Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival

This is the 523nd episode of the Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. The podcast highlights adults and students doing fun and exciting things in STEM in our area. This episode, recorded on April 1st, features Alina Momin from JHU Hopkins University Applied Physics Labratory. Alina discusses working in the Computer Engineering field, working with and encouraging students in the area of computer science and traveling to places such as Iceland and Bali. Make sure to visit us at booth 1015 at Awesome Con this weekend. Details at https://awesome-con.com/

4/2/25 • 16:56

This is the 522nd episode of the Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. The podcast highlights adults and students doing fun and exciting things in STEM in our area. This episode, recorded on March 13th, celebrates Women's History Month and features Ashley Purcella. Ashley discusses working for Whiting-Turning in construction. Check out https://awesome-con.com/ and join us at the event!

3/19/25 • 14:56

This is the 521th episode of the Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. The podcast highlights adults and students doing fun and exciting things in STEM in our area. This episode, recorded on March 12th, features Maria Roat. Maria talks about her career in the Federal Government including being Deputy CIO, her time in the Navy, and her love of travel.

3/12/25 • 22:53

This is the 520th episode of the Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. The podcast highlights adults and students doing fun and exciting things in STEM in our area. This episode, recorded on February 28th, features Erin Sutton. Erin discusses her work at JHU APL, including the Dragonfly project, and her efforts to encourage young people to enter engineering.

3/5/25 • 16:33

This is the 519th episode of the Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. The podcast is where you meet adults and students doing fun and exciting things in STEM in our area. This episode features Sean Flowers, recorded on February 3rd, and Kiera Drew, recorded on February 21st. Sean discusses his organization, Ready Force Cyber, which creates tailor-made training program. Kiera discusses her program at North Carolina and her interest in pediatrics.

2/26/25 • 24:15

This is the 518th episode of the Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. The podcast is where you meet adults and students doing fun and exciting things in STEM in our area. This episode features SAIC's Sandra Dorsey recorded on February 14th. Sandra discusses working in Cybersecurity and Risk Management for SAIC's and her role leading SAIC's Women Employee Resource Group.

2/19/25 • 25:34

This is the 517th episode of the Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. The podcast is where you meet adults and students doing fun and exciting things in STEM in our area. This episode features Mike Peace of M.A.P. Technologies, recorded on February 3rd. Mike discusses what is happening in downtown Baltimore at M.A.P. Technologies, including coding, gaming, homework assistance,and Summer and Spring camps.

2/5/25 • 22:14

This is the 516th episode of the Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. The podcast is where you meet adults and students doing fun and exciting things in STEM in our area. This episode features Natalie Ciampa recorded on January 24th, and Aisha Abdulkarimu on January 20th. Natalie discusses her career path and love of costumes. Aisha discusses her studies at the University of Maryland and her internship in Latvia.

1/29/25 • 22:10

This is the 515th episode of the Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. The podcast is where you meet adults and students doing fun and exciting things in STEM in our area. This episode features Allison Earlbeck recorded on January 22nd. Allison discusses leading Earlbeck Gas and Technologies, her path to that position in the welding industry, and her love for dogs. The full article recognizing the podcasts as ninth ninth-best Maryland podcast can be found here. https://podcast.feedspot.com/maryland_podcasts/

1/22/25 • 23:33

This is the 514th episode of the Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. The podcast is where you meet adults and students doing fun and exciting things in STEM in our area. This episode features Julie Hoover of NASA recorded on January 14th. Julie talks about her career at NASA including her work on the Low Earth Orbit program that among other things is tracking the California wildfires.

1/15/25 • 20:05

This is episode 513 of the Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. This is a rebroadcast of an earlier episode. The podcast where you meet adults and students doing interesting and fun STEM activities in Maryland. This episode features Colonel Sharon Rosser recorded on December 26th and Kelly Ji recorded December 22. Colonel Rosser discussed his experience as a Physician Assistant and other Health Care roles in the US Army and her experience in our Middle School STEM Professional Match event and her love of motorcycles. She compares some of her overseas assignments to the TV show MASH. Kelly discussed the Science in Society Conference in January, her school's Science Olympiad team and her piano playing.

1/8/25 • 26:58

This is the 512th episode of the Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. The podcast is where you meet adults and students doing fun and exciting things in STEM in our area. This episode features Krystal Rolon of the Glenelg County School, recorded on December 17th, and Teni Taiwo, recorded on December 22nd. Krystal discusses her work at the Glenelg County School, working with the Howard Astronomical League. Teni discusses her internship, computer science, and participation in the Maryland STEM Festival.

12/25/24 • 18:43

This is the 511th Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast episode. The podcast is where you meet adults and students doing fun and exciting things in STEM in our area. This episode features Capitol Technology University's Dr. William Butler, recorded on December 16th, and Arjun Bajaj and Hero Biars from the Glenelg County School, recorded on November 26th. Dr. Butler discusses his role at Capitol Technology and his time in the Marine Corp. Arjun Bajaj and Hero Biars discuss being on the Glenelg County School Robotics team. Capitol Technology Univerisity is one of our Silver Sponsors. We greatly appreciate their support of the Festival.

12/18/24 • 27:06

This is episode 510 of the Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast The podcast where you meet adults and students doing interesting and fun STEM activities in Maryland. This episode features interviews Chenira Smith from the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology recorded on April 29th and Sara Sarfraz recorded on April 25th. This is a rebroadcast of an earlier episode

12/11/24 • 26:06

This is the 509th episode of the Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. The podcast is where you meet adults and students doing fun and exciting things in STEM in our area. This episode features Amanda Moore, recorded on January 3rd, and the Alphabots Robotics team, recorded on December 26th. The Alphabots interviewed were Kyle Chen, Hangyu Dong, Eric Han, Iris Li, Addison Liu, Alice Song, Larry Tong, and Leyna Zhou. Amanda discussed her role at Booz Allen Hamilton and her work in the cybersecurity field. The Alpabots discussed their favorite subjects, their roles on the robotic team, and the Festival's Closing Ceremony.

12/4/24 • 33:02

This is the 508th Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast episode. The podcast is where you meet adults and students doing fun and exciting things in STEM in our area. This episode features Data Scientist Zaire Wade, recorded on September 30th, and Niranjana Attoor, recorded on October 15th. Zaiyre discusses his career as a Data Scientist and his interest in teaching coding to students. Niranjana discussed being part of the Urbana STEM Program, which includes recycling batteries and teaching coding to elementary and middle school students. Please consider supporting the Maryland STEM Festival by contributing to our GoFundMe campaign It can be found at https://tinyurl.com/tvkde4cr .

11/27/24 • 27:30

This is the 507th episode of Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. The podcast is where you meet adults and students doing fun and exciting things in STEM in our area. This special episode features former NASA astronaut Don Thomas in honor of the conclusion of the 10th Maryland STEM Festival. Don participated in our closing ceremony on November 17th. This interview was recorded on November 18t. Don discusses his path to and career as an astronaut and his work in STEM outreach.

11/20/24 • 31:56

This a rebroadcast of an earlier inerviews with Science Performer Eric Energy (https://www.ericenergy.com/ ) recorded on March 30, 2023 and students from Maryland International School (https://marylandinternationalschool.org/ ) recorded on March 24, 2023

11/14/24 • 31:23

This is the 505th episode of Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. The podcast where you meet adults and students doing fun and exciting things in STEM in our area. In this podcast, we interview Kim Paradise, recorded on November 5th, and Aditi Channashetti, recorded on March 11th. Kim discusses her work at Mindgrub, their STEM Festival event on November 4th, Cybersecurity, and competitive roller skating. Aditi discusses her interest in computer science, her efforts on the Spider Bits robotics team and her internship at JHU APL.

11/6/24 • 27:28

This is the 504th episode of Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. The podcast where you meet adults and students doing fun and exciting things in STEM in our area. In this podcast, we interview artist Thy Nguyen, recorded on October 24th, and Liam Mixter, recorded on October 26th. Thy discusses her process for developing the Festival's new mascot, what type of art she likes to create, and her ideal art job. Liam discusses the STEM program at his school, being a Maryland STEM festival ambassador, running cross-country, and his interest in engineering.

10/30/24 • 26:39

This is our 502nd episode of Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. We are getting ready for the opening of the 10th Maryland Friday at JHU APL. We have a special interview with Dr. Thomas Jones, a former Space Shuttle astronaut, to celebrate the beginning of the Festival. Thursday evening, he will discuss his new book, Space Shuttle Stories, at the Elkridge Library. The event is full, but you can hear him discuss his career. The interview was recorded on October 14th.

10/16/24 • 29:35

This is our 501th episode of Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. On this podcast, you meet adults and students doing exciting and fun STEM activities in our area. This is the second of a two-part show dedicated to our good friend Marco Ciavolino, who we lost too soon last year. This episode features interviews with his wife, Susan, and an interview with Marco, which was recorded in 2018.

10/9/24 • 24:38

This is our 500th episode of Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. On this podcast, you meet adults and students doing exciting and fun STEM activities in our area. This is the first of a two-part show dedicated to our good friend Marco Ciavolino, who we lost too soon last year. This episode features interviews with Jonathan Shulgach, a former member of his robotics team and now a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon, and Gina Fugate, his colleague who works at the Maryland School for the Blind.

10/2/24 • 24:38

This is episode 499 of the Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. On this podcast, you meet adults and students doing exciting and fun STEM activities in our area. This episode features interviews with Ann Miller recorded on September 23rd and a rebroadcast of an interview with Chelsea Onuekwusi in honor of her re-election to the Maryland STEM Festival Board. Ann discusses her new organization, Science is Elemental, her passion for STEM education, playing the violin, and baking. Chelsea discusses her work as an intern at JHU's Applied Physics lab and her work with social media.

9/25/24 • 21:36

This is episode 498 of the Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. On this podcast, you meet adults and students doing exciting and fun STEM activities in our area. This episode features interviews with Dr Tiara Cornelius and Victoria Castell from the University of Maryland on the Eastern Shore recorded on September 12th. Dr. Cornelius discusses her roles at UMES, the STEM Stars, her attendance at UMES where her mother worked, and her growing up on the Eastern Shore. Victoria further discusses the STEM Stars, her interest in becoming a physician, and her many extracurricular activities.

9/18/24 • 29:43

This is episode 497 of the Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. On this podcast, you meet adults and students doing exciting and fun STEM activities in our area. This episode features interviews with John Watkins, recorded on Sept 11th, and Allison Andreyev, recorded on September 3rd. John discusses his business, Computer Island, and his work in promoting STEM in Queen Anne's County. Allison discusses her interest in programming, being on her school's debate team, and painting cats.

9/11/24 • 29:38

This is episode 496 of the Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. On this podcast, you meet adults and students doing exciting and fun STEM activities in our area. This episode features interviews with Rob O'Malley, recorded on August 23rd, and Aahana Nigam, recorded on September 3rd. Rob discusses is work with primates as a Science Communicator and his experiences with the Boy Scouts. Aahana discussed her interest in chemistry and STEM, her volunteer work at the local hospital, and her work with the battery recycling program.

9/4/24 • 27:04

This is episode 495 of the Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. On this podcast, you meet adults and students doing exciting and fun STEM activities in our area. This episode features interviews with AWS's Diya Wynn, recorded on August 23rd, and Veronica Wang, recorded on August 16th. Diya discusses what Responsible AI is and her lifelong interest in It and Computers. Veronica discusses her participation in the Boeing HS Business Competition and interest in quantum physics.

8/28/24 • 26:26

This is episode 494 of the Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. On this podcast, you meet adults and students doing exciting and fun STEM activities in our area. This episode features interviews with Kate Barnes and Ian Hillard both recorded on August 6th. Kate discusses her work bringing in new and exciting people to Perdue, particularly those with a STEM focus, and why she wanted to join the Maryland STEM Festival Board of Directors. Ian discusses his interest n Math, Computer Science, and Game Development.

8/7/24 • 18:28

This is episode 493 of the Fun with the Maryland STEM Festival Podcast. On this podcast, you meet adults and students doing exciting and fun STEM activities in our area. This episode features interviews with Joshua Simmons, recorded on June 28th, and Arun Vaidyanathan, recorded on July 30th. Joshua discusses starting and running his company, Cogito and serving in the Navy. Arun discusses his interest in Aerospace Engineering and participating in the Boeing High School Business Case Competition.

7/31/24 • 26:12