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 170+ 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

  • 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

  • The U.S. Surgeon General says Americans are confronting an epidemic of loneliness. About half of U.S. adults report experiencing loneliness, and that was before the COVID-19 pandemic. Loneliness has physical health consequences, and impacts work performance, academic achievement and our overall mental health. Additionally, the Surgeon General has warned that the stress of caring for children has an impact on our mental health. Many members of Generation X may be caring for children or again parents or both, and the stress of caregiving has impacts on mental health as well. In this episode of Further Together, hosts Michael Holtz and Matthew Underwood talk to Jennifer Reynolds, senior manager of health communication, marketing, and promotion and Kristin Mattson, senior health education specialist. Both work in ORAU's Public Health and Healthcare Program. Throughout this episode, the hosts and guests discuss the problems, contributing factors, their lived experience, and where ORAU has done work to better understand and provide solutions.

    Listen to Episode 168 Transcript for Episode 168

    Check out the videocast for Episode 168

  • As Baby Boomers continue to age -- and let's be real Generation X isn't far behind -- healthy aging and how to care for this population will be critical. Elaine Jurkowski, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Social Work at the University of Southern Illinois Carbondale, received an ORAU Innovation Partnership Programs grant to host a day-long event called Destination Healthy Aging. The continuing education event for health care workers addressed caregiving, addressed the caregiver, addressed our workforce, talked about life after caregiving, talked about building communities that would be inclusive and age friendly for caregiving. We also addressed person-centered care and caregiving in place. That is, people remain in their own home and we figure out ways to strengthen the caregivers, so that they can do that job in helping that loved one stay in their home for as long as possible and even, hopefully, till they transition from this life. In this episode of Further Together, host Michael Holtz talks to Jurkowski and student GeVonna Fassett about the Destination Healthy Aging event, including how they decided to launch a program and the topic and what the impact was.

    Listen to Episode 167 Transcript for Episode 167

  • Lakshya Sharma is student coordination manager for the Resource Center of Excellence Greater Atlanta, one of dozens of such centers around the world working to advance the United Nations' sustainable development goals. An ORAU Innovation Partnership Grant was awarded to RCE Greater Atlanta and Georgia Tech to help fund an Urban Horticulture and Permaculture Workshop, which brought together students from Georgia Tech, the University of Georgia, Georgia State, Morehouse College, Spelman College and other institutions across the Atlanta area. In this episode of Further Together, Sharma talks to host Michael Holtz and guest host Tracie Curtright from ORAU's Research and University Partnerships Office about the workshop. Sharma says students learned to incorporate plant life into their daily lives by gardening where they are. Sharma says the series of workshops also focused on the mental health benefits of caring for and having plants in your physical environment. Curtright shared details about the IPG program, and how ORAU's university partners can apply to use these $4,000 grants to grow attendance and dissemination of events like the one Sharma and his team organized.

    Listen to Episode 166 Transcript for Episode 166

  • Sunil Pulletikurti, Ph.D., is a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow conducting research on the chemical origins of life. Essentially, he's investigating how small molecules become parts of larger molecules—for example, how an amino acid becomes part of a protein and other cellular transformation. In this conversation with host Michael Holtz, Pulletikurti takes a deep dive into his research, the time he spent at NASA before his postdoctoral fellowship, what sparked his interest in science, the struggle of coming from an impoverished childhood in India to being part of a global research enterprise, and how the fellowship will impact his career. 

    Listen to Episode 165 Transcript for Episode 165

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