Ockham's Razor ABC Podcast

Dr Yi-Kai Tea is a systematic ichthyologist with the Australian Museum. His research interests combine next generation sequencing techniques with traditional methods of morphology to better understand the evolutionary history of coral reef fishes. He has carved a niche in the aquarium hobby as a science communicator and his research has appeared in many media outlets including The New York Times, CNN, Forbes and National Geographic.

Dr Razia Zakarya is an epigeneticist with a PhD in cell and molecular biology. She is a Research Fellow at the University of Technology Sydney and Woolcock Institute’s Epigenetics of Chronic Disease group where she investigates how in-utero exposures predispose us to chronic diseases like asthma and diabetes.

David Crisante runs the Sydney Comedy School and Future Science Talks, two organisations aimed at improving people's public speaking and relationship-building skills. He has worked as a journalist, speechwriter and diplomatic negotiator, and now leads Future Science Talks: Comedy Edition, a federally-funded project training scientists to fuse humour into scientific presentations to make complex topics easier to understand.

Dr Indrani Mukherjee is a researcher and lecturer in Earth Sciences at the University of New South Wales. Her research questions key concepts and explores links in early Earth evolution, the origin of complex life and formation of precious mineral deposits. Her approach involves a nuanced understanding of ancient marine environments via novel and cutting-edge geochemical techniques.

Maddie Massy-Westropp is a researcher and science communicator. By day she creates content about the latest health and medical research at UNSW Sydney in her role as a health and medical journalist, which includes helping academics get comfortable in front of the camera. By night she takes on her social media alter-ego Mads From Lab to share 60-second science videos and advocate for representation of scientists, particularly women, in the media.

Dr Laura Driessen is a radio astronomer searching for stars with the Australian SKA Pathfinder telescope. She has used the Very Large Array and the Murchison Widefield Array to look at the black hole at the centre of our Galaxy, the Westerbork Synthesis Array to investigate the Crab pulsar, the Low Frequency Array to search for exploded stars, and MeerKAT to locate fast radio bursts. Laura is a researcher at the University of Sydney and a 2023-2024 Superstar of STEM.

Dr Jason Whitfield is a scientist and startup enabler. After his postdoctoral research into using biosensors to improve the observation of biological systems he changed career focus to help researchers realise the potential and impact of their work through accelerator programs. He runs Australia's leading bio-focused startup accelerator called SynBio10x with UNSW Founders and Main Sequence Ventures.

Jennifer Evans is the CEO, of the National Association of Testing Authorities, Australia (NATA). She has been with the NATA since 1987 and has held the position of Chief Executive Officer for the past 12 years. She has established a number of accreditation programs including medical imaging, paternity testing and one of the world’s first in forensic science. She is currently Chair of the Asia-Pacific Accreditation Cooperation (APAC) and holds a Bachelor of Applied Science (Medical Laboratory Science) and a Masters of Business Administration.