Imagine falling in love with baby zebrafish in high school and spending years of your life dedicated to cancer biology research. Now imagine becoming a cancer patient yourself in your mid-twenties. Annie and Q sit down with Brittany, an amazing graduate student to listen to her story and how the merging of the researcher and patient experience, especially during a global pandemic has forever changed how she and her fellow researcher will approach their work. Also touching upon the importance of graduate student advisors to be flexible and how amazing it is that a R1 public institution provided comprehensive health insurance during this critical time.

An episode months in the making, Here Comes 'Rona, brings together stories from fours graduate students working creatively in response to the challenges by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. With Christina we see what field research in the Arctic entails during a time of rigid safety rules and travel restrictions. In Atlanta, we go to Emory where Evan is continuing work at a clinic while also gathering insights on the mental health of graduate students, then we visit with Drew who had to cancel his field research in the Chesapeake Bay but who has found ways to use data from the past that will greatly help their work in environmental science. Then we go to New York City with Beryl Liu who shows us how graduate students in the performing arts are getting even more connected and creative around the world to make the arts a place for processing the events in our world in ever-increasingly inclusive ways.