Join RCIScience for an evening of true, personal stories about how science made things awkward at this live recording of The Story Collider podcast!
From heart-breaking to hilarious, The Story Collider show is a live storytelling event featuring stories from people of all walks of life about how science helps us to discover how weird and wonderful it is to exist in this world and be a human. Whether you wear a lab coat or haven’t seen a test tube since grade school, science is shaping all our lives.
Use code SCIENCESTORY to receive a $5 discount!
Delivered in partnership with The Story Collider.
About The Hosts
Misha Gajewski: As managing producer at The Story Collider, Misha supervises the production our shows and produces and hosts the podcast. She is also a freelance journalist, educator, and copywriter. Her work has appeared on Vice, Forbes, BlogTO, CTV News, and BBC, among others. She’s the co-founder of the world’s first 24-hour true storytelling festival and has written scripts for the award-winning YouTube channel SciShow. Misha has a degree in business and psychology from Western University and a Masters in science journalism from City University London. She also has a cat named Satan and when she’s not writing in her pyjamas, she can be found exploring the world or refinishing old furniture. She is @mishagajewski and mishagajewski@storycollider.org.
Dr. Sara Mazrouei is a planetary scientist, an educational developer, and a science communicator with a passion for sharing the wonders of the universe with the public. Her PhD research focused on the recent bombardment history of the Moon and links to future sample-return missions. Her work has been featured in many media such as the New York Times and National Geographic. Sara is also passionate about increasing the status of women in STEM as well as equity, diversity and meaningful inclusion. Sara uses storytelling, examples including the Story Collider and TEDx Downsview Women, as a method for sharing her authentic experiences and making science more accessible. She is currently an Educational Developer at Ryerson University's Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching.
About The Storytellers
Set L. Shuter is a writer, filmmaker and storyteller from Toronto. She got her start in comedy as an elementary school class clown and later discovered her love of performance at The Second City training centre in Toronto. She holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from The University of King's College and is currently querying her horror-comedy medical memoir, Ovaries Gone Wild. Her essays have appeared in The Toronto Star, Chatelaine Magazine, Understorey Magazine, CBC, and Creative Nonfiction Magazine. Set has told her stories for the RISK! podcast, True Stories Told Live Toronto, Replay Storytelling, But That's Another Story, and more. When she isn't on stage or working, she is in Nova Scotia, writing her days away by the ocean.
Justina Assaad is a speech therapist and a self-proclaimed drama queen whose adventures and misfortunes occur solely to entertain others. She’s a newbie to the art of performative storytelling, but is excited to share her personal triumphs, laughs, and tragedies with complete strangers!
Sonia Rehal is currently an educator at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario and the director for Lipodystrophy Canada, and non-for-profit organization supporting lipodystrophy patients and caregivers. Being a lipodystrophy patient herself, her advocacy for awareness started young. Interested in understanding the pathophysiology of lipodystrophy, my postdoctoral training focused on lipid inflammation and insulin resistance in animal models of obesity. This journey has allowed her to travel the world and publish important research findings in highly cited research journals. More importantly, her academic career has given her a unique perspective to patient advocacy, highlighting how important disease awareness and research funding for prospective treatments and are for our lipodystrophy community. Lipodystrophy can vary in severity however these themes hold in common: Lipodystrophy is incurable, has inadequate medical treatment and affects multiple organ systems. Unfortunately, a severe form of lipodystrophy has affected her family and herself, losing both her mother and sister to its complications at a very young age. This loss has only further intensified her passion to support the rare disease community affected by lipodystrophy.
Julie Tomé is a science educator and communicator who has worked at various observatories, science centres, and museums where she shares her passion for all things science and history with folks of all ages through school programs, camps, exhibitions, and special programs. When not doing that, she can be found spending time with her family, at the karate dojo, playing board games, or doing all the crafting.
Paul Aflalo is Replay’s artistic director. He is a storyteller and documentary producer. He creates narrative-driven pieces for film, radio and podcasts. Paul has shared stories across Canada and parts of Europe and the UK. His focus has always been to help others share the stories that need to be told. He is also fascinated by the human unknown, take a listen to his radio documentary about aphantasia.