A podcast All Together Different
Join George Mason University President Gregory Washington as he invites experts, change-makers, innovators, and thought leaders to engage in meaningful conversations about the greatest challenges of our time.
Listen and learn from audacious people from George Mason and beyond who represent the diversity of insight, the agility of collaboration, and the tenacity required in the struggle for a better future that is at the essence of the Mason Nation.
President Gregory Washington hosts each episode of the Access to Excellence podcast, recorded on the campus of George Mason University.
What are the chances of intelligent life beyond Earth?
Since putting the first man on the Moon in 1969, scientists have continued to push our knowledge and understanding of life and existence in vast unknown frontiers of space. Whether through Mars colonies or alien life forms, we're all wondering what and who can survive beyond Earth's atmospheres.
In this episode of Access to Excellence, associate professor of computational and data sciences Anamaria Berea discusses her research on Mars settlements and Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon as she and President Gregory Washington debate the question on everyone’s mind: is there life beyond Earth?
"So we have an unidentified phenomenon, so it might be a new physical or atmospheric phenomenon that we haven't discovered yet, right? Because we don't know everything in science right now. Until we can actually scientifically analyze these, it's really difficult for us to say: what are these things? And we cannot say that only based on public opinion or allegations. We do need rigorous scientific studies so that we can turn that unidentified into identified."
Anamaria Berea
Access to Excellence, Episode 62
Anamaria Berea, associate professor in the Department of Computational and Data Sciences
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All Episodes
April 19, 2022Jim Trefil, a Mason physicist and Robinson Professor, explains the importance of a scientific worldview. The author of more than 50 books and one of the developers of the modern theories about quarks as a fundamental component of the universe, Trefil is helping pioneer a new way of teaching science.
March 15, 2022Larry Pfeiffer, director of Mason’s Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security explains Vladimir Putin’s real agenda in Ukraine and why China is taking notes. He also asks Americans to guard against autocracy at home because, as he said, it doesn’t take much for a country's values to be subverted and freedoms suppressed.
February 18, 2022Charles Chavis, an assistant professor of conflict resolution and history, and director of African and African American studies, talks about his new book that explores the lynching of a young Black man in Salisbury, Md, and how understanding his story and the Black experience can help find the right ways to fight anti-Black violence today.
January 12, 2022Ted Dumas, an associate professor of psychology and an experienced researcher, reveals foods we are losing to climate change, how a pooping bear in Japan can help keep cherries from extinction, and that if we do nothing about the climate, most of the US could be uninhabitable by 2100.
December 8, 2021Thalia Goldstein, associate professor of applied developmental psychology explains how kids benefit socially and emotionally from finding out Santa Claus isn’t real. Even so, Goldstein admits she is still disappointed about hearing the truth. A conversation with real holiday spirit.
November 19, 2021John G. Turner explains the real history of Thanksgiving. Were the Pilgrims religious refugees who established democracy and the holiday in New England, or invaders who betrayed their native allies and even enslaved them? A fascinating story with lots to digest.
November 10, 2021Hakeem Oluseyi explains how he went from a life of crime to being one of the world’s renowned astrophysicists. He describes what aliens might look like – think a two-foot tall Incredible Hulk – and how the pull of the classroom overcame the pull of the streets.
October 13, 2021Lisa Gring-Pemble, co-director of Mason's Business for a Better World Center and co-founder of the Honey Bee Initiative explains how the initiative has become and international phenomenon and how the Business for a Better World Center is helping businesses drive sustainability success.
August 26, 2021Mason's Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a nationally recognized expert on the U.S.-Mexico border, has a slightly different view of the border region than we generally see on television news. She talks about the wonders and the dangers of the region, her research into border security, social movements and human trafficking.
July 28, 2021Mason's Cynthia Lum, a former Baltimore City cop, talk about how evidence-based policing is part of an overall strategy to fight crime that also includes police being respectful to the communities with which they work.
July 14, 2021Spencer Crew, A Robinson Professor of U.S. history at Mason and the first African American to lead a major Smithsonian museum, talks about the evolving role museums play in society, and how the Black community in the United States, and those who work with it, are trying to be the conscience of the nation.
June 26, 2021Shane Caswell, co-director of Mason's S.M.A.R.T. Lab, discusses his research that could change the way we diagnose and treat concussions, and what the latest science tells us about concussions and CTE.