Further Together the ORAU Podcast

Latest Episodes:

What's going on with men facing cancer: An ORAU-Directed Research and Development Grant conversation Nov 20, 2025

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Behavioral health during cancer care is a critical issue. Anyone faced with a cancer diagnosis is faced with emotional, social, spiritual, familial and other issues. On top of that, for men in our society there is an expectation that vulnerability and asking for help is weakness. The non-profit organization Man Up to Cancer seeks to upend that expectation by helping men find social and emotional support from other men during their cancer journeys. MUTC has been successful at growing a community and gaining support from oncology community for its work, but no data exists to prove that peer-to-peer support for men facing cancer works. That’s where a 2025 ORAU-Directed Research and Development Grant comes in. Primary Investigator Katherine Chyka, ORAU health education specialist, and Teresa Hagan Thomas, PhD, RN, FAAN, associate professor in the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing, launched a pilot study to measure the acceptability and feasibility of peer-to-per support for men facing cancer. In this episode of Further Together, hosts Michael Holtz and Amber Davis talk to Chyka and Thomas for an early look at their research. Data analysis is still underway, but the team has already gained valuable insights. Disclosure: Holtz is chairman of the board of directors for Man Up to Cancer and proposed a study of peer-to-peer support for men facing cancer as part of a white paper he wrote in 2023. Holtz helped train navigators for the study and recruited members of the Community Advisory Board but was not involved in the study itself. The white paper and more information can be found here: https://www.orau.org/news/releases/2023/making-an-impact-on-cancer-personally-and-professionally.html To learn more about Man Up to Cancer, visit https://manuptocancer.org/ ORAU-Directed Research and Development Grants support collaborations between ORAU subject matter experts and faculty at our University Consortium member institutions. To learn more, visit https://www.orau.org/partnerships/grant-programs/odrd.html

For the health of former energy workers: A deep dive into the National Supplemental Screening Program Nov 12, 2025

Show notes

ORAU coordinates the evaluation of DOE former workers through the National Supplemental Screening Program. Through the NSSP, the U.S. Department of Energy offers free customized medical screenings to their former workers who may have been exposed to hazardous substances on the job site. On this episode of Further Together, host Michael Holtz and Wendy Benade, operations manager, and Heather O’Maonaigh, outreach manager, take a deep dive into the program, from outreach to enrollment and so much more. ORAU manages the program along with great partners, including National Jewish Health, Acuity International, Cority Software, and the Center for Health, Work & Environment at the Colorado School of Public Health. Former workers include eligible DOE federal, contractor, and subcontractor workers. The screenings are designed to identify findings consistent with occupational diseases such as chronic respiratory illnesses, hearing loss, kidney or liver disease, and some forms of cancer. Since the program was established in 2005, more than 22,500 initial exams of former workers have been conducted, and more than 11,000 follow-up exams. To learn more about the NSSP and the various former worker programs, visit: DOE Former Worker Medical Screening Program (FWP) website: https://www.energy.gov/ehss/former-worker-medical-screening-program-0 Find Your Program Tool on the DOE FWP website: https://ehss.energy.gov/FWP_findyourprogram/ NSSP website: https://orau.org/nssp NSSP phone number (toll-free): 1-866-812-6703

Keep pursuing your ideas: A conversation with Aakash Chhabra, Ph.D., NASA Postdoctoral Fellow Nov 05, 2025

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Aakash Chhabra, Ph.D., is a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at the Earth Science Division at NASA Ames. Chhabra's background is studying fires and forest ecology using satellite data or remote sensing data. He did his Ph.D. research in Australia on studying the effects of bushfires, he says, because it's a land shaped by fires. While writing his dissertation, he wrote down some ideas for future research. Then he learned about the NPP, contacted scientists at NASA and the rest, as they say, is history. In this episode of Further Together, Chhabra discusses his research and urges fellow scientists who have novel ideas to pursue them and seek out opportunities like the NASA Postdoctoral Program where those ideas can flourish. To learn more about the NASA Postdoctoral Program or to apply, visit https://npp.orau.org/

Nuclear Science Week 2025: An ORAU-funded research project and the cutting edge of radiation research Oct 22, 2025

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Dray Gentry, a clinical physicist on ORAU’s radiation epidemiology team, is the primary investigator for an ORAU-Directed Research and Development Grant project that aims to determine the feasibility of using artificial intelligence to speed up the process of identifying chromosomal abnormalities in the Radiation Emergency Assistance Center/Training Site Cytogenetic Biodosimetry Laboratory, which is part of the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education that ORAU manages for the U.S. Department of Energy. The second is to help determine the total dose cancer patients are exposed to during treatment. In this episode of Further Together, Gentry talks to hosts Michael Holtz and Amber Davis about his research, why it’s important and what he hopes to accomplish in the next phase of his project.

Strengthening Regional Food System Resilience: A conversation with ORAU experts about their white paper Oct 16, 2025

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ORAU is tackling one of the most pressing challenges of our time: food security. ORAU is seeking a partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to lead efforts to strengthen America’s food systems against emerging threats like supply chain disruptions and biological hazards. ORAU’s recently published white paper, Strengthening Regional Food System Resilience: A Framework for Risk Assessment and Emergency Preparedness outlines a transformative plan to address these challenges. This framework leverages ORAU’s interdisciplinary expertise, advanced modeling tools and stakeholder engagement to help USDA identify vulnerabilities and implement targeted interventions. In this conversation, hosts Michael Holtz and Amber Davis talk to ORAU experts Kara Stephens, Matthew Schnupp and Rachel Vasconez about their white paper, the framework they have created, and why it matters now.

Decoding the data ecosystem: How ORAU is helping accelerate discovery in omics research Oct 08, 2025

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Because of our strong capabilities in training and technical assistance, ORAU was contracted by the National Institutes of Health to develop a state-of-the-art training center for users of the Common Fund Data Ecosystem. This ecosystem is an infrastructure to make data from the NIH’s various programs easier to access with the aim of facilitating improved discovery, reuse, integration, and analyses of these datasets to form novel hypothesis for accelerating discoveries in biomedical research. In this episode of Further Together, Allissa Dillman, Ph.D., co-principal investigator and owner of BioData Sage LLC, and Jennifer Burnette, ORAU project director, talk to host Michael Holtz about the importance of the CFDE Training Center and how it can help researchers mine data for omics research of various kinds. Dillman also hosts the Decoding the Data Ecosystem Podcast, which dives deep into unraveling the complexities and exploring the depths of omics data. The podcast can be found here: https://blubrry.com/3847772/ Check out the Common Fund Data Ecosystem Training Center here: https://orau.org/cfde-trainingcenter/index.html Find the Common Fund Data Ecosystem here: https://commonfund.nih.gov/dataecosystem

Watching the sausage get made: A conversation with Rachel Harris, Ph.D., NASA Postdoctoral Management Fellow Sep 24, 2025

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As a child in rural Appalachia, Rachel Harris spent her days in her father’s vegetable garden, playing with dinosaur figurines and dreaming of ancient worlds. Today, she’s part of a very different world, working behind the scenes at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., as a NASA Postdoctoral Management Program (NPMP) fellow. Harris, who holds a Ph.D. in geosciences with a focus on biogeochemistry and environmental microbiology, isn’t in a traditional lab or field site. Instead, she’s embedded in science management and policy, where NASA’s missions are carefully shaped and supported. In this episode of Further Together, Harris discusses how she wanted to watch the sausage get made from a space policy perspective. “I thought I had a good understanding of NASA bureaucracy, but I’ve come to realize how interconnected and thorough the process really is," Harris said. "There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work that ensures everything NASA shares with the community is vetted and supported.” To learn more about the NASA Postdoctoral Program, or to apply, visit https://npp.orau.org/

Unlocking the challenge of growing food in space: A conversation with Luke Fountain, Ph.D., NASA Postdoctoral Fellow Sep 17, 2025

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Luke Fountain, Ph.D., is a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow on the Space Crop Production Team at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The UK native's research focuses on on supplementing astronauts' diet with fresh food that is grown in space. "Eventually, we're hoping to replace calories. And as we transition to become more earth-independent, obviously, we want the astronauts to be able to supply, grow more of their own food, so we're less reliant on resupply," he said during his interview for Further Together. Fountain adds that growing plants in space is not easy, and that part of the challenge involves the significantly higher carbon dioxide levels in the International Space Station, where experiments involving plants take place. Learn more about Fountain's research and its importance to future space flight during this episode. Learn more about the NASA Postdoctoral Fellowship Program at https://npp.orau.org/

'I can't imagine not working at NASA:' A conversation with Bradley Gay, Ph.D., NASA Postdoctoral Fellow Sep 10, 2025

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Bradley Gay, Ph.D., describes both his career and life paths as a “long-winding, topsy-turvy journey,” but the long road he took to get to the NASA Postdoctoral Fellowship Program was clearly worth it. Gay is a researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he studies permafrost carbon feedback in Arctic tundra. In this episode of the Further Together: The ORAU Podcast, Gay talks about his research, why it is important, his career trajectory and more. He also highly recommends the NASA NPP program as a place for up-and-coming scientists to find their place. To learn more about NASA NPP, or to apply for a Postdoctoral Fellowship, visit https://npp.orau.org/

Getting paid to do what you love: A conversation with Sanchita Pal, Ph.D., NASA NPP Fellow Aug 13, 2025

Show notes

Sanchita Pal, Ph.D., is a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow studying solar storms at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. In this episode of Further Together, Pal discusses the planetary impact of solar storms. “Earth has a magnetosphere, so that actually protects us from the heavy impact of these solar storms. But other planets like Mars and Venus, which do not have magnetospheres, are very much affected by these kinds of storms because they can lose their atmospheric mass, which is a huge field of study right now, as we are planning to go to Mars in the Artemis Mission.” Pal talks about growing up in India, moving to Finland for her research, how her interest in solar storms began, and how she leapt at the NPP opportunity. To learn more about the NASA Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, visit https://npp.orau.org/about/orau.html

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