We’re back with our mini-series, chatting with folks on campus who support graduate students in every aspect of life! This week, your hosts, Maris Schneider and Garth Casbourn, are chatting with Melanie Molnar, the Ombudsperson at Western University. Melanie is a professional mediator who supports graduate students as they move through their programs and learn to navigate complex relationships with supervisors and advisors. Tune in to learn more about Melanie’s role in graduate life and how you can use the Ombudsperson to support your academic journey.

Recorded on Tuesday, Sep 15, 2026 Produced by Kuljeet Chohan Theme song provided by FreeBeats.io (Produced by WhiteHot)

In this week's episode, hosts Ryan Baxter and Mark Ambrogio interview Rory Succee as he graduates with his MA in Archaeology and Biological Anthropology. A newly-minted Western graduate, Rory is about to begin a PhD in Art History – also here at Western. Congratulations, Rory!

In their conversation, Ryan and Mark ask Rory about research he undertook at St. Dominic's Cemetery in D'Hanis, Texas — a cemetery of German heritage. Rory shares anecdotes about his fieldwork at the cemetery, as well as how he learned from oral history and archival research, not to mention enjoying the famous "southern hospitality" from the local Texans.

As he enters his PhD, Rory is interested in the work of the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, as well as other noteworthy Latin American artists, including Frida Kahlo, Poty Lazzarotto, Candido Portinari, and Fernando Botero.

In this episode, hosts Anthony Cruz and Ryan Baxter are joined by neuroscience PhD student Nima Zargarnezhad. An amateur musician from an early age, Nima relates how, as an undergraduate in electrical engineering, he developed a fascination with how the human brain works. For his Master's research, Nima was able to combine the strands of his musicianship, his computational skills, and his neurological interests, and bring all three to bear on a project at Western's Centre for Brain and Mind. Using a sound equipment array known as the audiodome, he created virtual sound spaces to study how the human brain interprets positional information from the sounds in its environment.

You can learn more about Nima and his research at the following links: