Science Friends Podcast Ep.1: Eric LeFlore UMass Amherst
Photo Trapping the Carnivores of Western Massachusetts
A bobcat with an Eastern gray squirrel in it’s jaws photographed in Amherst, MA.
Credit: Bill Thompson/USFWS
© USFWS – flickr
In a recent lecture and assignment for my Science Communication class with Josh Drew we learned about how to podcast. We had a very informative “basics of podcasting” walkthrough provided by our visiting journalist expert Rose Eveleth and were sent on our ways. Our task was to find an interesting scientist, interview them about their research, and make a podcast out of it. I decided to interview a good friend of mine from when I was in undergrad at Connecticut College, Eric LeFlore. Eric is now a PhD student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the department of Environmental Conservation where he is finishing up the Master’s portion of his program before he pursues his PhD.
I interviewed Eric over Skype and I recorded it (with his permission) using a free Skype audio recording app called Callnote. I had actually sent Eric an email with some topics we would talk about for the interview the day before so that he could get some of his thoughts straight. I approached the conversation very causally so that it would be relaxed as possible and I was excited to catch up with Eric and talk about his research and how he was doing otherwise. I was pleased with how Callnote worked and it was very easy to use. I think the audio quality of our Skype conversation was not perfect, but it worked well enough that you can make out what we are saying.
I then used Garageband on my Mac to edit the recordings into the podcast that is now before your ears. I mixed and matched a lot of our conversation and re-recorded myself asking all of the questions. I also edited out longer pauses, ums, and moments when I laughed or randomly exclaimed “MICE!?” for no reason. Our conversation was actually much longer and we talked about a few other topics that I did not include, mostly because the editing was taking me a while and because I was trying to keep it as relevant as possible to his research.
It was a great learning experience and I definitely appreciate podcasts more after seeing how difficult is can be to put one together. I like the idea of Science Friends and I have a few other buddies who I would love to catch up with, so perhaps there will be some more episodes in the future, stay tuned. For now enjoy Science Friends with Eric LeFlore!
A Graduate Student in the Marsh 