Megan Giddings is a writer who writes literary-speculative fiction about Midwestern Black women. Her debut novel, Lakewood (2020), was a finalist for two NAACP Image Awards and an LA Times Book Prize. Giddings' second novel, The Women Could Fly, was a New York Times' Editors' Choice and one of Vulture's best Fantasy novels of 2022. She and her work were featured on Late Night with Seth Meyers.

Manka Nkimbeng is a nurse scientist and community based participatory researcher. Her work employs quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods to examine factors that influence poor health in disproportionately affected communities. Through partnership with community members, organizations, and policymakers, she works to design, adapt, and test culturally appropriate interventions that can be translated into health policies and clinical practice to improve health and eliminate health inequities for older adults.

I am a board-certified veterinary large animal surgeon with a PhD in comparative and experimental medicine. My research is focused on studying pediatric orthopedic diseases of vascular origin. Our studies use large animal models to understand the pathogenesis and inform the diagnosis and treatment of these conditions, with the ultimate goal of decreasing the incidence of early onset of arthritis.

Department Biography

Heather Randell is a sociologist and demographer whose research examines the relationships between environmental change and population health and well-being. Her interdisciplinary work uses quantitative and qualitative methods to understand how climate change impacts food security and child nutrition, the ways that dam building reshapes the lives of local populations, and the social and environmental drivers of migration. Dr. Randell publishes in top journals and disseminates her work to the public through press interviews, podcasts, and popular media pieces.

Judy Yang investigates how interactions among fluid flow, particles, and microorganisms across scales shape landscape evolution and water quality. Her group develops innovative experimental platforms, from microfluidic devices to river-scale flumes, to uncover mechanisms driving sediment erosion, harmful algal blooms, and contaminant transport. These discoveries bridge physics, biology, and environmental engineering and advance predictive understanding needed to manage changing rivers, coasts, and soils.

Daniel Stanton studies the physiology and ecological significance of the often-overlooked little photosynthesizers that cover our land surfaces– mosses, lichens, and microbial crusts. His research seeks to understand how the ecological function of these understudied species varies with factors like climate stress or microbial interactions, and how this will play out under global change.

Department Biography