Who We Are

AGU Staff

Shane M Hanlon is Executive Producer and co-host of Third Pod from the Sun. He is also Manager of AGU’s Sharing Science program (@AGU_SciComm) where he helps scientists explain their research to non-scientists. He is a science communicator, ecologist by training, science-policy, advocate, educator, and storyteller. His love of science led him to study frogs and turtles, a PhD in conservation biology, a couple science-policy fellowships, and his current gigs with AGU and has a host/producer of the DC branch of the science storytelling organization The Story Collider. Find him on Twitter and Instagram


Vicky Thompson is co-host of Third Pod and AGU’s Assistant Director of Development working with the team to find foundational funding for AGU’s programs and the Earth and space sciences. Vicky has a background in fundraising for higher education and the arts, previously supporting Vermont Law School, New Jersey City University, and DC’s own Artomatic. Before falling in love with nonprofits, Vicky was a jack of all trades, working as a telemarketer, nanny, bus driver, snack bar chef, and art teacher. Vicky holds a master’s degree in public administration and nonprofit management from Seton Hall University, is working towards a second master’s degree in data analytics and visualization at the Maryland Institute College of Art, and holds a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies from Hobart and William Smith Colleges.


Olivia V. Ambrogio is a producer and (sometimes) artist for Third Pod. She is also Assistant Director of the Sharing Science program at AGU, where she does her best to help other scientists connect with wider audiences. She is a biologist by training who got her Ph.D. studying the sex lives of marine snails. In spite of the surprising allure of this research, she eventually shifted into the field of science communication. In her spare time she writes and takes nature photos, often frustrating her partner and friends (who just wanted to take a walk) by crouching on the ground to photograph an insect.


Producers, Audio, & Art

Karen Romano Young is an illustrator for Third Pod. She is a writer, illustrator, comic creator, polar explorer, and deep-sea diver. 2022 sees the publication of her 31st children’s book — Antarctica: The Melting Continent.  Karen’s work as a science communicator has taken her on expeditions all over the world, and inspired the creation of her science comic series #AntarcticLog. Her new project, I Was A Kid, is intended to open doors to careers in the sciences for young people. New books about the Galápagos islands and the deep sea are on their way. 


Devin A. Reese is a producer for Third Pod . She is also Executive Editor for Natural History magazine, Biology Writer for VisionLearning, and scriptwriter for Esther Ikoro’s See You Outside, among other science writing roles. Devin is trained as an ecologist with a Ph.D. on the demography of western pond turtles, followed by a postdoctoral AAAS Science and Diplomacy Fellowship that took her to Bangladesh, Southern Africa, Central America, and eventually Panama, where her first child was born. Devin’s love for the outdoors has her rowing competitively on the Potomac and volunteering as an Arlington Master Naturalist. See her work at Contently.


Molly Magid is a freelance science communicator and producer for Third Pod. She has been telling stories about science since the first grade, when she wrote a biologically accurate story about ladybugs. A Fulbright award brought her to New Zealand where she studied the immune genes of threatened birds and received her master’s degree in biology. Molly is also the host and producer of UC Science Radio, a show featuring interviews with professors and students in science about their innovative research. She enjoys sharing her passion for science anywhere from podcasts to social media to declaring her love of longfin eels on the street. Find out more about her work at her website.


Sara Whitlock is a freelance audio producer for Third Pod and science communicator. In her previous life as a scientist, she bounced around the country designing proteins to keep bacterial guts organized, culminating in a master’s degree in structural biology. Now, she spends her days helping scientists share their stories as an outreach manager at SciLine. She will achieve her childhood dream of going to sea this year when she serves as an outreach manager on a deep sea geology expedition, and will undoubtedly talk about that experience for the rest of her life. Although she likes to keep an elusive online presence, you can find her tweeting occasionally @saraewhit.

Irene Crisologo is an animator for Third Pod. She is a scientist, artist, and now a corporate analyst. Irene studied rainfall as seen by weather radars for her PhD. During her postdoc stint, she joined the AGU Voices for Science 2020/21 cohort and explored the wonderful world of science communication using animation. She traveled the western USA for half a year after her postdoc before moving to the Netherlands to work in Elsevier. Check out her scianimations at irenecrisologo.com. 


Katrina Jackson is a producer for Third Pod. She is a science communicator and media producer with a master’s degree in Space Studies. She has produced videos for several NASA missions including the Hubble Space Telescope, OSIRIS-REx, and JWST. Katrina has also worked with NHK—Japan’s public broadcaster—and a variety of freelance projects. She’s active in community theatre as a performer, director, producer, and choreographer. You can find Katrina on Twitter @Katrina13J or LinkedIn.


Jace Steiner is an illustrator for Third Pod. They are a fledgling graduate from Columbia University, where they majored in astronomy despite originally going for art history. Creative forms of science communication inspired them to switch majors and think more critically about the connection between science and society, so they want to join that nebulous field of SciComm and make some really cool, accessible, and inspiring stuff to better connect scientists and non-scientists. They’re still figuring things out, but hopefully dabbling in podcasting, illustration, photography, bartending, 3D modeling, coding, cosplaying, and just generally living in Brooklyn will pan out someday. Sometimes they post art @opiartsy (on insta) but to see most of their projects you’ll have to ask to see their Work In Progress folder.


Ty Burke is a producer for Third Pod. He is a science writer, communicator and occasional podcast producer that specializes in telling stories about how climate change is impacting northern environments. As an editor with Canadian Geographic magazine, Ty travelled to some of the most remote regions of northern North America, and learned about them from the experts – Indigenous people who have lived in these environments for countless generations. He enjoys telling stories that combine the transformative power of science with the deep ecological knowledge of First Nations and Inuit cultures. Learn more about his work at his website.


Anupama Chandrasekaran is a producer for Third Pod and an audio producer based in the city of Chennai, India. She produces immersive audio on people and issues related to development, science, technology and neurodiversity for international and Indian media outlets. She also dabbles in fossils and quilting.


Jamieson Findlay is a science writer and a free-lance producer for Third Pod. Based in Chelsea, Quebec, he is the author of two novels, The Summer of Permanent Wants and The Blue Roan Child. He has done volunteer conservation work on the island of Java, Indonesia, and has participated in a charity trek to the Mt. Everest Base Camp in Nepal. He is a keen cross-country skier, hiker and partisan of trees.

Jessica Buser Young is a producer for Third Pod.  She is a biogeochemist in the Pacific Northwest who spends most of her time thinking about the role mud plays in climate change.  In mud, there are microscopic critters that breathe iron the same way we breathe oxygen, and sometimes these critters can eat enough methane and other greenhouse gasses to impact Earth’s atmosphere.  Learn more about her research here.  When she’s not actively thinking about mud, she’s a dedicated science communicator as a contributing writer for Geobites, where she writes about Earth systems and our changing climate.  She also lives on a communal farm and is frequently gardening, taking care of livestock, or cruising around mountain trails on her bike.


Jason Rodriguez is a producer for Third Pod. He is an artist and recent graduate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he co-edited and produced the school’s award-winning podcast, SAIC Beat. His work — writings and performances focused on the interrelationship of literature, design, and interactive media — have been published in a variety of journals, including PraxinoscopeImagined Theatres, and Gasher. Recently, he was a producer on the sci-fi stop-motion short film Mother Bunker which has been showcased in over thirty international film festivals such as Ann Arbor Film Festival (2021), Out Fest (2021), and the Melbourne International Film Festival (2020). You can find him @rodriguezNjason and @freefloppydisk.


Avery Shinneman is a producer for Third Pod and an Associate Teaching Professor at the University of Washington Bothell. In addition to mucking around in lakes and ponds researching human and climate impacts, she enjoys engaging with people to bring out their inner scientist by encouraging questions about the way the world works in students, neighbors, friends, and the occasional random passer-by. She is a communicator of science through the classroom, community projects, and via Third Pod and the AGU blog Geobites and can generally be found near water – hiking, paddling, or just poking around. 

Zoe Swiss was an intern at Third Pod. She’s a senior at George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs, where she recently finished her degree in political communication and journalism. She has developed a passion for telling stories at the intersection of science and policy through four years of learning from science communicators and political communicators alike, and she plans to pursue that passion after graduating this spring. In the final leg of her studies, she’s sharing stories of climate, sustainability, and conservation in Ward 4 of Washington, D.C. In her downtime, she’ll be hanging in a hammock under the trees of the city’s parks, reading a novel or embroidering something.