SUBSTANCE  
Stories about the stuff that shapes our world.

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Latest Episode: Water 

In this episode, our host Joe Hanson discusses a SUBSTANCE that is literally vital: water. Former NASA employee, now entrepreneur Diana Yousef and BASF scientist Ligia Azevedo make it clear in their stories, that the economical use of clean drinking water is essential for our survival and how new technologies can help us preserve it.

Diana Yousef, PhD, experienced water scarcity in her family history and, as founder and CEO of change:WATER Labs, wants to change how and how much of it we use. With her experience in space research, she developed a waterless toilet.

Ligia Azevedo, PhD, works at the Agricultural Solutions division of BASF and is involved in an innovative method to reduce water consumption and methane emissions in rice cultivation. That is a decisive lever: Rice is the staple food for more than two-thirds of the world’s population with a traditional cultivation that consumes vast amounts of freshwater.

Responsible water use concerns us all. This episode inspires you with two concrete examples of how things can be changed to the better.

Our guest: Diana Yousef, PhD

Diana Yousef is founder and CEO of change:WATER Labs which developed a low-cost, compact, waterless toilet for non-sewered households and communities in poor and vulnerable communities. Formerly, Yousef consulted for McKinsey, co-founded IFC/World Bank’s Life Sciences Investment Group and the United Nations’ Inclusive Markets incubator. She co-founded WeCyclers (social venture to clean up urban slums and create recyclables supply chain linkages in Nigeria), Immerse Global (Stanford-spin out to develop atmospheric water capture technologies), and SachSiSolar (MIT-spin out to develop revolutionary new materials to lower the cost of solar energy). She is a former PhD protein biochemist who studied in Harvard and Cornell, and holds an MBA and MA in International Development. She serves as an advisor to the TED Fellows Program and a Founding Council Member for NASA/USAID’s LAUNCH Accelerator. 

Our guest: Ligia B. Azevedo, PhD

Ligia B. Azevedo’s is Senior Sustainability Manager at BASF in Limburgerhof, Germany. After earning a Bachelor' Degree in Agronomic Engineering at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil and a Master’s degree in Soils and Biogeochemistry at the University of California, USA she completed a PhD in ecological modelling at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. From 2013 to 2016, she worked at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria, specializing in process-based biogeochemical crop modelling. Her work combines in-depth knowledge of soil dynamics with modern systems analysis approaches, contributing significantly to a better understanding of ecological processes.

Our host: Joe Hanson, PhD 

Joe Hanson is an internationally recognized science communicator. Before working in science media and education, he researched genetic engineering and cancer biology, obtaining a PhD in biology from the University of Texas.

He is the creator, host, and head writer of Be Smart, a YouTube science education show with more than 5 million subscribers on YouTube.
Hanson has won Webby and Telly Awards and the Kavli Science Journalism Award for his work. 

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