Shows
Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanFrancesca Samsel - Vulnerability, making a new language, and pursuing the irrationalFrancesca Samsel is crafting a new language for our world. That is, she crosses art, science, and visualization to open new ways of understanding and engaging with the natural world, not just visually but across the sensorial spectrum. She recognizes the inextricably social element to this, too, and her work raises our capacity to collaborate, and in the process, alters our sense of what scientific inquiry is and can (and perhaps needs to) be. Her work as her life are teachers we need for the world we are walking into. Origins Podcast Website
2026-01-2058 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanMalka Older - Worldbuilding creativityMalka Older makes a life at the crossroads of our existing and future worlds. Between research into the sociology of organizations, on-the-ground work in humanitarian aid and disaster risk reduction, and acclaimed writing of speculative and science fiction, Older brilliantly, beautifully, uncommonly lives the great paradox in front of us all: to hold at once the two truths of lived experience and imagined future. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:the immigrant sensibility (05:00)belonging (07:20)exile (09:00)Danielle Allen's theory of justice (15:00)A Paradise B...
2025-11-251h 13Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanMette Miriam Böll - Insisting on compassionBiologist, philosopher, educator, facilitator, and historian of science Mette Miriam Böll is embodiment of the kind of life that emerges when we accept, recognize, and revere our profound interconnectedness. Her scholarship as her life are nourishment for returning to the task we are all called to: to human well, at once simple and complex, individual and civilizational. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Tibetan Book of the Dead (04:20)Dzogchen - Tibetan Buddhist Teachings (05:00)John P. Milton (05:40)drawing her out on interconnectedness (12:30)Kr...
2025-10-281h 08Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanDan Jay - Doubt, collectivity, and transformative creativityDr. Dan Jay has a mission to inspire where art and science meet. His life has been spent in the liminal and generative space between and among these domains of inquiry that are too often considered separate, distinct, even opposing. Yet, it is transformative creativity only possible from the co-mingling and conversation of art and science that we seem to be called to in the 21st century. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Falling Upward by Richard Rohr (05:20)Hinduism four stages of life (05:50)Society of F...
2025-09-161h 02Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanZachary Ugolnik - Science & spirituality, heightened states of community, and new conceptions of flourishingZachary Ugolnik has for years been charting a new path that refuses the tired and inanimate narrative about the separateness of science and spirituality, reason and religion. In his life we find rich possibility when those old illusory dichotomies are discarded, and from that possibility perhaps new wisdom for creating a society full of care and flourishing, one that embraces our inherent needfulness and borrows from theology, ecology, and the social sciences. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:locate shared spaces of c...
2025-07-291h 05Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanJennifer Wiseman - Ultra-deep fields, the numinous, and an omnipresent call to wonder and aweDr. Jennifer Wiseman gives expression to our cosmos, as a pioneering astrophysicist, an outspoken advocate for science within policy and the public, as well as a person of faith. Her's are sensibilities of a scientist, a theologian, and a human being in awe of the universe, recognizing that these parts of ourselves need not be in opposition but rather in beautiful and enriching conversation. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Discovery of comet 114P/Wiseman-Skiff (14:30)Maria Mitchell (14:30)Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at M...
2025-07-011h 09Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanSusan Magsamen - Neuroscience, NeuroArts, and the mystery that life really isSusan Magsamen makes her life at the frontier: the frontier of neuroscience, of institutional change, of the intersection of art and science. Her's is a life full of wisdom for how to live amongst mystery and befriend complexity.Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:spontaneous "you are my sunshine" (02:00)T. S. Eliot (08:00)implementation science (08:40)therapeutic recreation (11:00)Trabian Shorters and asset framing (15:00)Daniel Kahneman (16:00)neuroplasticity (22:30)Howard Gardner and Kurt Fisher and Mind, Brain, and Education Program at Harvard (26:15)Karl Alexander (27:30)Curiosity Kits (28:30)NeuroArts (32:00)Gileadby Marilynne Robinson (36:00)more than scientific...
2025-05-201h 10Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanSeason Eight Trailer: A meditation on conversation and the collective narrative of our timeOrigins Podcast WebsiteHello friends, a new season of Origins arrives next week, on Tuesday, May 20. This next chapter of Origins is about exploring conversation, that great practice of placing two things next to one another and allowing them to be astonished by the other. It is also about exploring the collective narrative of our time. This trailer is both introduction and meditation on how Origins is more than a podcast: a space for collective inquiry into living well in a fractured world.Over on Substack we’re cultivating not just conv...
2025-05-1611 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanDavid Woods - the science of resilience, graceful extensibility, and facilitating insightFew concepts are more important to our society than resilience. Agnostic of domain, of nation, culture, and scale (as vital, indeed, to the individual life as to the planetary civilization), it would be impossible to overstate the pressure on us to understand it. If resilience is a core competency of our time, it would not be hyperbole to say that Dr. David Woods one of our most important thinkers. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:three mile island (07:20)resilience engineering (12:30)the theory of graceful extensibility (12:30)The Risk Society b...
2025-03-261h 12Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanPaul Smaldino - Social identities, collective intelligence, and an ambling open lifePaul Smaldino is an explorer. That might seem like an odd way to describe a professor of cognitive science, but anyone who has glanced at his biography will recognize that he lives his life in exploration. His scholarship as his life are inspiration for keeping the lines of inquiry wide open and the things we can discover in doing so.Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:The Dancing Wu Li Masters (08:00)The Quantum and the Lotus (12:30)Sagehood (15:00)J. Krishnamurti and David Bohm (17:00)Simone de Beauvoir (18:00)Science as an...
2025-01-281h 12Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanJohn Paul Lederach - Peacebuilding, critical yeast, and the language of imaginationI've been following John Paul Lederach's work for years, finding the words he uses inordinately relevant to all of the details and spaces of my life. John Paul is Professor of International Peacebuilding at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at Notre Dame. He has been a teacher to me across time and space and I believe the ideas he brings into the world are teachers we all need for the world we are walking into. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Vocation (12:00)The Moral...
2025-01-071h 13Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanCreating encounters with flourishing: A 'salon' at the National Academy of SciencesFlourishing is not a fixed state; it is an unfolding. In this time of rupture we need encounters with flourishing, to know it in our lived experiences individually and collectively. In this transformative event on December 12, 2024, Ryan McGranaghan, host of the Origins Podcast and founder of the Flourishing Salons, engaged in a moving conversation with four profound provocateurs and a wider community of artists, designers, engineers, scientists, educators, and contemplatives. The event was co-hosted by Flourishing Salons and the Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences (CPNAS) DC Art and Science Evening Rendezvous (DASER).Origins...
2024-12-241h 47Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanTalia Stroud - Digital communities, civic signals, and connective democracyNatalie (Talia, as she goes by) Stroud has for years been studying the ways that our lives online show up in and shape our lives together. Her scholarship as her life are unexampled guides to the tumult, the challenges, and the opportunity presented by the advent and evolution of digital media. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Federal Communications Committee "Information Needs of Communities" (08:10)Kathleen Hall Jamieson (08:50)Center for Media Engagement (11:00)Niche News (12:00)Governing the Commonsby Elinor Ostrom (17:00)Understanding Knowledge As a Commonsby Hess and Ostrom (17:30)Nexus...
2024-11-051h 04Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanSimon DeDeo - Studying society, the science of science, and collisions with the strangeSimon DeDeo's inquiry takes on the most immense topics: astrophysics, history, epistemology, culture. He brings the precision of a physicist, the capability of a data scientist, and the sensibility of a philosopher to thinking about how we live our lives; and his polymathic life might be the example we need to make sense of the world we are walking into, one requiring an evolution to our way of studying and understanding.Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:David Spergel (08:40)The Santa Fe Institute (14:10)The Village Vanguard in New...
2024-10-011h 16Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanLindy Elkins-Tanton - Recognizing flourishing, leading teams, and an education for livingLindy Elkins-Tanton is one of the world's foremost scientists. Couple that with an unprecedented understanding of how teams work and a sense of care that is exceedingly rare in our world and you recognize her for what she is: altogether unexampled. Her's is a story of exploration, of universe, of planet, of society, and of self. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Her memoir: A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman (04:40)A Feeling for the Organism by Fox Keller (11:40)Tronto and Fisher on an ethics of c...
2024-08-1356 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanJane Hirshfield - Possibility, Poetry, and a Life of AttentionIt would feel wrong to place labels on Jane Hirshfield. Language would fail to reach there, ironic for someone who has devoted their life to the practice of poetry and the practice of Zen Buddhism. Jane is a modern master, change-maker, and wise and winsome voice. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:The Ritual Process by Victor Turner (09:30)nonattachment (14:00)Poem: "My Skeleton" (21:30)Poem: "For What Binds Us" (28:20, read 33:00)Poets for Science (29:10; 56:30)Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (31:00)Poem: "Let Them Not Say" (32:10)Gary Snyder (32:00)Palimpsest (36:20)Poem: "My Hunger" (42:20)Poem: "...
2024-06-251h 22Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanAgustín Fuentes - A master class in anthropology and a life lived among complexityAgustín Fuentes reads a multi-million year history of our world, a student of its myriad lessons that often subvert unquestioned modern narratives and the problematic ways we've arrived at them. His is an anthropological, ecological, refreshingly unalloyed sensibility, an uncommon concoction whose life of scholarship and insight illuminate what we all might need to cultivate for the world we are walking into. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Positionality (04:20)Interest in the transcendent (06:15)Willingness to contend with complexity (11:30)Awe and beautify of biology and anthropology (14:20)Eric Wolf...
2024-05-2157 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanAlbert-László Barabási - Network science, breakthrough orientation, and a life made around discoveryAlbert-László Barabási thinks in networks and his scholarship, as his life, is embodiment of the explorative, imaginative, and generative nature of networks. It would be difficult to imagine a person better suited to steward us through the innate and seemingly universal tendency of things to connect to each other and all of its implications. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Preferential attachment (10:00)What he tells his students (13:30)Breakthroughs (14:00)'Shelf Time' (14:30)The Science of Science (19:00)Bridging (network science) (19:00)His first and second papers in network sci...
2024-04-161h 14Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanOrigins and Ongoingness: Thoughts on Season SevenHello friends, a new season of Origins is coming NEXT WEEK. Last season of this show was a season of flourishing. The episodes ahead we not be a season of something in particular but a movement toward process, toward open-endedness, toward unsettledness; of discipline, of intellect, of being. Great scientific breakthroughs are discoveries of process, and the great discoveries of society and our own lives will be the same. Thank you for listening and I'm excited to explore together each of the coming guests, and the exhilarating glimpses they provide into ourselves and our society along the w...
2024-04-0907 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanThe Great Askers (episode 1): Sara Hendren and Krista TippettOrigins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons Newsletter and the post introducing Great AskingShow Notes:Sara Hendren's Origins Conversationstart of a living conversation (05:20)Ignorance by Stuart Firestein (06:00)questions are the oxygen of imagination (08:00)curiosity is a moral muscle (10:10)The Division of Cognitive Laborby Philip Kitcher (09:20)Sara's substack (10:40)Howard Gardner (11:20)Participatory readiness Danielle Allen (16:40)Living the Questions with Krista (23:30)questions and a state of receptivity (30:20)Sara's blog on voice memos (37:00)vagus nerve (37:00)neuroplasticity (37:30)Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke (45:00)The Virtues of Limits by David McPherson (53:30)the healing is in the...
2024-01-301h 11Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanJames Evans - Cultural observatories, knowledge communities, and a life resplendent with ideasJames Evans' life is one resplendent with ideas. His trajectory into research and learning in areas as wide as network science, collective intelligence, computational social science, and even how knowledge is created, is as irreducible as it is exhilarating, and is a beacon in disorienting times marked by seemingly accelerating paces of change. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:cultural and knowledge observatories (05:30)Mark Granovetter (09:15)Steve Barley (10:30)Woody Powell (10:30)Chris Summerfield (11:00)Some papers mentioned:Metaknowledge (17:10)Weaving the fabric of science: Dynamic network models of science's unfolding structure (18:30)A...
2024-01-091h 18Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanIngrid Daubechies - The "Godmother of digital image" on the beauty of the worldIngrid Daubechies is endlessly, irrepressibly, beautifully curious. She is a Belgian physicist and mathematician whose scientific achievements have rippled across society in all directions for the past 35 years. But, more than that, she's a fierce champion of diversity and equality, in math and science, in women's rights, in opportunity. To sit with Ingrid, her math and her life, is to illuminate our world and inspire us to imagine other worlds. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Depression (05:30)Krista Tippett On Being Podcast (07:15)A...
2023-11-2859 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanMark Granovetter - Weak ties, living questions, and the history and future of social scienceMark Granovetter has made and remade our understanding of social networks, social theory, collective action, and economic sociology, making and remaking our world in the process. It would not be hyperbole to say that few living scholars have had the influence of Mark Granovetter. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Attorney for the Damned by John A. Farrell (9:00)Interest in world history (10:00)A History of the Modern World (11:00)Why are there revolutions? (12:00)Philosophy of science (13:00)Carl Hempel (13:00)What does it mean to explain in science? Talcott Parsons (15:00)BF Ski...
2023-10-311h 00Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanTina Eliassi-Rad - A master class in network thinking and the kind of life it makesTina Eliassi-Rad is a network science pioneer, and an intrepid explorer of where network science shows up in our world and how we understand that. Her work, as her life, falls across network science, complexity, artificial intelligence, and commitments to democracy and equality, itself a constellation of experiences and literacies befitting our increasingly complex world. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Jon Kleinberg (09:20)Northeastern Network Science Institute (12:20)Bruch and Newman Aspirational pursuit of mates in online dating markets (13:40) What is a complex system? Ladyman and Wiesner (14:45)Wh...
2023-10-0358 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanJudith Donath - Technology, trust, and what holds society togetherJudith Donath is a design thinker for some of the most important theory for how people interact in online spaces, drawing on evolutionary biology, architecture, ethnography, cognitive science. She just might be the voice we need for the multi-media multiscale world we're walking into. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Tsundoku (09:00)The cost of honesty (09:30)theory of mind, MIT Media Lab, and Marvin Minsky (13:00)Roger Schank (13:30)cultural metaphors (14:00)Ocean Vuong (17:15)The Architecture Machine by Nicholas Negroponte (19:30)Bell Labs (20:15)Vienna Circle (20:20)Sociable Media Group (22:40)The Social Machine by Judith...
2023-09-011h 14Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanC. Thi Nguyen - This conversation will change how you see the worldThere is something irresistible about the way C. Thi Nguyen thinks about and structures the world. From the lenses of trust, art, games, and communities he thinks about seemingly everything. In each of these topics, he's written pieces that I consider to be among the most important works on them. Origins WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Games: Agency as Art (01:55)Anne Harrington (07:20)The Great Endarkenment Elijah Millgram (09:20)Trust and Antitrust Annette BaierHostile Epistemology (21:20)The natural selection of bad science Paul Smaldino (26:40)The Grasshopper Bernard Suits (32:20)Context Changes Everything Alicia...
2023-07-251h 15Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanPaul Wong - Reinventing cybernetics and composing a lifeWe find ourselves living in a time of great complexity and flux, where the very fabric of our societies is being rewoven by the rise of artificial intelligence and the interplay of complex systems. How do we make sense of a world that is undeniably interconnected, with increasingly porous boundaries between nature and culture, human and machine, science and art? Paul Wong is reshaping that conversation, drawing on science, philosophy, and art. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Buckminster Fuller (07:40)Principia Mathematica by Russell and Whitehead (09:00)Peter Kropotkin...
2023-06-131h 03Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanDani Bassett and Perry Zurn - Understanding curiosity, nourishing a life, and how thoughts moveTwins Dani Bassett and Perry Zurn are curious. Their work, individually and together, gives new conception and language to what curiosity is, the work that it does in the world. These are human beings of intelligence and integrity and deep care, and their reification of curiosity might just be a generative narrative of our time. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Homeschooling (05:00)Epistemology (09:00)multiple discovery (16:30)foregrounding bravery (21:00)Curious Minds(25:00)Julio Ottino on Origins (28:30)Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit (32:00)Power of curiosity for social movements (34:30)Three types of...
2023-05-301h 08Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanJulio Ottino - chaos, the capacity for emergence, and timeless ideasEvery so often someone comes along whose thinking and work inspire you with the kind of awe that always feels new and fills you with an energy that brings vibrancy to life. Julio Mario Ottino is one of these people. Pulling from science, technology, and art, creating entirely new spaces in their convergence, he has transformed how to think about discovery and creativity. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Jorge Luis Borges and Franz Kafka influences (07:10)his first book: The Mathematical Foundations of Mixing(08:00)emergence (14:20)multiple discoveriescultivating patience...
2023-05-161h 07Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanSeason Six Trailer: A season of flourishingAfter a generative break from new episodes, Origins Podcast is back with Season Six!2023 has been a year of rapid change even as we carry the rupture of the last three years. It is precisely into this evolving landscape, that we are excited to announce that Origins Podcast returns with its Sixth Season! While it will continue to be a forum to explore the pivotal moments for a diverse array of voices where the universal peeks out from the particular, we are also adapting the show to our changing world, a living experiment and conversation, embracing new...
2023-05-0605 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanFrank White - The Overview Effect and a planetary civilizationFrank White is a philosopher of space. In 1987 he coined the term "the overview effect," referring to the life-altering experience astronauts received upon witnessing our planet from outer space. His work, as his life, bring this transformation of perspective into sharper focus, presenting an alternative perception of ourselves, our world, and our future. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:The Overview Effect & The Cosma Hypothesis(03:00)Being a part of something larger than yourself (06:30)The overview effect as an experience (13:00)Gerard K. O'Neill and the Space Studies Institute (14:00)Hope...
2023-03-141h 01Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanNicole Stott - Ambassador to the cosmos and to our humanityNicole Stott has a towering range of knowledge and experience, from the heights of outer space as a NASA astronaut to the depths of the ocean as an aquanaut, from the rigor and structure of science to the openness and imagination of art. She continually defies category, and her life embodies the creativity and interconnection that we are called to in the face of planetary challenges.Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Early mentors (06:30)Keeping wonder alive (11:15)The Disappearing Art Of Maintenance by Alex Vuocolo (11:15)Exceptional collaboration (14:45)Collaborative...
2023-01-031h 01Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanDavid Sloan Wilson - Archipelagos of knowledge, commons, and the science of cooperationDavid Sloan Wilson is one of biology’s most prolific and impactful scientists. He is author of paradigmatic contributions to evolutionary theory and how organisms behave, such as multilevel selection and core design principles for the efficacy of groups. But the reach of his work is far beyond the domains of biology and sociology, in whole a toolkit for improving how we live together and weaving between areas of thought. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Atlas Hugged (06:30)Sociobiology by EO Wilson (12:00)Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Steven C...
2022-12-061h 06Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEd Finn - Thoughtful optimism, intellectual voyaging, and a Center for Science and the ImaginationEd Finn might be best described as an imaginer. The rest of the many things that he is and does kind of fall into place with that foundation. He started and for the past decade has been Director of the unexampled Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter (06:20)Specialization vs generalization (07:00)N Katherine Hayles (12:00)We have never been modernby Bruno Latour (19:00)Franco Moretti (24:15)Center for Science and the Imagination (26:15)"Innovation Starvation" by N...
2022-11-011h 17Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanAlex McDowell - A master class in worldbuilding and designing holistic spacesAlex McDowell is a worldbuilder. He builds future realities to envision worlds that don't yet exist. By working across disciplines to imagine the future, his worlds inform and inspire stories and open eyes to new possibilities. Origins Podcast websiteShow Notes: Quaker meeting (09:40)EmpowermentThe skills of listening and gathering (11:40)The politics of your social experience (12:10)Worldbuilding"Storytelling Shapes the Future" Every world is a holistic system at multiple scalesMinority Report (22:00)Triangle of narrative design (27:00)Relationship to complex systems (27:30)Counterfactuals to explore a world (27:50)Cultivating interdisciplinary collaboration in teams (28:00)Scenius (29:00)Building enough of a...
2022-10-041h 04Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanDavid Hassler - Leaping thought, authoring a life, and a spirit of passionate inquiryPoetry comes up so often in my conversations these days. Our society in crisis seems to be desperate for it, without being able to name that desperation until a poem calls it out of us. For years, award-winning Poet David Hassler has been defining and redefining how poetry enters and moves people and communities. Show Notes:Jane Hirshfield (04:30)Poets for Science (04:50)Francis Weller - how we tend the dead is as important as how we tend the living (09:30)Prayer wheels (14:00)Buddhist principles of Right Absorption and Right Understanding (17:20)Maggie Anderson (21:00)Krista Tippet - poetry i...
2022-09-061h 02Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanAlicia Juarrero - the philosopher who will change how you think about complexityAlicia Juarrero is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at Prince George’s Community College and the author of Dynamics in Action, a text that many consider to have laid the foundation for how we think about complexity in our society. So Alicia is a philosopher for this moment in human history.Show Notes:Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke (03:31)Live the questionsDuino ElegiesUser Friendly by Cliff Kuang (11:50)Herbert Simon and the importance of information diet (12:50)The Self-Organizing Universe by Erich Jantsch (15:00)Dave Snowden Cynefin Framework (20:00)Dave on OriginsAristotelian four causes (22:30)Emergence (27:40)Network th...
2022-08-091h 08Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanBrandon Ballengée - Biodiversity, muscular hope, and the persistence of lifeBrandon Ballengée has a unique quality of attention, one that is not constrained by traditional distinctions between art & science and working & living. He wants to share that capacity to witness to liberate everyone's imagination of what this world can be, a world we are of rather than just in. This ecological consciousness informs his work as a visual artist, biologist and environmental educator. Show Notes:biodiversity (07:00)trophic networks (13:10)ethnography and buffer zones (15:00)citizens getting involved to help biodiversityparticipatory and co-creative nature of his workcommons spaces (16:00)Garret Hardin Tragedy of the Commons (16:20)antiform and a...
2022-07-121h 00Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanOrigins Season Five TrailerWelcome back to Origins, listeners. After a few month hiatus, we're back with an exhilarating, generative, spacious season of the show--the hiatus was in part so that I could focus on research, to launch a new series of 'salons' with the Cultural Program for the National Academy of Science (see here for an example), help ignite a new initiative toward Open Science with NASA, and to do more writing, which you can read a bit about in a new Substack newsletter (The Flourishing Commons) that is an accompaniment to these various activities. The goal of that newsletter is to t...
2022-07-0104 min
NH Unscripted with Ray DudleyLast Gas - Wayland Bunnell and Patrick McGranaghanWayland Bunnell and Patrick McGranaghan take a moment to talk about the play "Last Gas" which will be opening shortly in the Concord City Auditorium.May 6-8, 2022Directed by Wayland BunnellCast ListNat Paradis: Patrick McGranaghanTroy Paridis-Pulcifer: Ryan FlahertyDwight Paradis: Eric StanleyGuy Gagnon: Jerry SmithCherry-Tracy Pulcifer: Heather CarmichaelLureen Legassey Soloway: Suzanne WattsSynopsis:Last Gas by John CarianiNat Paradis is a Red Sox-loving part-time dad who manages Paradis Last Convenient Store, the last...
2022-04-2640 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanSara Hendren - Healthy relationality, how we meet the built world, and the curriculum of the futureSubscribe to The Flourishing Commons - a newsletter to accompany Origins episodes and to build a community around a rich forum for exchange. Sara Hendren is a humanist in tech. This may seem like a strange statement, but it may be a perfect place to pick up Sara's trajectory. She is a brilliant designer, an affecting educator, and just might be the source of language that will transform the way you witness the world. Show Notes:critique and repair (06:55)Generous Thinking Kathleen Fitzpatrick (22:00)Epistemic humilityRelational model of change (22:50)The Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle (24:40...
2022-03-221h 05Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanMichael Hochberg - mystery and our pivotal moments, innovation, and science from cells to societiesMichael Hochberg is Distinguished Research Director with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (the French National Centre for Scientific Research) and based at the University of Montpellier, France. His research has for many years spanned fields from ecology to epidemiology to biodiversity to innovation to the communication of science and touches every scale imaginable, from cells to societies. Show Notes:the magic of doing science (04:20)Howell Daley (13:00)Some of the breadth of Michael's publications (13:30)Ecology drives the worldwide distribution of human diseasesAn ecosystem framework for understanding and treating diseaseInnovation: an emerging focus from...
2022-02-151h 09Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanDave Snowden - Sensemaking, complexity, and frameworks for livingFor years Dave Snowden has helped me understand how to navigate a complex world better than perhaps any other thinker. He draws so widely from all schools of thought in forming frameworks for sensemaking.This episode is expanding. It will be with me for a long time and I hope it stays with you, too. Read more at: https://www.originspodcast.co/episodes-1Show Notes:Complicated vs complex (08:00)Paul CilliersDynamics in Action Alicia Juarrero Lecture: "How not to manage complexity"The Patterning Instinct Jeremy Lent (16:00)Tropes in narrative theory (17:50)Assemblage an...
2022-01-041h 01Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanKaty Börner - Networks, noticing what we don't expect, and an atlas for navigating our worldKaty Börner is one of the great mappers of our age. Her maps tell the history of science, trace how communication has evolved from the stone age to modern day, and reveal the connections across our society. In her work, all of these things become visual and interactive. That is to say she is the perfect person to talk to in this age when complexity lurks behind the most intractable issues facing our society and demands new ways of witnessing them.Show Notes:Places & Spaces: Mapping Science exhibit (07:00)Helping anyone find their place i...
2021-12-0756 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghan(Best Of) Cecilia Conrad - Steward of the MacArthur Genius Grants, 100 million dollars, and transcendent empowermentThis episode originally aired on June 4, 2020. There are new episodes coming to you soon, so stay tuned. But now is a good time to revisit wise words from one of my favorite previous guests, Cecilia Conrad, Managing Director of the MacArthur ('Genius') Fellows Program and the 100&Change program. The 2021 class of MacArthur Fellows was announced in late September 2021. In Cecilia Conrad's words, “As we emerge from the shadows of the past two years, this class of 25 Fellows helps us reimagine what’s possible. They demonstrate that creativity has no boundaries. It happens in all fie...
2021-11-1636 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanJessica Flack - Finding the right questions, the wisdom of complexity, and deep physical and cognitive fitnessDr. and professor Jessica Flack has been a dream guest for Origins since the beginning - the kind of generous intellect and polymath whose words and work expand everyone around her. She also might be the person we can place our trust in to help us learn how to make sense of an increasingly complex world. Show Notes:Josh Epstein - agent-based modeling (04:20)The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) and complex systems thinking (07:30)Mark Newman and network scienceMurray Gell-MannThe Synergism Hypothesis by Peter A. Corning (14:00)The Biology of Moral Systems by Richard D. Alexander (16:00)Indirect...
2021-10-1958 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanJoAnn Kuchera-Morin - The AlloSphere, a deeper integration of art and science, and the new senses we need nowJoAnn Kuchera-Morin is a composer. But the music she writes is more than mere notes; it embraces art and science and engineering and finds new frontiers at the intersection of them all. Her 'music' is both song and her research into new modes of immersive, interactive scientific and artistic investigation. Through art as with science, her work seeks to create as she says, "an exponential rise in consciousness."Show Notes:Pythagoras - a rock is music frozen in time (09:00)Evolving according to where our culture is (11:20)Iannis Xenakis (12:30) Peripersonal and Extrapersonal space (15:40)AlloSphere (17:00 and 36:00)T...
2021-10-0557 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanPaco Nathan - Thinking in "graphs", a data and tech pioneer on living in a complex worldI have trouble wrapping any adequate labels around this episode’s guest, Paco Nathan. Paco is a technologist, data scientist and an evangelist of a brighter data and technology future. He has an uncommon ability to synthesize the gaps and trends in this complex and evolving space, and gives me hope that we can create a more flourishing future within it.Show Notes:Origins of Artificial Intelligence and mentors (06:00)Humberto Maturana ("What the frog's eye tells the frog's brain")Fernando FloresFrancisco VarelaTerry WinogradCybernetics by Norbert Weiner (06:30)Project Cybersyn (07:00)Autopoiesis and Cognition by Humberto Maturana an...
2021-09-141h 10Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanCaitlin McShea - Meeting places of art and science, interplanetary thinking, and an imaginative lifeCaitlin McShea is that special kind of curious that you cannot help but be inspired by, and she has the intellect to spread that curiosity over any domain. For the past ten years in roles varying from director of art galleries, curator and coordinator of exhibits, and now as a program manager at the Santa Fe Institute, she has been giving language, image, and concreteness to some of the most imaginative and futuristic thoughts of our age.Show Notes:Life's Edge Carl Zimmer (03:00)Four Lost Cities Annalee NewitzOur conversation on the Alien Crash Site...
2021-08-311h 04Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanAnima Anandkumar - Artificial Intelligence and a flourishing societyProfessor Anima Anandkumar is a meteor in the field of artificial intelligence or AI. Her rise in the space has been a phenomenon to behold and her voice is a refreshing and inviting one that might just alter the trajectory of AI and society.Show Notes:Artificial Intelligence (AI) (01:00)Love of the liminal spaces (03:20)Philosophy and connection to AI (07:30)Advaita VedantaThe science of creativity (10:00)Never run out of problems to solve (11:20)Supervised and Unsupervised Learning (14:00)Doris Tsao at Caltech (15:30)AGI = Artificial General Intelligence (16:30)TED talks (19:40)2018 "Trinity of Artificial Intelligence" 2021 "Can Artificial Intelligence be conscious t...
2021-08-171h 00
Alien Crash SiteWhat lies in the space between? #017 with Aerospace Engineer Ryan McGranaghanTo learn more about the items discussed in this interview, click through the links below. Ryan’s websiteRyan on TwitterThe Carrington EventParker Solar ProbeMars MAVENUshering in a New Frontier in Geospace through Data Science Dictionary of Obscure sorrowsWhat is an Individual?Jorge Luis Borges“Talk on Indolence” by the Avett Brothers"Machine Gun" by Jimi Hendrix
2021-08-0655 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanDan Goods - design at NASA, life's throughlines of wonder, and the museum of aweDan Goods is a leader among the community of creatives at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, so he's an imaginer among imaginers. A creator among creators. He's one of the most innovative minds I've come across, and someone who embodies selflessness and that most wonderful and contagious quality that is an insatiable curiosity. Show Notes:How he decided to go to art school (08:00)Out of Control by Kevin Kelly (10:30)David Kremers (10:30)Long view of time Roland Young (11:30)Teachers as cultivators of attention (13:45)How movable is your current perception of the limit? (14:10)The bridge to nowhere in...
2021-08-031h 09Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanOrigins Season Four TrailerDuring two years spent at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, curiosity-driven coffee conversations every morning with people who surprised and inspired me sparked an endless fascination with the pivotal moments across a life. Travels to leading art, science, engineering, and design institutions around the world nourished my passion and blossomed into the conversations you hear on Origins every other week. On Origins we bring you conversations with thought-leaders across an eclectic mix of disciplines (science, engineering, art, and design), crafted specifically for the category-defying society that we live in. Join us as we explore the people expanding our w...
2021-07-2604 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanPeter Turchi - Maps of the creative process and designs for lifePeter Turchi takes the art and act of writing as an irresistible analog for the art and the act of living. His work is part of a long tradition of fascination with processes of writers and he is among the masters at relating that process in a way that reaches all domains of society. For anyone who has ever thought about writing - the craft of it, its centrality in the human experience, its analog for life itself - this conversation is for you.Show Notes:How he began writing (04:30)Dealing with rejection (12:00)Richard...
2021-05-041h 02Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEthan Zuckerman - A master-course in how to connect and a syllabus for a spacious lifeEthan Zuckerman is a voice that you need to know. He’s a pioneer for the use of media as a tool for social change, for cultivating international development with technology, and for the activation of new media technologies by activists. Ethan is uncommonly insightful about the currents and trends of our society. In this conversation he helps us understand the shape of our public discourse, and relates it to the world of today and tomorrow. Show Notes:Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows - Sonder (05:00)Book: Rewire (08:00)MIT Media Lab Center for Civic Media (12:00)Nathan Ma...
2021-04-2058 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanRichard D. Bartlett: Meaningful work, social fabric, and flourishingWe find ourselves in a world that feels incongruent and unfamiliar, changing socially and technologically at paces that expose conventional explanations as inadequate. Climate change, pandemics, political unrest have punctuated this new century and feel like clarion calls for new ways of being and being together. Enter Richard D. Bartlett — someone who has been a pioneer in thinking about these new modes.Show Notes:Apologetics (06:30)What is community? (06:50)The concept of flourishing (08:15)Having a gift/role in the world (12:00)Robin Wall Kimmerer Braiding Sweetgrass "The most important thing that each of us can know is...
2021-04-061h 00Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanTomas Björkman - Nature, the Nordic Secret, and what is emergingTomas Björkman transcends science, business, philosophy, and social and personal change. Founder of the Ekskäret Foundation and coauthor of The Nordic Secret, Tomas’ story is a guide for anyone thinking about the future of society - a confluence of physics, macroeconomics, and entrepreneurship.Show Notes: Ekskäret Foundation; Oak Island Foundation (05:45) Origins of his union of scientific sensibility + entrepreneurship (07:00) From academia to business (09:00) Try to understand the world AND try to shape the world (10:00) Taking risks (12:00) We are not transparent to ourselves (14:30) Social entrepreneur (17:20) Complexity (21:30) The Nordic Secret (25:00) Corporate culture (26:20) Building stable lasting democrac...
2021-03-021h 13Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanSarah Goodwin - How we need to communicate science in our changing worldShow Notes: Storytelling (03:00) Wonder Collaborative (04:30) Jane Goodall (05:00) Human Nature (CRISPR documentary) Nobel Prize Winner Jennifer DoudnaRon Vale (06:00) "Cell Hell” - Cell Biology and Genetics course at Middlebury iBiology (09:00) The power of words (09:45) “Bringing good people to work with you” (10:30) How do you build a team? Creating community that cuts across disciplines (11:20) "Antidisciplinary" Elliot Kirschner - ‘morphing’ iBiology Matthew Meselson and Franklin Stahl (16:00) The art of the question (17:45) Conversations in Science with Dan Rather (18:00) Reinventing science film-making (25:30) Stepping outside of academic research (26:00) Patronin protein (27:00) “I belong” moment (30:00) What is CRISPR and what do people not realize about its importance? (32:00) Equality of...
2021-02-0958 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 28: Nora Bateson - Interconnectedness, warm data, and the vitality of thingsShow Notes: Small Arcs of Larger Circles (02:00) Objectivity (05:45) Relationships and interdependencies (07:00) Smiling with your whole system (10:00) Flip side of delight and seeing connections (11:00) Language developed from your own frustration (13:30)Different kinds of teachers Esalen Institute (15:30) Diving more deeply into the arts and an exploration of culture (19:20) Working with different groupings of people (19:40) Describing things nonlinearly (20:30) 'Warm data' (23:50) Mutual learning between generations (27:00) ‘Change is when you throw away the ladder’ (28:00) Willingness to play and be wrong - inadequacy (30:00) New way of thinking and learning - Warm Data Labs (34:30) Observe the observer Multiple description Fluid patterning Paradox, inconsistency...
2021-01-051h 13Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 27: Ed Kearns - Exploring the ocean, generosity, and a culture of dataShow Notes: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (02:00) Rachel Carson’s words (03:30) Scale of things and perspective Pioneers of oceanography: Rossby and Montgomery (07:30) Global conclusions from small data (09:30) World Ocean Circulation Experiment (10:00) Eye-opening expeditions (12:00) All kinds of ways of ’seeing’ (14:00) Evolution of distributing data (15:00) Recording our experiences (17:00) Books (19:45) Burr by Gore Vidal Iron Coffins by Herbert Werner Mentors and lessons: “Had to make mistakes myself to realize what they [were] trying to tell me all along” Thomas Rossby (25:00) Generosity of time and ideas Understanding of how people need to work together (28:00) Working across boundaries Curiosity-driven networks (29:50) NOAA Big Data Project (31:30) E...
2020-12-081h 24Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 26: Alfred Nash - Insatiable curiosity, NASA and Team X, and the return of the Renaissance ManShow Notes: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (05:15) Mentors (07:20) Building and leading teams (13:15) Comfort with uncertainty (15:30) Waleed Abdalati Origins episode (18:30) What drew Nash to JPL (19:00) Trajectories to JPL (20:00) Why you need to read sociology books (22:00) Being a Renaissance Person - curiosity across human endeavors (22:40) T-shaped people (23:00) Challenging yourself (29:45) The change in mentality that comes with public service (32:50) NASA JPL Team X (35:15) What is Team X?van Allen, von Braun, and Pickering famous picture (38:00) What networked computers did for JPL (40:30) Alfred’s contribution to Team X efficiency - paper (42:15) Three types of fun (44:10) Thinking about how you provide information (46:15) Related: see discussi...
2020-11-231h 15Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 25: César Hidalgo - Information and complexity, learning and leading, rethinking technology in societyShow Notes: Spiritual background of his childhood (05:30) Discipline to do good work (06:10) Mentor: Albert-László Barabási (09:30) How do you demand excellence? Musing on the competitive mentality (11:45) Relevance of science is a very social dimension (12:30) What he tells his students (13:30) Adapting as an individual (14:45) MIT Media Lab Collective Learning Group (17:00) The Last Dance documentary (18:30) The Playbook documentary series (18:40) Complexity (21:00) Fractals, iterating functions, and chaosLorenzFeigenbaumBook: Why information grows (26:45) What is information? Book: How humans judge machines (30:20) Why has knowledge not made it everywhere? TED Talk: “A bold idea to replace politicians” (34:20) Rethinking democracy and technology Trusting technologies (36:45) Counterfactuals (37:00) Wha...
2020-10-2954 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 24: Melanie Mitchell - The nature of intelligence and following your curiosityShow Notes: Santa Fe Institute (2:00) Alexander Hamilton biography by Ron Chernow (4:30) The Universe and Dr. Einstein by Lincoln Barnett (5:45) Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter (7:30) Martin Gardner Scientific American “Mathematical Games" (8:30) Douglas Hofstadter (10:00) John Holland (14:30) Adaptation in Natural and Artificial SystemsCopycat cognitive architecture (17:00) Description Fantastic discussionWhat sustains her in moments of doubt (21:00) Article about analogies related to COVID (25:00) Overcoming the sense of obligation to follow curiosity (27:30) Strategy for saying ’no’ (29:45) Morning routine (31:00) Pomodoro Method for time management (33:00) Complexity and complex systems (39:00) Must read: Chaos by James Gleick R-naught parameter and COVID (44:00) Becoming comfortable with...
2020-08-171h 07Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 23: Giorgia Lupi - Harmonizing life and data through designShow Notes: Data-driven design firm AccuratData humanismWhen she realized design was going to be a part of her life (07:00) A ’new chapter’ in her life to fuse data and design (07:30) What teachers told her that changed her (08:00) Discovery of information design (09:00) Rules versus limitations (10:15) Rules as catalyzers of creativity Pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone Phases of dealing with COVID-19 (13:00) Think about yourself in 2-3 years - who do you want to remember yourself to be? (13:45) Daily practices (14:15) How to be in touch with what makes you feel better (15:30) Be patient with yourself What she does when she feels un...
2020-07-3150 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 22: Elizabeth Anderson - A new equality and the philosopher for this moment in American lifeShow Notes: Marx Philosophic and Economic manuscript of 1844 (3:30) Changed by exposure to systematic class privilege (7:10) ‘Cubilcle’-ization revolution (8:10) Normative aspects of economics and markets (11:30) The American Economic Journal (15:00) Being intellectually curious (16:00) Hugh Lacey History of Philosophy and Science - Swarthmore (16:00) Thomas Kuhn - Structure of Scientific Revolutions (18:30) How scientific ‘controversies’ arise and how they are resolved Intellectual fruitfulness of doing philosophy of X where X can be any discipline or problem (20:00) Turning point: do this from political and economic philosophy Normative inquiry has to be responsive to the actual experiences of people (22:00) Early life as a contemporary philosop...
2020-07-171h 20Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 21: Waleed Abdalati - NASA Chief Scientist and how to live a life led by your curiosityCooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) (06:00) One of ten people to be ’NASA Chief Scientist' Being led around by your curiosity ‘Pulls' from our earliest ages in life (07:30) The Arctic from space (10:00) The ’space-based perspective' ’No better compass than your emotions’ (11:30) Constructive emotions Opportunities to connect mind and body (14:00) Love of career and love of family (23:30) “It has to give you energy and not drain energy from you" (25:00) What he tells his students (28:00) Think about the act of learning The goal: learn, grow, have new experiences (30:00) Becoming comfortable with discomfort - not that hard if you believe in it and if you believe you...
2020-06-301h 07Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 20: Cecilia Conrad - Steward of the MacArthurs Genius Grants, 100 Million Dollars, and Transcendent EmpowermentShow Notes: Privilege brings with it a sense of responsibility (4:00) Empowering others - "nurturing, supporting, and uplifting" (5:30) “Talent in unexpected locations" Levels of impact: individual and systems (7:45) Carrying people with you (8:20) POSSE Foundation (8:40) Compensatory and Distributive Justice (9:00) What she tells her students (10:45) Most proud of integrating race and gender into economics programs (11:00) What we are missing in the discourses of race and gender Difficult to reshape pre-conceived notions unless you allow everyone to explore (13:00) Interconnectedness of society and systems level thinking (14:00) A must read - Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows Becoming more comfortable with complexity and uncertainty...
2020-06-0434 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 19: Kristian Lum - Lifelong curiosity and Criminal Justice Reform through dataShow Notes: Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) (1:40) The contagious nature of imprisonment paper (1:50) Value of community colleges (6:30) Professor Dan Balaguy at Sierra College (7:20) Professor Richard Stong at Rice University - Combinatorics (8:30) Coming to an understanding of one’s career and curiosity (10:20) How can we make the public more data literate (i.e., numeracy)? (12:15) Maintain a healthy skepticism of numbers - think more critically (see Seth Godin’s thoughts) Data can encode discrimination and bias (16:10) Predictive policing algorithms - Kristian’s paperBe reflective about where patterns in data come from Importance of uncertainty (20:00) HRDAG ‘casualty estimations’ (21:10) Humanize the data (22:0...
2020-05-1752 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 18: José Cotto - Creator, inspirer, and cultural entrepreneur across scalesShow Notes: Grew up knowing possibility and that people create things (8:30) Being around art, there was always another reality that could be made (9:00) How do you sit with tension? (10:00) The thing that allows me to maintain balance in the present - keep moving at the pace that feels most fulfilling and productive in the moment Find comfort in the tension Poetry is complex enough to hold the tension of human experience - pair with Brené Brown's thoughts (12:15) Love of poetry (12:30) "Where the sidewalk ends" and "Falling up” - Shel Silverstein Music - Nas (14:00) A love for how people ar...
2020-04-1558 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 17: Brian Janosch - Redefining creativity in all spacesShow Notes: Cultivate Wit (03:00) New Glarus Spotted Cow Beer (03:40) Lambeau Field - Green Bay, Wisconsin (04:00) Pausing in your activities to recognize what it is you are actually drawing joy from (07:20) Surprising ways to learn about entrepreneurship (11:00) Common experience and connection (20:30) The Onion (21:00) Creative process at The Onion (25:30) TED Talk: What I learned from writing jokes for The Onion (27:40) Creative collaboration (29:30) Two tracks of the ’notion’ of creativity: within your own head and within a collective group (29:50) Detachment as a key component of creativity (32:30) Daniel Kahneman and cognitive biases (33:00) Ideas are not precious (36:30) Dealing with rejection (36:50) TV show with Baratunde...
2020-03-251h 10Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 16: Martin Storksdieck - Visionary of lifelong learningShow Notes: Institute for Learning Innovation (02:20) Those that have given language and expression to Martin in his life (15:00) Art - Die Brücke impressionistsArt - Mid-century modernismPoetry and philosophy - SchopenhauerPoetry vs. Science as forms for expression (17:00) Rainer Maria Rilke (18:00) Questions are a mighty form of words Wellsprings of creativity and growth Waldorf schools (21:00) Ecological physiology (24:45) Chaos: Making a new science by James Gleick (30:00) Field trips in environmental education by Martin Storksdieck (32:00) How to create experiences (34:00) Interconnect cognitive processes with emotional or affective processes Center for Research on Lifelong STEM Learning (35:45) An academic immigrant story - to rebuild root...
2020-03-131h 00Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 15: Rachel Young - Designing cultures of learningShow Notes: Breakthrough Collaborative (3:10) Education as a vehicle for exploring the edges of social justice (6:00) Passion to give people what they need to be successful (8:20) Teach for America (10:00) Qualities of a good mentor: patience, clarity, guide through learning moments (12:10) Reasons for loving learning (13:20) How Rachel sustains her energy (14:50) How to decide what to say no to (17:20) Leave yourself room to discover IDEO (18:15) IDEO CEO Sandy Speicher and Disequilibrium (23:15) Constructivist theory of learningQuestion your own assumptions and create new constructs (25:50) Daniel Kahneman Thinking Fast and Slow (26:20) Human-centered design (26:45) Push your imagination to think about what is possible IDEO-UDesigning...
2020-02-131h 03Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 14: Antti Pulkkinen - The art of explosive learning and blazing new trails in scienceShow Notes: Weather in outer space (1:30) Explosive learning through taking advantage of breadth and depth of knowledge (2:20) NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (2:40) Mentors: Ari Viljanen (5:20) Risto Pirjola (5:30) Olaf Amm (5:40) Hannu Koskinen (9:50) Geomagnetically induced currents and effect of space weather on the power grid (5:40) Approach to mentorship (6:00) Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) (10:00) Building diverse networks (21:30) Organic vs. deliberate networking (22:40) Importance of personal network (24:15) Martial arts practice and its impact on his life (26:00) Krav MagaThe Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin (27:30) Tai Chi and meditation (30:20) Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (31:30) Change with added responsibility - let others succeed (37:00) Complex systems (37:20) Holly Gilbert and Marlo Mad...
2019-12-2851 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 13: Aoife Van Linden Tol - Explosions of art in science, and science in artShow Notes: Christine Atha (10:30) “Dropping bombs on the landscape” (13:30) Land art (14:30) Michael Heizer “Displaced Replaced Mass” (16:10) Is this art? (19:00) Take out the human completely, take out what it means to anybody and try to imagine this thing existing on its own (21:00) Imagine what it means to be the object, to be the force (21:20) How chaos and order is an analogy for science and art (23:30) Why the human condition responds to explosives in amazing way (24:30) Explosions in nature - coronal mass ejections (26:20) European Space Agency Artist in Residency (27:00) Bernard Foing (29:35) Ars Electronica (30:20) Antidisciplinary (31:15) Museum as a space for anything that doesn...
2019-11-011h 01Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 12: Rajesh Gupta - The Didactic Data Scientist and Tireless Change MakerShow Notes: Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute (2:11) IEEE Computer Society 2019 W. Wallace McDowell Award (3:30) “Trying to do things in the wrong way” and having an internal compass to know when to redirect oneself (4:45) Responding to how you are being seen (5:30) Contradiction a deeply personal experience and growing comfortable with ambiguity (7:30) Reasoning through uncertainty (7:45) Breaking down physical barriers to change culture (9:40) Reason through that which cannot be reasoned with (16:10)Put yourself in situations that are uncomfortable to you (16:50) Purpose-driven approach (18:30) Think 'not black and white outcomes, but aspirational goals' (20:10) Precondition to learning is humility (22:10) A...
2019-10-1859 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 11: Bill Diamond - The nexus of Silicon Valley and scienceShow Notes: The SETI Institute (1:15 and 6:10) FDL program (NASA Frontier Development Lab) (4:30 and 36:00) Jesuit thinking (5:00) Brother Guy J. Consolmagno (6:20) Take advantage of the breadth of knowledge available to you and cut across the boundaries of knowledge (7:30) Early mentor, Ken Nill, and how he altered Bill’s trajectory (12:00) Value of having both technical and managerial skills (14:10) Create a ‘powerful combination of skills’ (14:20) First mentor: high school physics teacher (17:15) Signs to look for in mentor (17:40) Being curiosity-driven (19:15) LaserTron (22:20) Bell Labs (23:00) Have an understanding of all sides of the industry/business/problem (26:15) Skills from industry most valuable to science (36:30) Organization of scienc...
2019-09-071h 03Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 10: Nicky Fox - Trailblazer of Trans-disciplinary at NASAShow Notes:Polar mission, Solar-Terrestrial Physics Science Initiative, Van Allen Probes mission, and Parker Solar Probe mission (01:05)NASA Heliophysics Division (01:20)Nicky at South by Southwest (03:20)Nicky on the TEDx stage (03:35)Delta IV Heavy launch vehicle (04:35)Solar energy effects on GNSS (06:50)Idea of assessing your presentations from the questions you receive (08:25)Power of ‘I don’t know’ (08:50)ask questions to discover (12:20)Goddard Space Flight Center (15:50)imposter syndrome (16:45)Mentors:Mario Ocuña (27:50)Bob Hoffman (28:05)Barry Mauk (29:30 and 39:40)Applied Physics Lab (APL) (29:20)Living With a Star initiative (29:20)What is Space Weather? (30:45 and 39:00)‘Transdisciplinary’ in science (31:15)Heliospheric System Observatory and diversity o...
2019-08-291h 00Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 09: Andrés Muñoz-Jaramillo - Science's Humanist EntrepreneurShow Notes: Andrés’ first website: “a small trip through Columbian music” (04:10) Cosmos (TV Show and Book) by Carl Sagan (05:50) Jesuit Ignatian spiritual retreats in reference to Ignatius Loyola (08:00 and 11:15) How do you create space to listen to yourself? (13:30) NASA Frontier Development Laboratory - FDL (15:51) ‘Deep Learning’ (17:00) What makes a team fail? (18:00) Enhancing the effectiveness of team science'Treat colleagues as customers’ (22:30) ‘Fixing problems with data’ - data wrangling (22:40) Questions leaders of teams must ask (23:45) The idea of taking something from another field to apply to your own (28:50) Open source (29:15) Fear of being ’scooped’ that exists in science (29:45) First images of th...
2019-08-081h 00Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 08: Kirk Borne - Data science storyteller and influencerShow Notes: Geodesics (12:40) Booz Allen Hamilton (21:00) Kirk ’surprised’ himself through the cognitive ability test at a job interview - the idea of surprising ourselves through exposing ourselves to new ideas (25:00) "Cognitive view of the whole, and not just a narrow silo’ed view - the bias buster” - systems thinking (26:40) Underfitting and Overfitting (27:00) Data Science: the application of scientific discovery from data (30:00) ‘Miracle Year of Physics’ - Albert Einstein’s immaculate year (32:00) The Hubble Telescope (35:50) “Any job worth doing, is worth doing poorly” (37:50) “All models are wrong, but some are useful” - George Box (38:30) “Fail fast to learn fast” - discussed in Tim F...
2019-05-311h 12Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 07: Matt Russo - DJ to the CosmosShow Notes: Matt’s bands (1:30): Tiny Danza and RVNNERS Being singularly focused versus pursuing multiple curiosities. Tim Ferriss blog on one way to think about this: Push vs. Pull Processes Sonification (9:03) TEDx talk University of Toronto (10:12) Matt’s interaction with the six-year old fan of his work (11:00) Matt discusses acting almost unconsciously during his TEDx talk because of his preparation - this might be similar to a ‘flow state’ (discussed by Dr. Csikszentmihalyi on the TED stage) (13:30) Course on astronomical sonification (16:30) Idea of education being built on ‘really clear scaffolding’ (18:40) Antidisciplinary and Joi Ito (20:45) Sara Mazrouei and dating craters on t...
2019-05-1745 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 06: Chris Mattmann - NASA's data scientistShow Notes: Apache Open Source Software Foundation (4:00) Apache projects: Tika (26:30), Nutch (15:10), Hadoop (36:05) Chris’ resume and the ‘web of activities’ (7:15)“It’s all got to relate to one another”-Chris (7:15) Tim Ferriss’ scratch your own itch“JPL” (8:05) NASA Jet Propulsion LaboratoryUSC ’systems perspective’ (8:25) ‘Architect software’ (8:35) ‘Big software systems’ (8:53) Search engines (9:43) Similarities between web search and science data search (11:56) Google’s take(12:15) Big changes in data and compute in Earth Science missions: Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO, and OCO-2) vs Quick Scatterometer (QuickSCAT). ‘Drawing inspiration from the grid’ section of this articleopen source (17:58) Ellis Horowitz (19:44) Really Simple Syndication (RSS) (19:50) What is a developer? (21:10) Jérôme Charron (22...
2019-05-0450 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 05: Kerry Larkin - Making space for a beautiful lifeShow Notes: Kerry’s quilt kickstarter (~3:00)Vipassanā mediation/retreats (~5:30) Sitting practice meditation (~12:55) We discuss morning routines and I’m a complete nerd for people’s routines - here are a few examples of morning routines from other thought-leaders (~14:40) Sam Harris morning guided meditation (~17:05) Julia Cameron The Artist’s Way (~22:00) Sam Harris guided meditation app (~23:00) Auburn University Rural Studio (~19:15) Director of Rural Studio and Kerry’s mentor: MacArthur Fellow Samuel Mockbee (~20:38) “You are the architect of your education” and other quotesPhiladelphia Charter High School for Art and Design (~25:40) Big Yellow Arrow (no link, because, believe it or not, this was befor...
2019-04-1248 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 04: Professor Jayachandran - The ionosphere entrepreneurShow Notes: The Canadian High Arctic Ionospheric Network (CHAIN) - http://chain.physics.unb.ca/chain/Jay’s research group: http://radio.physics.unb.ca/jayachandran/Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumba_Equatorial_Rocket_Launching_StationBooks mentioned: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human SocietiesSurely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! Alice in QuantumlandAuthors mentioned: Henning Mankell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henning_Mankell) Ian Rankin (https://www.ianrankin.net/) The audio cut off prior to the details of where to find Professor Jayachandran online, so here is the important information His research gro...
2019-03-0447 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 03: Jacob Bortnik - Pioneer of space physicsShow Notes: Work-Life balance vs. alignment (7:00) Link to follow-up on: https://bit.ly/2SnMPIzTED talk about the silent man (31:30): John Francis (https://www.ted.com/talks/john_francis_walks_the_earth?language=en) We talk a lot about being quiet and the various forms and meanings of that. Here’s a link to a TED Radio Hour episode about ‘Quiet’: https://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/357846020/quiet Writers mentioned: (44:30): CS Lewis (http://www.cslewis.com/us/) (44:40): Shawn Achor (http://www.shawnachor.com/) Books mentioned: (45:04): If you’re so smart then why aren’t you happy? Raj Raghunathan (https...
2019-03-0451 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanTrailer - Origins - Origins SeriesOrigins are conversations with thought-leaders across an eclectic mix of disciplines (science, engineering, art, and design), crafted specifically for the category-defying society that we live in.Listen to the trailer now!
2019-03-0401 minOrigins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghanEpisode 02: Lika Guhathakurta - Space VisionaryShow Notes: STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) mission: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/main/index.htmlLiving With a Star Program: https://lws.gsfc.nasa.gov/Jack Eddy: https://aas.org/obituaries/john-allen-eddy-1931-2009The Jack Eddy Fellowship: https://cpaess.ucar.edu/heliophysics/jack-eddyWhat is Heliophysics? (4:45 & 38:00) https://science.nasa.gov/heliophysicsWhat is a magnetosphere? (41:45) https://science.nasa.gov/heliophysics/focus-areas/magnetosphere-ionosphereWhat is an ionosphere? (41:45) http://solar-center.stanford.edu/SID/activities/ionosphere.htmlWhat is space weather? https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/phenomenaMy own TED talk on space weather: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOVHUo_qbgcBook by N...
2019-03-0452 min