Episode 3: The Scientific Method pt. 1

#17 - Dr. Amanda Waters

We got the privilege to interview one of UCO's very own Chemistry Professor and Researcher Dr. Waters who has a BA in Chemistry, PhD in Pharmaceutical Science, and has spent some time at a NIH Laboratory. Not only is she great at these two things, but she is also seen by many as a great mentor. As with all of our first time guests who are professors we get into where Dr. Waters is from, and just where her insatiable curiosity comes from. We also dive into some of her research, and how she helps highlight not just her mentees research but many others that are wrapped up in a three headed research monster called the Tri-Center Symposium! This consists of the Center for Wildlife Forensics and Conservation Studies (CFACS), the Center for Interdisciplinary Biomedical Education and Research (CIBER), and the Center for Research and Education in Interdisciplinary Computation (CREIC). to reach Dr. Waters send her an email at: awaters3@uco.edu Here is a link to her UCO page: https://www3.uco.edu/centraldirectory/profiles/924485

#16 - Dr. Benjamin Tayo

Dr. Benjamin Tayo is a mentor to many here at UCO. He is the advisor of our beloved Physics Society, and a relentless Researcher. His research is in computational solid state/condensed matter physics. He recently published a ground breaking paper which is linked below. We dive into his background, his research, and some of his philosophies of life. Enjoy! Dr. Tayo's Latest Research Paper: ⁠Defect-Engineered Graphene Nanoribbons for Enhanced DNA Sequencing: A Study of Structural Defects and Their Impact on Nucleobase Interaction and Quantum Transport⁠ [https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.jpcb.5c03247?ref=article_openPDF] Available on YouTube as well: https://youtu.be/DiMpaTGnE30 Physics Society Website: ⁠Physics Society — Blog & Events [https://physicssociety.github.io/physics-society-website/]

Episode 5: Epistemology

How do we know what we know—and how much of that “knowledge” is an illusion? In this episode, Josh and Albert zoom out from the Scientific Method to explore the wild world of epistemology: the study of knowledge, belief, and justification. We’ll shake your confidence with quantum weirdness, psychological experiments, and logic paradoxes, then dive into philosophy, science, and even AI research to show why truth is far slipperier than you think. 🔍 WHAT’S INSIDE THIS EPISODE * 🔭 Quantum Mysteries: The Double-Slit Experiment and how observation changes reality. * 🧪 Authority vs. Truth: Milgram’s Obedience Study—why people obeyed orders to deliver lethal shocks. * 🧩 The Gettier Problem: When you’re right by accident, do you know anything? * 🔢 Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem: Why math itself has blind spots. * 🧠 Lenses of Knowledge: Empiricism, Rationalism, Pragmatism, Constructivism. * 🤖 AI as a Mirror: How machine learning challenges our definition of “understanding.”

Episode 4: Scientific Method pt. 2

Josh and Albert are back at it, wrapping up their deep dive into the Scientific Method and geeking out over some wild research finds you won’t want to miss.

Episode 3: The Scientific Method pt. 1

Ever wonder if the Scientific Method you learned in school was just scratching the surface? 👀 In this episode, we go beyond the basics and dive into a version that asks the hard questions—pushing scientists to really stress-test their theories. We’ll explore The Ethical Skeptic’s in-depth take on the Scientific Method and share our own thoughts along the way.