our community.

Listen to all 175+ episodes of Further Together on Blubrry.com. You can also find Further Together on the Apple Podcasts app for iOS devices, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, SiriusXM, Pandora, TuneIn, and Amazon Music.

Latest Episodes

Previous Episodes

  • Emory University has been a member of the ORAU University Consortium since it was established in 1946, and has a long and storied history of research. Last year, Emory's research primarily focused on biomedical research, global health, brain health, artificial intelligence and more. Emory also has a robust technology transfer office, where drugs and devices developed through research make their way to the marketplace. Host Michael Holtz talks to Kimberly Eck, MPH, Ph.D., associate vice president of research, and Todd Sherer, Ph.D., associate vice president of research and executive director of the Office of Technology Transfer, about the importance of research and tech transfer.

    Listen to Episode 173 Transcript for Episode 173

  • Joey Pasterski, Ph.D., is not your traditional scientist. He took piano and voice and avoided science at all costs until he went back to school in his later twenties. Today, Pasterski is a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow researching laser desorption mass spectrometry for the Dragonfly mission, which will land a rotorcraft on various locations on Titan, Saturn's moon. During this conversation, Pasterski talks to host Michael Holtz about why studying Titan is important, how the moon is like a bizarro earth, and how the trajectory of his life changed when he discovered a love for science. 

    Listen to Episode 172 Transcript for Episode 172

  • More than a million breast biopsies are performed annually in the United States, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The need to ensure diagnostic accuracy is great. Alycen Wiacek, Ph.D., motivated by the impact breast cancer has had on her family and a desire to make a difference, is conducting research to help make biopsies more accurate through engineering and augmented reality. In this episode of Further Together, host Matthew Underwood and Abbey Becker talk to Wiacek about her research. Wiacek is an assistant professor at Oakland University. In her lab, the Medical Acoustics for Global Health Imaging and Clinical Translation (MAGIC), she and her students are developing a system that integrates various imaging modalities into AR to assist in the targeted biopsy of breast masses. This approach with AR means images and information can be displayed directly in the physician’s field of view to better guide the biopsy process. Her research is supported by an ORAU Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award in partnership with the Augmented Reality for Enterprise Alliance (AREA).

    Listen to Episode 171 Transcript for Episode 171

  • Ken Tobin, chief research officer, and Cathy Fore, senior director of university partnerships, sit down with hosts Michael Holtz and Abbey Becker to discuss the state of research at ORAU. As an institution, ORAU has its hands in more research than ever before, involving our own subject matter experts, as well as that of our government agency partners and our university consortium members. This episode includes discussion of recent research successes and the matchmaking that Fore does to increase the value proposition for consortium members. We discuss ORAU's current research priorities and the topics of recently awarded ORAU-Directed Research and Development projects. We also do a quick wrap up of the 2024 annual meeting, which focused on STEM education and look ahead to the 2025 meeting and its focus on advanced manufacturing.

    Listen to Episode 170 Transcript for Episode 170

  • Ali Alqaraghuli, Ph.D., was just about to start his NASA Postdoctoral Fellowship when he was interviewed by Further Together host Michael Holtz. Alqaraghuli's research focuses on the ASTHROS balloon-born telescope. The focus of ASTHROS is to place the telescope over the Antarctic to gather and better understand how stars form. Alqaraghuli is developing a portable test bed to help calibrate the antenna and the telescope. At NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Los Angeles, scientists have all the facilities they need to test and track and adjust things if needed. "Once we ship everything to Antarctica, we're kind of a bit limited on what equipment is available, and things of that nature. So my main project really is to develop like a portable test bed that we can take with us to Antarctica that basically can do just as good of a job as if we were to have all these big fancy machines in the JPL Center," he says.

    Listen to Episode 169 Transcript for Episode 169

View the full Further Together Podcast Archive

Impact Areas

Contact us

Pam Bonee
Director, Communications
Phone: (865) 603-5142 

Wendy West
Manager, Communications 
Phone: (865) 207-7953