The Story Collider is thrilled to partner with Boise State University to share true, personal science stories from The AWESOME Center’s research teams.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. MT. Show starts at 7:00 p.m. MT.
Hosted by Erin Barker and Jitesh Jaggi.
Stories by:
Amelia Jobe is a sociologist deeply interested in the social structures that shape technology. Her current work—which examines the systems behind nonconsensual AI-generated pornography—sits at the intersection of AI, gender, sexuality, violence, and labor. In addition to her research, Amelia is an adjunct professor in Boise State's sociology department, an embedded sociologist with the AWESOME Center, a researcher with the Syringa State Community Research Lab, and a mentor for the Intermountain Social Research Lab. Outside of work, you can usually find her cooking a new recipe, digging into a new sci-fi or fantasy book, or negotiating couch space with her cats.
Jim Fredricksen is the Director of the Undergraduate Research and Mentoring Institute and a Professor for English Teaching at Boise State. He began his career in 1992 as a middle school English teacher and has spent more than three decades in education guided by a simple question: how do people learn together? His work centers on listening and the power of narrative, particularly how people use stories to make sense of the challenges they face and to imagine what might come next. Through teaching, mentoring, and research, he helps create spaces where learners can reflect, connect, and see new possibilities for themselves and others.
Karthik Srinivasan is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Boise State University, Idaho. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, in 2021, and spent a short stint as a postdoctoral associate at Cornell University before joining Boise State in 2023. Dr. Srinivasan's research encompasses the design, development, and application of magnetic and photonic materials and devices to address emerging challenges in computing, communication, and sensing technologies. Outside the lab, he enjoys biking, is an avid gamer, and is an aviation geek.
Leslie Atkins is a professor at Boise State University whose work moves across physics, science studies, and education. Trained as a physicist, she studies how scientific concepts—light, time, energy, information—take shape, how those concepts are made legible to nonscientists, and how they transform how people notice, interpret, and inhabit their everyday lives. Her work has included collaboration with the Dalai Lama's Emory-Tibet Science Initiative, the North Carolina Governor's School, and the Matthew Strother Center for the Examined Life. She lives in Boise with her daughter and her dogs, Newton and Emmy Noether.
Eric Jankowski's first Story Collider show was in the basement of the Ann Arbor District Library in 2011. Since then, he's published over 40 papers on molecular simulations and engineering education and he now leads the Micron School of Materials Science and Engineering at Boise State University. His collaborations with The Story Collider have led to three NSF-funded projects and been recognized by the American Society for Engineering Education and the Anthem Awards. He still likes bicycles and playing a board game called go, and still thinks sharing stories is the best way to improve big, complex systems.
